After Helene knocked out power in parts of my area for a little over 14 days, I found out that a friend of ours used his cybertruck to power his house through the entire mess. He'd run the house on it for a couple of days, then drive the cybertruck over to a super charger station, recharge, then come home and plug the house back in.
The battery capacity on those things is equivalent to 9 Tesla Powerwall units or something close to it.
They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story. Before, I always wanted to install powerwalls...but I never considered in an extended event being able to drive my powerwalls somewhere to recharge them.
rurp 1 hours ago [-]
This seems like an awfully niche case, no? How often does someone lose power at home for days, while also having a nearby and accessible charging station that stays functional the whole time? Most of the disasters I'm aware of people either get their power back in a short enough amount of time that they can use a normal generator for the gap, or things are bad and widespread enough that they aren't driving down the street to recharge their vehicle.
masklinn 1 hours ago [-]
Also very important: the cybertruck is not the only vehicle capable of doing that (the keywords are V2H and V2L, V2H is the more convenient — the car just plugs into the mains and acts as a house battery — while V2L means you have to go and plug your stuff to the car's mains outputs directly)
> Most of the disasters I'm aware of people either get their power back in a short enough amount of time that they can use a normal generator for the gap
TBF an EV car has an absolutely massive battery relative to the electric consumption of a house, unless you're using resistive heating all around. Especially if you ration use.
jayknight 30 minutes ago [-]
Here's Alex from Technology Connections testing powering things in his house from his Hyundai Ioniq 5.
Most people (like me) don't have generators. But when I hear "oh, BTW this car can be a used as a generator for 48-72 hours in a power outage", that's a nice little selling point that might put me over the edge if i'm otherwise considering the car. No, this doesn't solve for Hurricane Katrina. But it does solve for a nor'easter.
petcat 31 minutes ago [-]
My car is basically one big gas-powered generator that has the benefit of also not requiring a functional power station to refill itself.
It has other downsides, obviously. But the notion of "emergency power for your house" isn't really anything special.
aftbit 23 minutes ago [-]
It probably does though, unless you have stockpiled gas. If the power is down to the gas station, the pumps don't work.
My experience with power outages (after big summer storms, not a hurricane thank goodness) has been that my neighborhood is impacted, but that places nearby have power. They tend to restore commercial first, so the supercharger near me is up and running before my house.
sumeno 11 minutes ago [-]
If the power is down to the charging station the chargers don't work, this is just as likely as the power being down at the gas station
labcomputer 2 minutes ago [-]
Let me know when you figure out how to refill your gas car from solar panels.
xattt 9 minutes ago [-]
The Ford F150 Powerboost has an optional 7.2 kVA inverter, which I am not sure if there are any other vehicles that can do the same off a gas tank.
I am guessing that one of the use cases is a support unit to charge an EV just enough to get it to a charging station.
jubilanti 1 hours ago [-]
First, 'nearby' can be a 1 hr drive and still be worth it to commute every few days. Second, tornadoes, storms, and floods have exactly that pattern where damage can be block by block.
But it is still cheaper to stockpile some generators and gas than stockpile a cybertruck. If there's an EV charging station up within a 1 hr drive, gas stations are also going to be up.
tshaddox 56 minutes ago [-]
Even if you can’t easily recharge, it’s a great way to power your home for a few days. It’s arguably a very cost-efficient home backup solution, assuming you were already in the market for an EV.
A Cybertruck has nearly 10x the battery capacity of a single Powerwall, and to buy that much Powerwall capacity would cost at least as much as a Cybertruck. Even a Tesla Model 3 (which now supports home backup) is over 5x Powerwalls.
You still have to pay to install home backup support on your home’s breaker (at least $10k), but you don’t need anywhere near the amount of very expensive supplemental home batteries.
Also, even an EV with a 120V outlet and no home backup support could be very useful for recharging a portable battery bank.
deltoidmaximus 48 minutes ago [-]
Some one mentioned something similar about their Ford Lightning in a previous thread. If a whole truck with batteries cost less than the same bare batteries then people buying powerwalls are getting absolutely screwed.
tshaddox 17 minutes ago [-]
I’m not that familiar with the Powerwall ecosystem, but the equipment and installation that connects to your breaker is non-trivial. But I’ve seen people who add bulk OEM batteries to other home backup systems and those are fairly cheap.
Regardless, the thing that’s really great for cost effectiveness is that the same large battery can be used everyday for driving and also used rarely for emergency home backup systems.
nostrademons 14 minutes ago [-]
You want at least one actual PowerWall so that your house doesn't go down when you take your truck on an errand. But yeah, if you're buying 4+ PowerWalls you're probably better off getting an EV with V2H capabilities instead.
ralph84 14 minutes ago [-]
More like the people buying electric trucks got incredibly good deals, which is why the trucks are all going out of production.
FabCH 31 minutes ago [-]
The whole point of prepping is to prepare for the unlikely events though.
If you can choose between a truck that can’t power your house and a truck that can, prepper mentality is to choose the one that can.
arrowleaf 24 minutes ago [-]
With unlimited money, sure, but your typical prepper would be able to fund a decent portable gas generator and jerry cans (or even a natural gas line) without a need for financing.
jklowden 29 minutes ago [-]
Why does the prepper assume there will be electricity to charge his car?
lukan 3 minutes ago [-]
In case of living somewhere sunny, because he has solar installed?
CTDOCodebases 15 minutes ago [-]
There are a whole bunch of "Prepping" scenarios to prepare for.
alterom 24 minutes ago [-]
Because the "prepper" never had to deal with an actual disaster.
You can stockpile diesel for a generator (unlike electrons). That's what actual prepping looks like.
Take it from a Ukrainian.
wang_li 11 minutes ago [-]
Diesel just lengthens the storage time. You still have to go somewhere to get it when your onsite tank runs dry. For the electric side you could also have a bunch of solar panels. Lots of choices.
And if the needle is so far towards apocalypse, then the horse beats your diesel. Repairs itself, refuels itself, and replaces itself.
rglullis 4 minutes ago [-]
The ultimate preppers just become Amish.
grey-area 24 minutes ago [-]
The supercharger stations will obviously keep working during the apocalypse.
alterom 26 minutes ago [-]
If you can choose between a truck that becomes a dead weight when the nearby power plant comes offline, and a truck that won't, the prepper mentality is to choose the latter.
Take it from a Ukrainian.
PS: my dual-fuel gasoline/LPG Renault Twingo in Poland will outrun any Cybertruck on the continent.
And, unlike electricity, you can stockpile gasoline.
Brian_K_White 4 minutes ago [-]
Yeah but the chinese minerals and exotic infrastructure needed to manufacture the pails to carry it...
Toynbeeidea 16 minutes ago [-]
That sort of thing happens all the time. All it takes is, say, a big fallen tree in the wrong spot. Its entirely possible for just your road to be SOL for days, if the local utility is otherwise completely swamped by bigger issues from whatever disaster is going on.
JamesSwift 1 hours ago [-]
In places like Florida its absolutely something that would not be considered niche.
trimbo 1 hours ago [-]
> This seems like an awfully niche case, no?
Not really. Some areas in California have multiple PSPS outages during fire season. Many people have gotten gas generators or powerwalls to deal with it, but using your EV would be ideal.
Larrikin 49 minutes ago [-]
Why would that be ideal? I would be worried constantly about if I'm trading electricity in my house for the ability to go somewhere in an emergency. If it's such a real concern you even think about it when buying a car you should have a dedicated device.
Generators have solved this problem. My family used to lose electricity anytime there was a semi serious snow storm. We got a gasoline generator after the second time and it was always sufficient. We never needed to siphon gas from the car either. We later transitioned to a natural gas generator. The lines are all underground and tie into the existing system for the stove and dryer. No car involved.
arrowleaf 30 minutes ago [-]
First thing I thought of was if I had a gasoline generator, I'd probably invest the $5 or so into a hand siphon. You can even keep it running as you go to refill up your vehicle!
nonethewiser 54 minutes ago [-]
>This seems like an awfully niche case, no?
No. It's like a generator except way more power and mobile. Rechargable via solar. So basically just a much better generator.
drivingmenuts 44 minutes ago [-]
[flagged]
booty 36 minutes ago [-]
If you're already committed to owning a bigass $100K electric truck this is an inarguably awesome side benefit. It's a truck, so... you have a few hundred miles of range. Slightly better than "down the street."
But for the other 99.99% of humanity, there are certainly more cost-effective ways. A portable power station and solar panels are probably the better move unless you have some really massive power needs.
(Admittedly, a nuclear winter reduces the effectiveness of those solar panels somewhat)
nostrademons 15 minutes ago [-]
I've got a friend who does it simply to fuck PG&E and avoid an electric bill. He has workplace charging, a Cybertruck, and a powerwall + Tesla solar setup at home. He drives his truck to work, fills up on electricity, drives it home at the end of the day, and uses it to power his house. Repeat the next day. The Cybertruck was cheaper than the 13 PowerWalls or whatever that's the equivalent battery capacity.
RajT88 48 minutes ago [-]
Actually, if my car worked as a whole-house UPS and base smart battery (charging at night when power is cheap, drawing during day when it's expensive), that's a pretty nice value-add for a vehicle purchase.
Doesn't make sense for what they are charging for it. But still!
rgreasons 52 minutes ago [-]
Other commenters are pointing out places where it isn’t that niche, but I just want to call out that there’s a whole cottage industry for preppers that would eat this up. I would consider a 30-pound bucket full of shelf-stable Mac and cheese “pretty niche,” but it flew off the shelves at Costco.
xur17 22 minutes ago [-]
I'm not sure it is. I've considered getting home batteries for power outages (due to fires), and frankly given the install cost, using a car is compelling. Not only do they have enormous batteries (a model 3 has a 57.5 kwh battery and can be acquired for 20k), but they can be driven to recharge every few days if need be.
Where I'm located, in most cases when there is an outage, neighboring areas do have power.
Specifically for my model 3, I've been considering tapping into the HV system manually to keep my Ecoflow battery topped up, but I wish there was a way to directly connect it.
LadyCailin 1 hours ago [-]
I saw it happen during Katrina. Neighborhoods within an easy drive of each other where one had power, and the other not. Not to mention the fact that vehicle charging stations may well be prioritized to restore power.
It’s niche just because natural disasters are thankfully relatively rare, but I still think having good contingencies is worth it.
Fuck being seen in a cybertruck though.
cguess 42 minutes ago [-]
> Not to mention the fact that vehicle charging stations may well be prioritized to restore power
Electric vehicles won't, ever, be prioritized over bringing up residential, commercial and emergency services. The fact that even on a super charger it's 20+ minutes to charge a Cybertruck means the two or three at the local gas station will just end up with 12+ hour lines. Even now generators are fueled before private vehicles.
Bringing up power after disasters is super dangerous as is. A lot of systems that hadn't been turned off in years do a cold start, and sparks fly. It's why the power company and fire departments coordinate very very closely on grid work.
You know someone's going to try and bypass any safeties and circuit breakers and end up taking down their house when they try to restore power after a flood or something. People already regularly die from running their generator in the garage and most of these aren't wired directly into house mains.
qurren 21 minutes ago [-]
Actually no, and in fact almost all EVs are capable of powering a house for quite a while. It would be excellent if this was not just a Cybertruck-exclusive feature since here in the bay area we have shitty infrastructure too and power outages happen several times per winter.
runarberg 22 minutes ago [-]
An awful lot Elon’s products seem uniquely capable in extreme niche cases primarily caused by America‘s horrendous track record of maintaining, upgrading, and filling in traditional infrastructure.
mopsi 1 hours ago [-]
Even outside of natural disasters, it's a very useful feature for people in the construction business and similar fields where mains power might not be always available.
arrowleaf 28 minutes ago [-]
Thin line between gimmick and very useful considering powerful worksite gas generators exist for less than $5k
spaceywilly 2 hours ago [-]
Another way to view this is that driving a cybertruck every day is quite wasteful (no different than driving a full size gas pickup every day). One recharge cycle in a cybertruck uses enough energy to power a typical home for 8 days, 130kWh. If you aren’t doing truck things with it, it’s better to drive a more efficient EV or hybrid car. It uses almost twice as much Wh per mile compared to a model Y.
I think this is why these EV trucks don’t do well (ford also cancelled the F150 lightning). For truck things, they aren’t particularly capable (you’d get less than 100 miles towing). For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient. You can power your home during a storm from most EVs these days, you’d just have to top it up more often
dllu 2 hours ago [-]
Cybertruck uses like a fifth of the energy of a full size gas pickup truck and is only like 50% more than a typical smaller sized EV. The truth is that most homes don't use much energy apart from hvac. The Chevy Bolt can also power a home for several days if you only have the fridge and lights running.
jmb99 1 hours ago [-]
> Cybertruck uses like a fifth of the energy of a full size gas pickup truck
Yes, but the energy density of the energy storage mechanism in the cybertruck is substantially lower than a gas pickup truck
pseudosavant 41 minutes ago [-]
Yes, but a gas engine is so inefficient that it loses more than half of that energy to waste heat. But almost all of the electricity is converted into useful power in an EV. A 600hp Cybertruck will go 13 miles on $1 of electricity, but a 400hp F-150 can only go 4.5 miles for $1 of gas. 50% more power at 1/3rd the fuel cost is a pretty significant benefit.
