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I love my Tesla Model 3 and recognize that many non-standard Musk brainfarts worked out ok(ish) in the past (gullwing doors, weird door handles, touchscreen ins

I love my Tesla Model 3 and recognize that many non-standard Musk brainfarts worked out ok(ish) in the past (gullwing doors, weird door handles, touchscreen instead of dashboard.) But one of my biggest fears is that Musk’s ideas will eventually blow up the company. This would be bad for me as a vehicle owner who wants parts and service, and more generally it would be terrible for EV competition during this stage where “traditional manufacturers” are just utterly blowing it. There is no way I would drive a car with a wheel like this. It completely rules out the S/X if there’s no option. Between this, the awful Cybertruck, and the decision to go vision-only and remove the radar in new Teslas, I’m not confident at all that Tesla is safe from destroying their market with a few opinionated screwups.

blehn 5y ago
What's awful about the Cybertruck?
- vb6sp6 5y ago
  The design is polarizing
  - blehn 5y ago
    So was the design of the iPhone, and Yeezy sneakers. How is that "awful"?
    - Symbiote 5y ago
      The Cybertruck wouldn't be street-legal in Europe, since it can't meet pedestrian/cyclist collision safety requirements. Take whatever fashionable discomfort you like, but let's not increase the danger to others. "According to EU auto standards expert Stefan Teller the Cybertruc would have to undergo 'major modifications to the basic structure' because the Cybertruck 'contradicts the European security philosophy'" https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/12/16/tesla-cybertruck-not-street-legal-in-eu/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/12/16/tesla-cy...
    - neogodless 5y ago
      How is the design of the iPhone polarizing? It looks roughly like every other smart phone out there. That just seems like a bad example of the point you're trying to make. The Yeezy, on the other hand, does remind me of the Cybertuck!
      - blehn 5y ago
        No, every other smart phone out there looks roughly like the iPhone. When the iPhone was announced, many people thought the lack of physical buttons and keyboard was a bad idea.
        matthewdgreen 5y ago
        The iPhone took a fairly straightforward approach, which was that to have a working touchscreen interface you need to maximize screen real estate on a phone. Once you make that decision and price the components, everything else about the design falls out: the only “design” questions are about the casing material and whether the corners should be rounded. The iPhone didn’t succeed because people thought the fashion decisions were brilliant: it succeeded because people wanted a working touch-screen phone (because even before the iPhone we all recognized that previous phones sucked for browsing the Internet.) I can’t figure out how the Cybertruck analogizes to this. Do people need a cab that can stop small-caliber bullets? It would seem that this is not what most people are excited about. But I am sometimes wrong.
        blehn 5y ago
        The touchscreen interface is indeed a design decision, and it was a polarizing one. Many people did _not_ want a touchscreen interface in 2007. They insisted that the physical keyboards of their blackberries were more usable and more practical. In 2007, the iPhone was a polarizing product. The comment I responded to implied that the cybertruck is awful _because_ it's polarizing. I gave two examples of wildly successful products that were also polarizing designs.
        matthewdgreen 5y ago
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  I personally think it’s terribly ugly and somewhat impractical as a work truck. But forget what I think: Tesla has in the past adopted an attitude of “let’s make electric cars look like really attractive but conventional non-EV cars”, and it’s worked for them (and for me.) The new approach flies directly in the face of that. It’s an experiment that might succeed brilliantly or fail brilliantly, whereas a more conventional approach would probably have succeeded just as well without the failure probability. For the reasons I stated above, I think it’s a bad thing for Tesla to bet its future on such weird, risky gambles at this stage in the company’s adoption strategy.
  - wincy 5y ago
