25 ms·

I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a dist

by billti 9mo ago

I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch. That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.

grouchomarx 9mo ago
>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics That and also it's just a bad product. >That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150 competitor would have sold like crazy, I think
- catigula 9mo ago
  >A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
  - everdrive 9mo ago
    Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
    - shortstuffsushi 9mo ago
      > There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian? You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for opposite goals.
      - everdrive 9mo ago
        I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.
      - bryanlarsen 9mo ago
        A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the bed from the side.
      - sejje 9mo ago
        Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.
        shortstuffsushi 9mo ago
        I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.
        sejje 9mo ago
        Yes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.
    - rjrjrjrj 9mo ago
      The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any new US vehicle is. The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en
  - a4isms 9mo ago
    Lifestyle sells. I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
    - switchbak 9mo ago
      It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back home!
    - catigula 9mo ago
      The brain is a confabulation/justification engine. In reality ideal utility is likely found in the shape of a 2008 Toyota Camry and a U-Haul truck rental when necessary.
      - pixl97 9mo ago
        You may underestimate how much consumption some people in the US have and why a Camry wouldn't work. Hell, for the amount of hobby project stuff I bring home on a bi-weekly basis a car just doesn't cut it. Then again, I'm not sure where I fit in the average population.
        deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
        potato3732842 9mo ago
        It's not even "stuff I bring home". There's just never ending amount of shit that needs to be schlepped around. Sometimes I wish I lived in a condo, leased a Prius and golfed for a hobby.
      - adw 9mo ago
        More like a 2001 Renault Clio. Camrys are already bloatware.
  - giglamesh 9mo ago
    > ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle. Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington’s 3rd District in an NYT piece a couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in lieu of apologizing for the paywall. > “Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.” > Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp-perez.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
    - catigula 9mo ago
      If I mostly trim my hedges, but sometimes, very rarely, need to cut down small trees, am I best served by simply owning a hedge-trimmer and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, or by buying a katana for both jobs? Everybody knows why you bought the katana. We know you have a story to tell yourself, it's just not convincing.
      - pixl97 9mo ago
        > and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, I don't think most people realize how expensive and time consuming tool rental is. This is where things also get kind of messy in the US. In manicured suburbs you probably don't need a chainsaw. But in older growth and places with larger lots you really do need one. If you wait till you need one after a big storm, you may travel 100 miles out of the storm damage to find one to rent or have to wait for weeks as your driveway is blocked and contractors are booked up. For me the utility function is somewhere in between a car and a truck, hence why I have an SUV. I can carry the large boxes/items I seem to have at a regular basis. When I need something bigger I can rent a trailer to hook to it. Trucks themselves are way too expensive now, and I don't need that much capacity. A car would have me constantly renting or borrowing one from someone else (which I did when I owned a car and it was a pain in the ass).
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  - rootusrootus 9mo ago
    I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
  - chung8123 9mo ago
    Not just trucks. Almost all cars sell a lifestyle.
- a4isms 9mo ago
  > A pickup truck should just be max utility A working truck should be max utility. Around the core market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to an F-150, but they had/have their fans. I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
  - b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
    A *working* truck should be max utility. All trucks should be working trucks. There is no reason to drive something that large and heavy that isn't better served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared infrastructure while being safer to drive.
    - barbazoo 9mo ago
      Tragedy of the commons.
      - miltonlost 9mo ago
        Tragedy of not having better regulations. The commons don't have anything to do with it.
        Dylan16807 9mo ago
        Some of the motivations to get vehicles like that, like being up higher than everyone and having more mass in a collision, are solidly tragedy of the commons.
      - allarm 9mo ago
        This is a tragedy of an awful taste.
    - 9mo ago
- ActorNightly 9mo ago
  >A pickup truck should just be max utility, The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range. The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.
  - drewda 9mo ago
    Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator. That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
    - shibapuppie 9mo ago
      You can also get a standard hybrid F150 with the "Pro Power(?)" package, and the hybrid drive-train turns into a 7.2kW generator.
      - thijson 9mo ago
        I just read about the hybrid F150. I didn't know about it until recently I guess because of all the press the Lightning received. The hybrid works the best for me. My state also charges a lot less yearly registration for a hybrid compared to an EV. 7.2kW could run most of my house for days, and it wouldn't be very loud I guess.
    - Spooky23 9mo ago
      It's great for rural folks or others with power issues. For a few thousand bucks, you have a backup generator in your garage.
- giancarlostoro 9mo ago
  > That and also it's just a bad product. I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be. Assuming they improve on it.
  - __loam 9mo ago
    That's basically the F150 or a rivian
    - scottyah 9mo ago
      That's... a very uneducated take, even according to those car's CEOs RJ and Jim.
      - __loam 9mo ago
        Normal cars vs the fever dreams of a ketamine addict.
        scottyah 9mo ago
        And a lot of the best automotive+ engineers in the world.
        kyralis 9mo ago
        That's a challenging claim to justify when their output is the Cybertruck. Honestly, none of Tesla's lineup is currently impressive - it's mostly gimmicky with less than stellar build quality. I strongly considered a Model S years ago when they first came out, but the price just didn't seem justifiable. Now? The world has moved on, and Tesla... hasn't.
        giancarlostoro 9mo ago
        Has the world moved on? While it may be anecdotal my area has only exploded with Teslas, I live in Florida for context. I see Cybertruks nearly everyday (some days I don't have to drive anywhere due to working remote). I always see a Tesla, heck, sometimes I see two or more of them at any given time, all over Central Florida I always see a Tesla somewhere, but in my area in particular it feels like "Tesla Country" at this point, and I don't see it dwindling, they just built another Tesla building near our Airport (MCO) too. Even see some bumper stickers on Teslas with "Elon" crossed out on them. Heck, my wife's own relatives have Teslas and they don't like Elon's politics, nor do they live in my area.
- groundzeros2015 9mo ago
