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Comment by YZF | Hacker News Reader

I saw my first Cybertruck the other day. It looked less weird in person than I expected it.

It's a very different and new design. How many of the 91% we're comparing to are completely new designs. What's the correct benchmark?

Let's rewrite the headline. "A radical new EV design from Tesla, the Cybertruck, is already ahead of 9% of all 2024 vehicles in quality as it just ramps up production".

I'll likely never own this - not my style. But I can appreciate doing things differently and being successful at that. Getting those gas guzzling truck owners to go electric would be nice too.

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In a vacuum I would agree with you, but it fails in lots of predictable ways, and doesnt really offer any utility as a new design. And where they tried to engineer around these issues they often over engineered instead of removing the problem.

I honestly like the way it looks, but I am happy I never preordered it or anything. The reviews are shocking. Even the positive reviews tend to hyperfocus on situations that can be capably dealt with by a standard hatchback. You can take a honda jazz across more terrain.

Its a failure, one that was likely very familiar to HN members. I am sure that internally engineers made every single one of these issues very apparent to management and they shipped anyway.

> doesnt really offer any utility as a new design

This is true of most automobile design.

There are legitimate criticisms of Musk and Tesla. "I don't like how someone else's car looks" is not one of them.

The word 'utility' in the comment you're replying to specifically means how the design functions, not how it looks. For example, it's a truck that's design makes it worse for carrying cargo in the tray than a standard truck.

> word 'utility' specifically means how it functions, not how it looks

Yes. Not offering utility in design is common in cars. Most people don’t buy a truck to haul. Most people don’t buy an off-roader to go off road. (Most people don’t buy a sports car to race.)

Even taken at face value:

> Most people don’t buy a truck to haul.

But if they do need to haul or tow something, they can.

> Most people don’t buy an off-roader to go off road.

But if they do need to go off-road, they can.

> Most people don’t buy a sports car to race.

Sports cars can be enjoyed (relatively) legally on the street. Quick acceleration combined with very good handling and a sense of connection to the road is a feeling you can enjoy at 55mph. Many people won’t drive their sports cars to the limit, but they are still a more enjoyable driving experience than a regular car for people who care about that.

A cybertruck can’t really haul things, it can’t really tow things, and it can’t be that fun to drive. I hope it’s at least comfortable, but based on my experience with their other vehicles, I doubt it.

Let me revise that: I’d be surprised if more than half of the trucks on the road have ever hauled anything.

> cybertruck can’t really haul things, it can’t really tow things, and it can’t be that fun to drive

This reminds me of people who complain about expensive garments being impractical.

That isn’t the point. They’re articles of fashion. Same as most trucks and sports cars. Cybertruck is outselling the F-150 Lightning. Consumers don’t care about hypothetical utility.

> They’re articles of fashion.

Hard to square this with:

> There are legitimate criticisms of Musk and Tesla. "I don't like how someone else's car looks" is not one of them.

Whether or not other people like your look is of course not the be-all and end-all of fashion, but it's certainly relevant. "I don't like how it looks" is a legitimate criticism of an article of fashion.

I think this is an interesting point. What IS a criticism of fashion, and how should it be taken?

"I dont like how this looks" isnt a universal truth, and isn't a prescription for others.

It seems like with the CT, there is a vocal group of people who seem upset that others like them and that they exist at all. I seems to extend from "I dont like how it looks, and you cant either."

I think they look cool and fun. Cost an utility wise, I'll take my contractor truck every time. I understand however that other people have more money and different priorities.

I suspect what people are actually bothered by is the underlying reality that some people simply have an extra $80k to drop on a truck because that is cool and fun for them.

That doesn't explain why the Cybertruck bothers people more than other expensive things. And the rich have always been ready to express horror at the tastes of the poor (and even more so, the tastes of the slightly less rich). It can't all be about feeling hard done by.

I think people tend to be grumpier about things they consider ugly if those things take up a large amount of public space. People get similarly riled by brutalist architecture.

But really, there's nothing new about people having strong feelings about other people's tastes. Fashion is as much about communication as personal pleasure.

