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Comment by surfingdino | Hacker News Reader

I miss that style of design a bit. A bit mad, futuristic in that old fashioned way, but most importantly--optimistic about the future.

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That's what I like about the Cybertruck, it's bold and outrageous in a new way that doesn't yet have the "asshole / mid-life crisis" connotation of "Hot-Wheels-like" sports cars (although it might be quickly gaining that connotation).

Is it beautiful? Is it well-built? This is orthogonal, I'm not making a judgement on that (although: no and no). But it's undeniable that it's fresh.

Is it optimistic? Well, it's clearly inspired by Cyberpunk, pessimism is a defining aspect of it. It has dystopian "prepper" airs to it with that ridiculous (and dangerous) armouring. It is definitely retrofuturistic. But it does have a certain positive energy of just having some fun with progress and boldly making cool new things happen.

It is a champion for demonstrating that electric can also be powerful, it challenges gas at its own game, and has self-driving ambitions.

It’s a publicity stunt. It shocks for shock‘s sake. It‘s going to look dated and stupid soon.

It‘ll never get to Europe or China. It might have a positive effect in the U.S. it might not.

It‘s the yoke.

It’s an idea to be played with - but then best to discarded and learned from.

It‘s not the Model S 2.0 they would have needed four years ago.

It’s the reason the Dymaxion Car never got built.

One nitpick - I don’t think it will look dated, looking dated comes from something becoming a common place design seen everywhere. The Delorean doesn’t look dated 40 years later. Cybertruck could end up a delorean.

The Delorean looks very clearly 80s though. Low-slung, boxy design, fastback, quad, square headlights... It would not fit in with a modern car lineup, so I'm gonna say it is dated looking.

Not that is is bad looking. I love how they look... but definitely not a modern look... Though it's all an opinion I suppose.

IIRC(very fuzzily), cybertruck origin was new larger presses (for stamping larger body parts, costing less assembly), creating an opportunity to bend thicker sheet, prompting an exploration of "Hmm, so how about a folded-sheet exoskeleton? Looks weird, but has intriguing manufacturing and structural properties."

Which would be "optimistic" and "new way" in a deep engineering sense, rather than merely a marketing sense. Like an earlier era's attempt to use the new aluminum aircraft manufacturing tech to make light-weight trains. Didn't work out IIRC, but had a similar "certain positive energy of just having some fun with progress and boldly making cool new things happen".

Noticing interesting points in design space, and doing a startup-like attempt at market fit, seems a recurring theme with Musk. The Boring Company (mass production of tunnels), HyperLoop (IIRC, originally low-density high-Mach(?) air ram stuff?), and perhaps SpaceX (reuse economics, and hardware-rich development?).

Also recurring, is societal discussions around them being badly confused. Perhaps things could be explained better. But the recurring "Rocket blew up! SpaceX failed!" news stories around hardware-rich prototyping's "next rev built -> optional explosion -> junkyard or ocean", doesn't create optimism for the future. Are there any inspiring examples of society discussing some issue in a more engineering-like style, using awareness of deep issue structure and numbers, rather than by emoting and deceit and "that makes me think of" crude association?

Conversely this is why i utterly loathe the Cybertruck. It's a basket of trivially avoidable engineering faceplants wrapped in hype and cult-of-personality bullshit. It's an on-brand echo of Fuller's work that fails utterly to meet expectations or goals. Oh and for the record I can think of few things that scream midlife crisis louder than a 7,000lb land barge with the cargo capacity of a courier sized pickup truck that costs more than a full sized pickup, 14' equipment trailer, skid steer, and mini excavator put together. It's like conspicuous consumption just got a new hood ornament.

The Cybertruck certainly follows in the footsteps of Dymaxion, but it has had the misfortune of actually being built and sold. We were shown a futuristic dream and then it got built and it's not great.

I love driving the cybertruck. The media hates it — but it looks awesome, drives amazingly well—it’s a great truck— and, overall, it creates an overall vibe of “the future is here.”

Large, heavy and blunt-shaped motor vehicles put everybody outside of them at risk, especially the most vulnerable: children, pedestrians and people riding bicycles.

It’s not like the Cybertruck is alone in that aspect.

I drive a Camaro and I feel like I’m surrounded by main battle tanks whenever I drive.

The visibility is so bad out of the modern Camaro, it's more like being inside a tank.

I hope you don't drive a crossover. People get all hatey and ragey about trucks, then go hop in their Rav4 or CR-V as though those aren't bigger, blunter versions of regular cars.

I don't drive. Never have.

I’m not going to buy a Cybertruck, but my Shadowrun characters are definitely going to get one. Finally, the vehicle we were promised for our corporate dystopia future back in the 1080s.

I think that mad optimism reminds me of the https://aptera.us/ solar car as well, or some of the wackier Dyson products.

It's not about doing things differently for the sake of being different, but going back to first principles and building up from there.

Though in reality the contributions from these sorts of ground-up rethinks often end up being more about rediscovering that there was indeed a good rationale behind the conventions they discarded rather than actually producing a successful product.

Still, my hat is off to anyone who decides to spend their own money giving Chesterton's fence a good shake every now and again, just to be sure.

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