  > pickup truck should just be max utility Except the main demographic buying F150s is suburban dads driving to their office job.
  - bluGill 9mo ago
    And using the truck on weekends to tow the boat, or do other work with it. Not every weekend, but once a month in summer.
    - jeffbee 9mo ago
      There are 5x more households with trucks than households with boats, so this hardly explains it.
      - bluGill 9mo ago
        There are a lot more uses of a truck than towing a boat.
    - astura 9mo ago
      Usually the imagined uses are very aspirational at best. The imagination doesn't fit reality. I've seen it firsthand, many years ago my dad got the fancy pickup because he "needs the utility." Whenever an opportunity presented itself for him to use his truck as a truck though, he'd pay the extra fee for delivery because he didn't wanna bother. It did make his reckless driving more dangerous for the innocents, though.
    - Der_Einzige 9mo ago
      I'll go further, Most Americans who buy stuff like boats don't use them anywhere near enough to justify the purchase. I'm pretty sure well less than 30% of boats are being used at least once a year. America is so full of hoarding and objects that go years without anyone touching them. It's profoundly sad.
  - wffurr 9mo ago
    Gas doesn't cost enough.
- alexjplant 9mo ago
  > A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them. It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable. I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
  - staplers 9mo ago
    Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
    - jeffbee 9mo ago
      Blending in with imaginary people, you mean. Every single actual blue collar worker who needs a truck for that purpose drives a 1997 Toyota Tacoma.
      - matwood 9mo ago
        I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still ran great. I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing capacity.
      - deleted 9mo ago
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      - KingLancelot 9mo ago
- scottyah 9mo ago
  > it's just a bad product. So you've never driven one? > A pickup truck should just be max utility You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python? > especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
- uncletaco 9mo ago
  I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
- internet2000 9mo ago
  > A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one That's very unrealistic considering the market.
- dzhiurgis 9mo ago
  > A pickup truck should just be max utility Yet we are in a thread where one with max utility has been cancelled and one flop of the century continues to sell.
- LooseMarmoset 9mo ago
  > max utility As the owner of a rusty 1985 pickup with manual windows and no radio, I can tell you there is great demand for utility pickup trucks that the manufacturers WILL NOT MAKE. The first problem is CAFE rules. Congress legislated the light pickup truck out of existence. To get around CAFE rules, manufacturers increased the size of trucks and added a back row so they could be reclassified in a way that skirted CAFE rules. However, there's a big demand for pickups, so people bought these because they needed trucks, and nothing else was available. Manufacturers took advantage of demand and started adding features normal pickup drivers didn't want or need, to access a high-market class of buyers. "Where else are you gonna go?" $100k pickups, here we are. Manufacturers are in no hurry to go back to the low-margin pickup days, even though that is what classic pickup buyers actually want.
- pstuart 9mo ago
  I remember the unveiling (loved the "bullet proof" glass demo). That was before I understood who Elon really was and I was pro Tesla. I never would have bought such an ugly vehicle, and I don't normally use looks to evaluate a potential ride.
- potato3732842 9mo ago
  >A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one How do you even define that? Give it a heavy duty bed and you're wasting weight that could be put toward hauling/towing capacities (and lord knows how people here would feel about ignoring those). A big engine for "reasonable driving" when fully loaded guzzles fuel.
- knodi 9mo ago
  But Cybertruck has better vibes. /s
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- bpiroman 9mo ago
  Cybertruck is the greatest vehicle ever made.
- arcticbull 9mo ago
  > A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one > 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
  - freetime2 9mo ago
    I wonder if there are any other countries in the world where the best-selling automobile is something completely impractical? Or are Americans unique in that regard? Serious question. I can't think of any, but I'm also not familiar with car markets the world over. In Japan, for example, the best-selling car is the Honda N-BOX [1], which is an incredibly practical car. [1] https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2076520.html https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2076520.html
- DragonStrength 9mo ago
  BINGO: the folks buying these things are doing so to virtue signal their politics. If you need a truck for work or hunting, you're still buying a truck, not some Silicon Valley concept car like the Cybertruck.
catigula 9mo ago
I feel like kudos for making a public eye-sore merely because people typically don't make public eye-sores is a bit missing the point.
ElijahLynn 9mo ago
The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be useful on job sites.
- nearlyepic 9mo ago
  The kinds of people buying cybertrucks aren't going to be caught dead on a job site.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
  - revnode 9mo ago
    That's not true. Boss likes being flashy. You won't see them being used for actual work, but that's a different proposition.
- karlgkk 9mo ago
  Not really, sites are pretty much always spaced out. Ironically, it’s best for city and daily driving - it’s a pure luxury feature.
  - jandrese 9mo ago
    It would be amazing in the city if it weren't two lanes wide.
    - olyjohn 9mo ago
      Its not amazing in the city. The turning radius on the cybertruck is atrocious. Go look it up and quit believing the marketing bullshit.
      - scottyah 9mo ago
        It's great, maybe stop looking it up and go drive one?
Lammy 9mo ago
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it are not one of those reasons :) I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those “Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!” stickers, because to me they just read as “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. It's weird to me to think that other people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
- burkaman 9mo ago
  > “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!” The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump." I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine, but most people who bought one did not agree with you. Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you thought it was a good car, not because of a political statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The same is true of most Tesla owners.
  - fortran77 9mo ago
    > The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump." No, he had it right. Those stickers are idiotic. It won't make anyone like them any better. Sell the car if you don't like it that much.
ryandrake 9mo ago
I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.
- alistairSH 9mo ago
  But anything in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that's really a move in the right direction.
  - rbanffy 9mo ago
    I like the fact the design is bold. I don't like the fact it's criminally unsafe. There are lots of interesting concept cars on every car show. Too bad companies choose to never make them.
    - iknowstuff 9mo ago
      It might be safer foe pedestrians than most trucks due to the significantly lower hood, despite the sharp edges. We don’t have statistics on that. But we know trucks are more deadly because instead of launching a struck person up and over the hood, they maim them underneath
- kylehotchkiss 9mo ago
