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Comment by rcdemski | Hacker News Reader

Again, politics aside, I just find the lineup boring. Every model outside the Cybertruck looks like a ten year old car. Even the refresh of the model Y is still reskinning a design language started with the Model S, but with any interesting soul stripped out to reduce cost.

The nerd in me loves the technology, particularly behind the scenes features of the Cybertruck like 48v architecture. In the end I want to drive something that feels like it has a soul and substance. Teslas lineup right now is not that.

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This. None of them make me go "Damn, that's a good looking car..." any more than a number of others.

The Cybertruck is just am embarrassment, design wise.

I wonder if the politics will impact the designs in the long run, as Tesla becomes a less desirable place to work

OTOH, Cybertruck is one of the only original car designs in modern memory. It’s dumb as hell, but I like it. That said, I have no idea who it’s for, I wouldn’t buy one. But I respect them for designing such a ridiculous vehicle, and for it actually being able to sell, albeit somewhat poorly compared to expectations.

I say all of this as a recent $TSLA bear with a healthy short position.

shorting TSLA is never smart because TSLA investors are not driven by any rhyme or reason. Elon is the greatest salesman to ever live and people have been buying his sh*t for decade+ now. if TSLA was a reasonable company investment-wise I would mortgage my house to short the shit out of it :)

Yep, that’s why I clarified that I am a recent bear. I think that in the next year funds will reevaluate them and we will see at least a 20% drop in price.

It'll never drop by 20%. Either it keeps on growing, or it collapses.

Given that they apparently have no new models in development, I'd expect the latter.

- Their roadmap is just updates to their existing line-up, and vapourware crap that relies on their "Full Self Driving" somehow magically starting to work.

Yeah -- I am of the opinion that TSLA is rather obviously highly overvalued, but the market can stay insane for longer than I can stay solvent so there isn't anything I can do to act on that.

I kind of like it. It's one where the pictures and renderings look cool but IRL it looks like they messed it up. However, I've seen a few modded Cybertrucks with bigger wheels and tires and a wrap that actually make me think it doesn't look to bad. Concerns over build quality keep me away from Tesla as a whole, it looks too cheap to me and I've seen too many videos where things are just falling off.

> It's one where the pictures and renderings look cool but IRL it looks like they messed it up.

That's because they did. The initial plan was for the plates to double as the frame of the car. That's how they could have achieved the seamless look of the renders. Turns out they couldn't make it work for whatever reason and the plates are just on top of the frame.

I love the visual design. But the performance looks terrible. Meanwhile china is making utes that look pretty bland but perform amazing for the price.

It's original in the way that a toddler drawing a car in crayon on your wall is original.

Yes, and there used to be a time when other automakers did crazy stuff too. Sometimes they sold well and sometimes they didn't. But the variety and creativity was nicer than what we have currently on the market, which is a bunch of midsize SUVs, which aren't good at being an SUV, aren't good at being a car, and all look like jellybeans.

It's dumb as hell but I don't like it.

But I know what you're saying. I give it credit for being out there when nothing else in the auto industry is. Sadly though, its failure will likely further entrench the rest of the industry.

> ...one of the only original car designs in modern memory. ... I respect them for designing such a ridiculous vehicle

Based on the criteria, you might like the Fiat Multipla https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Multipla

I was quite enthused about the cybertruck when it was announced. A lot of it was using the same material as starship and I was quite into the multiplanetary stuff. Since then with Musk doing nazi salutes and DOGE I'd be somewhat embarrassed to have one.

I thought it was a neat concept but I'm surprised they took it directly into mass production. I thought they'd take the design language and make something a bit more mainstream with it.

The matte steel body and the unbroken slope on the front are cool, if impractical. There's something funny about the tray and the featureless non-grille though.

Honestly I really think the winning move for the 80% of the market that isnt already in an electric is "This is your current car, but electric".

Electric does make it pretty important that the software is unusually good for a car, though, because the software has to compensate for non-ubiquitous charging infra. Tesla does this very well. There are some quirks around charge scheduling and charge limiting that Tesla does really well too. It's not rocket science but software in most "current cars" is terrible.

I drive a 2018 Nissan Leaf and the software is sometimes laughably bad. But the basics like when you’re charging are ok in my experience

This is currently becoming a smaller and smaller problem with charging infra growing fast.

I guess it will become an issue again when "car" becomes synonymous with "EV" and there's a sudden spike in EV registration, but who knows when that tipping point will occur.

If you buy car for looks this forum is not for you.

If Teslas were durable, built well, easily repairable, with strong aftermarket support, I would applaud them for sticking with the same bland design instead of endlessly tweaking it like every other car and tech company in a misguided effort to stay "fresh". However the opposite has occurred where Teslas appear to be bland, poorly made, and unrepairable.

My wife thinks they all look like jellybeans. Tesla makes them like that to maximize efficiency, and they’re still #1 on that metric, but people don’t care about that.

Toyota has done quite well by maximizing efficiency.

I think the target audience for a Toyota or Honda (boring but reliable car) isn't very interested in the kind of quality control Tesla has. They're supposed to make up for that in other features and the unique style of the truck is part of that, in theory.

The people I see with Model 3 and Y are the ones who came from Camrys and Rav4.

