Cybertruck Launch
tesla.com
tesla.com
This looks like a concept car that would never come to market. I hope it sells really well and convinces others to bring actually-creative designs to market.
Steel comes in many shapes. Are you saying they used hot versus cold-rolled steel?
Its fun to say space man bad, but don't equate complex production cycles to teams of competent engineers not knowing basics.
Look at the differences between production & preproduction models and you'll see way less issues.
I am pretty sure the guy is making shit up.
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/31/elon-musk-has-pulled-more-th...
I don't think it's that unusual for companies to collaborate with each other on projects. And some of the sharing happens by default when you just encourage employees to migrate between the companies and take their knowledge with them.
(Source: Isaacson's Musk bio)
2. Musk has had lots of plans. Plans that he dumps the minute he changes his mind.
In any case, it was widely believed in the investor community that the Mexico plant was where the next-gen vehicle would be produced. I don't think California was ever really considered.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/22/21334860/tesla-cybertruck...
(But based on "Cyberfridge" I can see this conversation isn't going to go anywhere productive, so I'll just wish you a nice weekend. Throw in a last word if you want.)
The Bronco and Wrangler being utter pieces of shit doesn’t make them unpopular.
The trend of increasingly larger vehicles, like SUVs and trucks, has already raised issues regarding pedestrian safety. The Cybertruck, being notably larger than most contemporary cars in the same category, could exacerbate this problem, especially if it opens the door to similar designs in new market segments IMO.
With a lower, sharper front, the Cybertruck should behave more like a car than a full size truck.
But we really don't know yet. It's a real failure of regulators that we it's not a standard part of testing and that their aren't good standards in this area.
https://www.iihs.org/news/detail/vehicles-with-higher-more-v...
https://www.travelers.com/resources/auto/safe-driving/how-cr...
Even when I had to take a break from running due to injury and started cycling, my doctor looked me stone cold in the eyes and asked me to please not risk my life like that.
Like, what the hell
On a more serious note though, because sarcasm is weak person's weapon, the US do have a teen formation issue imho, among them driving lessons. I think the average US citizen born post 70s lack some basis, and I'm also afraid that this seemingly lack of competency feed insecurities. And it's not anybody's fault, the country is made around driving, you can't afford to give 20 to 40 hours of driving lesson to everybody who wants to drive, because everybody _need_ to drive, and for the same reason, you cannot make the driving exam too difficult.
I don't like you.
Just because Elon used a bunch of puffery to play up the exoskeleton doesn’t mean it acts like a boulder when it hits another vehicle.
Crumple zones aren’t even relevant to pedestrian crashes.
Normal automotive skin by comparison is made from 0.65mm steel or aluminum.
> The greatest impact on overall US pedestrian mortality will result from reducing the risk from the light truck category.
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/model-s-v...
And even that is second fiddle to people using their phones while driving, which is an absolute plague in general, not just for pedestrian safety, but safety overall.
I’m not sure what the evidence for huge A-pillars as a threat is, but if it’s worse than larger vehicles it does not in any way change the fact that larger vehicles are indeed a massive threat.
All roof pillars have increased in size in order for the occupants to survive rollover crashes, but the side effect is blind spots. Further compounded by interior trim containing airbags and audio gear.
And they've had to get bigger to be stronger, and need to be stronger due to increased size and weight of modern vehicles. I'm not saying it's not an issue. But I am saying "Thanks, Obama" for the CAFE regulations passed under him that pushed OEMs to make larger and larger vehicles - because a larger footprint leads to less stringent fuel consumption requirements.
The CAFE regulations favoring trucks and SUVs have been around since the 1970s.
The Obama era regulations extended those rules to heavy-duty trucks and commercial vehicles, which were not previously subject to fuel economy rules.
From [0] (first) or wikipedia [1] (second), if you prefer. From mobile, so I hope you'll pardon any formatting issues
> In 2006, CAFE altered the formula for its 2011 fuel economy targets, by calculating a vehicle’s “footprint”, which is the vehicle’s wheelbase multiplied by its wheel track. The footprint is expressed in square feet, and calculating this value is probably the most transparent part of the regulations. Fuel economy targets are a function of a vehicle’s footprint; the smaller the footprint, the tougher the standards are. A car such as the Honda Fit, with its footprint of 40 square feet, has to achieve 61 mpg CAFE, or 43 mpg IRL by 2025 to comply with regulations. At the opposite end of the spectrum, a full-size truck like the Ford F-150, with a footprint of 75 square feet, only needs to hit 30 mpg CAFE, or 23 mpg IRL, by the same timeframe.
> Starting in 2011, the CAFE standards are newly expressed as mathematical functions depending on vehicle footprint, a measure of vehicle size determined by multiplying the vehicle's wheelbase by its average track width. A complicated 2011 mathematical formula was replaced starting in 2012 with a simpler inverse-linear formula with cutoff values.[9] CAFE footprint requirements are set up such that a vehicle with a larger footprint has a lower fuel economy requirement than a vehicle with a smaller footprint
[0] https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/10/how-cafe-killed-co...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_econo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OpgpE6wjF30
As a motorcyclist, I hide in people's A-pillar blind spots all the time. It's quite unnerving.
