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Comment by itronitron | Hacker News Reader

I was expecting a disaster but it actually looks cool, like an updated Subaru Brat. I can see this becoming a trend, it definitely makes a statement.

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I was as well, but everyone involved here seems to have a really good head on their shoulders and obviously have the skills to back it all up.

I'm watching the youtube video posted on her channel [1], and I noticed that she brought in a lot of people with unique skills to ensure this was done right.

Working with Simone is a guy who has experience salvaging and rebuilding teslas, a guy who has experience as a race mechanic and has built electric racing vehicles, and several others with similar experience in critical areas.

And all of those skills really show! The truck has reinforcements added where needed, it has a roll bar added, windows that look like they came from the factory, telemetry and safety systems in the car are disabled where necessary and preserved where they can.

It's actually impressive how much this isn't just a "cut up a tesla to make it look like a truck", this really looks like something usable!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKv_N0IDS2A

This has been a thing in the 4x4 world for a while. I've seen a few Toyota 4Runners like this, it's called "chopped": https://www.toyota-4runner.org/attachments/3rd-gen-t4rs/3089...

I am worried that they did this to a unibody vehicle though. Most of the SUVs that people do this to are body-on-frame so the structural integrity comes from a frame that isn't being modified. In a unibody car, the structural integrity comes from the bodywork. Without pieces of the body, it loses the ability to stay intact. Like the article mentioned, they cut pieces out and the car started to buckle: every bit of body work they cut out was 100% required to maintain the structural integrity of the vehicle.

I hope this does not become a trend. I've seen Jeep Cherokees like this, also unibody vehicles, and I've seen them buckle when hitting bumps. Simone and her team knows to reinforce them. I'm not sure most people do.

As she discusses and show in the actual video, they put in quite a bit of reinforcement for structural integrity.

I doubt it was all done in a way that was as strong as the original, while also crumpling the right way to keep the passengers safe in a crash.

It certainly has value as a design exercise, but it would be hard to say how safe it really is as a daily driver.

Eh, this should be no big deal. The passenger cabin shouldn't be doing any crumpling so you're fairly free to throw metal at the problem. All the mods are in the rear and there's no airbags for rear impacts (most of the job of crumple zones is to buy time for the car to detect it's actually crashing and deploy airbags) so any difference is gonna be minimal. Maybe the roof structure is compromised but once again that should never crumple so you're free to throw metal at the problem. Obviously there's more details to it than that and there's more and less elegant ways to "throw metal at the problem" but that's more or less what real automotive engineers do when a cabin design needs beefing up. Sure the lack of complex simulation software for this build might have left it with some Achilles heel but plenty of cars leave the factory that way too.

It looks to me like it puts a lot of new metal and glass right behind the driver's and passenger's heads.

Properly reinforced, it's not a problem. Improperly reinforced, even if passenger safety is not compromised, everyone on the road is in danger if an improperly modified unibody vehicle folds in half on the freeway.

As I mentioned in my comment,

>Simone and her team knows to reinforce them. I'm not sure most people do.

You can mod the main board to allow service mode to deal with any faults. The main crypto tie is battery and inverter. Both have chips that need to match. As she was starting with a whole car that would not be a problem. She just had to chase down faults from missing components.

It does look cool. TBH, I've never thought much of these pickup truck/car hybrids (which have a fairly long history) from a practical perspective. You get a car without a lot of interior space and a pickup bed that is too small for a lot of purposes. But it's a nice aesthetic.

Brats and Caminoes could make sense when having bucket seats in the truckbed was allowed (though obviously dangerous). But nowadays I guess it only makes sense for hauling white goods home from the home center and such.

The buckets in the Brat were strictly to get around the "Chicken Tax": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

A protectionist law that favored small trucks built in America. Australia has a long history of loving "utes", the car/truck hybrid: https://www.core77.com/posts/88821/The-Australian-Designer-W...

Interesting! I didn’t realize that was to avoid the chicken tax. Same as the rear-windowless Ford Connect.

Reading the wiki page it mentions Ronald Reagan owned one and used it on his ranch, which speaks to their versatility.

Little pickups really shine when you say "hold my beer" and then make them do something that people in a higher tax bracket would use a bigger truck for. It's socially unacceptable for the kind of people who Teslas are typically owned by to be doing those kinds of things (don't get me started) a UTE like this is a perfectly fine replacement for the small pickup that most them would consider buying.

Yes, a Ranger EV is going to run circles around this from an "ability to do truck things" perspective but if the you're just doing homeowner things with it then the difference really doesn't matter.

Edit: Why the downvotes?

Why the downvotes, you ask.

>the kind of people who Teslas are typically...

Well that is pretty broad especially considering the TCO for an entry level Tesla now is below that of a Honda Accord over five years.

Many kinds of people are buying them now.

There's a reason that basically every auto review comparing a Tesla to something is comparing it to a German "driving machine" in the same price bracket. They're not idiots, they do market research, they know what models people are comparing to each other.

Is HN really to immature to handle the fact that the Tesla demographic is substantially more upscale than the entire new car buying demographic (which itself is leaps and bounds ahead of the overall car-buying public)?

Edit: Don't answer that question.

There are a lot of people who don't need backseats, don't need a full-size pickup for towing or very heavy items, but need to be able to carry 4x8 sheet goods, large furniture, or sports equipment like bikes, kayaks, etc.

IMO there are very few people who actually need a pickup truck for towing or very large/bulky items, but they're still very popular since there aren't great alternatives in the US due to the chicken tax.

>but need to be able to carry 4x8 sheet goods, large furniture, or sports equipment like bikes, kayaks, etc.

I'd argue you can do most of those things with an SUV or really any car with a roof-rack. I rarely need a back seat but I do appreciate having interior space to keep/transport camping gear etc. in my car. An open bed will tend to work better for some large awkward items but this isn't even that big a bed and you can always rent a truck or trailer for a day.

But really, I'm making a largely rationalist argument and a lot of people in the US just want a pickup.

I've packed a Saturn Vue full of hay. My wife is better than I am at it: I used to be able to fit 7 small square bales, she's been able to fit 9 more consistently.

However, the fact that it can be done doesn't mean it's the vehicle for the job. We have a pickup truck, but I'm not a big fan of them.

Same here with a Subaru Forester. Even though I have a giant diesel RAM pickup we typically use the Subie to haul stuff since it's easier to get stuff in and out.

The RAM is so tall it's unwieldy to get stuff in and out of the bed. I really need to sell that thing and get something practical.

I really wish someone would bring back truly small trucks like the old Rangers, or even something like an el Camino. Having a truck is really nice sometimes, but driving a tank around every day seems just silly.

The newer Honda Ridgeline is pretty close to a modern El Camino, albeit with 4-doors.

I agree, but I'd be somewhat satisfied if trucks just weren't so damn tall now. It sucks to have to climb into or flop up onto the side of the bed just to reach your tools. Lots of older trucks weren't made this way.

The ranger is back!

Huh, that's news to me. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax

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