Not a Cybertruck fan myself, but unless you are going to tow or take many long road trips, an EV truck will work great for anyone who can charge at home. And most people don't tow, or take long road trips, with their trucks.
thejazzman 1 hours ago [-]
And this matters why? It still fits in a garage and powered someone’s home for a week, while also being their vehicle. Stationary batteries couldn’t have driven themselves to the supercharger.
I am not a fan of the truck, but let’s make some sense here
jmb99 46 minutes ago [-]
No, but a stationary generator powered off a small volume of gasoline could have powered the house for the same amount of time, and then a gasoline powered car could've driven to the gas station to refill jerry cans. Both of which would cost substantially less than a cybertruck.
porphyra 42 minutes ago [-]
Yea but then you have to deal with gas which is nasty and stinky and noisy and polluting while having way less efficiency. A cybertruck charged with solar power is much more elegant and civilized.
jmb99 7 minutes ago [-]
A generator to power your house costs <$1k. A car that runs on gas costs <$5k, or if you want something that "matches" a cybertruck, ~$50k new. You can buy a lot of gasoline for those things before you get close to what a cybertruck costs. I don't care how "elegant" solar panels and a cybertruck might be if you're throwing money away to achieve it. (Ignoring that you can't both drive your truck and have your house powered from it simultaneously, and I don't think anyone in history has considered the cybertruck to be "elegant" - at least no one with eyes.)
2 hours ago [-]
jotux 45 minutes ago [-]
>For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient.
I have a lightning and it averages 0.5kwh/mile and my electricity price is $0.15/kwh, so it costs me $0.075/mile to drive. At current gas prices that's pretty much the same as a very efficient hybrid compact car (55mpg @ ~$4/gallon). If I had solar I could probably offset almost all of the lightning fuel cost based on where I live (sunny) but it's so cheap it's not worth it.
Do you mean "much more efficient" in places where electricity rates are significantly higher than the national average? Or only much more efficient when compared to when you're charging at charging stations?
bryanlarsen 2 hours ago [-]
Driving is wasteful. Cybertrucks and Prius's use similar amounts of energy per mile. Cybertruck is 0.4-0.5 kWh/mile, the Prius is 0.6-0.7 kWh/mile.
Of course the Prius Prime on electricity is way more efficient than both, but it still uses a lot more energy than a house.
pintxo 2 hours ago [-]
European units (`Energy/100km`) work nicely here, lots of EVs are around `20 kWh/100km`, and most residential housing around here consumes less than `20kWh/day`, actually averaging `20kWh/day` would probably cover a well insulated house including heating (heatpump).
Yes, driving, compared to living, uses ridiculous amounts of energy.
dllu 1 hours ago [-]
With dimensional analysis you can cancel it all the way out until it's just Newtons, which is actually just the average drag force times some efficiency multiplier.
jaggederest 1 hours ago [-]
Dimensional analysis is a superpower honestly. Even in a software engineering career it's saved me from massive issues quite routinely
I'm curious if you can elaborate further? Would that make the comparison clearer, or is it just a side-note on your part?
dllu 51 minutes ago [-]
Work (energy) is force times distance. Since we're talking about energy divided by distance, it's actually just average force.
Actually newtons are just a constant factor (3.6) compared to Wh per km, since there are 3600 seconds in a hour while there are 1000 watts in a kilowatt. For example 144 Wh/km (or 14.4 kWh/100 km) would simply be 518 N. This also means that pushing along a Tesla on the highway at constant speed is roughly as hard as holding a 50 kg weight, giving you an intuitive sense of how "hard" it is to keep things moving.
Of course, in everyday life, since we buy electricity from our utilities in kWh rather than joules, it's more convenient to talk about kWh per km (or per mile).
hamdingers 1 hours ago [-]
For comparison my cargo ebike, which is not particularly efficient, consumes about 30 Wh/mi (0.03kWh/mi) in medium assist while transporting an adult and two kids.
SequoiaHope 1 hours ago [-]
My road bike consumes energy bars! And fruit!
tga_d 29 minutes ago [-]
Surprisingly enough, this makes acoustic bikes less carbon efficient per unit distance than electric ones, depending on the details of your diet. Of course, once the emissions are that low, this is more a curiosity than actionable insight (beyond the typical "less meat/dairy = lower emissions").
What a coincidence, my cargo bike that regularly takes 50kg of cargo runs on the same stuff !
DonHopkins 58 minutes ago [-]
So you ride around town in a PacMan? Aren't ghosts a problem?
barbazoo 2 hours ago [-]
Are those numbers right? 0.4 kWh/mile is 24.85 kWh/100km compared to about 14 kWh/100km my Kia Niro EV uses.
bryanlarsen 1 hours ago [-]
Those numbers are saying that:
- the Cybertruck uses almost twice as much energy as your Niro EV
- the 40% efficient Prius uses about 2.5x as much energy as your 95% efficient Niro EV.
what seems off?
benatkin 1 hours ago [-]
Driving uses a lot of energy. It's wasteful if you aren't getting a good use out of it (of which just driving around to relax could me considered a good use, but of which some manager requiring RTO might not be).
huijzer 1 hours ago [-]
> Another way to view this is that driving a cybertruck every day is quite wasteful (no different than driving a full size gas pickup every day). One recharge cycle in a cybertruck uses enough energy to power a typical home for 8 days, 130kWh.
Driving in general uses a lot of energy. It’s the physically moving a 1,000 kg or more object that takes a lot of energy. Orders of magnitude more than a few lights or a phone. Same with flying of course; also moving a heavy object.
sanj 2 hours ago [-]
As someone towing every weekend with a Lightning, I get closer to 150mi.
ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing. People just don't seem to be able to factor it in.
porphyra 35 minutes ago [-]
The thing is that ICE vehicles are so inefficient to begin with, but a towed trailer needs the same amount of energy regardless of what is towing it.
Imagine a trailer takes 1 unit of energy to move, and ICE truck takes 5 units to move itself, and EV truck takes 1 unit to move itself.
The ICE truck towing it would go from 5 units to 6 units, reducing the range by 16%.
The EV truck would now go from 1 unit to 2 units, reducing the range by 50%.
So the better your efficiency, the worse you are at towing. Ideally EV trucks would have such a huge battery that even when the range is reduced by 50%, it is still as long as a gas truck's range, but modern battery technology is still too sucky to achieve this.
jmb99 1 hours ago [-]
Are they really that inefficient? My 94 Roadmaster sedan gets 14ish mpg towing 7000lbs at 60mph, which works out to a bit over 300 miles on a tank. I figured your average gas truck would do at least that well, and they have larger tanks.
dmtroyer 1 hours ago [-]
meanwhile, my impression is the whole poor towing narrative (while true) is a big part of what killed the ev truck when how many people use trucks in the way they could otherwise use a four-door sedan.
lightedman 32 minutes ago [-]
"ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing."
Not so sure about that one, boss. I can fully-load up a Ford Ranger to its 7500lb rated towing capacity and lose ~10% in fuel economy/range while you just dropped something like 30% (from the base power package range of ~240 miles, platinum package at 300 miles you're losing half if you only get 150 miles out.)
tarpitt 2 hours ago [-]
I own a pretty typical phev sedan (Gen 2. Volt), and I use more electricity on my 20 mile commute than the rest of my power usage combined.
All cars just use a ton of power moving a lot of mass. It is actually impressive, it's like 100KW at full tilt. I think i saw someone do the math for how much power transfer you would need to get EV charging as fast as gasoline refuelling: It's in the megawatts.
The only way you could signifigantly reduce power usage of vehicles is to reduce mass dramaticially with a motorcyle or autocycle. The Aptera is an interesting autocycle design based on this line of reasoning, but we are also seeing the emergence of a lot of electric motorcycles.
spaceywilly 1 hours ago [-]
Yep, having each individual person commuting in their own car is just not that efficient in general. Another data point that amazes me is the NYC subway uses 4-5 million kWh per day. Sounds like a lot until you realize that around 4 million people ride it every day, that’s about 1kWh, or maybe like 20 cents of electricity, per rider. A person commuting 35 miles in an EV would take about 10 kWh daily. They’re never going to beat the efficiency of public transportation.
Also regarding filling up an EV as fast as gasoline, there’s a company in China that has demonstrated charging from 20-80% in 5 minutes. They’re using 3MW charging.
It makes you realize why gasoline has been so popular for so long, you can stop for 5 minutes and dump 500 kWh of energy into your tank. Unfortunately most of that is wasted as heat during the combustion process.
tarpitt 56 minutes ago [-]
>Also regarding filling up an EV as fast as gasoline, there’s a company in China that has demonstrated charging from 20-80% in 5 minutes. They’re using 3MW charging.
Yeah that's the exact post I saw. I didn't believe the video at the time but I suppose it's possible with enough battery paralellism and cooling.
In addition to the Aptera, I think there's a potential market for the enclosed 2-wheel vehicles also like the MonoRacer. The aerodynamic efficiency gains of enclosed cabin motorcycles is huge and greatly improves range, especially at highway speeds. I'd like to see something similar at a lower price range and produced in greater volume.
If the underlying energy is coming from a renewable source, then it wouldn't matter all that much, would it?
mhluongo 2 hours ago [-]
Power still costs money.
tarpitt 2 hours ago [-]
Sure but even electrical power from natural gas or nuke plants is way cheaper than gasoline. Power plants employ massive economies of scale in generation. Even the cost of solar power has fallen dramaticially.
I think in general, a country trying to become industrious and eco-friendly by saving energy is like a person trying to become a millionaire by pinching pennies. Once you have optimized an economic system to eliminate the major cost centers, you're going to have extremely hard time improving it through further cost savings.
For example, If my expenditure roughly matches my income, I would need to eliminate 100% of my expenses just to make enough surplus to match doubling my income. Once I have managed the major cost centers (rent, insurance, etc.) it's not going to be worth my time to further optimize my expendature, the time would be better spent improving my income
For EVs, the fuel cost is already low. The next cost centers are like maintainance, tires, battery life. It would be better to attack these other cost centers or somehow pursue functionality that increases utility of the car.
nightbun 1 hours ago [-]
In summer time with a pool and AC, we use 100kw in one day
ToucanLoucan 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah the Silverado EV has my attention but it's the same issue: if you, like me, actually use your truck for truck shit, an electric truck is a substantial, notable downgrade from ICE.
That said if you have a Mall Crawler who's heaviest loads are your monthly Costco run, an electric truck would probably be great for you. I still wouldn't recommend a Cybertruck though.
tiohijazi 50 minutes ago [-]
Yeah, wasteful, like one day we will ever run out of energy lol
> Powershare allows you to draw power directly from your compatible Tesla vehicle to power your devices, your home or the grid.
> Powershare is currently available for all Cybertruck vehicles, and all new Model 3 and Model Y2 vehicles ordered on October 1, 2026 or later.
> To verify if your vehicle has Powershare, navigate to ‘Software’ > ‘Additional Vehicle Info’ > ‘Powershare Support: Enabled’ on your vehicle touchscreen.
thanhhaimai 3 hours ago [-]
I ran the fridges and essentials with my Ioniq 5 the last time there was an extended power loss.
I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.
jvanderbot 2 hours ago [-]
I have a Tesla Y. It has almost a week of power sitting in it on full charge.
There's no hookup. The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
Completely missed opportunity. I won't be buying an electric vehicle that doesn't allow powering my house, ever again.
mylies43 2 hours ago [-]
Doesnt powershare just work via the charging cable? It is a advertised feature of the Y
I think it's got V2H with lots of caveats (eg only on vehicles manufactured on or after October 1, 2026)
IrishTechie 1 hours ago [-]
Have an older Model Y too. It’s a real bummer that Tesla decided to give up being the bleeding edge tech company. No V2L/V2H, no Apple CarPlay, no longer range leaders in their category (though still cheapest per km range).
darknavi 2 hours ago [-]
> There's no hookup. The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
We have a 12v port that we can get ~200W out of, so that could power our internet.
But I agree, a real joke to have 150KwH (two EVs) in my garage and no way to even plug in a fridge.
V2H/V2L is a must have in my next EV.
xg15 2 hours ago [-]
> The only power outlet is usb-c pd.
Don't give the USB consortium any ideas...
burntpineapple 2 hours ago [-]
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mikestew 2 hours ago [-]
I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.
As soon as we got the adapter for our Ioniq 5, I sold generator to a neighbor. The car will run what we need for four days, which is longer than the generator and five gallon can of gas is going to last.
1) if you're permanently modifying your home or electric panel you're over $1k. (General Motors "Vehicle2House" is ~$10-20k for hardware + installation... an EXTREME investment unless you plan on regular "emergency" usage of it)
2) if you're buying some portable solar panel "battery boom box" you'll likely run out and the folding solar panel it comes with is more gimmick than reliable
3) if you're buying a "real" gas/diesel generator, you have to run it + change the oil every 6 months otherwise it might not start in your emergency situation
...just buy a thing that clips to your car battery and dangles out the front hood of your car!
You already maintain your car every 3-9 months, you already (should) have at least 1/2 tank of gas at all times (especially in a weather / outage situation), you can generally idle your car for at least 2 days off a tank of gas in an emergency, and if this thing can charge your phone/battery packs, keep your fridge running (kindof?), and run a small space heater overnight...
It makes soooo much more sense to buy a $500-$1000 emergency accessory that piggybacks off the car you already maintain than trying to stand up a whole extra distribution mechanism for "survival-ish power, maybe 1-2 times over 3-4 years".
barbazoo 2 hours ago [-]
If you have an electric car that supports V2H.