For example: Many rural towns put a giant unnecessary corner on the road entering the town. Forcing you to slow down and obey the speed limit. Or the road splits in two just to go around a pretty sculpture someone decided to put in the middle of the road. Again to force you to slow down naturally.
Worse for whom? If it has the intended effect (and apparently it does), it's certainly not worse for the cyclists who were getting hurt.
> Why not install a red light or a roundabout?
Tom Scott explains the reasons for not installing traffic lights or speed bumps in the original video.
On top of those, if drivers are not even reducing their speed at the stop sign, what would make them do that for a red light?
I'm not sure how a roundabout is better for anyone than the staggered junction.
It's certainly worse for the cyclist on the main road, who would have to pay a lot more attention to a lot more places, and also reduce speed.
It's certainly worse for drivers on the main road, who lose their right-of-way.
It's unlikely to be (much?) better to the drivers on the side road, who still have to go through junctions - only this time they're between the road and the roundabout and vice-versa.
I know I sometimes find myself in positions that I know well to avoid, but sometimes it takes a second for it to be realized. My favorite is being aligned next to a semi's trailer wheels. I will slow down to avoid sitting in that spot when moving, not during stop-n-go. So I understand it's sometimes obvious after the fact.
Because you believe the driver has no incentive to change lanes, and so there is low probability they will change lanes unexpectedly?
I'm not saying you should hang out next to cars all the time, but it's better than in a car, where you might have 3 feet of buffer.
Whereas, when there's heavier traffic, you can't help being in someone's blind spot. In this case, I will usually speed up to being at least next to them, so I'm sure they can see me, and then I'll let the driver pass me, so the last idea they have is, _I just passed that moto/where is that moto I just passed?_
Overall, being in someone's blind spot is by definition, risky. And it serves no purpose, and has a clear remedy. Whatever. Ride you ride.
Good luck. Keep your head up.
How is that ever safer than being behind someone? You can control the following distance if you're behind someone. You can't make someone behind you pay attention or stop, and you can't make someone beside you not change lanes without looking. Why would you ever want to be in their direction of travel?
Seriously, please explain your logic on this. I'm flabbergasted.
You can accelerate or decelerate to solve the problem, or maybe do a little swerve. But you don't know when you're in the blind spot.
Another problem are cars merging onto the road from a stand-still. Driver looks left, sees empty road. Starts merging and whoops they just cut you off. You were hiding behind the pillar in the moment they looked. You can't know this happened until it's too late.
This is why as a car driver I always take one last look at the road while already starting to move but before blocking the road. Most drivers don't do this.
Between the forward-facing camera (usually running some version of Mobileye EyeQ) and forward-facing radar, the odds of running over a pedestrian directly like you're thinking on a 2023+ vehicle is quite low. Even cross-traffic/bicycle/cutoff scenarios are pretty extensively covered if you read up on Mobileye's website.
Personally, I'd be more concerned with older cars without AEB hitting pedestrians than the "let's make it more enjoyable when pedestrians do get hit" sentiment that seems so common in these discussions here.
[0] https://www.nhtsa.gov/press-releases/automatic-emergency-bra...
Why can’t we have a pillowy airbag pincer on the front of cars that snatches pedestrians up and hugs them if it makes contact?
It is almost like all other car makers know something Tesla does not. Maybe that big reflective flat surfaces are not safe for other drivers on sunny days.
Edit: In case this is a thread you might want to link the exact post/picture we're supposed to see because threads aren't accessible without login.
https://twitter.com/DavidKasmanArt/status/172922332301007291...
Stainless steel isn’t even reflective. Shine a bright flashlight into your refrigerator and tell me what happens.
i too would buy the crap out of it. it's glorious.
Although seeing how pathetic that company (Hyundai/Kia) handled security with the Kiaboyz incident (which they to this day have never remedied, let alone made anyone whole for) I harbor a lot of scorn for their ethics. They directly enabled a massive wave of car thefts, just to maybe $80 a car on immobilizer chips that literally every other carmaker has had as standard for 2 decades.
> ...has received criticism from automotive safety groups, including the Australasian New Car Assessment Program and the Euro NCAP, for not conforming to standards for pedestrian and cyclist safety. In its December 2019 form, the truck would likely not be street-legal in either Australia or the European Union.
If the rules were sensible, we would have a taxes on carbon and dangerous features at amounts that reflected their actual negative impact, and the consumer could choose how much they were willing to pay for style. Instead we have a march toward uniform blandness and 99% of consumers don't know why because they never interact with the regulations.
> CAFE footprint requirements are set up such that a vehicle with a larger footprint has a lower fuel economy requirement than a vehicle with a smaller footprint
The source for wikipedia is a finger-in-the-wind opinion.
Electric cars don't need ICE engine layouts. It will take a few years until the designers realise they can have cars looking much different as they have more flexibility.
I also have hope this truck on the roads will get manufacturers doing something different. Concept cars at car shows should be where we should look first.
I’m thinking about it and even with EVs you’d still want four wheels, want to put the battery flat on the bottom for various reasons. So the base seems like it’s four wheels with a flat platform.
Building space for 1-6 people on top thought and I seem to arrive at the same designs that already exist. Thoughts?