  The bar of soap is aerodynamic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
  - jeffbee 9mo ago
    Right. All cars are converging on the shape of the Dodge Intrepid Hybrid. It is simply unavoidable. It is carcinisation, but for cars.
  - echelon 9mo ago
    They're so ugly to me. Anything with that teardrop shape is immediately out of my purchasing decision matrix. I like boxy vehicles and sharp angles you could cut yourself on. The Toyota FJ Cruiser. The new Ford Bronco. The new Land Cruiser FJ. The original DeLorean DMC-12 speaks to me. The Ferrari F40. The Corvette C8. The Unimog. FMTV trucks. Nothing that looks like a dollop of sour cream or a tear drop breast implant is ever going to appeal to me. Aerodynamics be damned.
jandrese 9mo ago
Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.
- Glyptodon 9mo ago
  I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better. The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to self-service more than the average car buyer.
  - overfeed 9mo ago
    Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch. The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any mud on them, but it's not a big one.
    - scottyah 9mo ago
      It's an amazing vehicle well suited to many normal tasks and more, and is an absolute pleasure to drive off road. I think you were subjected to either misinformation or very biased clips that were intended to warp your opinion.
  - WheatMillington 9mo ago
    It actually wasn't the bumper that ripped off in that video, it was the entire rear subframe tearing in two.
    - simondotau 9mo ago
      If you're talking about the JerryRigEverything video, the negative interpretations represent a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. Pinning the front down removes the main real-world load-sharing path (vehicle rotation and suspension compliance) so the rear subframe is forced to absorb an unrealistically large bending moment that would normally be distributed across the whole vehicle. This created conditions which do not occur in real towing, and which give no insight into the actual towing limits of the vehicle. All the test demonstrated is that you should not exceed the towing capacity of Cybertruck while its front subframe is pinned to the ground by a tractor.
giancarlostoro 9mo ago
I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect dude but I will give him props when he gets something right too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not, thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.
- ge96 9mo ago
  Yeah SpaceX's tech is amazing. Funny China's like "star link launches are bad" then they're trying to do even more, China knows what's up.
Fazebooking 9mo ago
Elon Shithead promised a lot for apparently a good price and wasn't able to deliver. It wasn't just the hate i think.
GuB-42 9mo ago
The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help. A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid pétanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers. And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but it failed at what it is supposed to represent.
starik36 9mo ago
> many vehicles ... are almost indistinguishable That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a couple of months back and the takeaway was that every manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car. In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".
matwood 9mo ago
> Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit I think the Cybertruck was DOA and his involvement in politics got people who shared his views to buy one in order to signal the same.
- jazzyjackson 9mo ago
  Also the fact that many truck deliveries were literally DOA as in the truck bricked itself in the driveway.
  - scottyah 9mo ago
    This isn't even remotely true though?
    - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
      I don't know man maybe I hallucinated all the news coverage https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/teslas-cybertrucks-are-cyberbricking-shortly-after-delivery-reports-owners- https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/teslas-cybertruc...
      - scottyah 8mo ago
        Your "news" is a clickbait article on a spam-riddled site that links to four user-generated posts on an unchecked forum. You traded them a few minutes of your time, they got ad $ and you got confirmation bias.
WheatMillington 9mo ago
You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the horrible design. It's the price and range.
- NewJazz 9mo ago
  Eh, that might explain failure to convert preorders to sales. But it doesn't really matter when comparing to other vehicles in the same market.
speed_spread 9mo ago
> it's not to my taste It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle. In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.
Spooky23 9mo ago
Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car. The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.
- red-iron-pine 9mo ago
  pumped the stock and then tried to use the twitter buy as a way to sell greatly without taking the price too hard. they wouldn't let him out of the sale -- he sued 3 times to get out of the twitter buy agreement -- so now he owns that too.
jlarocco 9mo ago
Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load. It's a fashion statement, not a work vehicle.
- iAMkenough 9mo ago
  I counted 49 pickup trucks with empty beds in the parking garage downtown this morning.
  - olyjohn 9mo ago
    Half of them sticking out into the roadway blocking half the lane. What an entitlement.
  - bluGill 9mo ago
    So? You saw them for one subset of what they are doing. Perhaps the most common one, but still just a subset.
  - sroerick 9mo ago
    Wouldn't there be a selection bias, as trucks in parking garages are much less likely to be doing hauling /towing tasks?
  - scottyah 9mo ago
    I counted 50 sedans with empty seats in the parking garage downtown this morning.
  - jlarocco 9mo ago
    But a lot of people buy trucks so they can tow and carry stuff when they need to, not because they're doing it all the time. Downvote all you want, the sales numbers speak for themselves.
    - iAMkenough 9mo ago
      Point being the majority of pickup trucks you see day-to-day are fashion statements. I agree they are not work trucks, not meant for work tasks.
wolrah 9mo ago
> I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch. IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc. Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that it's electric. > Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new. The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught the rest of the industry decades ago.
- psunavy03 9mo ago
  > IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc. Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today. Congrats.
spacecadet 9mo ago
While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places unless you convert to a dump bed... Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to plow. The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a welder, a hammer, a shovel. Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized, are beaten to pulp over long service lives. Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc... People want to be comfortable.
guluarte 9mo ago
gl getting out of one in case of a crash when the battery that opens the doors malfunction
LeoPanthera 9mo ago
I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly. If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking down, and the service experience was shockingly bad. Absolutely atrocious. But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live with myself.
- Marsymars 9mo ago
  > I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly. Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it was for a cool function. Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
  - scottyah 9mo ago
    It is designed for cool functions, although a pure exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off, there was a period of time where the manufacturing process didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.
stickfigure 9mo ago