Despite the dealer saying the used one I bought supported it, it turned out to not be available in the trim I got. My fault obviously for believing something a car dealer said.
QuantumNomad_ 1 hours ago [-]
This thread is first time I hear about V2H. (I don’t have any car yet, electric or otherwise.)
It sounds amazing. Only thing I wonder if it can even be set up so that it will be like an Uninterruptible Power Supply. So that when there is a blackout, the V2H supplies all the power without any interruption.
I have several computers but no UPS yet. Imagine if I could buy an electric car and when I am not using it, my car is UPS for my whole house including my computers! :D
masklinn 1 hours ago [-]
> It sounds amazing. Only thing I wonder if it can even be set up so that it will be like an Uninterruptible Power Supply. So that when there is a blackout, the V2H supplies all the power without any interruption.
That's the point of V2H (or a residential battery, which it emulates). Although you still want a UPS for computers. Although "without any interruption" is probably not at the scale of a UPS, and possibly not at the scale a desktop computer will require. So you'd still want UPSes for that. Notably it depends how the grids cuts off, if it cuts off in one shot (like throwing the breaker) the failover should be almost instantaneous, but if it fluctuates before failing the battery might need a lot longer to engage.
masklinn 1 hours ago [-]
V2L will also do the trick, although it's more annoying.
If power loss is a regular event you probably want V2H, but if it's just a remote fear or something that happens once every 5~10 then V2L and a few extension cords will do.
senderista 3 minutes ago [-]
If you need to worry about such extended outages, why not just do the normal thing and install propane tanks, a stationary generator, and a transfer switch?
epistasis 1 hours ago [-]
This is nothing specific to the CyberTruck; 123 kWh is a lot of battery but a better use would be to add home solar and then you're completely self-sufficient in addition to saving tons of money.
Of course there are two issues that are completely solveable if we had reasonable governance:
1. Adopting an Australia-style solar installation regulation and permitting scheme, which is literally 1/5th tho cost of the US method, and pays their tradespeolpe higher salaries than US workers get
2. Allowing EVs to feed back into the grid. This is something that naysayers would never be useful because nobody would ever want to waste battery cycles on their home. Which of course has always been nonsense. Don't buy EVs without this basic capability, IMHO.
brightball 46 minutes ago [-]
I’ve looked at solar so many times and I’d love to get it…I just can’t make the math work based on the quotes I always end up getting.
epistasis 3 minutes ago [-]
That's entirely due to the US scheme, where utilities have ensured that it won't make sense nearly everywhere. Which is then combined with the asinine permitting situation in the US, where every city and county does something on their own without any order or sense.
This combines to ensure that any solar installer will do lots of very expensive things: 1) have a large sales force to close the sale, which last I looked accounted for 30%-40% of the overall cost of solar in the US, 2) roll out trucks many different times during the planning and install, each costing lots of money, 3) never have to compete with a bunch of other hyper-competitive installers and find efficiencies like batching installs together in the same general area.
There are also massively high solar PV tariffs in the US, more than tripling the cost of the panels, but that's not even that big compared to the rest of the needless inefficiency in the system.
bsimpson 2 hours ago [-]
I camped in a yurt in rural Maine last fall on a motorbiking trip. Needed to keep my phone charged for nav; woke up to find it hadn't charged all the way.
Went looking for the campground host and bumped into another camper, who was pissed the power went out. "Don't worry though - if you need to charge something, you can put it in my truck."
Ended up on a phone charging expedition that landed me in a local library for the first time since I was a child.
Came back and met the host: "Sorry about the power last night - some dumbass tried to charge his truck and tripped the breaker to the whole campground."
josephcsible 1 hours ago [-]
If pulling 24 amps through a TT-30 or 40 amps through a 14-50 trips a breaker, then it's the host's fault for the campground having a shoddy electrical system, not the truck driver's fault.
arrowleaf 20 minutes ago [-]
Lol in what world? Campgrounds routinely have next to no funding, if they even have power pedestals I wouldn't expect them to be wired for anything more than an RV.
mikestew 2 hours ago [-]
Charging a truck does that? What's that campground going to do with someone plugs in their 50A 43 foot-long tour bus RV?
(I'm sure there's more to the story, and the details aren't important, but if charging a vehicle is tripping breakers for the whole campground there's something wrong.)
mcculley 1 hours ago [-]
“yurt in rural Maine” did not convey RV glamping to me.
mikestew 1 hours ago [-]
Yeah, probably not your typical campground, now that you mention that detail. Still, something seems off, but here I go down a rabbit hole that isn't important to the original comment.
throw0101c 10 minutes ago [-]
> Before, I always wanted to install powerwalls...but I never considered in an extended event being able to drive my powerwalls somewhere to recharge them.
Depending on how much you want to power, there are 'rollable' battery packs that you can plug into a transfer switch. They can be recharged with (foldable) solar panels or a traditional generators (perhaps on cans of propane, which does not go bad like petrol can).
muddi900 1 hours ago [-]
The now defunct fully electric Ford F150 Lightning also had the feature.
This is a pretty common feature in High capacity cars.
Even my mid-range BYD came with power strip attachment so you run basic electrical appliance with it.
brightball 48 minutes ago [-]
Yea, I hate that the Lightning didn’t work out. I loved the vehicle when I test drove it. I just couldn’t justify the price for the range.
segfaultex 19 minutes ago [-]
They're a great used buy. I get ~315 miles out of mine with mostly highway driving. Paid $45K for a platinum.
muddi900 38 minutes ago [-]
All American car makers did not take lessons from Tesla's successes. It seems not even Tesla
whyenot 13 minutes ago [-]
The F150 hybrid is/was also supposed to be really good for this, and when the battery ran down, the engine would switch on and recharge it. So, you were not dependent on a super charger. All you needed is a working gas station. (This is based on an old video from Alex on Autos). So, you could buy a vehicle that is both cheaper and doesn't look like a dumpster and still be able to do this.
maerF0x0 3 hours ago [-]
There are cheaper, more reliable, and easily repaired generators though.
victorbojica 3 hours ago [-]
But can they also be driven?
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
You can drive a $30K car and have a $10K backup power system.
An $80K-100K car that replaces the two isn't some genius purchase.
Sure you can spend all the money you want on a luxury toy, nothing wrong with it, but it's weird trying to justify it as anything but that.
epistasis 51 minutes ago [-]
That $30k car could be an EV, too, and be part of the backup power system.
In Australia, $10k would buy not only a ton of solar panels but also batteries. The US has decided to make solar and batteries at the home super expensive, unnecessarily.
jvanderbot 2 hours ago [-]
What you've shown is that there is a crossover where a gas car + generator beats an electric car.
That doesn't mean electric cars shouldn't be considered as power backup, or that buying a nice electric car vs a nice gas car doesn't come with the added benefit of "Don't need a 10k generator anymore".
mirmor23 2 hours ago [-]
> That doesn't mean electric cars shouldn't be considered as power backup, or that buying a nice electric car vs a nice gas car doesn't come with the added benefit of "Don't need a 10k generator anymore".
From redundancy perspective, a genset + car is hands down a better combo. A functional ICE car is cheaper and goes everywhere without any trip planning around charging stations, which is another plus.
cloverich 2 hours ago [-]
If cost is your only factor yes. But the vast majority of people pick cars they like, and EV's are great. No need to dog on them needlessly. The trip planning thing is super overblown. Now 2 years into my first EV, going to a charger that's not my house _at all_ is quite rare - couple times a year; even when I travel Portland to Seattle, I don't have to stop on the way such that outside Olympia, I don't even know where the charge stations are. And that's the worst it'll ever be.
mirmor23 1 hours ago [-]
> and EV's are great. No need to dog on them needlessly. The trip planning thing is super overblown.
I never said EV is not great and it is nice that it is working out for you, but facts are facts. Also, while EV footprint is growing around the globe, there is wide vast world beyond USA where charging issue is still true (and the repair shops).
cguess 25 minutes ago [-]
There's a vast world in the US where charging is still an issue. I live in an apartment in a major city with no garage or parking lot, so owning an EV would be very difficult, since there's no way to charge residentially. Or if you're on call, in a rural area, where charging at home might not leave you with enough charge to drive across the county without notice.
jvanderbot 1 hours ago [-]
I mean presenting one set of tradeoffs just shows that there are tradeoffs.
If you're looking at two $55,000 cars, and one has power interconnect and one does not, it's not like adding a $1000-$10,000 generator on top is somehow immediately better unless you're adding in factors that make it better (like buying a cheaper car). There's 3 or 4 superchargers within a few miles of my house, and every time I've lost power I could easily go charge my car so I never worried about that.
Not everyone lives in that situation or has the same "one or two days without local power but chargers still work" threat model. It just so happens that's been the biggest actual, real, problem that my car could have fixed for me.
alala-lala-lon 2 hours ago [-]
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Grombobulous 2 hours ago [-]
An Ioniq 5 is not a $80-100k car, though. The difference in cost between it and an equivalent gas car is less than $10k.
cloverich 2 hours ago [-]
Carmax has used 2025 SEL Ioniq 5's with 10-15k miles for 33k; that's practically new. Other than the ICCU issue, probably the best electric deal rn? 84kwh battery, I've can drive it Portland to Seattle on 2/3 of a charge.
jmb99 49 minutes ago [-]
My generator was $1000 and can power my entire house (including server rack). If I bought it used it would’ve been $500. I can trivially store 2 weeks worth of gasoline (and I do, constantly) and as long as somewhere within 700km of my house has gasoline I can get there, refill, and get home. I own 6 gas cars and they total less than $33k. My daily I paid $2500 for and average 6L/100km. (All CAD) If you start taking used cars into account the math goes waaaaaay towards gasoline car + generator.
dd8601fn 25 minutes ago [-]
Out of curiosity, what do you normally do about the gasoline? I ask because I had a crappy little generator, and it seemed like my most common issue was old gas in the thing. Wasn’t a big deal or anything, just curious… stabil and run them regularly whether you need it or not?
jmb99 10 minutes ago [-]
Fortunately there's a couple (literally 2) gas stations near me that sell ethanol-free 91 octane gas, which has a shelf life of ~1 year. Sta-bil in theory extends that substantially longer. My solution is Sta-bil in the E0 gas, which gets used throughout the year for small engines (lawn mower, snowblower, pressure washer) and the generator if needed. I power up the generator once a month to make sure its battery stays charged and fuel keeps flowing (probably overkill). My power goes out 2-3 times a year, so that combined with the small engine stuff is enough to cycle through the gas in ~1 year, but if it isn't, I'll either burn it in the generator or just run it in one of my cars.
If you live in an area where you can only get ethanol gas, then you definitely don't want it sitting more than 6 months, even with Sta-bil (in my experience). So that means yeah, you gotta cycle through the generator's tank twice a year, which if you live in an area with reliable power, means spending more money than you need to on gas and oil. Also, keep all containers (including fuel tanks) as full as possible, to minimize the amount of air in the container, to minimize the amount of moisture the ethanol can suck out of the air.
paimapi 2 hours ago [-]
The cost of my 2015 Subaru Forester is apparently around 7k. A gas powered generator is 2-3k (and can be refilled with quick trips to the nearest usable gas station) and you can also pair it with a solar-powered one with panels for 3k.
That puts the total setup price to about 10% of a CT-Energy station.
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
That’s a used car that’s more than halfway through the median lifespan of a vehicle.
We could start comparing used EVs if we want to.
paimapi 1 hours ago [-]
And I could buy a hybrid that's only a few years old for 20k? I mean, it's still a magnitude less than the CT which is what I'm responding to. The idea that the CT miraculously saved a certain family from disaster and was thus worth the 100k investment is just silly.
DubiousPusher 2 hours ago [-]
I have a champion tri-fuel that cost < $1k which runs essentially my whole house. It's plumbed into my natural gas so as long as that is up (it has never gone out), I don't even have to refill it.
thijson 2 hours ago [-]
I read somewhere that it's a big deal if a natural gas network runs out of gas because then air can get into the system. That can lead to explosions, so they have to systematically purge the entire network.
marcosdumay 39 minutes ago [-]
You an drive almost every EV that has that feature too.
Or rather, you can take half of the difference in price and install some proper PV + battery system in your house that can be used when there's isn't a catastrophe too.
danans 2 hours ago [-]
No, but because they can't be driven, your house stays powered when someone goes for a drive.
80fj0348i 3 hours ago [-]
Yes. Many electric cars and trucks have this feature.
trial3 3 hours ago [-]
you're inventing the alternator from first principles
slowin 3 hours ago [-]
No, that's what my car is for. You can't drive your cybertruck when it's running your refrigerator. Wrong tool for the job.
bluGill 2 hours ago [-]
It is an emergency. I'll compromise in an emergency. My fridge can sit unpowered for a couple hours while I'm driving, and that is all I need to drive anyway.
If there is a major outage most bosses understand that you won't be working normally because you need to deal with the emergency.
alala-lala-lon 2 hours ago [-]
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jmb99 43 minutes ago [-]
The amount of money you spent on a cybertruck could’ve instead been spent on a generator, gasoline for the generator, and a car to go buy gasoline for the generator. Or, battery packs & solar panels, and a generator, and gasoline for the generator, and a car to go buy gasoline for the generator. That car could even be an EV, just a much more efficient one.
bluGill 13 minutes ago [-]
I don't think anyone buys a cybertruck for this ability. But if you have one this is a nice bonus and the additions too use it this was are less than a generator
win311fwg 2 hours ago [-]
The power being delivered on wheels that go with you is the whole point. A permanently affixed generator doesn't help get power out into the middle of the field when I need to do things like weld farm equipment. There are plenty of solutions out there, but the power source and truck carrying the tools being one and the same would be quite attractive if the aforementioned problems were solved.
bob1029 2 hours ago [-]
> the middle of the field when I need to do things like weld farm equipment
There is an entire genre of welding equipment designed for this scenario.