The reality is the current designs (tear shaped, front engine, forward facing seats with belts) are result of slow incremental perfections. Safety, fuel efficiency being two biggest drivers (pun intended!). The biggest external factor being the infrastructure (you might have the greatest idea for next personal transportation vehicle) but if it doesnt use roads its pretty much dead .
So people complaining have no idea what they really want. Like Ford said “If I would have asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses”.
I recommend anyone interested in the reshaping of EVs for the future take a look at Volvo's "Future of design" video from a couple years back:
But what else would you change?
I'm not sure there's as much scope for flexibility as you think. Maybe when self-driving cars are common and very safe, internal seat layouts could change a bit. That seems a long way off though.
Why wouldn't you expect this sort of convergence? A bunch of companies trying to solve the same problems with the same constraints are likely to find very similar solutions. We saw it with aviation - over time, jet aircraft look more and more like each other, because certain solutions, once they become available (twinjets demonstrating enough reliability for extended overwater operations) are simply better in about every metric you'd possibly care about.
A vehicle that I'm much more excited about than cybertruck in terms of shape is aptera [1], with a drag co-efficient of 0.13 (model 3: 0.23, toyota corolla: 0.29). They're giving things up in exchange for this (most notably back seats), but if you don't need the things you're giving up it's a huge win.
E.g., as gas mileage requirements increase, you'd expect things to become more aerodynamic. Separate from that, the Ford Escape was reworked to look like a knock off Subaru and the Ford Explorer was reworked to look like a knock off Range Rover. If it were just a matter of convergent evolution to fit the constraints of US gas mileage regulations, why did the Ford Explorer also copy the Range Rover's hood lettering?
Take the new Toyota Prius, for example. The updated model almost looks like a concept car but still has a similar shape to other cars. There's no constraint reason Toyota couldn't have styled the car similarly in previous generations. I'm guessing they made the car look like this because Prius sales were falling and they decided they needed to be aggressive with styling for sales. They may have also decided that consumers that want a car with lots of cargo space are going for SUVs and crossovers anyways, so they could make the new Prius sleeker.
There are also tons of examples of automakers intentionally reserving nicer looking features as more expensive options or for more expensive luxury models. Fabric is not really cheaper than fake leather (both of these materials are just plastic). But automakers always charge more for fake leather.
It’s almost like the entire automotive industry converged on that shape for specific reasons… aerodynamics and crash resistance.
You can do some astounding things with laser cutting (etc) now. This is some steel panels bolted together to make a child's drawing with wheels.
When things become price optimized, there really is little left to differ on because of the physics of cars, much like the physics of hammers and wrenches.
Bikes get out of harms way faster and in a much mire agile fashion compared to cars and the money you save by buying a bike instead of a car can be used to safely practice at a track that is optimized for safety and to make you learn the feedback system of your bike
That may be true but there are situations where you physically can't get out of harm's way even with good reflexes.
Teslas are heavier because they have to use batteries and batteries are incredibly inefficient compared to petrol. This is the consequence of you asking them to get rid of combustion.
What are you getting on about? By what metric?
So petrol is more efficient in that way.
US trucks would be succesful internationally if that was the case.
How many European farmers are pulling a trailer 150 miles each way to pick up a load of hay? That's a relatively regular occurrence for my family. That sort of thing isn't at all uncommon in the US.
Streets are narrower in many parts of Europe as well, which means a larger truck isn't practical as a sole vehicle.
Tesla model s has same weight as Porsche Panamera S.
What I asked for was trains and protected bike lanes actually.
Efficiency in cars is usually meant to be energy efficiency, energy out over energy in. And electric cars are usually more efficient by most metrics, even if you count the amount of gas an internal combustion engine uses vs the amount it takes an oil fired plant to charge an electric car that drives the same distance (well-to-wheels efficiency).
Secondly, battery + motor is actually more efficient than ICE. You might be thinking of power density, which is significantly lower on an EV.
Thirdly, I don't love the pro-car company attitude: people don't have to compromise on low emissions vs. safety vs. practicality. Car companies have forced the choice upon us from a century and billions of dollars of marketing and lobbying.
Had people wanted cars that are practical, they'd get minivans (and vans, if you do haul a lot).
People in the US get bigger pickup trucks, because of market distortions causing manufacturers to stop making the small ones, not because there's no demand for small trucks. This is why importing K trucks is a thing.
Teslas are heavier because they have to use batteries and batteries are incredibly inefficient compared to petrol.
Teslas and EVs in general are way more efficient in terms of energy used per mile. By well over a factor of 2 in most cases. According to Google: "The various versions of the Model 3 are rated between 113 MPGe and 141 MPGe by the EPA."
That's not anywhere near correct.
With an ICE about 80% of the energy from the gasoline is lost, mostly due to heat.
With an EV about 30-35% of the energy from the battery is lost if there is no regenerative braking. With regenerative braking EVs only lose about 11% of the energy from the battery.
Here's an article with some nice diagrams of the losses in both [1].
[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/evs-more-efficient-than-inte...
Crumple zones exist in cars because it’s better that the car absorbs (and deforms in the process) the kinetic energy of a crash than you the passenger inside.
See: https://highways.dot.gov/public-roads/mayjun-2009/exploring-....