I'm one of the few people that love the cybertruck design, but even I can't look at one these days and not think "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-inflicted.
psunavy03 9mo ago
I mean, in certain circles online, people were literally calling Cybertrucks "Swasticars." Not the greatest for marketing.
c0brac0bra 9mo ago
Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks vandalized with scratches and spray paint? It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to purchase? Who would want the trouble?
- scottyah 9mo ago
  The targeted vandalism/terrorism definitely stopped a lot of purchases.
- rootusrootus 9mo ago
  Lots of people are still buying other Teslas.
  - c0brac0bra 9mo ago
    The discussion was about the cybertruck. If vandalism specifically against cybertrucks has cooled sentiment, then a response stating that all the other Tesla models are still selling is a non sequiter.
- Refreeze5224 9mo ago
  You seem to have forgotten why those things happened. It was the Nazi salutes Elon did at an official US government event.
  - terminalshort 9mo ago
    Well that totally justifies terrorism against people who aren't even Elon Musk
JeremyNT 9mo ago
I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances in the real world. Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple! Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.
morshu9001 9mo ago
I wager people care way more that it simply costs a lot, and they don't like it or need it
reincarnate0x14 9mo ago
As someone who has used both light and heavy pickups for work, recreation, and farm work for decades, the Cybertruck is absolutely terrible at everything you want a truck to do. It's a brodozer for people that are slightly environmentally conscious or have Elon issues. And again, I say this as an actual cowboy, in that yes, I own cows. And a lineman who ferries manly men (and a few manly women) to do manly man work on high voltage power lines that will kill you so dead it's a guaranteed closed casket funeral. Trucks aren't just dick compensators, they exist to do work. And the Cybertruck sucks at all of that work. The F-150 lightning was a useful fleet vehicle due to the 120VAC outlets alone, aside from being, you know, a usable truck. There's a reason most of the offering are very similar. We figured out what work pickup trucks need to do and how they're engineered to do it 50 years ago. The Hilux and friends made it highly economical. So you've got the Hiluxies and the SuperManlyMinivans and those are the two main kind of pickup trucks.
- isk517 9mo ago
  Trucks being dick compensators is also based on their association with the work they do. Easier to pretend to be a salt of the earth tough guy when you both drive the same truck but with a different trim package.
pseudosavant 9mo ago
That be easier to believe if there weren't so many Model 3 and Y vehicles that are clearly the new ones (changed headlights/taillights) all around. I'm sure Elon's "political" salutes gave their sales some headwinds, but I'm inclined to think it is more like 15% less sales (Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025). The CyberTruck factory is operating at <20% capacity. The biggest problems are: it costs ~2x what Elon said it would, it has less than half the range he said it'd have, and it has had 10 recalls in its short life. The recalls have been for things as basic as: light bar falling off, exterior trim falling off, bed trim falling off, the acceleration pedal falling off, inverter failures. It paints a picture of a low-quality product that has a very premium price.
- eulers_secret 9mo ago
  I know this is a dead thread, but... How do so many people justify buying the new redesign? I mean it came out after the CEO went in front of the world and gave two nazi-like salutes, then did DOGE! Do they buy his 'autistic' defense? Do they just not care about what the CEO does and support him with their money anyways? Do they actively support his ideology? I suspect it's likely a mix of these depending on the person, and probably more that I can't think of. I mean they're good cars, no doubt, and it's a damn shame many decent engineers and workers put in so much effort to have it all tainted by such nasty politics. But I cannot ignore those salutes, nor the myriad other slights starting with calling those Thai cave-diving heroes pedophiles. Tesla is dead to me, a victim of this insane time and its CEO.
hbarka 9mo ago
It's just a darn shame that we're reduced to a simple measure of a single dimension, whether a right or left point on a single axis. You'll find many EV owners are multidimensional, a little bit up and down and all around an x-y plane, or even x-y-z cube. Conservative and liberal progressive alike in Europe are sick of Musk and it shows on the Tesla sales tanking. https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-total-bloodbath/ https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-t...
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wraptile 9mo ago
> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. Why? Do you want your other tools to be _different_ for no reason at all? Do you want your drill come with sharp corners you can't touch just because it'll look different?
UltraSane 9mo ago
Elon had to ignore so many people who told him using stainless steel was a very bad idea
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habosa 9mo ago
This is true. If I see a Tesla I don’t immediately assume that driver is personally aligned with Elon. It’s a popular and good car. If I see a Cybertruck I’m extremely confident that driver approves of Elons antics and likely fervently supports them. It’s a physical manifestation of his ego and mostly bought by his legions of fans. If you’re a Cybertruck driver and you don’t want people to think that, you’re in the wrong car.
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  There are plenty of reasons I don't want a Cybertruck, but I can assure you that your opinion (or any other Karen's opinion), doesn't even come close to making the list.
dfxm12 9mo ago
As much as this is to blame, don't forget the year plus delay, ~60% increase in price, omitted features, safety investigations, recalls, etc. It's clear the design was half baked from the start.
littlestymaar 9mo ago
Back in 2020, a friend working at Tesla told me how frustrated the engineers working on the cybertruck were, because they knew its design choices pushed by Musk made no sense, making the cybertruck way too complicated to design and build for no reasons, and everybody already knew the product would be a failure.
mgoetzke 9mo ago
The main problem was that it was and is twice as expensive with less range as they said it would be with seemingly no push to address either. It seems to be a good product (with compromises as any product) but its not a slam dunk to choose that as a Model 3/Y is.
fakedang 9mo ago
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new. You haven't seen enough trucks and pickups then. The Cybertruck serves no utility purpose.
majestik 9mo ago
I was already a Tesla owner and I reserved a Cybertruck right after I saw the original Cybertruck Unveil live stream on November 21, 2019. The infamous one where the window glass shattered. That was when it was supposed to cost around $35,000. Four years later when my reservation was ready to order, on December 8, 2023, the CyberTruck cost more than $100k. Because it cost almost 3x more than what was originally advertised, I cancelled the order. I know many other people who canceled for the same reason. Keeping in mind this was after several delays, so I and many others with reservations were already frustrated with the product before it became available to order.
nixass 9mo ago
> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Because utilitarian design and purpose of this vehicles has been established long time ago. Cybetruck "wanted to be different" but it fails in every aspect of its own "innovation". It's ultimately stupid vehicles with so many flaws that arguing it tried something is pointless. Like, having a man walking to North Pole in runners - he's not trying something new, he's straight stupid and should be treated like that