Exactly why the power source being the truck I already own anyway is far more appealing, at least it would be if the aforementioned problems were solved. Special tools come with special costs that don't really make sense most of the time.
deadbabe 2 hours ago [-]
What if they also made the cybertruck capable of refrigeration.
chadash 2 hours ago [-]
This is obviously not the primary reason to get a Telsa. But a full home generator will run you $15k to buy and install where i live, and a whole bunch of hassle to install with permits. I don't have one because my power doesn't go out that much. But if i'm otherwise on the fence about a vehicle, I would absolutely want this as a feature.
MrDOS 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe a generator sized to run a regular home in perpetuity, but I bet it's much, much less than that to have an electrician install a GenerLink and to buy a regular portable generator just powerful enough to run your fridge and freezer.
hedora 2 hours ago [-]
In our area, when a storm hit, the roads washed out, so the generators ran out of propane. Then the local propane companies ran out of delivery truck capacity because of the demand surge. Finally, the regional distributors ran out of propane.
Our solar panels kept the fridge running, but we were heating the house with a wood stove (it was very cloudy, so we were getting maybe an hour of sun a day). If we had bidirectional house charging, we could have had warm showers + used the heat pump: We would have been able to fast-charge the car at 100-200kw in town. The house can limp through 20-30 hours on ~ 25kwh, so the charger would charge the house at a few days per hour, including losses from driving to and from town + round tripping through the battery, and also running the house heat pump.
None of the other people around here stayed online. Some propane-dependent people had no electricity for > 2 weeks (with rationing, they managed to keep their generators online for about a week, and PG&E took three weeks to fix their lines).
This was in the outskirts of Silicon Valley, so better-than-puerto-rico infrastructure, but only just.
ryandrake 43 minutes ago [-]
This is a total failure/incompetence of multiple utility institutions that we all pay for and depend on. An electric company that does not have the capacity to respond quickly to natural disasters and propane delivery infrastructure that doesn't have the reserves to weather such an event. Even a day without electricity should be unacceptable in a modern, functional society. How do we tolerate 2 weeks? I bet the CEOs of these companies are not going without electricity for 2 weeks.
We are far away from, but slowly approaching, Mad Max levels of institutional failure, and everyone seems to treat it as normal and unavoidable.
mikestew 2 hours ago [-]
You forgot "higher maintenance" that goes along with seldom-used things that run on gas. That gas doesn't drain itself, and if you don't do that, well, Amazon has carbs for Honda generators for $30. For something I might use once a year. No, thanks.
pton_xd 5 minutes ago [-]
I think this is one of the coolest features of owning an EV. Everyone saying you should buy a 20 year old Camry and a diesel generator are completely missing the point. I want to drive a new luxury EV. And I'm not interested in storing gas cans to run a noisy polluting generator. I also live somewhere that loses power for a few hours to a few days per year. A solar setup would be great but is way too expensive. Tapping into the giant batteries on the car is almost a perfect solution.
I really wish my Model Y had the V2H support... my next car definitely will.
ta2112 32 minutes ago [-]
Huh. That's pretty cool! Now I'm wondering about the potential to do this with any EV. Something to research.
kube-system 3 hours ago [-]
Ford had EV trucks that could do that before Tesla did.
NathanielK 2 hours ago [-]
The ford home integration setup never really worked as advertised. The idea is that if the home power fails, the truck will output high voltage DC to an inverter that powers the house. No owners have got this failing over reliably.
Most people just plug an extension cord into the onboard inverter. You have to manually flip it on and plug it in, but 240V30A is plenty for an emergency. Doing it this way isn't any different from any other vehicle with an onboard inverter though.
pocksuppet 2 hours ago [-]
It's completely illegal unless your home has a "transfer switch" (manual or automatic) installed for this purpose - and if you're plugged into the generator side of a transfer switch, then you can't charge the truck, only discharge it. There are probably modules designed for solar power that allow two-way transfer safely.
On the other hand there are no tricky rules for an electric truck to have extra power outlets in it.
pythonaut_16 16 minutes ago [-]
I'd expect a lot of people might just use extension cords and plug critical devices directly into the truck.
NathanielK 55 minutes ago [-]
Bingo. Unsurprisingly, the ford system is basically an off the shelf solar system minus the panels and with a very tiny battery to kickstart the system.
thesuitonym 1 hours ago [-]
Do cybertrucks work any differently?
NathanielK 56 minutes ago [-]
I believe they use the vehicle's onboard inverter rather than an external one.
kendkwncowncn 3 hours ago [-]
No one is saying they can’t. Drop the whataboutism, please.
samdixon 2 hours ago [-]
The whole GP is irrelevant to the article regardless. Point being, what does it matter that the cybertruck has this feature when it's a not unique and b irrelevant to why it failed.
The whole comment comes across as an AI agent that is lacking severe human context by posting a complete non-sequitur, regardless if it is actually an agent or not.
brightball 43 minutes ago [-]
It was an article about the end of the Cybertruck. It’s my one story about a Cybertruck so I thought I’d share.
First time I’ve been compared to an AI agent.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
Do they now?
dragontamer 3 hours ago [-]
I know its been a few years, but the Cybertruck has been an epic disaster.
Cybertruck was announced first. Then Ford _released_ the F150 Lightning, including the ability to operate as a backup battery for a house. And a dozen or so months later, Cybertruck comes out at a much higher price than F150 Lightning ever was.
kamranjon 2 hours ago [-]
I think they might be commenting on the fact that the f150 lightning has been cancelled for some time now
brightball 41 minutes ago [-]
The price point on the Cybertruck and the Lightning were comparable, particularly if you price based on range.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
> the Cybertruck has been an epic disaster
As has the F150 lightning. It lost so much money and demand was so low that Ford had to kill it to stop bleeding money.
1 hours ago [-]
overfeed 2 hours ago [-]
> They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story
If all you're after is the V2L feature, you can get it for much cheaper: for 16% of the price of a Cybertruck, you can get 86% of the battery capacity (about 8 powerwalls) by buying a used Fisker Ocean Extreme with a 107kWh battery, vs. the cybertruck's 123kWh
39 minutes ago [-]
tonmoy 2 hours ago [-]
If that’s the only thing you care about you can DIY (or buy dedicated battery backup systems) with 10x more capacity for the same price. With heavier but cheaper Na-ion batteries in the horizon near future backup systems will be even better
wmchen 57 minutes ago [-]
I believe this but I'm curious how this works specifically? Did the home already have a transfer switch of some kind?
dogscatstrees 60 minutes ago [-]
The Ford F-150 Lightning has always been able to do that, way before the Tesla cars enabled vehicle-to-load (V2L).
2 hours ago [-]
jethro_tell 31 seconds ago [-]
A cyber truck as a prepper rig is laughable. EV's do a lot of things well, but if it's a prepper rig, you'd need to have a generator and the fuel set aside to charge it. You can't assume that there will be power near by. If there is power, you can't assume that you will have access to one of the relatively few chargers available.
You can get a generator that will get the job done for under 1000 bucks and you can store diesel or propane to get the job done.
That's before we factor in the likelyhood needing to travel quite a distance (and assume there is no access to grid power), and that you won't have any of the cybertruck defeating issues like heavy rains or standing water that might void it's warranty and fry it's electronics.
A prepper rig is a mechanical diesel that can be roll started or hand cranked without batteries, has no electronics to get fried except the radio, and can burn almost any combustible fuel source on hand. Slap a 200 Gallon transfer tank on the back and keep it full and you can drive across the country without fueling up. And if you also have that diesel generator to power your house, you've got a years worth of fuel for that generator.
You can get all that done for around 25k USD, so, not sure how a cyber truck even enters the conversation.
jonhohle 3 hours ago [-]
Many EVs can do the same thing.
It’s unclear to me how a vehicle battery can be 9-10x the size of a house battery, be used as a house battery, include an highway safe cabin, motors and wheels and only cost 4x what a single home battery costs. Oh, and at least Kia rates their battery warranty based on miles driven, so using it as a home battery does not impact any 10-year capacity guarantees.
AI tells me they are completely different though, so I must be missing something.
cogman10 2 hours ago [-]
What you are missing is home batteries have INSANE markups.
5kWh of battery cells at the moment run around $500. The rest of the cost of production is in the power electronics (probably around another $500).
It's why you can buy 4kwh worth of battery backups from Amazon for about $2k right now. Yet the same thing sold as a home battery backup costs $5k.
Lack of competition and likely low amount of sells is what's causing the margins to be so high.
hedora 2 hours ago [-]
Permitting in California more than doubles the installation cost of home batteries + PG&E gets to screw with you if you buy one.
Propane generators here have the same problem.
That still doesn't explain the price gap. You can literally just get a V2H EV and use it instead of a home battery (or, you could if the ecosystem was more mature).
pocksuppet 2 hours ago [-]
If it's wired to the grid I presume. So if it's just for emergencies, don't wire it to the grid.
twoWhlsGud 3 hours ago [-]
Good question - different markets with different margins and supply chains?
3 hours ago [-]
horsawlarway 3 hours ago [-]
The answer is mostly that the powerwall is an incredibly overpriced home battery.
They want ~9k for a freaking 13.5kwh pack.
I can buy a UL certified, 16kwh, outdoor rated pack for 3.5k (ex - EG4 allweather)
Powerwall is a scammy product. WAY too expensive for the storage it provides.
---
So the summary is: Cybertruck is using a different battery chemistry, Powerwall is a scam.
(I mean - to be clear, the Cybertruck is also a scam, but it's a different kind of scam not directly related to the battery capacity, since it's hauling around a 123kWh NCMA battery pack)
cogman10 2 hours ago [-]
Wasn't aware of EG4 on the market now. Good. So many of the older home backup producers have ridiculous markups on their batteries.
TheSockStealer 3 hours ago [-]
I think "recycling" cybertrucks in this manner, basically to reuse their batteries, may give them a more practical afterlife then when they were a truck.
TheSockStealer 3 hours ago [-]
I just checked and prices are going to have to come way down. Who is buying a 2024 Cybertruck for $70k+?
annoyingnoob 3 hours ago [-]
Try an F150 Lightning with the Extended Battery
Topfi 2 hours ago [-]
Very few, I would imagine. Pricing is just divorced from reality (as in, the point where you'd be able to successfully sell one in a reasonable amount of time), the "I know what I have" stubbornness that is pervasive among a certain type of seller to their own detriment. Pure speculation, but I wouldn't be surprised if this specific car basically self selects for that type of person.
Counterpoint: I live off-grid and am thankful I can just power my house with batteries instead of a massive car that looks like a Dumpster
bko 1 hours ago [-]
It's a cool car. I'm glad it exists. All SUVs look almost identical. I'm glad it was different, not for everyone but it was an attempt to make something innovative in a very stale market.
It's exhausting reading these kinds of articles from a tech publication none the less. It's just so negative. Here is a summary of paragraphs:
Cybertruck is ceasing production
Here's a mean tweet from some X account with 2,649 followers: "Fuck that shitbox"
This is a feature on many new electric vehicles (such as the Kia EV 9). The obstacle is often the power company, which may require modifying your system to enable this.
27183 3 hours ago [-]
Generally a propane generator is a wiser, more reliable backup option. Propane doesn't go bad, and in disaster scenarios often the sun isn't shining or your solar panels could be damaged. Solar + battery is a good system when the weather is good and everything is going well, but for a fallback system a propane generator can't be beat.
mrj 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, this is where I landed, too. Except propane bottles only get me about 3-4 hours per bottle and it's pricey. It ran $50 for one day of AC during the last outage.
I just bought a kit to convert to natural gas though. Most people who've done it are happy to not change bottles all the time. It won't help after an earthquake but the regular PSPS outages I get make natural gas a better fit for the moment.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
Not everyone lives somewhere with natural gas service, and gas service could also go out in some types of disasters.
It’s possible to get larger propane tanks and refill them more cheaply (rather than exchanging expensive grill tanks at the store). Some hardware stores will refill tanks directly. You can even get very large tanks (refilled by a truck that comes to your house) if you want weeks of power on tap. But this is probably overkill for most, unless you’re very remote.
mrj 2 hours ago [-]
I tried that but services want regular deliveries and aren't interested in refilling emergency tanks. And a tank large enough for decent power backup will be hard to move.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
Ah, ok. They make auto-change regulators that allow you to hook up two tanks, and two 30-60lb cylinders should last quite a while. But if you have natural gas service and aren’t in an earthquake or hurricane zone then that’s probably better.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
Im not sure AC is the sort of thing most people are thinking about needing power for in an emergency or disaster scenario, its one of the most power hungry things you can use.
jermaustin1 2 hours ago [-]
As a person in the deep south where summer temps are over 100F and RH is in the 80s, having a generator powered window unit in our smallest room is more necessary than even the fridge. Thankfully the window units only pull 400-500w or so, so even a small dual-fuel running propane would run all day on a 20lb tank.
This is a common enough occurrence in rural Louisiana, at least. And I think almost everyone I know has a 200gal or larger propane tank in their yard, specifically for multiday outages. My father-in-law doesn't have a single propane appliance, but he does have a 250gal tank, for his generac.