It's massive!
((vehicle weight^4)/number of axles)
You survive 100% of the crashes you avoid having, and it's much easier to avoid huge cars in a smaller car.
Though, having a higher line-of-sight is advantageous and typically not a feature of small cars.
1kg of Lithim-ion battery is ~0.25MJ/kg.
Gasoline is ~192X energy dense compared to Lithium-ion batteries. Li-on is the most popular battery due to its cost and weight.
In terms of weight:
Tesla model Y = ~4,500 lbs.
F-150 lightning = ~6,500 lbs.
Rivian R1T = ~7,000 lbs.
Hummer EV = ~9,000 lbs. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Cybertruck = ~5,400 lbs
A human roughly weighs 160lbs (~72kg).
Buying electric trucks IMO is pretty awful for the environment and the road itself. From the energy spent mining the raw materials for that heavy of a battery, to energy spent just moving that battery. The battery weighs more than the passengers.
We're playing stupid games to win stupid prizes in the name of climate change.
https://electricityproduction.uk/in/scotland/
Another thing I’d like to add is that even burning coal it will still break even and deliver less emissions over the lifetime of the vehicle:
> If they drive in Poland, where 90% of the electricity comes from burning coal, then yes, it will take 100,000 kilometers or more to reach parity with a conventional gasoline-powered car.
https://cleantechnica.com/2022/01/21/unpacking-the-electric-...
https://www.motortrend.com/news/evs-more-efficient-than-inte...
... and no new coal plants are being fired to support electric vehicles.
Coal turbines at scale are efficient when compared to thousands of internal combustion engines.
Combine that efficiency with scrubbers and lined waste retention ponds for any plant built in the last 50 years.
It's also not an either/or; A person buying an electric car can vote, support, or install (or offset credit) renewables.
The absolute best efficiency of a gasoline engine is somewhere around 40% efficiency, with most being a lot lower. So your 48MJ number is a lot closer to ~19MJ. So, assuming you can recharge a lithium battery 100 times (most are going to be capable of many times that), you're break even in terms of 'efficiency' of Li-Ion vs. gas.
Even adding in all the additional costs of product, transport, energy generation costs, etc etc, lithium-ion batteries are still better.
Every gas car I'm aware of loses efficiency when it's colder outside. It's not as drastic as an EV, but it definitely exists. Also, gas engines tend to get slightly less efficient as they age, just as components begin to have higher friction, increased wear, worse tolerances, etc.
> 50,000 miles / 20 mpg * (3.4 kg/gal)
The Cybertruck Battery weighs ~1,400 kgs, and probably lasts at least 100K miles even with poor charging practices
So you would have to compare 1,400kgs of Lithium with at least 17,000 kgs of gasoline over the lifetime of the vehicle.
If you want to be totally fair, you could include your car's share of the weight of fuels used in the electric grid. However, even charging from a fairly dirty grid is more efficient than an ICE, so this wouldn't change things much.
Additionally, we can already recycle it over 90%
It's disappointing to see this. Is this kind of comment the result of activism? We typically do much better on HN.
If it's a terribly-built car, with reliability issues, and a super difficult production cycle, that's a shame, but for a different reason: you'd think after the snafu over the Model X, where certain features (the X-wing doors) were a production nightmare and ballooned the cost and tanked the reliability, they wouldn't make the same mistake again. But if that is the case here, then they did make the same mistake, but even bigger and with worse consequences.
But ignoring all that, at least it's different, and I'm rooting for its success. If it fails, though, most likely Tesla will only have themselves to blame.
But look at all the models in production. They don't have discrete model years, they're pushing out new updates all the time, even for hardware.
https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/1224/tesla-model-y-receive...
> Teslas on non-highways with Full Self Driving (FSD) engaged had just 0.31 accidents per million miles representing an 80% reduction in accidents compared with the average vehicle.
https://thedriven.io/2023/04/27/accident-rate-for-tesla-80-l...
Almost like they hide that information like how they demand NHTSA redact all pertinent information from the NHTSA SGO database of ADAS crashes [2] so that the public can not fact check them.
Or like how their telemetry just happened to miss 90% of their confirmed fatal crashes which we only know about due to third party investigations as seen in the NHTSA SGO database.
Or maybe like how around 50% of the crashes Tesla investigates are fatal, but they just choose to leave ~95% uninvestigated as seen in the NHTSA SGO database. They are just worried investigating the crashes they caused will show FSD is too safe.
That report and Tesla’s reporting around FSD are gross, criminal malpractice. Only a sociopathic executive team and company culture would encourage safety reporting that intentionally deceptive.
[1] https://www.tesla.com/VehicleSafetyReport
[2] https://www.nhtsa.gov/laws-regulations/standing-general-orde...
But the first link I posted came from the insurance industry, not from Tesla.
* they open fully in really tight spots where normal doors wouldn’t (although a mini van slide door would)
* they look awesome (although a mini van slide door never would)
We bought the car because the seats were the only ones that didn’t give my wife problems, as she has various health issues, of all the makes and models we tried from various car makers. No idea why, the seats are fine for me but not the best of any car we tried. But it is what it is. However, despite that practical necessity that chose the car for us, the doors really are awesome and something unique in the world of cars.