    On the other hand, I don’t like trucks and the type of culture associated with trucks, but think the Cybertruck is super cool looking. Like something out of an 80s future that will really stand out in a crowd of otherwise boring and sameish vehicles.
    - verdverm 5y ago
      What culture are you referring to? The working class that uses them to build housing and operate almost every skilled labor profession? Or maybe you mean farmers who grow our food?
      - dzhiurgis 5y ago
        For either - a truck that doesn't rust and can potentially last decades could be significant money saver.
        verdverm 5y ago
        Rust is not specific to trucks, it's more tied to using salt on the roads. Vehicles from the south have significantly less rust. Still doesn't explain what you dislike about the "culture" associated with trucks. Maybe something like South Park S10E2?
- petee 5y ago
  I've seen prisons that were more thought out and far prettier. I have a feeling if the Cybertruck had any other name than Tesla, nobody would care about it
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    The cybertruck is the most attractive truck ever conceived by a real car company. Traditional cars are boring and ugly by comparison, just like traditional McMansions wither in comparison to a well-architected modern building. Give me some geometry in my life, I'm sick of the stone and stucco house and smooth swept bulbous car world.
    - petee 5y ago
      Smooth and swept = aerodynamic I understand your point tho, even if I don't agree about the particular car. I'm all for change, but I personally don't see anything creative behind it, just an attempt to be different, which is a bad goal imho
  - blehn 5y ago
    That's entirely subjective. Aesthetically, I think it's quite thoughtful and refreshing. Car design has been absolutely boring for 20 years — each generation with more lines, more shapes, more superfluous details. It also drives like a Ferrari and has the utility of an F150, and of course is fully electric. Why wouldn't people care about that?
    - petee 5y ago
      Well that's why I used "I" alot...but you're right it's subjective - Ferrari or f150 aside, it's a potato to me. If you need a truck, you get a truck for utility. If you need a Ferrari, you get a sports car. This ends up being literally the worst of both worlds. I think they could have gone simple, without looking like a oddly-cut diamond
- CalRobert 5y ago
  Its design is very dangerous to people drivers hit.
  - blehn 5y ago
    I don't think we know anything about its safety performance at this point.
  - dzhiurgis 5y ago
    How is it any less safe than any other truck, van, lorry or a bus?
- GuB-42 5y ago
  I initially hated it but the technical explanation made the "RTX off" design less terrible for me. The Cybertruck is made of stiff stainless steel and current techniques that make these nice, curvy shapes in today's cars can't be used. Instead, they had to bend sheet metal, which severely limited artistic freedom. Still not a fan overall, but I respect that choice.
- mimixco 5y ago
  People who use trucks for work have reported that they won't be able to use a Cybertruck because they can't load anything from the sides, a major inconvenience.
agloeregrets 5y ago
You mean like that time he nearly closed every single showroom in the US to be online-only? I'm seriously concerned that his mental health and ego have gone fully sideways and he is out doing what he thinks is cool rather than following any guiding light.
- hinkley 5y ago
  There is a small but growing probability of him ending up like Howard Hughes.
coddle-hark 5y ago
The traditional manufacturers have pretty much caught up already. Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Ford Mustang Mach-E etc. are all competitive with the model 3 (better in some ways, worse in others). There are really good electric alternatives in every price class from small urban to full blown sports car. Tesla’s not the only shop in town anymore!
- matthewdgreen 5y ago
  I’ve been waiting for this to be true, but right now it’s still a really hard sell to move to a first-gen non-Tesla EV after owning a Tesla. Mostly this is because of the mature supercharger network, but it’s also because the non-Tesla shipping numbers are all still so pathetically low, indicating they aren’t really “in this market” yet (this matters to me both as a customer and as a person who wants to see EV adoption grow rapidly.)

