Someone who is an enthusiast will most likely know about those things because they were widely reported in the automotive news sphere, and thus they will have a much higher chance of being against the Cybertruck. The wider public doesn't know, and so the novelty factor draws them in.
In a world that has been stagnant for decades in terms of design and doing things out the box, it's something at least trying to be different. Don't get all the hate
Ultimately ignorant terminally online people complain and dismiss what is the best selling ev truck.
You can disagree, but you would be objectively wrong.
Add in the requirement of "electric" and there are cheaper options but none that are cheap that are also allowed to be sold in the USA (remains to be seen how much you can get away with temporarily moving a BYD Shark over the border from Mexico and never bringing it back)
Check out a Salesforce, apple or Google event where they flex about adding a heart rate monitor to their watch ir similarly banal improvement.
Ill never understand the hate
Also, the robots that are controlled remotely by humans without disclosuring it is hilarious.
They’ve not even met the goals they said they would meet 3 years ago.
A goal not some metric that has to be met. It’s a goal, an aspiration to do something, not a deadline.
Most businesses ran by people who use goals as deadlines fail horridly.
This is one thing many of the major companies that are ultra successful have in common. They are ran by people who set goals, failed to meet the goal - and continued to move forward.
The gymnastics this cult does is infuriating. The dude lies. Constantly.
I own 3 teslas. I like the cars. Doesn't mean the CEO doesn't constantly lie and under deliver.
It doesn't matter if the car cures cancer. It doesn't make his past lies become truths.
You can’t. What you can do is name cases where Tesla says they aspire to make “X” and er got “Y” by the time we could buy it.
The closest thing we have to what you describe is FSD or whatever they call it. And it was sold as hardware that would be used once they got it working.
The only gymnastics we have here is you trying to make a case for fraud. You are the one acting cult like, and yes it is infuriating to us who are not obsessed with Elon.
I don’t know dem own a Tesla product, and probably never will.
Furthermore my comment was completely disconnected from Tesla and was an attack on a style of thinking related to all companies. Then you who are obsessed with Elon brought all that baggage into it simply because you worried that a sound and logical comment might not align with your view of the person you are obsessed with.
If we put the Musk Twitter/Trump/right wing stuff aside, there's still a big problem with Tesla and Musk in general: poor build quality especially on new product launches, exaggerations and lies about product capability, pricing, and the upcoming product roadmap, and the cult-like following that places Tesla's somewhat mundane product achievements on a pedastel.
For example, the idea that only Tesla is doing things out of the box, that they're the only ones who aren't stagnant...well, that's only true if you're in the cult and you ignore all the other carmakers. I don't think Kia/Hyundai's design is stagnant. I don't think the Chinese car industry is stagnant. I don't think the host of other EV startups like Rivian or Lucid are stagnant.
The Cybertruck doesn't have any unique features that other carmakers aren't doing besides having stainless steel panels that are literally glued on to the unibody frame and can't be painted. Toyota, the most boring car company, has steer by wire (Lexus RZ). If you buy a Rivian you get better range and capability. The Cybertruck isn't even the best EV truck, never mind the best truck of any powertrain.
And the final part of the Tesla hate is all the ways in which their "innovation" has been basically dangerous bullshit. Putting beta versions of self-driving code on the road, making a car with stainless steel panels that are not pedestrian safe, all their documented issues with plant safety and labor issues, removing physical controls for critical car functionality like gear shifting and turn signal stalks to generally deliver a car UI that encourages distracted driving more than perhaps any other brand. These types of things are the place where the "hate" becomes "justified outrage over corporate neglegence."
I think unless you're the kind of person who specifically spends time online looking for reasons not to buy a Cybertruck, you probably wouldn't know _any_ of that.
I play the lottery every day and I haven't won a dollar.
