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>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 produc
by 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 agoHeartbreaking 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 agoI wish it had even fewer features, but I take your point.
- bryanlarsen 9mo agoA 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 agoManual gearbox, triangle vent windows, engine bay room, repairability, bench seats.
- shortstuffsushi 9mo agoI 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 agoYes, utilitarian features. A manual gearbox is simpler than an automatic.
- rjrjrjrj 9mo agoThe 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
- throwaway173738 9mo agoI decide if a truck is utilitarian by whether I have to flag a 2x4x8 in the bed or not.
- foobarian 9mo agoI can fit one of those into my Ford Fiesta with the hatch closed. :smh:
- PaulDavisThe1st 9mo agoClosed and latched? I find that hard to believe (used to own an 80s Honda Civic which would allow "closed but not latched" for 4x8 sheet goods) ...
- foobarian 9mo agoYes, with room to spare. I assume the grandparent was referring to a stud, i.e. the nominal "2x4" that is 1.5x3.5inches in cross section and 8 feet long :-) Sadly I cannot fit 4x8 sheet goods though I haven't tried very hard. I can definitely fit them if I ask nicely for a lengthwise cut, so I end up with 2' wide 8' strips. Those I can fit and close the hatch.
- potato3732842 9mo agoFord had a terrible but well packaging rear suspension design in those cars. It was designed to not have strut towers so he gets the full width which is probably around 4ft. No way does the length check out though. I haul lumber in a similar size car and 8ft is basically trunk to dash so there's no way he's hauling an 8ft by 4ft sheet without it conflicting with the driver's seat if not torso. Individual boards should fit in just about anything though.
- vablings 9mo agoI would be willing to say that a small Japanese kei truck is more than the average American would ever need for hauling furnishings, appliances and lumber. If you really need something bigger renting a trailer or truck is dirt cheap
- jeff_skj 9mo agoExcept most people also use trucks as daily driver vehicles. You can't exactly fit the wife and kids in a kei. Sure you could also own a car for that but now I need to own/store 2 vehicles instead of one.
- olyjohn 9mo agoYeah let's not pretend every family with a truck only owns one vehicle. Most families already have a second car anyways. Especially people spending $60k+ on a truck.
- bluGill 9mo agoThat is my argument for EVs as well. One truck with an ICE for take the whole family on long trips, or towing. Then an EV for everyone else - whoever is making the long trip that day gets the truck. Truck works well for those role because it can do so much. It isn't the best for most of those, but it can do them.
- vablings 9mo agoSure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed. Jokes aside I could purchase a new hatchback and a small old Kei truck for a fraction of the cost of something like an f150
- potato3732842 9mo ago>Sure, you can. Two kids up front and your wife in the bed. Quieter than the other way around.
- enaaem 9mo agoThe most utilitarian truck is probably the Hilux champ and it’s not even sold in the US.
- red-iron-pine 9mo agothese trucks are still a thing; Toyota sells a 10k stripped down work truck for places like Thailand https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10000-future-pickup-truck-is-basic-transportation-perfection/ https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45752401/toyotas-10000... wouldn't fly due to chicken tax + other safety and emissions. they plan on selling em in Mexico tho, so maybe we'll see some float up...
- potato3732842 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. Any OEM will happily sell you a white vinyl floor half ton with your preferred cab/bed/engine/drivetrain configuration. The GMC 4cyl 1500s were stupid cheap for awhile, because they shat out a bunch for CAFE and weren't selling so they were going for like 25-30k going into the new model year. I wanna say this was 2024 into 25, maybe 23 into 24, idk. Ford Maverick seems to fit the bill for compact stuff though I suspect it may make the goalposts zip to "single cab option" and "body on frame"
- a4isms 9mo agoLifestyle 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 agoIt'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 agoThe 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 agoYou 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.
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- potato3732842 9mo agoIt'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 agoMore 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 agoIf 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 agoI 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 agoNot 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 agoA *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 agoTragedy of the commons.
- miltonlost 9mo agoTragedy of not having better regulations. The commons don't have anything to do with it.
- Dylan16807 9mo agoSome 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 agoThis is a tragedy of an awful taste.
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- 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 agoHere'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 agoYou 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 agoI 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 agoIt'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 agoThat's basically the F150 or a rivian
- scottyah 9mo agoThat's... a very uneducated take, even according to those car's CEOs RJ and Jim.
- __loam 9mo agoNormal cars vs the fever dreams of a ketamine addict.
- scottyah 9mo agoAnd a lot of the best automotive+ engineers in the world.
- kyralis 9mo agoThat'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 agoHas 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 agoAnd 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 agoThere are 5x more households with trucks than households with boats, so this hardly explains it.
- bluGill 9mo agoThere are a lot more uses of a truck than towing a boat.
- astura 9mo agoUsually 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 agoI'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 agoGas 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 agoClass tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
- jeffbee 9mo agoBlending 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 agoI 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.
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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 agoI 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 agoI 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 agoBut Cybertruck has better vibes. /s
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- bpiroman 9mo agoCybertruck 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 agoI 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 agoBINGO: 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.