Likewise, cybertruck is definitely unique. It has a lot of awesome as well, so I hope it does well, even if it’s a PITA to make and has issues with reliability. Too many cars are generic retreads of generic retreads - it’s good to see new takes and design risks get funding and production.
I don't see how this helps. They're on the back, not the front, so the driver can't get any benefit. So you still always need to have room to open the doors normally.
Honest question, how do they work in vertically constrained spaces? Like subterranean parking lots. I appreciate the design, but I'm wondering if they have the same issues as some older wing doors.
That’s shockingly heavy to move around 200lbs meat sacks.
Far cry from 8-10000. Or even 7-8000.
Tesla 3 - up to 4065.
Tesla S - up to 4941.
Tesla X - up to 5531.
Tesla Y - up to 4416.
Chevy Bolt - 3563.
Leaf - up to 3853.
Mach-E - up to 4920.
ID.4 - up to 4848.
E-Tron - up to 5754.
BMW iX - up to 5659.
Taycan - up to 5121
Kona EV - up to 3715. Ford Lightning - 6,893
Hummer EV - 9,063
Rivian R1T - 7,148
Lordstown Endurance - 6,450
Chevrolet Silverado EV - 8,532
RAM 1500 REV - est. 7,500
Alpha Wolf - 7,088A quick Google tells me that a 2024 Ford F-150 weight is about 1,000 lbs less than a Cybertruck’s purported weight.
At 6600 lbs vs 8250 lbs, Cybertruck is far lighter. In fact it's the lightest EV truck available.
All...one of them: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/money/cars/2019/10/...
From https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2018/06/28/suvs-killi... :
> Hampton Clay Gabler, a professor in the department of biomedical engineering and mechanics at Virginia Tech, [ ... ] described the vulnerability of pedestrians when struck by an SUV as a geometry problem of sorts because SUVs and pickups tend to be tall compared with pedestrians and have a blunter front end. That positioning is more likely to put someone’s head or chest in line to be struck during the initial impact with a vehicle. “(Not to diminish leg injuries but) serious head and chest injuries can actually kill you,” Gabler said in a telephone interview.
(It is probably true, though, that most vehicles this heavy are tall as well, so weight would still be correlated to how dangerous a vehicle is.)
Other pickups seem to think that having as high as possible as big as possible vehicle front is a great thing.
Going OVER the car is what saves live. If you get hit by a F-150 it more like getting hit by a wall.
The Cybertruck also seems to have better visibility.
So this seems to me to be a case of 'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king'.
In general US obsessions with pickups is stupid and I hope in my country all of them are commercial license only, not allowed on common parking spaces, ban in certain section of cities, plus very high licensing cost.
This is a bad comparison. One occurs when travelling in unpopulated areas. But most pedestrian fatalities occur in populated areas which should be safe for pedestrians (and historically were).
In the grand scheme of things the difference in MPG of an SUV vs. a sedan is minimal when it comes to climate change, and the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal. That is: all kinds of cars are dangerous to pedestrians! All kinds of ICE vehicles are bad for the environment! People are splitting hairs trying to turn vehicle body type into a shibboleth for good vs. bad person.
Actually both of those statements can be true. Trucks have gotten larger and more dangerous for pedestrians and so it has become more common for people to point out vehicle size as a concern in addition to environmental issues.
> the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal.
I am not an expert here but from what I have heard, this is false.
It's not a vibes thing, SUVs are more dangerous to everyone on the road, doesn't matter if it's electric or petrol, they are heavier, causing more road wear, they are taller, killing pedestrians more easily; being heavier also means they carry much more energy at the same speed than a smaller car.
> and the difference in pedestrian danger from large car vs. small car is minimal.
Well, and this is a "vibes thing", all the data shows the opposite, you'll need some supporting data to make this statement.
SUVs are only better for their owners, consuming more space, more road, and more lives than other types of smaller cars...
Not everything is "wokeness" and "muh liberals", there's objectivity in the basics of motion physics, just run the numbers for weight and velocity. Check any study on pedestrian safety regarding cars with much higher ground clearing, it's pretty obvious what the data says.
My point is the people yelling about dangerous SUVs are discounting their own car use as zero harm, rather than considering themselves to be doing something harmful and SUV drivers doing something slightly more harmful.
There ARE other buttons as well.
There are physical buttons for hazard lights and gear shifting.
Removed in Model S Plaid and rumored to be removed in the cheaper models in future iterations.
https://www.tesla.com/ownersmanual/models/en_us/GUID-E9B387D...
Voice activation worked amazingly well. Most functions were only 1 or 2 clicks deep in the menu. It was surprisingly easy to find what I needed.
Speaking is so slow compared to finding a button by feeling or through muscle memory. Maybe I just have to try it, but I predict that having to talk to my car to get it to do things would make me feel pretty dumb.
> Most functions were only 1 or 2 clicks deep in the menu
What functions were those? Media controls and such I can accept, but that's 1 or 2 clicks too deep for anything related to driving.
The back tailgate is just an enormous grey not-quite-flat slab that looks exactly like a commercial kitchen dishwasher door that someone clicked on in a CAD program and stretched to truck size.