We don't we have a single 100lb tank, but that will run the little AC for 3 or 4 days.
mrj 2 hours ago [-]
During the last outage my neighbor had to leave his house because of the temperature. He had a generator running for days (off of the natural gas line) so I thought he was fine, but his old AC wouldn't start so he texted me as he was leaving to stay at a hotel.
This is important enough to me that I researched slow start AC units ~8 years ago when replacing my AC. I learned that almost any heat pump will do, so that's what I have.
80fj0348i 2 hours ago [-]
In large areas of the US if your AC goes out during the summer you can be dead within a day or two. There's many deaths of elderly people annually when their AC failed and they didn't have the mobility to leave for a cooling center before they passed out.
Thats crazy to me. I would never live in an area where electric power is required just to exist and not die.
ifwinterco 1 hours ago [-]
It's not so much the temperature per se, it's the fact modern houses are designed around AC and American houses in particular are basically giant wooden garden sheds.
In a traditional house with thick brick/stone walls and large roof overhangs you'd be uncomfortable but a lot less likely to die
2 hours ago [-]
1 hours ago [-]
kevin42 2 hours ago [-]
I'm running an EG4 system with a decent amount of battery storage. I have a generator port on it that makes it easy to plug in a portable generator to assist the PV and charge the battery. It's really easy for me to roll my generator over and run it a few hours a day to supplement the solar. Even a cheap 5kW generator is plenty because it doesn't need to power the house, just provide a continuous charge to the batteries.
Scene_Cast2 3 hours ago [-]
I'm looking into getting a large EV so I can move off of a propane generator. A generator needs service, it will cut power for 5-10 seconds while it starts up (so your PCs and whatnot will power cycle), and it's loud.
scarecrowbob 2 hours ago [-]
I live off grid and only have solar because it was cheaper than the wire.
Also, I built it myself so the labor costs aren't included but I am about $8k into a system (4kw of panels, 6kw inverter, 15kwH battery).
I personally wouldn't be able to make vehicle cheaper than having no grid tie. I get that the costs are different once you include labor. Also I am on 40acres so the panel set could be ground mounted.
But to make something commensurable with a propane home-powering generator seems a lot more do-able.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
Always a good idea to have a UPS, even if you don’t have a generator, to protect your home computers from transient outages, power flickers, or grid voltage fluctuations.
jmull 3 hours ago [-]
Won't an EV have maintenance costs too? And cost a lot more than a propane generator? And take time to switch over to supply electricity to your house?
The quiter part makes sense, but there are a lot more practical solutions to that too.
IncreasePosts 2 hours ago [-]
You (probably) need a car any way. So the choice isn't between an EV or a propane generator - it's between an EV, or (propane generator and a car). With V2H and something like a power wall or other battery backup, when the power goes out you would still have a few hours at normal usage where you can go and plug your car in.
chasd00 2 hours ago [-]
Wouldn’t a diesel or gasoline generator be better? You can carry both in a bucket found on the side of the road which isn’t possible with propane.
AshleyGrant 2 hours ago [-]
A diesel generator would definitely be better on paper, but the costs involved are much higher as those are generally a permanent install. A gasoline generator requires much more maintenance around fuel and the carburetor as gasoline goes bad over time and modern gas/petrol with ethanol in it sucks up water from the air. A propane generator, while it is a bit more annoying to refuel, especially if you upgrade to larger tanks, is perfectly happy to sit for 6-12 months unused and then start right up on the tank of fuel that's been sitting next to it for that time period.
A propane generator is a temporary solution but likely is good enough for most folks who just need to keep the fridge cold and maybe charge cell phones. It's not going to be able to run your house AC or anything, though.
BIGFOOT_EXISTS 1 hours ago [-]
Very cool story! Love hearing neat use cases like this.
tarpitt 2 hours ago [-]
I would like to see more vehicle-to-grid capability out of cars, EVs, Hybrids, and Gas Cars alike.
sanj 2 hours ago [-]
My F150 Lightning has an even bigger battery pack in it... and a simple 240V outlet.
random3 1 hours ago [-]
I powered the house off a much less fancier 4XE Jeep, which has a generator, and so, arguably more versatile as you don't need spend time charging.
skizm 3 hours ago [-]
Can you do this with other normal EVs? I assume they'd have lower capacity, but just getting some power for your fridge, wifi, and chargers might be worth.
alistairSH 3 hours ago [-]
In theory, yes, but they need to have the hardware/firmware to do it. Pretty sure most of the full-size electric trucks do so, but not sure about any of the smaller crossover EVs.
You also need to have the house setup to run off a generator. You don't want the truck power feeding back into the grid. IIRC, that's usually done with a big switch near the main panel.
largbae 3 hours ago [-]
No, you can't even do it with most other Teslas. Current models will give you 20A of 120V out from the battery, but most don't have an inverter big enough.
There is a model of Ford Lightning that has power sharing and now that resale values are way down it just might be a cost effective home battery that you can drive around during non-emergencies....
NathanielK 2 hours ago [-]
The power sharing in the lightning requires a discontinued home charger and several thousand in extra inverters and other home infrastructure to do the power share trick.
You can also just plug into the 30A240V bed plug and use the onboard inverter on the lightning or powerboost hybrid f150 with less headache.
Bilal_io 1 hours ago [-]
You can do it with multiple EVs. The KIA EV9 is one of them.
3 hours ago [-]
doctoboggan 3 hours ago [-]
Sort of. With my Kia EV9 I can use a V2L adapter to run an extension cord for essential items in my home. I understand in other markets there is a V2H connector so you can connect it to your home mains power but I don’t think it’s available in the US
Bilal_io 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, I used mine in July 2024 to power my fridge and a couple of items when I lost power in Texas. Unfortunately the V2H requires a setup that I don't have.
2 hours ago [-]
cyberax 41 minutes ago [-]
In theory, it requires ONLY firmware changes. V2G/V2H works by establishing a "fast charging session" that directly connects the inverter to the high-voltage bus. And then it just siphons off the energy from the battery instead of charging it.
Car makers are reluctant to support this. In case of Tesla because of market segmentation.
IncreasePosts 2 hours ago [-]
Vehicle to Home(V2H) is unfortunately not super common, but it is being added to a lot of newer models this year and beyond.
bob1029 3 hours ago [-]
What are the chances that the supercharger station even has power after a hurricane? You want something that is already on the property. I've had roads blocked by fallen trees for days after a windstorm event.
If you are concerned about riding through a 14 day+ event you need a generator. Even a fully off-grid solar / wind setup could be compromised in these kinds of storms. I've seen entire roofs cleaned off by a <100mph storm. Anything not bolted down to a concrete slab cannot be depended on.
nashashmi 3 hours ago [-]
High. They typically need heavy power lines that are either underground or way up overhead.
2 hours ago [-]
jackmott42 1 hours ago [-]
Other EVs can do this.
You don't need one that ended up being twice the price and half the range and not an actual steel exoskeleton as promised.
nonethewiser 56 minutes ago [-]
>The battery capacity on those things is equivalent to 9 Tesla Powerwall units or something close to it.
What the fuck
avgDev 1 hours ago [-]
Or you know you could buy a $8k natural gas generator, seems like a really poor justification to buy such an expensive car.
apercu 2 hours ago [-]
You can get a lot of backup power for less than 100k.
napierzaza 38 minutes ago [-]
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crawshaw 52 minutes ago [-]
There are a lot of lenses through which to view the failure of the cybertruck: aesthetics, not enough truck not enough SUV, size, association of aesthetics with politics, etc. But I think the main one that is ignored is price.
The cybertruck was built in an era of high truck prices driven by zero interest rates. It bet on the price of trucks going up, just as the Ford F150 electric did. That was the wrong bet.
If it was a $40,000 truck, it would have a much bigger market despite all the other explanations of its failure. The market moved under it.
gffrd 37 minutes ago [-]
The average price paid for a full-size truck in the US is north of $65,000.
I think another big one was the time from announcement to release.
When it was announced, for those who wanted an electric truck, it was going to be the only game in town. By the time Tesla delivered, there were several options already on the road from various companies. The people who really wanted an electric truck were already happy customers of another company by the time the cybertruck shipped. I see a fair number of Rivian, F-150 Lightning, and Hummer EVs around me.
When it comes to price, I expect to see a lot of Slate trucks once it starts shipping, with its low price.
maxlin 18 minutes ago [-]
It didn't fail, more than Model S did, which saw the same fate.
It certainly did not "fail" on aesthetics. Few people would not take note of it, and it wasn't overly impractical. Some people hated DeLorean too, which just made it even more popular as well ...
layout 6 minutes ago [-]
> It didn't fail
Tesla forecasted selling 250,000 trucks per year by 2025
Actual sales
2024 - 38,965
2025 - 20,237
2026 to date - 11,586
This includes trucks that have been “sold” to other Musk companies.
This product was a complete failure, making the Ford Edsel look like a roaring success
empath75 6 minutes ago [-]
> Some people hated DeLorean too, which just made it even more popular as well ..
They sold 9,000 DeLorean's _total_. It was a punchline in Back to the Future, it wasn't seen as cool at all.
echelon 29 minutes ago [-]
I like the aesthetics a lot. It recalls the DeLorean, which is one of my favorite automotive designs.
But the cost is steep when I'm more in the market for an SUV or offroading vehicle than a truck. Not to mention that the extent to which Musk and Tesla are intertwined with politics is really not an easy sell for me.
Eji1700 20 minutes ago [-]
Yeah I'm another who actually likes the rough idea of the aesthetics.
A sedan built by another company with similar aesthetics without completely ignoring...well basically everything from safety to build quality, would probably be on my potential list.
specialist 2 minutes ago [-]
Yes and:
Tesla scaled up CyberTruck production before finding product market fit.
IMHO, CyberTruck would have been a modest hit if first production run was 100. Treat CyberTruck like Roadster. A niche vehicle for a niche market. Grant enthusiasts the earliest access to the best technology.
I honestly thought that was the plan.
It would have been the cheapest, fastest way for Tesla to de-risk all of the innovations used in CyberTrucks. Major stuff that Tesla's could gracefully, incrementally add to their other models.
Especially for the Robocab (neé Model 2). Design and production of the CyberTruck was a saavy precursor to all the things Robocab needs to be successful (eg cost savings, serviceability).
Oh well. What do I know? Musk is a trillionaire and I am not, so clearly not much.
conductr 3 hours ago [-]
From my perspective, owning a truck and SUV and using them differently for various use cases, the cybertruck is neither. So even if I ignore everything else I feel about it’s aesthetic, Musk, politics, etc. It simply does not serve many real world needs that I have. It put itself in a very narrow box of, only people that really like this quirky design and also like/feel indifferent to the tangential stuff will want to buy this truck. Oh, also you have to be able to afford it too. This is such a small addressable market for a vehicle to target. Was never going to work.
However, it provided content and distraction and kept the stock high longer than it should have and I feel like that’s what Musk continues to excel at.
JKCalhoun 2 hours ago [-]
I found out the same with pickup trucks generally.
I got one, years ago. The bed was not large enough to readily hold full sheets of plywood (the minivan I owned before could hold full sheets!). And yet, the truck was long such that parking, maneuvering in parking lots, etc, was a pain in the ass (here the minivan was about tied with the truck).
So sucked as a regular errand-car, sucked for hauling sheet goods.
(Sold it during the tail of Covid when used car prices were skyrocketing for whatever reason. Never again.)
jvanderbot 1 hours ago [-]
Nailed it. I considered buying a truck for years, but the minivan has everything I want out of a vehicle. I'm so glad we got one. It's strictly better for hauling dimensional or ply, strictly better for long road trips, for gas mileage, etc. It even tows more than my jeep did, but not as much as a full size pickup. and it has a really nice reconfigurable roof rack, so adding a trip carrier on top is simple. Add to that the optional bench in back, the built in vacuum, the built in TV + entertainment, the full length moonroof, on and on.
It's a luxury vehicle that beats SUVs hands down, and most functions of urban trucks as well.
It just gets soccer mom vibes, so it's not $120,000
nonethewiser 48 minutes ago [-]
>It just gets soccer mom vibes, so it's not $120,000
The vehicle with soccer mom vibes may fit your use case better but that doesn't explain the cost difference. Mini vans are cheaper to manufacture. The frame, axles, brakes, engines, towing, payload hardware etc. are all lighter duty.
eqvinox 16 minutes ago [-]
> The frame, axles, brakes, engines, towing, payload hardware etc. are all lighter duty.
I have 2 questions about this:
* are you actually, really, sure? (Is this hard data?)
* does it matter when it's never going to go off-road and rarely strained (e.g. for towing)?
matwood 9 minutes ago [-]
Yes it's lighter duty parts. If you don't haul or tow, then there's no need for a truck.
ex-aws-dude 1 hours ago [-]
It totally depends on your use case
One of the reasons I love a pickup is that it separates the cargo from the interior
A lot of times I have oil/gas/chemicals/something dirty in the bed which I would not want in the cabin space
Also it depends do you care about height of cargo or not?
For example a minivan can fit plywood but not a dirt bike
dschep 4 minutes ago [-]
> It just gets soccer mom vibes, so it's not $120,000
I always find such arguments comical. Have you seen soccer moms? They all drive huge SUVs. SUVs = soccer mom vibes!
matwood 12 minutes ago [-]
> The bed was not large enough to readily hold full sheets of plywood
Many trucks are sold as not much more than vehicles to haul around some plants. But, what I would consider 'real' trucks tend to have 8' beds. My old Toyota Tundra was great at towing, had an 8' bed and was generally an all around great vehicle. It was long, but it was meant to be.