Etc etc
The chance of a consumer encountering any of those issues is equivalent to winning the lottery? We should all run and get a cybertruck! :-;
People who have problems with their cybertruck will go and post about it. Understandably, they are also frustrated, the posts sound angry, and then any journalist can repost/compile all those to make it sound like these are just dumpster fires on wheels. But just as in the lottery case, we never get to hear from every loser, only from the winners; here we don't get to hear from the "winners", only the "losers".
I mean they may well be dumpster fires on wheels but without solid statistics it's hard to be sure exactly so any kind of story can be made up about it.
https://datahub.transportation.gov/Automobiles/NHTSA-Recalls...
You are describing likelihoods in time series, we are discussing the likelihoods of exceptional defects, period. Which is actually low.
Etc etc
The temporal component doesn't matter at all, the point is that an individual's experience is pretty meaningless when trying to understand statistical phenomena. Which is why we invented statistics and do things like "collect data"
The suspension stuck in lowest issue.. really doesn't ring a bell. Maybe it was before my time? Or I glossed over the update notes when I did get it.
The point I was trying to make is that this vehicle's issues are widely reported to a disproportionate degree due to how notable and polarizing it is, to the point that random Cybertruck anti-fans know more about its flaws than the average owner.
Mine isn't flawless either, the tonneau cover requires some finagling to close, which is kind of annoying. So I'm not going to sing Tesla's praises about their QA standards either.
Also, I’m sure we are all familiar with the value of anecdotal evidence vs data, the response of “I’m a ____ and I don’t _____” is limited at best and meaningless in the aggregate
That's essentially just a QA and reliability design failure which is indicative of broader issues with Tesla but it also means that until someone's vehicle starts having problems they will have nothing but a positive experience which can leave them blindsided by said problems.
In terms of the negativity, I'd say that unlike other cars of similar design (like the Aztek) -- a way higher percentage of the panning I see online is about it not living up to its promised capabilities. There's loads of videos of Cybertrucks needing to be towed out of bad spots by other trucks, problems even when it isn't stuck because of how little its frame flexes, the additional torque wearing away tread on the tires much faster, etc. Some of those things can be engineered around and I'm sure Tesla engineers are working on it.
I'd hazard a guess that the market share the Cybertruck is taking isn't any existing trucks but rather more "luxury-class" SUVs like Mercedes, Land Rover, and BMW.
You should give sashank_1509 enough credit to be able to distinguish between the jokey/mocking questions your friend's Prowler gets, and the enthusiastic ones he reports receiving.
>It's tempting to point to its position as #3 overall as an overwhelming success
There is no other way to spin a $100K car being the #3 overall EV vehicle of any type other than a success, especially given that a) #1 and #2 are also Tesla vehicles, and b) one of them was the world's best-selling car of any kind, EV or not, in 2023.
they have the US government block competition
In that case our tarrifs are just protectionism, is what.
Excellent, then they won't have an issue with losing their export markets to tariffs, because they can just sell their EVs to the "insatiable demand" of the local consumers.
>what if China is undercutting us because their cars are just better
Price/performance they ARE better, China can produce cheaper because of their years of (government aided) investments and economies of scale. Of course, we aren't obligated to buy from belligerent states engaging in strategic mercantilism producing the goods of the future. We aren't obligated to prop up the Chinese export-oriented economic model in pursuit of one generation of cheap EV cars.
that’s what happened but the point in discussion here is why Tesla does not have competition in the US and the answer is simple
Protectionism doesn't work, because you can block them from selling in your country's market, but you can't block them from selling to every other country in the planet. Meanwhile, tarrifing their cars will be as effective in helping domestic industry drop prices as it was for Harley Davidson since the 1970s (who received "temporary" protectionism).
This isn't a result of some evil communist plot, China just had their shit together 10-20 years ago and are reaping the rewards.
Protectionism can be done well, but blindly applying it is dangerous and stupid.
Welcome to reality.
>Only from China. Non-communist non-dumping, friendly states are welcome to compete.
>50% of Telsas are made in China. China built Teslas are noticeably better built, too.
Please explain how your comment relates to mine, because I see no connection.