And the stainless steel panels overall, despite being nearly brand new already looked like they had a bunch of fingerprint streaks or some sort of surface discoloration in a number of places, that really detracted from what was, I expect, an intended effect of clean severity. All the proportions read as very ungainly with the weight gathered in awkward visual masses, at least when seen up close from eye level. The panels already displayed just the slightest bit of imperfect matching between adjacent coplanar surfaces. I can't imagine how rough the thing is going to look in two or three years.
I would take a rivian over two of these things any day of the week, even if it does look like Bomberman.
Has a longer bed than the F-150.
The thing that I can't get over is the raised walls on the sides of the bed. The appeal of a pickup is that you can easily get things in/out of the bed without having to go through the rear of the vehicle; the raised walls are going to make it so much harder to quickly huck a heavy toolbox into the bed.
Elements like the sloped bed walls and elevated external sides of the bed make it clear that this vehicle wasn't designed to be used as a truck.
https://digitalassets.tesla.com/tesla-contents/video/upload/...
Hopefully this gets us more cool car designs.
BFG KO2 is the prettiest A/T tire out there, take notes Tesla!
Best of luck to anyone who drives ones of these. I'll be interested to see the NHTSA results.
In any case, the safety-class thing is really a big issue issue here, because you can buy a compact hatchback with a 5-star rating or a giant SUV with a 5-star rating, but those ratings aren't at-all comparable.
The thing is, making those ratings honest is really only going to make people want larger cars, because larger cars are actually safer. I think you could probably solve this by rating not only the car, but also the likelihood it will injure/kill a driver of the other classes of cars.
You could come up with some slick THIS vs THAT iconography, and that would allow people to realize that they're either driving an 8000lb death sled, or they'd rather not have that liability.
> At one point, Isaacson describes Musk becoming enraged when, working on the Tesla Model S, he finds a government-mandated warning about child airbag safety on the passenger-side visor. “Get rid of them,” he demands. “People aren’t stupid. These stickers are stupid.” Tesla faces recall notices because of the change, Isaacson reports, but Musk “didn’t back down.”
This company and the person leading it doesn't care about safety, and likely even about rule of law.
https://www.euroncap.com/en/press-media/press-releases/asian...
and accelerating descent into open literal racism and antisemitism,
are both meant to distract from the stupidity and imminent utter failure of the abomination that is the Cybertruck.
The Cybertruck is not designed for stealth and its weird shape may as well increase or decrease detection, but my guess is that it will be detected just fine by police radars, like the big hunk of metal it is.
That is, mostly the same people who already buy four-door pickups with 5.5 foot beds.
It could also be good for around-town trades, especially if they tow light trailers -- like landscape crews.
The question for me is whether this, and the Ford F150 Lightning, are poser trucks, or genuine work trucks. Its winning at the latter that is important. Can they drive on non paved surfaces like construction sites? Can they carry a full sheet of drywall? Can they tow a horse box? Are there weird protuberances that are going to get a accidentally smashed by a kid trying to load a 2x4? Are there accessories like tool boxes available? Will it start at 4am in a Minnesota winter? I'm more convinced by the F150 here than the Cybertruck, but I'm waiting for real people to allocate real scarce resource to buy it rather than tech bros with excess cash.
On all accounts EV is better than ICE except for range and ability to replenish your fuel. Once they are on par in that department the explosion will happen. Time is money and when you can fill up your tank in 5 minutes and hit the road immediately that makes a huge difference. Don’t need to wait for a charge port either. Gas stations are ubiquitous.
The cyber truck is not a truck though. The bed is smaller than what you’d get on a midsize like a Tacoma and we don’t have towing data yet. It’s a fashion statement plain and simple. The only EV truck worth considering is as you’ve said the Lightning but you can’t tow a damn thing with it because the range gets sliced in half, and that’s way worse in the cold.
In the city, anyway, most truck owners only use their trucks for commuting and rarely, if ever, actually use it as a truck. They are not relying on their trucks to earn a livelihood any more than car owners are.
cc @dang
I was definitely on the bandwagon from this thing from the first time I saw it. Four years of Elon's dumb antics and I now absolutely will not spend a dime at any company he's associated with.
For better or worse, even random Joe Q. Public knows who the richest man in the world is, and has some opinion on him. Everything he does is scrutinized by the media and put into some political or moral framework. Just like Bill Gates in the '90's, he's inescapable.
But unlike Bill Gates and other prior holders of the richest-man title, Musk eschews any personal PR department and instead broadcasts to the world unfiltered takes. And by and large, people don't like what they see.
I don't know when the Cybertruck was announced initially, I believe Elon had already started to enter the public eye a bit more aggressively... but sentiment has definitely changed over the last ~8-9 years.
People want the best cool shit.
You should contemplate that sometime, just as an exercise. What would it be like to live in a world where whataboutism doesn't amount to a cheat code to summon the easily-led? One where your beliefs, opinions, arguments, and actions actually have to stand on their own, without reference to unrelated crimes committed by other people in a different time and place.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/29/elon-musk-to-advertisers-who...
You can buy a car from him, I'll pass.
There was no reason to think he would bid $54.20/share for Twitter, either.
There was no reason to think he would call a guy a pedophile for criticizing his submarine idea.
There was no reason to think he would name his kid with nonstandard characters.