TheElectronaut 1 hours ago [-]
I'm not a car guy, buy there's a car podcast I really like where the host often tells people that even though they think they want a truck or an SUV, they probably need a minivan or a station wagon.
Sports cars are for the track, trucks are for hauling, and most drivers don't need either.
gavinsyancey 40 minutes ago [-]
Are there any station wagons made for the North American market anymore?
deathanatos 10 minutes ago [-]
Would a hatchback such as a Subaru Impreza qualify? Two rows of seats, rear storage area that isn't a trunk/has windows into it.
eszed 38 minutes ago [-]
> Sports cars are for the track, trucks are for hauling
I wish I could show you the photo of my Mazda Miata with six 12' 2x6s hanging out the back. :-)
nonethewiser 42 minutes ago [-]
Does he really respond with "you need" to people saying "I want?" That sounds insufferable.
If someone says "I need a truck or suv" then I understand saying "you may not need one." But someone saying they want one then someone else explaining what they need is just condescending.
solyin 31 minutes ago [-]
> Sports cars are for the track, trucks are for hauling
Someone hasn't seen not the Dakar Rally, but the support trucks class for it. The rally cars need support. Replacement tires, suspension parts, engines. How do they get them? A fleet of support vehicles doing the same course. So then they made that a race as well. The Dakar Rally Truck edition features heavy vehicles weighing over 3,500 kg (7,716 lb) T4/5 racing across 8000km/5000 miles of sand, rocks, and desert.
dmix 2 hours ago [-]
The Ford F-150 Lightning also failed and it was a full truck. It similarly was way too expensive, both for consumer and Ford, and had some issues with towing (range).
I had a friend who 'preordered' to get Cybertruck and he couldn't justify the price which was $140k CAD, so he bought a new Chevy pickup truck instead for $70-80k CAD.
AshleyGrant 2 hours ago [-]
I think a lot of the F-150s failure comes down to dealers. You can read myriad stories in the EV subreddits of dealers putting "market adjustments" on the Lightning and Mach-E of tens of thousands of dollars. It was if they didn't want them to sell, and I think we all know why (lower revenue from regular maintenance like oil changes and other fluids).
giarc 2 hours ago [-]
I have a buddy that has worked for corporate auto companies for 20 years. In most cities, dealerships make little to no money on the initial sale as competition has driven them down to dealer pricing. They make all their money on add ons (undercoating, paint protection), financing kick backs, warranties, and ongoing maintenance (this being the largest chunk). So there's probably a lot of truth to what you are saying.
cogman10 47 minutes ago [-]
Couple that with the fact that these were sold at a $20-$30k premium over a regular ICE truck and the fact that you not only couldn't get these at MSRP, but you had to spend an extra $10k on top and.. yeah...
I think F150 was the right vehicle but the wrong price point.
conductr 2 hours ago [-]
That’s a hard comparison point though when the ICE F-150 was the perfect substitute it was competing against. To me, that mostly proves that people didn’t want to go electric or pay the premium for it. The F150 design itself, does fit the bill as a truck doing what a truck needs to do.
I also bought a new Chevy truck recently for less than $40k USD, mid tier trim. Other trucks can be very affordable. The trim and budget options are quite wide. Tesla was never going to get to that as it requires volume.
dmix 2 hours ago [-]
There's also the dynamic of how many people buy pickup trucks who don't actually need full trucks. I'm not sure how much better Cybertruck would have sold if it actually performed better as one given the price (or more so if the Youtube reviewers gave it more appeal as a real truck to people who dont need one).
There's also a big market for luxury SUVs. But you could buy a nice BMW SUV for nearly half the price. So it was really just competing with higher end SUVs.
Which is why I believe it was mostly a price issue, not that there isn't a market for such a hybrid (half SUV / pretend truck) concept.
hedora 2 hours ago [-]
We have a lightning specifically because we need a full sized truck. Our RAM ICE's cargo capacity was barely over 1000 lbs (BMW i3: 800 lbs). The Ford EV's capacity is 2250lbs.
Also, the RAM's transmission overheated on gentle slopes.
The slate looks great (more cargo weight capacity than our full sized RAM ICE truck; half the price, much lower fuel costs, much more convenient to own).
If their second model is 250 class, we'd probably buy it. The Lightning can only tow 10,000lbs, so it's not great at hauling rock, etc -- it can do it, but only ~2.5 tons per load when you add in the weight of the trailer. This means we have to keep paying $100's to delivery services.
It'd be nice if that hypothetical 250 slate seated 5-6 people too. That'd let it be a backup kid hauler, like the lightning is. The lightning has more bells and whistles, but the aesthetics of the slate are much better, and I like the idea of just buying an aftermarket radio that does not integrate in with the power train.
Of course, if we didn't need a truck, we'd get a Rivian R1S/T. They're great for camping, etc, and what most people want when they buy a pickup truck as a family car.
HTTP418 1 hours ago [-]
No idea why it "failed" or was discontinued. From what i remember there was a huge waitlist to get one. I know lots of people that wanted on. It looked amazing IMO. I dont think it was a demand issue that caused it to be canceled
MOARDONGZPLZ 38 minutes ago [-]
To be fair, if the waitlist length was to be believed, they were made when the vehicle was advertised with substantially better capabilities at substantially lower costs. A lot of people cancelled reservations when the actual specs were announced.
hedora 2 hours ago [-]
The Lightning didn't really fail. It was the best selling EV pickup in the US by a large margin.
I think it was killed for political reasons: They repurposed the plant for AI datacenter batteries. I predict we'll have EV pickup trucks again if the 2028 election looks like the 2026 election.
Anyway, my next full sized pickup will also be a pure EV. If I can't get a Ford, then I'll get something else. (The lightning is far better at truck stuff than our late model GMC and Ram trucks were. Maybe I can get a truck from China + register in Mexico? Is that a thing?)
The new Lightning has a useless serial hybrid setup and gets 700 miles of range (who needs that?). I suspect it'll end up being like other serial hybrids, and an option to omit the gas engine will be available, and also substantially lower the price (or enable a larger battery). In the meantime, they'll tell Trump that he managed to kill EV pickup trucks.
apercu 2 hours ago [-]
I don't know, seems like there was a lot of demand for the Lightning, still not sure why Ford canned it.
If:
Fuel economy regulations had not been suspended and the electric vehicle credits hadn't expired I'll bet there would still be a Lightning.
Unlike the CyberTrash. The question (to me) is did Ford make a semi-rational short-term financial decision at the expense of its future competitiveness?
paxy 4 hours ago [-]
- Federal EV tax credits are over.
- The emissions credit market (where Tesla made most of its money) is dead due to lowered standards.
- Manufacturing costs haven't come down.
- EV sales share in the US is down to 6% (and falling every quarter).
- Chinese EVs are dominating every market outside the US.
- All the overhyped moonshots (sub-$30K car, unsupervised autopilot, autonomous robots) are nowhere to be seen.
It's hard to see where Tesla goes from here as a company. The stock is still surviving on Elon hype but has been stagnant for 5 years. The day he gets bored and decides to resign to focus on SpaceX full time the company is basically done.
epistasis 3 hours ago [-]
> EV sales share in the US is down to 6% (and falling every quarter).
It's not every quarter, but it's steady and that spells absolute disaster for US car manufacturers:
US car companies have been protected and bailed out too many times and are now not only completely uncompetitive on the global market, but set up to be completely demolished as EVs take over.
Their bad leadership and overall inefficiency mean that either investors are going to pay a massive price, or US consumers are going to pay a massive price. If we keep on pushing up consumer costs by propping up bad manufacturers with protectionism and bail outs, the US's entire economy is drug down by that.
There needs to be some creative destruction, ruthless culling of the least efficient manufacturers, so that their best workers can go to the better manufacturers, if the US is ever going to be a top tier car manufacturer again.
I hadn't followed just how bad US manufacturers were failing at EVs the past two years, what with all the other disasters unfolding, thanks for the wake up call. Two years of wasted time, of the US falling even farther behind... such a massive fail and yet not the most massive.
j2i3jl23ij4 1 hours ago [-]
I hate to see it and I hate to say it, but the last time I was in Europe there were A LOT more giant american vehicles, at least outside of city centers. I really hope this SUV plague doesn't go global.
Danox 3 hours ago [-]
One state makes up over a third of all EV sold in the country EV’s have a way to go in the United States. Hybrids seem to be doing a lot better in recent times.
California accounts for roughly 35% of all U.S. EV sales, though some estimates put its share near 40%.
epistasis 2 hours ago [-]
That's certainly a way to view the data, but it's a way that ignores the trajectory of the technology and sets up The Big Three for complete failure.
The Big Three have not figured out how to make compelling EVs, without a doubt, but it's not the technology that's the problem, it's the leadership's product choices and failure of implementation.
Meaning that the entire industry will be pushed farther and farther behind in the race, only to be completely disrupted.
This will happen far slower than the transition from Palm to iOS-style phones, because the lifetime of cars is far longer than phones and are far larger investments, but the trend is inevitable. EVs are superior on so many different fronts that there's ~0 chance that gas and diesel engines persist except for a tiny fraction of future market share.
US manufacturers are trying to delay the transition as long as possible, which only ensures their own doom.
double0jimb0 1 hours ago [-]
It's not just the Big Three, it's a boat anchor of the Big Three + Tier 1/2/3 suppliers. Tesla probably most vertically integrated of any, therefor most likely able to survive a major pivot.
toomuchtodo 2 hours ago [-]
California is the world’s fourth largest economy, so this tracks. Whether or not flyover country gets EVs is immaterial to the overall US situation. They can pay forward curve petrol prices if they so choose (“freedom!”), or find a suitable EV if that is a more suitable choice for their needs, unless federal policy returns to assist with purchasing. I am hopeful, concerning recent regime change, that federal EV incentives come back to enable folks to buy affordable EVs (because we should be optimizing for affordable zero emission mobility for all, imho), but only time will tell.
Wyoming‘s population of 600k people is less than one percent of total US population, for example. Californians buy about half that number of EVs per year (~300k-400k).
lesuorac 3 hours ago [-]
> Two years of wasted time
Try two generations. I think it was obvious since the oil shocks that fossil fuels were not a good bedrock of the economy.
pjc50 3 hours ago [-]
It's interesting to try to work out what the civ-style "dependency tree" of viable electric cars has been. It requires at the bare minimum high energy density light batteries, which were a spinoff of the cellphone revolution. As well as high efficiency digital power control, which while not impossible in 1970 would have been larger and heavier without modern SiC semiconductors.
Solar panels are an even more remarkable example of compounding a thousand different 1% improvements.
mrguyorama 1 hours ago [-]
>Solar panels are an even more remarkable example of compounding a thousand different 1% improvements.
But they aren't really. In terms of efficiency, a 2x increase is a lot yes but the thing that has finally made them really viable is simply the cost dropping like a rock.
I don't care if I have to buy 2x as many solar panels when they cost as much as a fence post.
That cost reduction was entirely investment into production capacity. None of that couldn't have been accomplished decades ago.
That's the saddest part. If we had been adults in the 70s, we could already be done the green revolution basically. We could have seriously prevented global warming.
But a bunch of idiots rejected that and instead voted for people who doubled down on fucking up the middle east and burning liquids.
epistasis 53 minutes ago [-]
I interpreted the "1% improvements" to be exactly that effect of cost dropping like a rock (economic efficiency), not about the energy conversion efficiency.
PV entrepreneurs are the real heroes of the climate movement, IMHO. They figured out markets that would have enough demand to push forward with developing the tech. Germany's government is a major hero too, they pushed the tech forward so far at a crucial time. Then China took up the mantle.
Both supply and demand need to build together for the industry to grow. Government subsidies played a huge role in accelerating this, and will have paid for themselves so many times over. We're going to live in a world of super-cheap technology thanks to the modest tax-cut-based investments of governments the world over.
It does suck that so many powerful people were against the obvious-in-retrospect good idea of solar PV, but I'd love to focus on all the heroes that pushed through anyway and made it happen. They deserve a lot of thanks!
epistasis 3 hours ago [-]
Well, perhaps, but the time for the followers in the field to push on EV manufacturing capability has been the past 5-10 years. And the US majors are all followers, not leaders. About two years ago they all put out press releases saying "we are not seeing EV sales so we are pulling back on manufacturing" meaning "we couldn't figure it out and are scared so we are abandoning our future."
With the strangle hold that these industries have on getting the government to bail them out, we are in a really bad position on the national level. We have let bad politics and weak management override good economic decision making.
tromp 3 hours ago [-]
> - Chinese EVs are dominating every market outside the US.
Not so in Europe, where the top 10 EVs sold in 2025 [1] has not a single Chinese car.
I see sources saying BYD sold 187,657 vehicles in Europe in 2025, and MG sold 307,812. Interesting.
Your source only says:
“Top 5 best-selling EV brands in Europe in 2025
Volkswagen – 274.417 (+56%)
Tesla – 238.765 (-27%)
BMW – 193.186 (+15%)
Skoda – 172.100 (+117%)
Audi – 153.848 (+51%)”
muddi900 1 hours ago [-]
How long until they are devoured by the Chinese? Geely already owns Volvo.
lossolo 47 minutes ago [-]
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pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
I think they have a future as a "normal" car company, but in order to do that they'd have to manage to deliver a new "normal car" model at some point, and accept normal stock prices.