by billti 9mo ago

grouchomarx 9mo ago

>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics That and also it's just a bad product. >That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150 competitor would have sold like crazy, I think

catigula 9mo ago
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
- everdrive 9mo ago
  Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
  - shortstuffsushi 9mo ago
    > There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US. What makes you say this? The F-150 series has a pretty serviceable option in their XL trim. 8ft bed, 4x4, "dumb" interior (maybe not, looking at their site looks like the most recent is iPad screen, sigh) - but what else would you look for to call it utilitarian? You're right that each feature is further limiting, but I would argue premium and utilitarian are reaching for opposite goals.
    - everdrive 9mo ago
      I wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.
    - bryanlarsen 9mo ago
      A F-150 from the previous century is much utilitarian than today's F-150's. The bed height and rail height are much more reasonable heights -- you can reach into the bed from the side.
    - sejje 9mo ago
      Manual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.
      - shortstuffsushi 9mo ago
        I would argue that the first couple of these could be considered "features." Not sure what you mean about the bench seat - the "regular cab" configuration is a 3 person bench.
        sejje 9mo ago
        Yes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.
  - rjrjrjrj 9mo ago
    The Ford Maverick is pretty utilitarian, inasmuch as any new US vehicle is. The Slate is utilitarian, but remains to be seen if it actually ships. https://www.slate.auto/en https://www.slate.auto/en
- a4isms 9mo ago
  Lifestyle sells. I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
  - switchbak 9mo ago
    It's about drag racing on the way to your Jiu-Jitsu club with the baby seats in the back. And still being able to fit that new vanity from Home Depot in on your way back home!
  - catigula 9mo ago
    The brain is a confabulation/justification engine. In reality ideal utility is likely found in the shape of a 2008 Toyota Camry and a U-Haul truck rental when necessary.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      You may underestimate how much consumption some people in the US have and why a Camry wouldn't work. Hell, for the amount of hobby project stuff I bring home on a bi-weekly basis a car just doesn't cut it. Then again, I'm not sure where I fit in the average population.
      - deleted 9mo ago
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      - potato3732842 9mo ago
        It's not even "stuff I bring home". There's just never ending amount of shit that needs to be schlepped around. Sometimes I wish I lived in a condo, leased a Prius and golfed for a hobby.
    - adw 9mo ago
      More like a 2001 Renault Clio. Camrys are already bloatware.
- giglamesh 9mo ago
  > ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle. Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington’s 3rd District in an NYT piece a couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in lieu of apologizing for the paywall. > “Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.” > Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp-perez.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
  - catigula 9mo ago
    If I mostly trim my hedges, but sometimes, very rarely, need to cut down small trees, am I best served by simply owning a hedge-trimmer and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, or by buying a katana for both jobs? Everybody knows why you bought the katana. We know you have a story to tell yourself, it's just not convincing.
    - pixl97 9mo ago
      > and renting a chainsaw or other appropriate tool when necessary, I don't think most people realize how expensive and time consuming tool rental is. This is where things also get kind of messy in the US. In manicured suburbs you probably don't need a chainsaw. But in older growth and places with larger lots you really do need one. If you wait till you need one after a big storm, you may travel 100 miles out of the storm damage to find one to rent or have to wait for weeks as your driveway is blocked and contractors are booked up. For me the utility function is somewhere in between a car and a truck, hence why I have an SUV. I can carry the large boxes/items I seem to have at a regular basis. When I need something bigger I can rent a trailer to hook to it. Trucks themselves are way too expensive now, and I don't need that much capacity. A car would have me constantly renting or borrowing one from someone else (which I did when I owned a car and it was a pain in the ass).
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- rootusrootus 9mo ago
  I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
- chung8123 9mo ago
  Not just trucks. Almost all cars sell a lifestyle.
a4isms 9mo ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility A working truck should be max utility. Around the core market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to an F-150, but they had/have their fans. I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
- b40d-48b2-979e 9mo ago
  A *working* truck should be max utility. All trucks should be working trucks. There is no reason to drive something that large and heavy that isn't better served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared infrastructure while being safer to drive.
  - barbazoo 9mo ago
    Tragedy of the commons.
    - miltonlost 9mo ago
      Tragedy of not having better regulations. The commons don't have anything to do with it.
      - Dylan16807 9mo ago
        Some of the motivations to get vehicles like that, like being up higher than everyone and having more mass in a collision, are solidly tragedy of the commons.
    - allarm 9mo ago
      This is a tragedy of an awful taste.
  - 9mo ago
ActorNightly 9mo ago
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range. The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.
- drewda 9mo ago
  Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator. That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
  - shibapuppie 9mo ago
    You can also get a standard hybrid F150 with the "Pro Power(?)" package, and the hybrid drive-train turns into a 7.2kW generator.
    - thijson 9mo ago
      I just read about the hybrid F150. I didn't know about it until recently I guess because of all the press the Lightning received. The hybrid works the best for me. My state also charges a lot less yearly registration for a hybrid compared to an EV. 7.2kW could run most of my house for days, and it wouldn't be very loud I guess.
  - Spooky23 9mo ago
    It's great for rural folks or others with power issues. For a few thousand bucks, you have a backup generator in your garage.
giancarlostoro 9mo ago
> That and also it's just a bad product. I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be. Assuming they improve on it.
- __loam 9mo ago
  That's basically the F150 or a rivian
  - scottyah 9mo ago
    That's... a very uneducated take, even according to those car's CEOs RJ and Jim.
    - __loam 9mo ago
      Normal cars vs the fever dreams of a ketamine addict.
      - scottyah 9mo ago
        And a lot of the best automotive+ engineers in the world.
        kyralis 9mo ago
        That's a challenging claim to justify when their output is the Cybertruck. Honestly, none of Tesla's lineup is currently impressive - it's mostly gimmicky with less than stellar build quality. I strongly considered a Model S years ago when they first came out, but the price just didn't seem justifiable. Now? The world has moved on, and Tesla... hasn't.
        giancarlostoro 9mo ago
        Has the world moved on? While it may be anecdotal my area has only exploded with Teslas, I live in Florida for context. I see Cybertruks nearly everyday (some days I don't have to drive anywhere due to working remote). I always see a Tesla, heck, sometimes I see two or more of them at any given time, all over Central Florida I always see a Tesla somewhere, but in my area in particular it feels like "Tesla Country" at this point, and I don't see it dwindling, they just built another Tesla building near our Airport (MCO) too. Even see some bumper stickers on Teslas with "Elon" crossed out on them. Heck, my wife's own relatives have Teslas and they don't like Elon's politics, nor do they live in my area.
groundzeros2015 9mo ago
> pickup truck should just be max utility Except the main demographic buying F150s is suburban dads driving to their office job.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  And using the truck on weekends to tow the boat, or do other work with it. Not every weekend, but once a month in summer.
  - jeffbee 9mo ago
    There are 5x more households with trucks than households with boats, so this hardly explains it.
    - bluGill 9mo ago
      There are a lot more uses of a truck than towing a boat.
  - astura 9mo ago
    Usually the imagined uses are very aspirational at best. The imagination doesn't fit reality. I've seen it firsthand, many years ago my dad got the fancy pickup because he "needs the utility." Whenever an opportunity presented itself for him to use his truck as a truck though, he'd pay the extra fee for delivery because he didn't wanna bother. It did make his reckless driving more dangerous for the innocents, though.
  - Der_Einzige 9mo ago
    I'll go further, Most Americans who buy stuff like boats don't use them anywhere near enough to justify the purchase. I'm pretty sure well less than 30% of boats are being used at least once a year. America is so full of hoarding and objects that go years without anyone touching them. It's profoundly sad.
- wffurr 9mo ago
  Gas doesn't cost enough.
alexjplant 9mo ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them. It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable. I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
- staplers 9mo ago
  Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
  - jeffbee 9mo ago
    Blending in with imaginary people, you mean. Every single actual blue collar worker who needs a truck for that purpose drives a 1997 Toyota Tacoma.
    - matwood 9mo ago
      I had a 2008 Tundra I sold when I moved to the EU not too long ago. Still miss it. It was big, but could easily tow my boat or haul anything I needed. Was a 4 door and had a full sized bed. Had 125k miles when I sold it, and still ran great. I would have gotten a Tacoma, but I need the extra towing capacity.
    - deleted 9mo ago
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    - KingLancelot 9mo ago
scottyah 9mo ago
> it's just a bad product. So you've never driven one? > A pickup truck should just be max utility You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python? > especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
uncletaco 9mo ago
I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
internet2000 9mo ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one That's very unrealistic considering the market.
dzhiurgis 9mo ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility Yet we are in a thread where one with max utility has been cancelled and one flop of the century continues to sell.
LooseMarmoset 9mo ago
> max utility As the owner of a rusty 1985 pickup with manual windows and no radio, I can tell you there is great demand for utility pickup trucks that the manufacturers WILL NOT MAKE. The first problem is CAFE rules. Congress legislated the light pickup truck out of existence. To get around CAFE rules, manufacturers increased the size of trucks and added a back row so they could be reclassified in a way that skirted CAFE rules. However, there's a big demand for pickups, so people bought these because they needed trucks, and nothing else was available. Manufacturers took advantage of demand and started adding features normal pickup drivers didn't want or need, to access a high-market class of buyers. "Where else are you gonna go?" $100k pickups, here we are. Manufacturers are in no hurry to go back to the low-margin pickup days, even though that is what classic pickup buyers actually want.
pstuart 9mo ago
I remember the unveiling (loved the "bullet proof" glass demo). That was before I understood who Elon really was and I was pro Tesla. I never would have bought such an ugly vehicle, and I don't normally use looks to evaluate a potential ride.
potato3732842 9mo ago
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one How do you even define that? Give it a heavy duty bed and you're wasting weight that could be put toward hauling/towing capacities (and lord knows how people here would feel about ignoring those). A big engine for "reasonable driving" when fully loaded guzzles fuel.
knodi 9mo ago
But Cybertruck has better vibes. /s
deleted 9mo ago
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bpiroman 9mo ago
Cybertruck is the greatest vehicle ever made.
arcticbull 9mo ago
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one > 75 percent of truck owners use their truck for towing one time a year or less (meaning, never). Nearly 70 percent of truck owners go off-road one time a year or less. And a full 35 percent of truck owners use their truck for hauling—putting something in the bed, its ostensible raison d’être—once a year or less. [1] https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-size-pickup-truck-you-need-a-cowboy-costume https://www.thedrive.com/news/26907/you-dont-need-a-full-siz...
- freetime2 9mo ago
  I wonder if there are any other countries in the world where the best-selling automobile is something completely impractical? Or are Americans unique in that regard? Serious question. I can't think of any, but I'm also not familiar with car markets the world over. In Japan, for example, the best-selling car is the Honda N-BOX [1], which is an incredibly practical car. [1] https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2076520.html https://car.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/2076520.html
DragonStrength 9mo ago
BINGO: the folks buying these things are doing so to virtue signal their politics. If you need a truck for work or hunting, you're still buying a truck, not some Silicon Valley concept car like the Cybertruck.

