The Cybertruck was supposed to be apocalypse-proof
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
Musk's ego.
Musk's design ideas are elevated above common sense. He just can't resist the urge to "fix" things that aren't broken.
The Cybertruck is exhibit A but two more mundane examples --- dashboards and door latches.
These are two of the most frequently used aspects of a car that have been refined by over a century of design and user testing. Musk threw out convention --- in favor of his own ideas which are actually less user friendly and functional.
You can't get any status feedback (speed for example) without taking your eyes off the road and looking at the touch screen.
To open the door from the inside, you have to jam 2 fingers down inside the door handle and feel for the latch. As opposed to virtually every other car on the road which has a readily visible and accessible mechanical door latch.
Tesla needs to focus more on the user and less on Musk.
The door handles? I have not once had to do whatever weird steps you're describing. I look at my speed significantly less than in any other vehicles I've owned, and I spend less time doing so per occasion as well.
My complaint is that this thing feels like it wants to be an apple product, and therefore, the software doesn't respect the user. Nor does the hardware; I can't use the battery to power external high load devices. Nothing about door handles, the screens, or many of the common complaints have been relevant.
https://www.dsf.my/2024/11/electronic-door-handles-are-a-saf...
Same with having the speedometer be in front of you. The further your eyes have to travel from their current point of focus the more mental effort it takes to readjust, and with the majority of your vision now being entirely new elements your brain takes longer to search within those elements for what you need. It works the same way as reading, where your brain positions itself in relative space according to the direction you're reading and where elements are on the page. Words are arranged in a straight line to facilitate fast consumption and understanding with minimal effort, even in pictographic languages. Speedometers are below the windshield and framed by the steering wheel because your peripheral vision already rests on the edge of the steering wheel, meaning your eyes travel in a single line and interpret very few new elements. This is why the speedometer, tachometer, charge indicator, and lap number on an F1 car are on the steering wheel, directly at eye level with the driver.
>What they were selling was the proper user experience for a device that transports me from a to b
What they were selling you was a lifestyle device, no different from an iPhone or a Pebble watch. That was what catapulted Tesla in front of Nissan, Renault, and General Motors, despite the fact that all three had electric vehicles on sale in 2012 when the Model S stopped being an experimental model and entered widescale production. Nissan, Renault, and General Motors all used their EVs as compliance devices and expected for governments to get off their back about emissions. That's why the Leaf, Volt, Spark EV, and ZOE were all Class B economy hatchbacks. Tesla came in and Steve Jobs'd what was in reality something no different than an Impala or a Taurus with a different drive train. However as their competition caught up, such as with Lucid, Karma, and the multitude of Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi in range, or the automatic steering and parking from even basic manufacturers like Ford, Tesla sought to try and keep that lifestyle device differentiation by making changes that were objectively worse for the end user, like moving the gauges to a central touch screen, removing the turn signal stalks, and turning the steering wheel into a yoke. In other words, gimmicks.
You obviously haven't had an accident or lost power yet.
https://www.motorbiscuit.com/teens-died-burning-tesla-cybert...
Experts have warned about this design flaw for years. Unlike traditional mechanical latches, Tesla’s door handles are flush with the body panels and rely on electricity to extend. If power is cut, they become impossible to open from the outside.I've tried and failed to find a photo of a typical software engineer's desk at Tesla. I'm curious to see if they have their chair and keyboard directly in front of their monitor or to the side by a couple feet.
The same logic should apply to a touch screen awkwardly located and bolted to the dashboard by the manufacturer.
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I stopped reading here:
> Fictional concepts such as Mad Max’s tanker-based War Rig are often the inspiration for real-world creations like Ford’s custom-built F650 Supertruck, a tractor-trailer sized monstrosity that can carry 120 gallons of fuel, tow 30,000lbs, and be reinforced with bulletproof armor. The truck is how insurgent fighters get around war zones and what storm chasers use to run down tornadoes.
The linked articles make no mention of the F-650 Supertruck. All I could find with a quick Google search regarding these use cases are Hiluxes/imported F-150s and domestic customized F-350s respectively. There's also nary a mention of said trucks being inspired by latter-day Mad Max films. Inquiries via Kagi's LLM facilities confirm my conclusions.
Why bother writing any of this if it simply isn't true? Such glaring falsities don't inspire confidence in the more substantial parts of the article... there's more than enough wrong with the Cybertruck to write about without resorting to whole-cloth fabrications to make the point.
In real life, Ford has made large F-series trucks since 1948 (a bit before Mad Max.) They are nowhere near the size of a tractor-trailer, which are 70-80 feet long vs the 20-30' of F-650s. In recent decades the F-250/350/450/550/600 are heavier-duty trucks for mostly commercial applications, and the F-650/750 are a different series with fewer creature comforts, almost entirely for commercial use. Even in the reddest part of Unnecessarily Large Truck America you will mostly see these trucks in use for commercial purposes (small dump trucks, bucket trucks, airport use, water hauling, etc.)
Also, "how insurgents get around war zones"? That's hilarious. I mean, I'm sure someone somewhere in all the wars on Earth has gone around a war zone in a custom F-650, but it sure isn't one with armor and a 120 gallon fuel tank. Any kind of useful armor on a vehicle THAT large and the thing would weigh well north of 40,000 lbs. It would weigh as much as a light tank with a far worse weight distribution. It would completely destroy roads and the fuel capacity would be uselessly small. And as a cherry on top, the claimed operators of this logistical nightmare: "insurgents." Nobody with as much as one functioning brain cell was involved in the writing or editing of this article.
It's not the first time I've seen it. I briefly had a recurring donation going to The Guardian but switched it over to ProPublica for this very reason. They seem to do harder-hitting "boots on the ground" investigative journalism and are more factual in their reporting. I suppose my first point is a matter of opinion but one or two independent sources that I consulted agreed that the Guardian is hit-or-miss if you fact check them.