That EV market share direction in the US, though .. really bad compared to non-petrostates (except Norway)
mbreese 3 hours ago [-]
They’ve never been a normal car company. And that’s the problem.
They don’t do a good job at the car company part. They make nice cars, but the company part has issues. Quick example… I was very happy to drive a model 3 for many years. But the constant changes in price of their new cars destroyed any resale value mine had. Every time Tesla was having a bad quarter, the value of my car dropped. That’s not the way to get me to buy another one.
There are certainly other areas where they could improve too. But my point being - they’ve never been all that good at (or interested in) what it takes to drive long term success in selling cars. It’s just too long of a time horizon for them.
sergiotapia 1 hours ago [-]
I never understood why people care about "resale value" of a car. I buy a car to drive it until it's done. I don't buy a gaming PC and worry about resale value, or a polo, or sneakers, or a nice mop. I buy stuff to use it.
bunderbunder 58 minutes ago [-]
I don’t know that you have to agree with typical consumer behavior to accept it as a reality, though. And resale value does matter to people who don’t drive cars into the ground, because trade-in value affects your purchasing power when you do decide to get a new one.
And even if you do keep cars indefinitely, it can still be an important consideration because it affects how things work out when you need to make an insurance claim. It means your car is both more likely to be declared a total loss and more likely to be worth less than what you still owe for it when it does get totaled.
solyin 45 minutes ago [-]
Because if you desperately need cash, you can trade in the $80,000 luxury suv for a $20,000 subcompact, and use that cash to pay rent and for food. It's a depreciating asset and sometimes a money sink, sure, but if you live somewhere you need a car anyway, some people choose the more expensive ones.
nutjob2 59 minutes ago [-]
For a lot of people cars are less a way to get from point A to point B and more of a status symbol, so they like to drive a new or at least newer car.
Personally I'm with you. I love my car because its exactly enough car for my needs. I bought it new (in 2016) and I never want to sell it. I'd get so much less (or more to the point I can't buy a new car) for the same money I spent on it.
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
The problem is that transition would require a ~95% drop in stock price, and the company isn't going to survive that.
GM - $74.5B market cap (6.2M cars sold annually)
Ford - $50.2B (4.6M)
Volkswagen - $40B (9M)
BYD - $100B (4.6M)
Toyota - $256B (11.3M)
Hyundai - $57B (7.3M)
Tesla - $1.4T (1.6M)
The numbers simply don't add up.
pjc50 3 hours ago [-]
A stock drop does not in and of itself kill a company which has positive cashflow, although it may give the executives heart attacks and leave it vulnerable to takeover.
marcosdumay 28 minutes ago [-]
If the company keeps the startup structure of paying employees in stock options and growing by VC money into the several billions value, yes a stock drop can kill it in and of itself.
Choad_20261104 3 hours ago [-]
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nutjob2 55 minutes ago [-]
Telsa/Musk is a cult of personality. SpaceX's valuation makes no sense either.
On that basis if Musk overdoses on ketamine or something then 95% devaluation may well happen.
Steltek 3 hours ago [-]
Oooh, normal cars. Now there's a concept. Can we get a real EV minivan? Not a gimmick like the Buzz. I've got kids and go on long road trips to visit family. Seats, cargo capacity, range, and 800V charging speed.
Closest thing is like the Ioniq 9 but the cargo space really sucks.
For a polished product that ticks all the boxes, I would pay a premium for this.
From what I've heard, the autopilot is very good and getting better. It is hard to distinguish the haters from the hype.
afavour 50 minutes ago [-]
I’ve heard the same but I think the question is “is autopilot worth basing your entire car purchase around it?” and “will competitors be able to replicate Tesla’s success?”.
If autopilot is basically the only thing Tesla has going for it then they’ve got a risky path ahead of them.
afavour 49 minutes ago [-]
I’d say Tesla’s charging network remains a very strong suit for them. Problem is it’s nowhere near strong enough to justify their current valuation. But we’ve been saying this for years and the stock price still stays irrationally high.
idlewords 1 hours ago [-]
It's more likely he'll merge Tesla with SpaceX.
bunderbunder 3 hours ago [-]
It’s slightly amazing how persistent the Elon hype is. Quite a few of those problems are at least partially due to own goals that Musk himself has been scoring.
I realize that some of it is just a cult of personality, and that part will be unusually sticky because of things like cognitive dissonance. But that can’t be all of it. My next best guess is a bunch of it is a whole bunch of institutional investors are privately thinking these companies are way too risky, but keep it to themselves because it’s not their money they’re putting on the line and taking a contrarian position would risk angering a presumably vocal subset of clients of unknown size. Which isn’t a great way to make yourself popular with your boss.
brightball 3 hours ago [-]
If he had delivered Neuralink alone, the hype would be valid. Doing that...plus SpaceX, Tesla, Boring, etc.
The biggest knock on him is that he says something will happen at a certain time and then it comes later. Even the sub-$30k EV. Cybercabs cost < $30k.
archagon 2 hours ago [-]
No, the biggest knock against him is how he caused hundreds of thousands of people in the third world to die from sudden cutoff of food and medicine. This will never be forgiven or forgotten.
brightball 46 seconds ago [-]
That did not happen…
misiti3780 1 hours ago [-]
Trump did that, not Elon. The president is the only one with the power to cut that aid. Sure, he was the "face" of it but Trump signed the EOs
afavour 46 minutes ago [-]
Elon proposed it and implemented it. Yes, Trump signed off on it but by that logic no one in the Trump administration is guilty of anything other than Trump himself, which we all know is not true.
UltraSane 22 minutes ago [-]
Elon actually bragged about destroying USAID on Twitter.
"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead."
This is the richest man in the world being GLEEFUL abut destroying an organization that helps the poorest people in the world. Musk is basically Ebenezer Scrooge.
In an interview when asked about it he insisted their was vast amounts of fraud in USAID.
They are running a fleet of taxis around the Bay Area. It's kind of scary because they aren't that safe, given the lack of LIDAR. But they are doing it anyway.
paxy 4 hours ago [-]
They all have someone behind the wheel. Tesla doesn't have a driverless permit in the Bay Area.
jedberg 4 hours ago [-]
Yes, they have safety drivers for now, but they are still running them as an autonomous fleet.
And also, they are driving fully autonomous in Texas and Florida.
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
> for now
So let me guess, fully unsupervised self driving is rolling out "next year" right?
jvwww 1 hours ago [-]
In the Bay Area they have human supervisors but in Austin they are autonomous.
Is there data to suggest they are unsafe in Austin - as in less safe than a human?
timy2shoes 31 minutes ago [-]
They're working hard to not release any of their safety data, unlike all the other autonomous car companies.
brightball 3 hours ago [-]
What makes you say they aren't safe? The numbers say they are about 4-6x safer than a car with a human driver.
torginus 3 hours ago [-]
Photogrammetry + AI has developed to the degree, that there are 3D scanning apps on iPhone that don't even use the Lidar when available, so you can certainly make do without and get comparable results.
arjie 4 hours ago [-]
I don’t see why it’s scary. Most cars on the road have a driver and no LIDAR. The cybercab is no different.
dozerly 4 hours ago [-]
For now, their goal is to have no driver and no lidar. That is what said the commenter is scared of.
jedberg 4 hours ago [-]
They intend to take the driver out, and they are already running them without a driver in Texas and Florida.
Thank goodness we definitely know we can trust the data in that link /s
ngomezdev 4 hours ago [-]
There’s a severe lack of focus and the only endgame that still makes sense to me for Tesla is basically turning into a cab service like Waymo. Perhaps you own the car perhaps not.
small_model 4 hours ago [-]
Hundreds of Cybercabs are driving around cities right now with no steering wheel or pedal making money and growing 20% a week, Model Y is the best selling car (of any type) in the planet. European sales are going through the roof, they are doubling production.
Cybertruck was a mistake but rest of the business is printing cash hand over fist.
pjc50 3 hours ago [-]
> European sales are going through the roof
A side effect of Trump's war with Iran is that every country which doesn't have sufficient domestic oil production, which is most countries especially in Europe, has accelerated their EV transition. Buyers are grabbing every EV they can get their hands on, and yes Tesla are the leader there.
"Tesla (TSLA.O), led the UK BEV market year-to-date, with registrations up 25.4% from a year earlier and a 9.53% market share
South Korea's Kia (000270.KS), and China's BYD (002594.SZ), continued to compete for second place, with market shares of 6.9% and 6.8%, respectively"
And that's when ranked by manufacturer, which is only slightly less arbitrary than by model as auto groups just use it for market segmentation. If you rank them as groups (e.g. VW group), then Tesla isn't even in the top 5.
esalman 2 hours ago [-]
If something is growing 20% a week, it should see more than 1,000,000% growth after 1 year. I call bullshit on this one.
tzs 3 hours ago [-]
> Model Y is the best selling car (of any type) in the planet.
Depends on the year. It and the RAV4 switch places now and then.
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
It's also a meaningless metric because most manufacturers sell multiple models of the same type. Toyota has Corolla, Prius, Camry, Crown, Mirai, Ativ, Century, Belta - all small-mid sized sedans. Add them up and they outsell every Tesla model put together.
BYD has 61 different models in its lineup compared to Tesla's 2.
Choad_20261104 3 hours ago [-]
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culi 2 hours ago [-]
> European sales are going through the roof, they are doubling production.
Only when compared to their recent record lows... the broader trend is still downwards. This is disingenuous. They are losing ground to other manufacturers in Europe
Also the Teslas that Europe is buying are made in China not the US.
The countries where EVs are increasing the most are those that have access to Chinese EVs.
thinkcontext 19 minutes ago [-]
> Also the Teslas that Europe is buying are made in China not the US.
They are primarily from Germany. There are some imports from China but they are subject to tariffs.
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
Not sure what numbers you are looking at but Tesla vehicle sales peaked in 2023 and have been falling every year since then. The "sales going through the roof" narrative exists on Twitter, not their balance sheet.
tw04 3 hours ago [-]
> Hundreds of Cybercabs are driving around cities right now with no steering wheel or pedal making money and growing 20% a week
Huh? The cybercab with no steering wheel is only operating in Austin, in tiny premapped areas. There are 45 registered in Texas, and they have only been operating since September.
This isn’t Twitter, you’re generally expected to at least attempt to provide factual information here.
“Printing money hand over fist” is an interesting way to frame the dramatic drop in their margin on every vehicle sold.
vel0city 1 hours ago [-]
I've seen the golden Cybercabs rolling around in DFW. Not sure if they're actually accepting fares or not. I know they offer services with a Model Y operating "autonomously", I know in the past they had chaser cars monitoring but I've heard they've stopped that these days.
joquarky 1 hours ago [-]
Poe's Law is still in effect. You have to add an /s at the end.
boznz 4 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
chinathrow 4 hours ago [-]
He'll just fold Tesla into SpaceX to cover up the ashes.
rawgabbit 4 hours ago [-]
This is the most realistic scenario. Hide the stock losses by folding it into SpaceX. Dare the US government to nationalize it. Walk away a “business martyr”.
nunez 2 hours ago [-]
Federal EV tax credits are over partly by Elon's hand. Masterclass level foot-gunning.
thinkcontext 25 minutes ago [-]
And subsidies in California, which he hates, are responsible for an outsized part of sales.
mandeepj 4 hours ago [-]
> It's hard to see where Tesla goes from here as a company.
Probably will get acquired by SpaceX to hide the poor financials
browningstreet 3 hours ago [-]
He seems to suggest that the future is Cybercabs and Optimus.
But if Optimus ends up with a HW3 problem (current manufactured Optimus bots aren't autonomus yet because the software isn't finished) he'll have a pile of Cybertrucks and early-model Optimus units rotting in a field.
Personally, I just don't see it. If he merges Tesla and SpaceX it won't really be about cars or vehicle autonomy.
Their current stock valuation can't ride this uncertainty forever. At some point he has to have new products that work, no caveats.
animex 2 hours ago [-]
He'll trigger the sale of Tesla to SpaceX so he can get his tranche before that happens.
esalman 2 hours ago [-]
They already pivoted to AI.
Forgeties79 4 hours ago [-]
Also, the truck was ugly, awkward, and not good at being a truck.
oramit 3 hours ago [-]
Not sure why you didn't mention Elon Musk zeig heiling at the inauguration he helped buy which led to a mass boycott.
cmrdporcupine 3 hours ago [-]
Elon resigning from Tesla and just letting it run as a reasonable car company making just regular incremental quality and price and new model improvements on normal vehicles people want to drive could be the best thing for the company. The Model 3 is a huge success. That they didn't follow that up with just a regular pickup truck in a similar niche, and instead got distracted by this cybertruck nonsense is an indictment of Musk's poor leadership at this point.
They should just be the Toyota of EVs -- mass produce quality vehicles people want to drive -- instead he's trying to be Tony Stark and keep pumping it as a meme stock.
Tesla remains excellent at engineering and manufacturing. They need not seek the exotic.
He's a liability to that company, not an asset, at this point. And his name has become a brand liability.
3 hours ago [-]
Forgeties79 53 minutes ago [-]
The weird contradiction of musk is that his name is what’s propping up most of his companies/projects but his proximity to his companies is also a threat to them.
cmrdporcupine 7 minutes ago [-]
Only because the "product" has become the stock, not the cars.
