3 ms·

I've only now taken a look at the truck from all sides, and it does many things that I've thought of from the standpoint of new design movements being reactions

by aasasd 7y ago

I've only now taken a look at the truck from all sides, and it does many things that I've thought of from the standpoint of new design movements being reactions to previous design movements. IMO we're currently sorta ripe for cohesive neo-neo-modernism in consumer tech, after the plenty of show-offery and getting designs ever more ‘friendly’. We've seen that shift in e.g. aluminum Macbooks after earlier iMacs, but cars seem to trail behind since there's apparently no design nerd like Jobs there. Cars are all bulbous and curvy now. The closest to a modernist car that's not looking outright DIY, is the first-generation Audi TT: just a rounded box on another rounded box. So what would a modernist car feature nowadays? Let's look at the Cybertruck: - Resurrects the wedge shape and makes the panels even flatter than they were in the 80s, instead of the ubiquitous ‘curve on curve’ of today after we learned to shape panels whatever which way. Lots of cars from the hatchback wave of the past decade, like Opel Astra J, looked simultaneously family- and rally-oriented with no discernible design statement: that feels like baroque indulgence, it's got to stop. - A flat, straight LED line of light instead of barely-comprehensible current headlights. (Just two giant flat rectangular panels would also do pretty good, but would resemble SUVs from the 90s.) - No decoration of any kind on the front. This one is important, and Tesla did well here. It's pretty much the last bastion of brand-specific decoration when cars all look the same shape—but (afaik) even the radiator grille on ICE cars is only for appearance now, and Tesla has already shown that it's ready to dispose of that. With the truck, the deed is done. Funny enough, even recently most attempts at artistic depictions of ‘future cars’ imagined them more complex, not less. It will be curious to see how designs turn around now.

oliv__ 7y ago
> It will be curious to see how designs turn around now. This is exactly what I've been wondering. Can't wait to see how the rest of the market reacts to this new direction. Are all cars going to shift this way? That would look cra-zy on a highway!!
- aasasd 7y ago
  Eh, the collective market is probably incapable of reaction that's not measured in at least a decade, even though someone really should tame those shapeless blobs with headlights spilling all over the hood and sides. I'm placing my hopes in artists first of all, then maybe we'll get some spartan looks and reincarnations of the Stratos Zero/Countach wedge in consumer sport cars, and then hopefully some of that seeps into the mass market. Won't be surprised if Japan barges in, if this becomes a trend at all―it seems their cars looked cleaner until just recently. Though this might also mean that they're gonna carry that complexity momentum now that they sorta gained it.

by aasasd 7y ago

oliv__ 7y ago

> It will be curious to see how designs turn around now. This is exactly what I've been wondering. Can't wait to see how the rest of the market reacts to this new direction. Are all cars going to shift this way? That would look cra-zy on a highway!!

aasasd 7y ago
Eh, the collective market is probably incapable of reaction that's not measured in at least a decade, even though someone really should tame those shapeless blobs with headlights spilling all over the hood and sides. I'm placing my hopes in artists first of all, then maybe we'll get some spartan looks and reincarnations of the Stratos Zero/Countach wedge in consumer sport cars, and then hopefully some of that seeps into the mass market. Won't be surprised if Japan barges in, if this becomes a trend at all―it seems their cars looked cleaner until just recently. Though this might also mean that they're gonna carry that complexity momentum now that they sorta gained it.