I wasn't indending to explain the whole CT phenomenon. I was mostly intending to explore the concept of fashion/taste criticism in general. Namely what people expect it to communicate, and what people expect as a response. With fashion, you often dont want or care about others adopting your taste. It can be about control, but isnt always.

I think the CT hate taps into something more deeper than fashion for most people, relating to politics and culture conflict. It makes people angry in a way at more expensive and even less practical Maserati doesn't.

It is tho. Car are symbols for most people, not just a tool that has 4 wheel.

Cybertruck are the equivalent of a pair of thick nerdy glasses.

>There are legitimate criticisms of Musk and Tesla. "I don't like how someone else's car looks" is not one of them.

I like how it looks. Its the everything else thats an issue.

> but it fails in lots of predictable ways, and doesnt really offer any utility as a new design

In what ways has it failed predictably? There are a number of things that could contribute to various failures/recalls that relate to utility provided by the (novel) design. For example the steer-by-wire system or the mid-voltage (48 V DC) electrical system.

The main example of "this is just dumb design for no reason" is the recall due to the pedal cover sliding up and jamming, but that was only 1 out of 6.

Well cars generally get wet. The stainless steel getting tarnished in the rain is a predictable failure, even if we assume some of the ones showing rust are overblown. Not even the only cosmetic failure, it seems like the panels dont ship well, which should be very foreseeable.

Needing a specialised Car Wash Mode to protect the interior. They very obviously saw the issue coming, did engineer around it. Any other car manufacturer would simply try and make the vehicle as watertight as possible in all scenarios.

Frunk causing injuries. (I would add the word "frunk" is also a fail state but thats subjective)

Theres hundreds of these, all you need to do is find a couple of cybertruck owners complaining without feeling the need to be defensive.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess. Personally I think they look hideous. That doesn't bother me. To each their own and all that. What does bother me are all the problems. Consumer Reports went into this. There are numerous videos about it.

For example, it has steel panels but... an aluminium frame. That's an odd choice. If you're towing something heavy then up and down motion makes the frame prone to snapping.

Big trucks (eg F150, F250, F350) exist because of a quirk in regulation where so-called "work vehicles" were exempted from emissions standards. This part is a real shame because the US doesn't have vehicles lik the Toyota Hilux, which actually have an equivalent tray size and would be much more economical to run.

An electric truck may allow a smaller truck because it's not affected by emissions (obviously). Perhaps battery weight makes this impractical. It would be nice. I mean some people import Japanese K trucks now.

Competition-wise the Ford F150 Lightning looks like a much better proposition. It looks like a truck. It's built on a proven frame. Still, sales seem to be weak. For work vehicles in particular (and, yes, a lot of trucks aren't work vehicles; they're essentially ornamental) could be quite limited by EV charging issues vs the convenience of filling up a tank of gas.

> "This part is a real shame because the US doesn't have vehicles like the Toyota Hilux"

Yes! That was the first and only truck (or any car) I've ever owned! It was just called the "Toyota Pickup" in the US but it's the same model that was named "Hilux" in many other countries.

I used it to drive ladder racks and paint around Denver while I was in the house painting business to pay my way through college. It had almost 200k miles on it when I gave it to my dad after I graduated and decided to move abroad. To the best of my knowledge, he's still driving it and when I last asked him about it several years ago, it had well over half a million miles on it.

At least for autos made in the 90s, Toyota's quality was unmatched. My dad is a former plane mechanic and has undoubtedly extended its life, but I had no idea what I was doing and that pickup seemed virtually impervious to normal wear and tear. It's a shame it was discontinued in the US.

The only people I know who were genuinely impressed by cybertruck are 1. My father in law who was visiting USA and does not know how to drive, and 2. My 3yo son.

> is already ahead of 9% of all 2024 vehicles in quality

but 90% of those 2024 vehicles are much cheaper, so you would expect a lower quality. Also remember the cybertruck was presented five years ago.

> Getting those gas guzzling truck owners to go electric would be nice too.