I got to drive one… it’s an objectively terrible car. I would imagine that as the look gets let’s novel that attention will wane quickly. When they get the inevitable prominent pedestrian collision on video, it has Pinto potential.
It’s weird because the last “new” Tesla was the Model Y I think, and that is an incredibly well thought out car — probably the 2020s equivalent of the 1980s Taurus or Camry.
To be fair, it’s very typical to hear people revving up their crappy SRT Chargers or sport bikes constantly there all day and night. I’m not sure who’d be interested in the extremely-overpriced apartments that they have, given the noise and lack of proximity to anything else outside of the malls there. I believe there used to be Cars and Coffee events hosted there but I’ve heard they got kicked out due to too many incidents of bad behavior.
The income cap on getting the clean vehicle rebates is $135k ($200k joint filers). And I'm not sure about the federal rebates. Tesla doesn't offer 0% financing, current Cybertruck APR deal is reported to be 5.29% for up to 72 months. So I don't see how someone with the income under the rebate cutoff can afford that $100k car or the financing option. The delta between the number of rebates (Federal EV vs Clean Vehicle/CA) may allow to estimate, how many of these are corporate (pre-income tax + rebate?) purchases.
And these "Cox Automotive estimates", are these reliable numbers that had been confirmed by Tesla earnings, or it is a "best guess by influencers" type of information?
I looked into that and there was exactly one vehicle available and it was something like $7500 due at signing to get that $849/mo payment, IIRC on a 36-mo term, so really it’s more like ~$1058/mo, which makes more sense.
Still a lot of discounts on EVs if you know where to look. Definitely lease; these will depreciate like bricks after the batteries get used up and are down below 70% capacity. I’m not sure how financing companies are doing the math but their expected values at the end of lease terms feel wildly optimistic. My guess is some degree of mfg incentives to push EVs combined with models that took too much pandemic pricing into account for used vehicles. If you can get a good money factor on the lease, go for it.
The business model is weird, it’s almost like you’re capitalizing the cost of gas, except the gas tank leaks after a few years.
I figure they’ll either deal on a buyout at the end of the lease, I’ll turn it in, or gas prices will go nuts and I’ll be able to flip the car. My brother did that with a Volt - bought it for $18k pre-pandemic sold for $23k in 2021!
The point here is that you're using generalities that are wayyyy too broad.
There's no reason a body on frame vehicle can't be stout. See every unibody fullsize van for example.
The fact that you think the Chevy Avalanche[1] has unibody problems says everything I need to know about your opinion
There's nothing fundamentally wrong with unibody construction for a vehicle like this some work vans have been that way basically forever (though it makes me want to go postal when the OEMs graft a really shitty frame onto the back of a unibody van and call it a "cab and chassis").
[1]https://www.gmwholesaledirect.com/v-2009-chevrolet-avalanche...
Still, nowhere near as bad as a unibody like a Ridgeline or maverick
I'm an introvert so the constant attention (almost all positive, even in the Seattle area, surprisingly) was definitely an adjustment for me. Trust me, I'd be perfectly fine without the constant attention but people just keep giving it! Now I actually kind of enjoy it. My son waves at people from the back seat, I get asked questions by curious people all the time, and I get the occasional thumbs up randomly.
Your sampling method is flawed. Only Cybertruck fans are approaching you. Most people aren't going to come up and tell you they think your car is ugly.
In my experience that’s the closest thing I could describe to the cyber truck experience and how most people look at it.
But honestly, I don’t know what point you’re trying to make here but I’m not talking about language, I’m talking about the reaction people have when they see people in cyber trucks.
I did also get many positive interactions when it was new as well. But boy did those random negative encounters stick out!
The truck is extremely fast, with excellent steering, suspension and lots of other groundbreaking technology.
But it is basically user-hostile. No dashboard, no stalks for turn signals or gear selection, and everything is on the central touchscreen. And that is super cluttered and impossible to do important things without looking away from your driving and jabbing at a moving touch point.
It makes you a worse driver, and you're spending 100k.