catigula 9mo ago

I feel like kudos for making a public eye-sore merely because people typically don't make public eye-sores is a bit missing the point.

ElijahLynn 9mo ago

The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be useful on job sites.

nearlyepic 9mo ago
The kinds of people buying cybertrucks aren't going to be caught dead on a job site.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
- revnode 9mo ago
  That's not true. Boss likes being flashy. You won't see them being used for actual work, but that's a different proposition.
karlgkk 9mo ago
Not really, sites are pretty much always spaced out. Ironically, it’s best for city and daily driving - it’s a pure luxury feature.
- jandrese 9mo ago
  It would be amazing in the city if it weren't two lanes wide.
  - olyjohn 9mo ago
    Its not amazing in the city. The turning radius on the cybertruck is atrocious. Go look it up and quit believing the marketing bullshit.
    - scottyah 9mo ago
      It's great, maybe stop looking it up and go drive one?

Lammy 9mo ago

> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it are not one of those reasons :) I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those “Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!” stickers, because to me they just read as “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. It's weird to me to think that other people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.

burkaman 9mo ago
> “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!” The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump." I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine, but most people who bought one did not agree with you. Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you thought it was a good car, not because of a political statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The same is true of most Tesla owners.
- fortran77 9mo ago
  > The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump." No, he had it right. Those stickers are idiotic. It won't make anyone like them any better. Sell the car if you don't like it that much.

ryandrake 9mo ago

I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.

alistairSH 9mo ago
But anything in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that's really a move in the right direction.
- rbanffy 9mo ago
  I like the fact the design is bold. I don't like the fact it's criminally unsafe. There are lots of interesting concept cars on every car show. Too bad companies choose to never make them.
  - iknowstuff 9mo ago
    It might be safer foe pedestrians than most trucks due to the significantly lower hood, despite the sharp edges. We don’t have statistics on that. But we know trucks are more deadly because instead of launching a struck person up and over the hood, they maim them underneath
kylehotchkiss 9mo ago
The bar of soap is aerodynamic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
- jeffbee 9mo ago
  Right. All cars are converging on the shape of the Dodge Intrepid Hybrid. It is simply unavoidable. It is carcinisation, but for cars.
- echelon 9mo ago
  They're so ugly to me. Anything with that teardrop shape is immediately out of my purchasing decision matrix. I like boxy vehicles and sharp angles you could cut yourself on. The Toyota FJ Cruiser. The new Ford Bronco. The new Land Cruiser FJ. The original DeLorean DMC-12 speaks to me. The Ferrari F40. The Corvette C8. The Unimog. FMTV trucks. Nothing that looks like a dollop of sour cream or a tear drop breast implant is ever going to appeal to me. Aerodynamics be damned.

jandrese 9mo ago

Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.