Congratulations, you solved 1 issue related to car dependency and proliferation of huge vehicles, namely tailpipe emissions. Now the other 99 remain.

The solution to gas guzzling trucks is "boring", it's good trains, it's protected bike lanes in urban environments, it's smaller and safer cars in less dense environments, etc. But these things don't make Mr Musk money :)

Trains will not enter American suburbs, nor will most truck drivers consider biking as a valid alternative.

I'm all for better transit, but it doesn't change that the trucks/SUVs keep selling and getting more polluting, and will do so for decades as part of the fleet

Train stations are in many of the Chicago suburbs already and take on average 280,000[1] commuters to and from downtown Chicago on a daily basis (it's called the Metra system).

Hell, I just found out those same commuter lines extend all the way north to Kenosha, Wisconsin, and east to South Bend, Indiana, so into neighboring states. I did know people who commuted to Chicago from Indiana everyday so that's not too surprising.

[1]: https://metra.com/ridership-data

They exist, but new ones aren't being regularly added...

Well at least for Chicago, they are actively extending one of their lines all the way west to Rockford (which is 90 miles away), which should start running in late 2027[1].

Like I'd have to drive an hour and a half to get to Rockford from where I'm at in the far Chicago suburbs. And I'd be driving past a lot of corn fields to do so. So that's pretty far.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockford_Intercity_Passenger_R...

> it's protected bike lanes in urban environments

Sorry but they are not solutions to gas guzzling trucks. Trucks are utility vehicles which carry things. Materials to building sites, hay bales to fields, sports equpiment to the beach/river etc. These functions are not going to be replaced by bike lanes, trains, and small efficient cars.

The real solutions are hydrogen and synthetic fuel.

Radically new and stupid and should be illegal design. It’s a death machine for pedestrians.

Aren't all trucks? Wouldn't the sensor suite and auto-braking make it maybe somewhat safer? Is this something that gets tested for by car manufacturers?

Also, the hood + "grill" is significantly lower. A pedestrian would bounce (although uncomfortably) instead of hit by a wall and run over like most other trucks / SUVs.

As long as you aren’t sliced in half by the sharp corners.

In Europe for one that are regulations that make sure that cars are as safe for pedestrians as possible.

No more a death machine than a Cadillac Escalade or a Dodge ram truck. There's lots of criticisms you can make about the cybertruck that are exclusive to the cybertruck but this isn't one. This complaint is about bad drivers. The rise of all the driver assist technology is enabling bad drivers to believe that they are better than they are. This is across vehicle brands.

The existence of other death machines that should not be legal does not undermine the parent's point that this death machine should be illegal.

I don't think they said only the cyber truck should be illegal.

You're trying to say the machine itself is the problem, when it's not the machine it's the operator. You're trying to shift blame here.

The machine itself and the operator are a problem. It is an unnecessarily dangerous machine and the operators do not operate them safely.

> Let's rewrite the headline. "A radical new EV design from Tesla, the Cybertruck, is already ahead of 9% of all 2024 vehicles in quality as it just ramps up production".

Today in damning with comically faint praise...

I'll never buy one but I suspect a lot of the "AHA GOTCHA" attitude coming from more traditional car-oriented media is coming from a place of not liking an upstart.

There's just a lot of easy things to point at with the Cybertruck because of what was promised vs what was delivered. This happens with model cars from other manufacturers too though what changes there is often more looks than promised functionality.

There’s a pretty big difference between traditional auto markers’ “concept cars” and Tesla in 2019 showing off what was supposed to be very close to the final production car. It was also supposed to start at $40k, be bulletproof, have shatterproof glass (at least that one was discredited the minute it was announced), have a boat mode, have over 500mile range, and have a bed ramp. And it was supposed to have a “exoskeleton” design that, spoiler alert, isn’t possible. That was not “here’s this neat concept,” that was “this is the car we’re going to sell you.” Everyone (or at least, everyone in my bubble) knew that every single thing was BS (except maybe the ramp), but still nearly two million people with enough money for a pre-order gobbled it up.

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