There was no reason to think he would offer to trade horses for blowjobs.
There was no reason to think he would _______. I'm not saying he's a Nazi, or that he is especially likely to call himself one. It's impossible to say whether he is more likely to wake up one morning identifying as a Zen Buddhist, or a Laveyan Satanist, or a Nazi, or a Methodist.
You don't know what he'll say or do to hose the value of your car, and neither do I, and neither does he.
Average person probably doesn't consciously register all that is happening and can't tell you about the past weeks' drama, but I think there's a certain point where too much negativity attached to a brand starts to drag it down, and Tesla might have reached that point.
I'm not saying it certainly has, but a few years back the outlook on Tesla was so overwhelmingly positive, you'd have to actively seek out criticism on your own. At least nowadays sentiment on them seem to have returned back to Earth.
Same way people still remember Carlos Gohn, when they probably couldn't name WV's CEO.
I can like the cars but not like Elon, very little nuance required in holding the position [1].
holy consoomer
> I have one, but am looking for a second
I think you are only superficially concerned about climate change if you are planning to buy not one, but two, fully steel enclosed monster trucks weighing 6.500 pounds each.
Congratulating people that buy a Tesla for helping to save the world from climate change makes absolutely no sense.
Congratulate people that decide to buy small minimalist cars or give up cars and take public transportation
TLDR Pats on the back aren't going to drive down petroleum consumption in any material fashion.
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/27/teslas-horde-of-megapac...
https://qz.com/2182975/tesla-is-killing-coal-and-gas-plants-...
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/g...
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38448818
https://vividmaps.com/public-transportation-in-the-united-st...
That solution simply doesn't scale and is a convenient "feel good" excuse for Tesla to sell more cars and individual that can splurge in a 5000 pounds vehicle full of toxic particles requiring a ton of grey energy to produce.
Is it marginally better than buying an ICE car? Maybe (Some studies show that keeping your old car a couple more years is actually more efficient).
But the real solution is to start reducing the size of those vehicles to something like a one-person car, not buying a "lifestyle truck"
Edit: I have no issue with people buying what they want. I have an issue with people splurging on superfluous items and ALSO claiming they help fighting climate change.
Oh wait. They do.
Panasonic makes Tesla's batteries. So all of Tesla's battery "manufacturing" progress is really...Panasonic's battery manufacturing progress.
> I traded a Toyota full size pickup truck in for my first Tesla, a Model S, because Tesla needed to move units to survive. I'm looking forward to closing the loop, trading that Model S (with almost 110k miles on it after driving cross country in six years) in for my Cybertruck. It's ugly, I love it, I don't care what it costs.
I don't need a fancy EV. I want an EV I can beat the shit out of (steel body, no paint issues to contend with), tow with, and has native access to the Supercharger network (I live out of a duffel bag with a starlink dish and am constantly mobile across the continental US). I also don't want to support legacy auto, who had to be dragged to the EV transition by Tesla. Mission accomplished. That is worthy of my dollars. How others spend theirs is up to them.
I am Jack's piqued curiousity.
I'd love to get more details on your setup. Hotels? Cafes? Or work out of a tent?
Above the $44B, I mean.
Buying petrol from Shell or cereal from Nestle? No problem. Buying a Model 3 from Tesla? No way!
Honestly, I'd be surprised if there weren't a ton of people with the same views on immigration or trans issues or covid or whatever, each associated with a company you buy from every year.
Though personally, I always thought Cybertruck looked pretty naff.
what a shallow unnuanced "critique", on brand for this website
There's a reason most CEOs stay quiet, when you become the face of a company your actions reflect on the companies you represent, and when you spend billions of dollars to make sure that your antics are broadcast as far and wide as possible it's not surprising that your antics affect your companies.
There's a reason most spokespeople for companies have to sign some level of acceptable public behavior contract.
Why on earth do you think that is why he bought Twitter?
You get article after article hating on him - it ends up affecting reputation and public sentiment.
Humanity is lucky to have him, despite his faults.
This is more hyperbolic as anything negative I've read about him the press.
Elon in particular has become a liability thanks to his deliberate efforts to be the face and voice of Tesla. For me and clearly others, it's no longer possible to think of Tesla independently of him. His products need to be that must better to work against it and they're just not making the cut.
Other products -- Shell, Nestle -- are reevaluated for disgust-vs-need each time. Most of us have tiny, brief interactions with these companies. There's no meaningful relationship, so I'd have to be extremely furious with a brand to avoid their product. Right now I'll get gas from Shell but not Lukoil, for instance.
Of the things he's done that's actually one of the least questionable.
Twitter was going to have to fire those people soon any way due to not making enough money to keep paying them and they've gone on to do better things any way.
He's indicated he thinks that Twitter's liberal censorship was an existential threat to man. I think boosting his own messaging has to have been one of the motivations (though maybe not the most pressing one).
But you definitely knew that, deep down
Isn't there a rule about not being snarky?
When I'm thinking where to spend my money, I do appreciate that Tesla (and SpaceX) push the boundaries in high-tech industries, and that much of the R&D and manufacturing spend goes to employees in my home country.