Glyptodon 9mo ago
I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better. The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to self-service more than the average car buyer.
- overfeed 9mo ago
  Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch. The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any mud on them, but it's not a big one.
  - scottyah 9mo ago
    It's an amazing vehicle well suited to many normal tasks and more, and is an absolute pleasure to drive off road. I think you were subjected to either misinformation or very biased clips that were intended to warp your opinion.
- WheatMillington 9mo ago
  It actually wasn't the bumper that ripped off in that video, it was the entire rear subframe tearing in two.
  - simondotau 9mo ago
    If you're talking about the JerryRigEverything video, the negative interpretations represent a fundamental misunderstanding of physics. Pinning the front down removes the main real-world load-sharing path (vehicle rotation and suspension compliance) so the rear subframe is forced to absorb an unrealistically large bending moment that would normally be distributed across the whole vehicle. This created conditions which do not occur in real towing, and which give no insight into the actual towing limits of the vehicle. All the test demonstrated is that you should not exceed the towing capacity of Cybertruck while its front subframe is pinned to the ground by a tractor.

giancarlostoro 9mo ago

I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect dude but I will give him props when he gets something right too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not, thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.

ge96 9mo ago
Yeah SpaceX's tech is amazing. Funny China's like "star link launches are bad" then they're trying to do even more, China knows what's up.

Fazebooking 9mo ago

Elon Shithead promised a lot for apparently a good price and wasn't able to deliver. It wasn't just the hate i think.

GuB-42 9mo ago

The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help. A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid pétanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers. And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but it failed at what it is supposed to represent.

starik36 9mo ago

> many vehicles ... are almost indistinguishable That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a couple of months back and the takeaway was that every manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car. In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".

matwood 9mo ago

> Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit I think the Cybertruck was DOA and his involvement in politics got people who shared his views to buy one in order to signal the same.

jazzyjackson 9mo ago
Also the fact that many truck deliveries were literally DOA as in the truck bricked itself in the driveway.
- scottyah 9mo ago
  This isn't even remotely true though?
  - jazzyjackson 9mo ago
    I don't know man maybe I hallucinated all the news coverage https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/teslas-cybertrucks-are-cyberbricking-shortly-after-delivery-reports-owners- https://www.thestreet.com/electric-vehicles/teslas-cybertruc...
    - scottyah 8mo ago
      Your "news" is a clickbait article on a spam-riddled site that links to four user-generated posts on an unchecked forum. You traded them a few minutes of your time, they got ad $ and you got confirmation bias.

WheatMillington 9mo ago

You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the horrible design. It's the price and range.

NewJazz 9mo ago
Eh, that might explain failure to convert preorders to sales. But it doesn't really matter when comparing to other vehicles in the same market.

speed_spread 9mo ago

> it's not to my taste It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle. In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.

Spooky23 9mo ago

Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car. The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.

red-iron-pine 9mo ago
pumped the stock and then tried to use the twitter buy as a way to sell greatly without taking the price too hard. they wouldn't let him out of the sale -- he sued 3 times to get out of the twitter buy agreement -- so now he owns that too.

jlarocco 9mo ago

Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load. It's a fashion statement, not a work vehicle.

iAMkenough 9mo ago
I counted 49 pickup trucks with empty beds in the parking garage downtown this morning.
- olyjohn 9mo ago
  Half of them sticking out into the roadway blocking half the lane. What an entitlement.
- bluGill 9mo ago
  So? You saw them for one subset of what they are doing. Perhaps the most common one, but still just a subset.
- sroerick 9mo ago
  Wouldn't there be a selection bias, as trucks in parking garages are much less likely to be doing hauling /towing tasks?
- scottyah 9mo ago
  I counted 50 sedans with empty seats in the parking garage downtown this morning.
- jlarocco 9mo ago
  But a lot of people buy trucks so they can tow and carry stuff when they need to, not because they're doing it all the time. Downvote all you want, the sales numbers speak for themselves.
  - iAMkenough 9mo ago
    Point being the majority of pickup trucks you see day-to-day are fashion statements. I agree they are not work trucks, not meant for work tasks.

wolrah 9mo ago

> I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch. IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc. Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that it's electric. > Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new. The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught the rest of the industry decades ago.

psunavy03 9mo ago
> IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc. Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today. Congrats.

spacecadet 9mo ago

While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places unless you convert to a dump bed... Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to plow. The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a welder, a hammer, a shovel. Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized, are beaten to pulp over long service lives. Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc... People want to be comfortable.

guluarte 9mo ago

gl getting out of one in case of a crash when the battery that opens the doors malfunction

LeoPanthera 9mo ago

I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly. If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking down, and the service experience was shockingly bad. Absolutely atrocious. But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live with myself.