Honestly, give it a dashboard. Add stalks for turn signals, wiper, headlight, gear selection. Give it a few dedicated buttons for things you need to reach by touch (defrost, mute/volume, internal/external lights) and lots of animosity would go away. Make it an option for $5k! people will pay.
EDIT: they are learning. The wrapped black ones don't look terrible.
I don't know why. It's the reason they don't indicate when leaving a roundabout.
There’s almost no precedent for a “hit” vehicle at that price point. Toyota stopped selling real Landcruisers in the US because Americans won’t pay that much for something with a Toyota Badge (hence the current real Landcruiser is sold as a Lexus in very low volume).
Tesla are claiming a hit after making people wait 5 years for a vehicle they couldn’t see and then shipping preorders. The preorders have been massively less than they claimed and now the vehicle is with people it is being shown to be of low quality and low capability. Unable to manage tasks Subarus and much cheaper vehicles can.
The proof of its success will be in the coming year. Now buyers are walking in to buy a real vehicle at a real price. The current owners bought a paper spec sheet at a fantasy price and are a self selecting group happy to pay 2-3x over what they were promised.
There are tons of deals like this in the car world. While peons paid insane markups on the RAV4 prime, intelligent people were getting the Lexus variant for MSRP and they had an actually good interior on top of it!!!
It was a week of beating off people approaching me and asking about it. It looked weird, I thought people wanted to beat me up but they were genuinely curious about it.
That some weird truck with a formerly 3 year waiting list is at the top of the charts a couple months into shipping should be surprising? Wait a year. Nobody is looking at the 500L now.
So I don’t think it’s much of a measuring stick.
Second only to the MB EQS. Down almost half in 12 months. This is why EVs are lease-only vehicles right now IMO.
Some pickup truck work is high mileage, but a surprising amount of it is low mileage. It varies a lot, there are lots of trucks that do less than 100 miles a day.
Work trucks are also usually much more predictable than consumer vehicles. Most of them do the same thing every day. The predictability should make buying an EV easier.
Entirely objective, not misleading?
I'm sure there won't be multiple publications completely debunking this video too like they did the 911 video.
It's honestly a absurd and funny to me how fast the truck is. It's like seeing an elephant fly. It's even funnier to see people get angry at it.
I definitely don't like marketing and ads, but that's literally how all ads work. It doesn't debunk some of the insane performance characteristics.
No, I'm talking about the debunking videos and articles that show:
"We ran six quarter-mile drag races, and each one had the same outcome: The Porsche 911 Carrera T wins and the Tesla Cybertruck Beast loses... it’s not a particularly close race, either."
Re the 1/8: "We can say confidently that Tesla didn’t show the Porsche 911 Carrera T’s quickest possible run. In four out of six MotorTrend drag races, the Porsche 911 Carrera T beat the Cybertruck to the eighth-mile mark."
"The manual-transmission Carrera T has a 3,500-rpm limiter at standstill, and on a sticky, prepped drag strip, launching quickly requires getting off the line without letting the revs fall. Drop the clutch too fast, and the engine will bog, falling out of its powerband. It takes a slow, carefully modulated clutch release to get the perfect launch, which keeps the engine on boil and extracts a small amount of slip from the tires."
I'm sure Tesla was quite eager to make sure that they launched the Porsche optimally.
Yes. I get it. EVs have amazing acceleration. My brother in law has worked for, and owned, both Teslas and Rivians, so I'm no stranger to this.
But this was just another Tesla self-congratulatory event that needed "simulation" and "we didn't actually do it but we think it would go this way" puffery.
Then you get to lateral grip and uhh, yeah 0.76G is worse than the average minivan.
911s are not designed for drag, especially the base model. If they wanted to compare it to something that’s good in a straight line but no good in corners, a Dodge Demon 170 stickers for under $100k. Comparable horsepower, too.
I stand by everything I said, but I will add your research to my own repoitoire.