As an investor in Tesla's IPO I find some of his behavior erratic and worrying. I certainly can't diagnose anyone and don't know the man personally. But sometimes he gives the impression he's abusing stimulants to stay awake for 72 hour stints. I worry about his health. I worry about how some of his decisions might negatively affect Tesla or SpaceX.
In the past he was known for appreciating contrary views and opposed yes-men but it seems like he is surrounded more and more by such people who say what he wants to hear in an attempt to leech off him. Again I don't have any personal knowledge but it is another worry that any rich person has to face. I hope I'm wrong about this.
The thing I'm most disappointed about is his moving from CA to TX to avoid income taxes.
The startup ecosystem, local infrastructure, education system, and many other factors that make California the global center of startups and innovation are paid for by those taxes. Or at least the region needs to pay for infrastructure, housing, etc to make it possible for such a system to function. Elon effectively declared "screw you future generations, I got mine".
Did moving to avoid income tax make him immoral? No. Was it illegal? No. But I hate that kind of thinking. You made your bones here in CA, now that you have more money than you can ever spend in a lifetime you want to bail to avoid paying into the system that made it all possible?
I want to be clear here: Elon is within his rights to do that. I'm not calling him a sinner. I just personally find it incredibly disappointing and demonstrative of a lack of appreciation for the factors that made him successful.
edit: I still own a Tesla vehicle. I still own shares. I still support SpaceX's mission. I don't fault anyone for being a fan of his, I'm just not as much anymore and I find that regrettable because he used to be focused on such grand and important things.
edit2: Twitter is also such a massive and pointless distraction born out of being personally offended that they were fact-checking and moderating some of his tweets. The world would be better off if he were focused on Tesla and SpaceX. Instead he's out there swearing at advertisers and doing petty things like removing verified checkmarks or banning prominent people who say bad things about him on Twitter - despite his purported support of "Free Speech". All of this is demonstration of extremely thin skin and lack of perspective.
Turning his sexual harassment allegations into a cultural red vs blue issue by front-running a story about said sexual harassment allegations
Totally unnecessarily inhumane behavior toward employees during the Twitter acquisition
He just seems increasingly like a truly awful person by almost any definition of “awful person” except the one “has a lot of money.” Character really, really matters, and culturally important people exhibiting horrible character should be aggressively laughed at and disparaged. A less public, equally atrocious, equally wealthy person actually does have less of a negative impact on the rest of us by mere virtue of being less public. Elon could’ve been awful in private and frankly I wouldn’t have cared all that much. But as it is now, generations of people — young leaders — are learning that you can be as awful as you want so long as you’re powerful. What does that foreshadow for our culture, if unchecked?
He posted another insane conspiracy theory about the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. [0]
He keeps promoting the concept of "civil war" in the EU, due to immigration. I am in the EU, and this sounds absolutely bonkers to me. Maybe different parties being elected at best/worst, but civil war? That's not a rational take, and seemingly just projection.
> Musk, who has never reserved his social media posts for business matters alone, drew attention to a tweet that said Jewish people “have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them.”
> Musk replied to that tweet in emphatic agreement, “You have said the actual truth.” [1]
I greatly respect SpaceX which he actually founded, what he has done with funding and running Tesla, but it appears to me that he has now truly lost his mind. Today he behaves like a politically deluded troll. This saddens me deeply. At one point, he seemed like the best of us, above any of that dangerous silliness.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/31/1132906782/elon-musk-twitter-...
[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/16/elon-musk-calls-antisemitic-...
If you don't like Musk, why would you contribute to his success?
If engineers sharing your views and concerns don't want to work there, how are you expecting those cars to fulfill your expectations and perform on the points you value ?
I have no problem with an eccentric CEO, but I do have a problem with the bald face lies he makes.
Personally, I don't want to fund Elon Musk's culture war bullshit. I don't like being lied to (FSD, and vehicle reported range). And I don't like their doing away with all of the instruments in favor of voice control and a single display.
Also there's a typo at the end, it should be "because you love [xxx]"
It's silly to buy from Tesla for any reason but you want one of their products, all other reasons are trivial.
There are many non trivial reasons that you may not want to give your money to a company or organization.
There are a lot of reports that he doesn't treat employees well, at Tesla as well as Twitter.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/16/23833447/tesla-elon-musk-...
Exactly my feelings. Edit: actually disagree with “antics” — that softens reality — he’s telling us exactly who he is by his actions.
That is a real vision for our species.
But then this is Tesla so I'm not surprised.
If it fails I'll think fewer people have embarrassingly bad taste, which I guess would be nice.
I'm saying that if one's goal was to save the environment they would focus on making those small cars, and as many of them as possible. Not Model Xs, not cyber trucks, not roadsters, etc
The least efficient vehicles have the biggest impact on the environment.
Small 2 cycle engines like mopeds are the biggest contributor. Then small cars, these luxury cars are a small percent of global emissions.
Also, those people don't have to drive big luxury cars, they can buy these smaller cars.
An EV like the Plaid X or the Hummer EV actually use the equivalent of more fuel than the competition. A gas X5 is more energy efficient than a X.
* Honda Civic sized
* Honda civic priced
* 400 mile range
* only one small CarPlay display in middle
* no 4g chip for the car whatsoever
* free roadside charging assistance for 10 years