Tesla EVs have the most data to support their reliability (at least the 3/Y), and they are clearly very reliable. Plus it costs just as much as a Rav 4, but has tons more torque. And the software is much better even though it lacks Carplay.

If Elon’s antics didn’t already turn me off as a Tesla customer, lack of CarPlay support slammed the coffin shut completely.

I thought that too, and then Toyota wanted $15 per month for remote start and made it seem like they were doing me a favor when I went to buy a car, so I ended up with a Tesla. Ended up not missing Carplay, and it cost $20k less for a car that seats 5 adults and 2 kids.

I think the current Prius PHEV looks much better than any Tesla right now. (It’s a plugin hybrid not a pure EV, of course.)

The current Prius is legitimately cool looking. Hard to believe it’s the same family that had been lampooned for its design for most of its existence.

IMHO, Toyota did an awesome job of taking the 2004 Prius funny wedge compact eco-nerd-mobile look (which might have been exactly what it needed at the time), and making it look sleek and modern and powerful.

I'm imagining a designer looking at the earlier windshield slant, and knowing they could work with that, and retain references to the iconic earlier design.

Industrial designers are like stage magicians.

Putting up with PHEV + ancient Toyota tech vs the looks takes a special person.

Toyota sold the most cars of any auto group in 2024.

They seem to understand the car market.

They also spent billions trying to destroy EVs. Don't underestimate power of oil and legacy auto's marketing and political influence.

Maybe it's more simple. Maybe Toyota just make cars people want to buy.

So you agree $2-3 billion they spend on advertising is a waste of money then?

It had little to do with oil, and a lot to do with their managements' irrational infatuation with hydrogen.

Toyota wasted a lot of time and money on that bet, and lost a lot of ground in the market.

> lost a lot of ground in the market

Toyota sells the most cars of any auto maker. What ground was lost?

It's clear Toyota has correctly assessed the market. They got it right.

As time goes on, BEVs will be a bigger percentage of the cars they sell. In the meantime they'll keep selling the cars they've got, including their current BEVs.

Given the initial success of the Prius, every Tesla you see on the road should've been a Toyota. (If not something from GM, who has even more experience in blowing an early lead in electrification.)

See also: Amazon's chances in an alternative timeline where Sears wasn't run by morons.

Tesla's own target for sales is to have sold 20 million cars in total by 2035. That figure represents a decline in annual sales for Tesla.

In 2011 Toyota sold 7.9 million cars. In 2023 Toyota sold 11.2 million. In 2024 Toyota sold 10.8 million.

Tesla's ambition is to have sold fewer cars in total in what will then be the 32 year history of the company than Toyota sold in the last two years.

Here's how 2025 is looking for Toyota:

https://www.autoblog.com/news/nearly-900000-cars-sold-toyota...

Toyota got it right.

I don't know the model y is the best selling car in the world so it seems like it worked pretty well

Is it? I thought it was overtaken by the RAV4 a while back.

And if we're including the RAV4, then you probably also need to include Chevy and Ford's pickup offerings, which would also be far ahead of any Tesla.

(And yes, a quick google confirms[0] the RAV4 is ahead of any Tesla offering this year.)

[0]: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/g64457986/bestselling-cars...

edit: see replies, this is US-only.

Looking at your link, it seems to be US only stats?

Best selling in 2024 world wide was Model Y even including trucks? https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-best-sell...

Interesting. I can't see the source for the data in your link (it cites Statista, but that's just a graph and requires a subscription to see the source data.)

Not saying it's wrong (I have no idea, that's why I googled), but would be interesting to know.

edit: but also, you're right that I inadvertently looked at US-only data. I did say it was a quick Google. :) Edited my original comment.

The RAV4 outsold it in 2024: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/felipe-munoz-carindustryanaly...

The more interesting stat is that Toyota has 5 of the top 10 best selling cars.

All cars made in the last 20 years look like that. It’s wind tunnel design, there’s only one optimal overall shape that a car can have.

I have seen this described as “looksmaxxing for cars” and I can’t unsee it now.

it's effiencymaxxing. automotive looksmaxxing peaked in the 80s, the decade when new car designs looked the best

Citroen DS, Jaguar e-type, Alfa Romeo 33 Stradale, MB Gullwing, BMW 507 and a whole raft of other 50's, 60's and 70's cars look much better than anything that I even remember designed in the 80's. Of course that's just my opinion, but those cars are so iconic, do you have any particular cars in mind for that period which you really liked?

The new Prius has a similar coefficient of drag as a Tesla Model 3 but the Prius manages to look a LOT better.

The 2024 Prius has a drag coefficient of 0.27 (slightly worse than the previous generation's 0.26), which compares poorly with the Model 3's 0.22.

My understanding is that the Lucid Air Pure is more efficient than Tesla’s offerings, but yes, Teslas have tended to be more efficient than compliance BEVs and a lot of other efforts from legacy automakers.

With a coefficient of 0.219, they're not even in the top 10 on that metric. China seems to be making the most aerodynamic cars now:

0.191 Dongfeng Xinghai S7

0.194 XPeng Mona M03

0.195 Xiaomi SU7 Pro

0.197 Lucid Air Pure

I'm looking forward to the Mona coming to Europe next year https://cnevpost.com/2025/09/09/xpeng-launch-mona-series-eur...

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