This has to be hyperbole. There are many in the middle class areas I spend a lot of time in, and even $100K cars are a rarity here. No-one is thinking "oh, wow, sure are a lot of people who just bought million dollar cars, here where the median home price is $500-600K!"
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see this thing in small alleys and especially with the crazy speeds you can accelerate with. But it's definitively an interesting model.
However if people are buying the cybertruck despite all its faults, then I'm glad to be proven wrong.
There are a lot of terrible cars that impress non car people
Honestly one of my lottery dreams would be buying a DMC-12 and converting it to electric.
But yeah, I had a nice conversation with a guy who kitted his out as a movie replica at a outdoor showing of the film. He said it was fun to go to events, but it's terrible as a car. And some of the parts are unobtanium, like the flux capacitor. Not that that's unique for cars in that era, try finding a federal EGR filter for an early Vanagon; just gotta hack around it.
If the power steering on that was inoperative (maybe the pump died or the fluid level was empty, etc), I'm sure it would be a beast to turn in a parking lot though.
Thankfully our road laws won't allow the hideous monstrosity that is the Cybertruck though.
In 2024, it's not even passing the top 5
https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2024-half-year-euro...
In the US, most trucks sold do very little hauling, towing, or off-reading or anything else that might justify the giant form factor.
https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
And yet, trucks and SUVs are the best-selling cars in the US, and have been for a long time. There is a weird loophole for fuel efficiency in mileage standards for large vehicles, but obviously that doesn’t apply to the Cybertruck. There is definitely some psychological appeal to having a very dominant-looking vehicle.
So just as a business move, the Cybertruck makes sense. But there’s more overlap with Musk’s politics than you might think.
I read a book a long time ago by this very weird product marketer Clotaire Rapaille, who, several decades ago, was trying to convince executives to put a gun mount on an SUV. His argument was his research showed that the people who loved big cars saw the world as dangerous, and had fantasies of cutting through the hordes with a powerful vehicle. Rapaille’s methods are somewhere between the usual consumer panel interviews and guided meditation, so it’s hardly scientific, maybe more like poetry, but I found it compelling.
Musk actually tried to demonstrate the Cybertruck’s resistance to guns and sledgehammers. Its actual durability is, I gather, more debatable, but he was definitely trying to reach people’s darkest fears and impulses.
And to put this even further: most people even in America are not "car people" and therefore don't know shit about cars, where they come from, what goes into them, etc. My parents are great examples of this. They've owned something like 4 of the 10 worst cars of the new millennium list put out by Forbes, but like, an awful car in 2024 is still generally fine for an undemanding casual user. Sure, people buy tons of trucks here, but the vast majority of them aren't used for anything more strenuous than hauling a dozen bags of fertilizer, and my Corvette can handle that. A Cybertruck is a terrible truck, but most people don't do truck shit with the trucks they buy, and it's a perfectly middle-of-the-road SUEV. I think it's a bad option if that's what you're after, chiefly because you're gonna spend a LOT of money on tires you don't really need to, and the panels aren't aligned right, and if anything goes wrong with it you're liable to spend months playing vehicular ping-pong with your Tesla dealership, and it's (IMO) ugly as sin... but you do you. Assuming it doesn't have some kind of catastrophic failure that an unfortunate number do, you'll probably have a fine experience.
The videos of it struggling to move in snow and "bravely" fording a creek of 5 inch deep water are funny as hell to see, because it's shocking what Cybertruck owners think "hard going" in a truck is. They'd probably lose their minds seeing some of what I've seen modified trucks crawl up, through, and across in the course of off-road competition if they think driving through a fast stream makes the Cybertruck a feat of engineering, but again, most people who buy these things aren't driving through a blizzard at 90mph to get medicine to the good children of the village so they live to see Santa come Christmas morning. They're going across town to the Good Denny's, or to the local mall for shopping, or to their kids soccer game. And on that journey, a Cybertruck and virtually any vehicle you can buy new right now, will suffice. Just don't get it wet.
So it's a bit crap then?