blehn 5y ago

What's awful about the Cybertruck?

vb6sp6 5y ago
The design is polarizing
- blehn 5y ago
  So was the design of the iPhone, and Yeezy sneakers. How is that "awful"?
  - Symbiote 5y ago
    The Cybertruck wouldn't be street-legal in Europe, since it can't meet pedestrian/cyclist collision safety requirements. Take whatever fashionable discomfort you like, but let's not increase the danger to others. "According to EU auto standards expert Stefan Teller the Cybertruc would have to undergo 'major modifications to the basic structure' because the Cybertruck 'contradicts the European security philosophy'" https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/12/16/tesla-cybertruck-not-street-legal-in-eu/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/12/16/tesla-cy...
  - neogodless 5y ago
    How is the design of the iPhone polarizing? It looks roughly like every other smart phone out there. That just seems like a bad example of the point you're trying to make. The Yeezy, on the other hand, does remind me of the Cybertuck!
    - blehn 5y ago
      No, every other smart phone out there looks roughly like the iPhone. When the iPhone was announced, many people thought the lack of physical buttons and keyboard was a bad idea.
      - matthewdgreen 5y ago
        The iPhone took a fairly straightforward approach, which was that to have a working touchscreen interface you need to maximize screen real estate on a phone. Once you make that decision and price the components, everything else about the design falls out: the only “design” questions are about the casing material and whether the corners should be rounded. The iPhone didn’t succeed because people thought the fashion decisions were brilliant: it succeeded because people wanted a working touch-screen phone (because even before the iPhone we all recognized that previous phones sucked for browsing the Internet.) I can’t figure out how the Cybertruck analogizes to this. Do people need a cab that can stop small-caliber bullets? It would seem that this is not what most people are excited about. But I am sometimes wrong.
        blehn 5y ago
        The touchscreen interface is indeed a design decision, and it was a polarizing one. Many people did _not_ want a touchscreen interface in 2007. They insisted that the physical keyboards of their blackberries were more usable and more practical. In 2007, the iPhone was a polarizing product. The comment I responded to implied that the cybertruck is awful _because_ it's polarizing. I gave two examples of wildly successful products that were also polarizing designs.
        matthewdgreen 5y ago
matthewdgreen 5y ago
I personally think it’s terribly ugly and somewhat impractical as a work truck. But forget what I think: Tesla has in the past adopted an attitude of “let’s make electric cars look like really attractive but conventional non-EV cars”, and it’s worked for them (and for me.) The new approach flies directly in the face of that. It’s an experiment that might succeed brilliantly or fail brilliantly, whereas a more conventional approach would probably have succeeded just as well without the failure probability. For the reasons I stated above, I think it’s a bad thing for Tesla to bet its future on such weird, risky gambles at this stage in the company’s adoption strategy.
- wincy 5y ago
  On the other hand, I don’t like trucks and the type of culture associated with trucks, but think the Cybertruck is super cool looking. Like something out of an 80s future that will really stand out in a crowd of otherwise boring and sameish vehicles.
  - verdverm 5y ago
    What culture are you referring to? The working class that uses them to build housing and operate almost every skilled labor profession? Or maybe you mean farmers who grow our food?
    - dzhiurgis 5y ago
      For either - a truck that doesn't rust and can potentially last decades could be significant money saver.
      - verdverm 5y ago
        Rust is not specific to trucks, it's more tied to using salt on the roads. Vehicles from the south have significantly less rust. Still doesn't explain what you dislike about the "culture" associated with trucks. Maybe something like South Park S10E2?
petee 5y ago
I've seen prisons that were more thought out and far prettier. I have a feeling if the Cybertruck had any other name than Tesla, nobody would care about it
- nitrogen 5y ago
  The cybertruck is the most attractive truck ever conceived by a real car company. Traditional cars are boring and ugly by comparison, just like traditional McMansions wither in comparison to a well-architected modern building. Give me some geometry in my life, I'm sick of the stone and stucco house and smooth swept bulbous car world.
  - petee 5y ago
    Smooth and swept = aerodynamic I understand your point tho, even if I don't agree about the particular car. I'm all for change, but I personally don't see anything creative behind it, just an attempt to be different, which is a bad goal imho
- blehn 5y ago
  That's entirely subjective. Aesthetically, I think it's quite thoughtful and refreshing. Car design has been absolutely boring for 20 years — each generation with more lines, more shapes, more superfluous details. It also drives like a Ferrari and has the utility of an F150, and of course is fully electric. Why wouldn't people care about that?
  - petee 5y ago
    Well that's why I used "I" alot...but you're right it's subjective - Ferrari or f150 aside, it's a potato to me. If you need a truck, you get a truck for utility. If you need a Ferrari, you get a sports car. This ends up being literally the worst of both worlds. I think they could have gone simple, without looking like a oddly-cut diamond
CalRobert 5y ago
Its design is very dangerous to people drivers hit.
- blehn 5y ago
  I don't think we know anything about its safety performance at this point.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  How is it any less safe than any other truck, van, lorry or a bus?
GuB-42 5y ago
I initially hated it but the technical explanation made the "RTX off" design less terrible for me. The Cybertruck is made of stiff stainless steel and current techniques that make these nice, curvy shapes in today's cars can't be used. Instead, they had to bend sheet metal, which severely limited artistic freedom. Still not a fan overall, but I respect that choice.
mimixco 5y ago
People who use trucks for work have reported that they won't be able to use a Cybertruck because they can't load anything from the sides, a major inconvenience.

agloeregrets 5y ago

You mean like that time he nearly closed every single showroom in the US to be online-only? I'm seriously concerned that his mental health and ego have gone fully sideways and he is out doing what he thinks is cool rather than following any guiding light.

hinkley 5y ago
There is a small but growing probability of him ending up like Howard Hughes.

coddle-hark 5y ago

The traditional manufacturers have pretty much caught up already. Hyundai Ioniq 5, Kia EV6, Ford Mustang Mach-E etc. are all competitive with the model 3 (better in some ways, worse in others). There are really good electric alternatives in every price class from small urban to full blown sports car. Tesla’s not the only shop in town anymore!

matthewdgreen 5y ago
I’ve been waiting for this to be true, but right now it’s still a really hard sell to move to a first-gen non-Tesla EV after owning a Tesla. Mostly this is because of the mature supercharger network, but it’s also because the non-Tesla shipping numbers are all still so pathetically low, indicating they aren’t really “in this market” yet (this matters to me both as a customer and as a person who wants to see EV adoption grow rapidly.)