Marsymars 9mo ago
> I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly. Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it was for a cool function. Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
- scottyah 9mo ago
  It is designed for cool functions, although a pure exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off, there was a period of time where the manufacturing process didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.

stickfigure 9mo ago

I'm one of the few people that love the cybertruck design, but even I can't look at one these days and not think "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-inflicted.

psunavy03 9mo ago

I mean, in certain circles online, people were literally calling Cybertrucks "Swasticars." Not the greatest for marketing.

c0brac0bra 9mo ago

Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks vandalized with scratches and spray paint? It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to purchase? Who would want the trouble?

scottyah 9mo ago
The targeted vandalism/terrorism definitely stopped a lot of purchases.
rootusrootus 9mo ago
Lots of people are still buying other Teslas.
- c0brac0bra 9mo ago
  The discussion was about the cybertruck. If vandalism specifically against cybertrucks has cooled sentiment, then a response stating that all the other Tesla models are still selling is a non sequiter.
Refreeze5224 9mo ago
You seem to have forgotten why those things happened. It was the Nazi salutes Elon did at an official US government event.
- terminalshort 9mo ago
  Well that totally justifies terrorism against people who aren't even Elon Musk

JeremyNT 9mo ago

I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances in the real world. Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple! Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.

morshu9001 9mo ago

I wager people care way more that it simply costs a lot, and they don't like it or need it

reincarnate0x14 9mo ago

As someone who has used both light and heavy pickups for work, recreation, and farm work for decades, the Cybertruck is absolutely terrible at everything you want a truck to do. It's a brodozer for people that are slightly environmentally conscious or have Elon issues. And again, I say this as an actual cowboy, in that yes, I own cows. And a lineman who ferries manly men (and a few manly women) to do manly man work on high voltage power lines that will kill you so dead it's a guaranteed closed casket funeral. Trucks aren't just dick compensators, they exist to do work. And the Cybertruck sucks at all of that work. The F-150 lightning was a useful fleet vehicle due to the 120VAC outlets alone, aside from being, you know, a usable truck. There's a reason most of the offering are very similar. We figured out what work pickup trucks need to do and how they're engineered to do it 50 years ago. The Hilux and friends made it highly economical. So you've got the Hiluxies and the SuperManlyMinivans and those are the two main kind of pickup trucks.

isk517 9mo ago
Trucks being dick compensators is also based on their association with the work they do. Easier to pretend to be a salt of the earth tough guy when you both drive the same truck but with a different trim package.

pseudosavant 9mo ago

That be easier to believe if there weren't so many Model 3 and Y vehicles that are clearly the new ones (changed headlights/taillights) all around. I'm sure Elon's "political" salutes gave their sales some headwinds, but I'm inclined to think it is more like 15% less sales (Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025). The CyberTruck factory is operating at <20% capacity. The biggest problems are: it costs ~2x what Elon said it would, it has less than half the range he said it'd have, and it has had 10 recalls in its short life. The recalls have been for things as basic as: light bar falling off, exterior trim falling off, bed trim falling off, the acceleration pedal falling off, inverter failures. It paints a picture of a low-quality product that has a very premium price.

eulers_secret 9mo ago
I know this is a dead thread, but... How do so many people justify buying the new redesign? I mean it came out after the CEO went in front of the world and gave two nazi-like salutes, then did DOGE! Do they buy his 'autistic' defense? Do they just not care about what the CEO does and support him with their money anyways? Do they actively support his ideology? I suspect it's likely a mix of these depending on the person, and probably more that I can't think of. I mean they're good cars, no doubt, and it's a damn shame many decent engineers and workers put in so much effort to have it all tainted by such nasty politics. But I cannot ignore those salutes, nor the myriad other slights starting with calling those Thai cave-diving heroes pedophiles. Tesla is dead to me, a victim of this insane time and its CEO.

hbarka 9mo ago

It's just a darn shame that we're reduced to a simple measure of a single dimension, whether a right or left point on a single axis. You'll find many EV owners are multidimensional, a little bit up and down and all around an x-y plane, or even x-y-z cube. Conservative and liberal progressive alike in Europe are sick of Musk and it shows on the Tesla sales tanking. https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-total-bloodbath/ https://electrek.co/2026/01/06/tesla-full-2025-data-europe-t...

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wraptile 9mo ago

> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. Why? Do you want your other tools to be _different_ for no reason at all? Do you want your drill come with sharp corners you can't touch just because it'll look different?

UltraSane 9mo ago

Elon had to ignore so many people who told him using stainless steel was a very bad idea

deleted 9mo ago

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habosa 9mo ago

This is true. If I see a Tesla I don’t immediately assume that driver is personally aligned with Elon. It’s a popular and good car. If I see a Cybertruck I’m extremely confident that driver approves of Elons antics and likely fervently supports them. It’s a physical manifestation of his ego and mostly bought by his legions of fans. If you’re a Cybertruck driver and you don’t want people to think that, you’re in the wrong car.

terminalshort 9mo ago
There are plenty of reasons I don't want a Cybertruck, but I can assure you that your opinion (or any other Karen's opinion), doesn't even come close to making the list.

dfxm12 9mo ago

As much as this is to blame, don't forget the year plus delay, ~60% increase in price, omitted features, safety investigations, recalls, etc. It's clear the design was half baked from the start.

littlestymaar 9mo ago

Back in 2020, a friend working at Tesla told me how frustrated the engineers working on the cybertruck were, because they knew its design choices pushed by Musk made no sense, making the cybertruck way too complicated to design and build for no reasons, and everybody already knew the product would be a failure.

mgoetzke 9mo ago

The main problem was that it was and is twice as expensive with less range as they said it would be with seemingly no push to address either. It seems to be a good product (with compromises as any product) but its not a slam dunk to choose that as a Model 3/Y is.

fakedang 9mo ago

> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new. You haven't seen enough trucks and pickups then. The Cybertruck serves no utility purpose.

majestik 9mo ago

I was already a Tesla owner and I reserved a Cybertruck right after I saw the original Cybertruck Unveil live stream on November 21, 2019. The infamous one where the window glass shattered. That was when it was supposed to cost around $35,000. Four years later when my reservation was ready to order, on December 8, 2023, the CyberTruck cost more than $100k. Because it cost almost 3x more than what was originally advertised, I cancelled the order. I know many other people who canceled for the same reason. Keeping in mind this was after several delays, so I and many others with reservations were already frustrated with the product before it became available to order.

nixass 9mo ago

> So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Because utilitarian design and purpose of this vehicles has been established long time ago. Cybetruck "wanted to be different" but it fails in every aspect of its own "innovation". It's ultimately stupid vehicles with so many flaws that arguing it tried something is pointless. Like, having a man walking to North Pole in runners - he's not trying something new, he's straight stupid and should be treated like that