If Musk left, the stock would crash. But the company would be profitable.
lenerdenator 4 hours ago [-]
Elon's honestly their biggest problem. Can't focus on finishing one thing to save his life and alienated the shit out of the European market with his fascist beliefs.
Choad_20261104 3 hours ago [-]
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gnarcoregrizz 3 hours ago [-]
The absurdity is the best part of it. Finally it was something new, in a landscape where every car and truck has looked the same for the past 20 years. I'm happy someone designed and built something so crazy and different.
It probably would have been better had they not been mass produced, and maybe did a very limited quantity run - make it more like a collector item... I suppose thats what it'll be now. I see quite a few on the road, it takes away from the uniqueness.
dvogel 2 hours ago [-]
I find the auto market stale as well. However the CT could have been so much better if it sought to answer that demand with a positive vision rather being a reactionary revolt. Somehow a food critic has given the best critique that I've seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEcZSM6xS80
45 minutes ago [-]
exogeny 50 minutes ago [-]
This is a false binary.
The design aesthetics for automobiles can be stale and this could also be a terrible, unworkable, ugly design.
HEmanZ 40 minutes ago [-]
I really agree with you here. I would never buy one (vw buzz is more my style) but I loved it in a weird “thank god something new and unique” way. Like my love for good brutalist office buildings even if I’d never want to live in a brutalist home.
The amount of hate it gets has been yet another clear indication to me just how annoyingly tribal people are. It shows you’re in the in-group and definitely-a-righteous-good-guy if you hate on the cybertruck. Not hating on the cybertruck is basically admitting you’re a fascist (I’ve had a friend literally tell me this non-jokingly). I think that’s really what 80% of the hate comes down to.
monegator 3 hours ago [-]
lol, no. I actually saw one at a client's and beside being uglier than what a 5yo would be able to draw, it was also built like shit. I'm talking about going to the hardware store for aluminum panels and bend them, cut with scissors and some soldering job here and there kind of bad.
thank god these monstruosities were forbidden in europe
Pxtl 1 hours ago [-]
I'll take boring sameness over sharp pedestrian-mangling edges, thanks.
Helloworldboy 1 hours ago [-]
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RobotToaster 3 hours ago [-]
As much as I dislike Musk, it was nice to see someone try something that didn't look identical to every other car/truck on the road.
ReptileMan 3 hours ago [-]
I am tired of grey painted eggs too. The design language has gone downhill.
Balgair 3 hours ago [-]
My understanding is more that economy and safety standards have driven us towards these aerodynamic and impact absorbing shapes. I may be quite wrong though!
The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.
Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.
Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.
Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss
bunderbunder 1 hours ago [-]
The US safety ratings are incredibly easy to game. I have a sibling who used to be a crash test engineer, and we used to get bored of them endlessly ranting about it at family gatherings.
In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.
Krasnol 2 hours ago [-]
If this thing had good safety ratings, then there is something wrong with those ratings.
> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.
This take is widespread on this venture capital fan forum, but it's both incorrect and a retreat. The Cybertruck was poorly thought out, sold teribly, and is now dead. By example it has discouraged future diversity in automotive design.
Good design that breaks the mold and then succeeds for that reason is what changes the world. Bad design that starts from the desire to be different without understanding the forces that led to the preexisting equilibrium is what we got. If you start out with hundreds of billions of dollars you can fake it for much longer, but if your premise is fundamentally economically incorrect then it will only last as long as you can subsidize it.
steve_avery 1 hours ago [-]
It is impossible for someone's statement of preference to be incorrect. You may differ in your opinion, but the gp is not wrong for having their own opinion.
teachrdan 34 minutes ago [-]
I read their comment as meaning, "If you really care about design that doesn't look like anything else, you should be wary of the Cybertruck, as its commercial failure actually discourages future innovation in automobile design."
arein3 40 minutes ago [-]
Bad take
cubefox 2 hours ago [-]
Thr angular Cybertruck design was actually not primarily for show. It comes from the fact that its body is made from cold-rolled, full-hard stainless steel that can't be stamped into arbitrary shapes. Ordinary car bodies are made from steel that can be stamped but is not stainless, so they require paint.
throwaway_ab 1 hours ago [-]
The original design was that the body would be made from these panels. The exoskeleton structure.
The Cybertruck that was released did not have that, instead the panels are just normal body parts connected to a standard car frame underneath - like any other car.
criddell 1 hours ago [-]
Most cars use a unibody design and there's no frame underneath it all. The body is the frame.
Most pick up trucks are body-on-frame style.
The Cybertruck is a hybrid. There is an aluminum frame for the tow hitch and battery pack, but the body panels are also structural (unibody).
UltraSane 2 hours ago [-]
Except it is very ugly and the triangle profile created a impractically large windshield and caused the bed cover to completely block the rear window when closed.
lopis 19 minutes ago [-]
Nice? It's a machine thst kills pedestrians. I rather no one try anything different if that keeps pedestrians safer.
rplnt 32 minutes ago [-]
They didn't go for looks though. The whole premise was ease of manufacturing. An interesting idea that soon proved to be invalid. But they pushed forwards anyway for some reason (and we all know that reason).
raziel2701 2 hours ago [-]
Instead they ripped off the design of a garbage container.
Hamuko 2 hours ago [-]
Meanwhile all other Tesla models look exactly the same. Doesn't help that people buy them like the other appliances in their lives, meaning that they're almost all white too.
tyoma 3 hours ago [-]
Kids really love these things and get very excited to see them on the road.
They are going to be very valued collectors items in 30 years once the kids of today have enough disposable income to buy whichever are left roadworthy by then.
coloneltcb 3 hours ago [-]
My experience is the opposite. My kids, and any friends of theirs riding with us, will boo whenever they see them on the road
ivanjermakov 3 hours ago [-]
Emotions from both ends of a spectrum are positive indicators of future's collection value.
Grombobulous 3 hours ago [-]
Unless you’re Ferrari or Porsche, you don’t want to be in the situation where your vehicle has future collectors’ value. That usually just means it didn’t sell very well (rarity).
Let’s keep in mind that Tesla invested in this truck to be the next F-150, which is the best-selling vehicle in the USA for the past multiple decades.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
You’re talking about different things. A failure from a manufacturer perspective can be a major success from a collector perspective (see also the DeLorean).
Even the hated Edsel is worth quite a bit today.
Of course it might be harder to keep a Cybertruck running for 50 years due to all the computerized components. Restorers will probably be relegated to rebuilding Cybertruck bodies with new components.
AshleyGrant 2 hours ago [-]
> Of course it might be harder to keep a Cybertruck running for 50 years due to all the computerized components. Restorers will probably be relegated to rebuilding Cybertruck bodies with new components.
Really no different than any classic car, really. GM isn't selling OEM parts for a '57 Chevy, for example. If you need replacement parts on those, nowadays, you're likely going to specialty manufacturers given there really aren't any "parts cars" around anymore.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
True, I just imagine that it will be harder for non-OEMs to make replacement electronics given how locked down Teslas are.
AshleyGrant 1 hours ago [-]
We'll have to wait and see. I honestly kind of doubt that will be true. There's all kinds of Tesla hacking that's been going on for years. It's possible to get a Tesla motor running without any external Tesla electronics through aftermarket solutions that carry support from the vendors.
iamnothere 9 minutes ago [-]
[delayed]
Grombobulous 1 hours ago [-]
I am talking about how value to collectors is irrelevant for most automakers.
Tesla’s corporate leadership would be much happier if the Cybertruck was selling 100,000 units a year and was not at all a collector’s item.
iamnothere 23 minutes ago [-]
That’s not relevant to what the person you were responding to was talking about. They were talking about collectors.
KerrAvon 1 hours ago [-]
In its time, the Edsel was more meh than hated. Mainly people didn't buy them because they were essentially pricier Fords and it was a recession year, and Ford threw in the towel for Ford-internal political reasons. The looks were not as much of an issue as people think today. It certainly didn't have the same political associations.
Thanks for the clarification. My understanding was that the quality issues and exaggerated features drew a lot of mockery at the time. That’s not always enough to prevent something from succeeding (other polarizing vehicles like the Nissan Cube did OK) so the recession/internal politics angle makes sense.
baggachipz 2 hours ago [-]
> Of course it might be harder to keep a Cybertruck running for 50 years due to all the computerized components
And all the well-documented reliability and quality issues.
iamnothere 2 hours ago [-]
That’s not such a big issue for restorers, there were also extreme quality problems with the Edsel.
maxlin 13 minutes ago [-]
Clearly this behavior is not original, but taught. Kids don't "boo" things out of nowhere. They are indifferent as hell to things on their own sure, but not a CB ...
next_xibalba 3 hours ago [-]
Very clearly behavior introduced and encouraged by the parents, driven by politics, and not the merits of the object itself. Though it is an interesting commentary on the extreme, enforced conformity and politicization-of-everything we see in the world today.
maxlin 12 minutes ago [-]
Absolutely. I am sad for these kids and their families. This is not how you raise curious, open-minded children.
NewJazz 2 hours ago [-]
What evidence do you see that "everything" is politicized? Elon was the largest single donor in the US midterm elections by far... Seems like he politicized things himself.
plagiarist 2 hours ago [-]
If the Nazi salute wasn't political enough. Children going through WWII in their history classes might dislike Cybertrucks independently of their parents.
It's always an excuse and everyone else's fault that things are politicized. The same people telling us to leave every social problem to the Invisible Hand get fussy when it actually manifests.
deepsquirrelnet 1 hours ago [-]
> The same people telling us to leave every social problem to the Invisible Hand get fussy when it actually manifests.
Yep. This is the world the Supreme Court handed us with Citizen's United. Now that money is speech, we all have to accept that when we buy things, our money can be used against us.
This is the world they wanted, and if you hate cancel culture, then you need to get on board with fixing the damage from Citizen's United... not raging against regular people who are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, and using their money as speech.
What you buy is your politics now. It fucking sucks, but look at it with clearer eyes.
jamiequint 1 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
muddi900 56 minutes ago [-]
Denying it will not stop it from being true.
plagiarist 47 minutes ago [-]
You don't need to pretend any longer, you can openly embrace expressing your political opinions with your salutes. With the masked federal agents kidnapping and murdering citizens, even people who weren't paying attention previously have realized what MAGAs want for society.
komali2 2 hours ago [-]
> and not the merits of the object itself
This is interesting to say given that by most objective measures of what constitutes a good truck, the cybertruck is a bad truck.
Edit: the stupid bed cover gets stuck when exposed to a not abnormal amount of dirt. In dry climates the thing shocks you every time you touch it. People regularly are slicing their hands open randomly on it. Body panels routinely fall off. Accelerator pedal getting stuck triggering recall. Shape of the bed making it impossible to actually carry anything normal and rectangular, 100 mile tow range when putting actual weight on it, bad visibility. I've seen some hilarious videos of them getting stuck in road conditions my Yaris could handle. I've even seen someone catastrophically damage the wheels by turning them left and right rapidly a few times.
A good truck can carry things in the bed and tow something a long way. It can drive on and off a dirty worksite without critical components failing or getting dug in or snapping an axle. Or ok fine, the Houston family truck special, it should at least be able to take the cooler and kids to the beach without getting stuck.
The cybertruck is not a good truck. It may be a good something else, status symbol or something, maybe it's comfortable to drive, I don't particularly care, it's simply not a good truck.
next_xibalba 2 hours ago [-]
> objective measures of what constitutes a good truck
There is literally no such thing. But regardless, in this subthread, we are discussing the response of children to the pure aesthetics of the truck (or lack thereof) vs. the coached, politicized reaction to what it is claimed to represent.
AshleyGrant 2 hours ago [-]
There are plenty of objective measures of what makes a good truck. Payload capacity. Towing capacity. Towing range. Stopping distance when at GVWR. Stopping distance when towing at or Max Towing Capacity. Does standard lumber fit in the bed with or without the tailgate open. If it requires the tailgate to be open, does it provide factory installed tiedowns to be able to safely carry cargo with the tailgate open.
There are, of course, plenty of subjective measures such as NVH, amenability to modification through the aftermarket, total cost of ownership, offroad capabilities, etc.
From everything I've seen, some of which OP mentioned in an edit, points to the Cybertruck being a terrible truck seemingly designed by folks who have never owned/used a truck. And again, that is ignoring Elon's politics.
datakan 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
slowin 3 hours ago [-]
Or, it's just objectively ugly and cringe, which it is.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
Nothing about design or looks is objective. Lots of people like the design. Dont assume your opinion is objectively 'right'.
next_xibalba 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
I may as well at least try to educate the ignorant!
plagiarist 2 hours ago [-]
N64 graphics vehicle.
pfannkuchen 3 hours ago [-]
Sure but kids don’t generally boo at ugly cars, they just don’t really notice them.
dilap 3 hours ago [-]
Old enough to be haters, I guess.
Mostly I've seen younger kids love it. I was at the park and a little girl saw a Cybertruck pull up -- "Look, Dad, it's from the future!"
I think Cybertruck is probably ultimately a failure, but the amount of hate it gets when they are at least trying to push things outside of the normal makes me sad. The amount of negativity towards anything new that's not perfect is insane.
AshleyGrant 2 hours ago [-]
Look, there is "trying to push things outside of the normal" and then there is "completely misunderstanding the purpose of a half-ton truck." I say this despite that fact that the Cybertruck, from a size perspective, it straddles the line between half-ton and 3/4-ton, and it is a complete utter non-starter as a 3/4 ton for several reasons.
If the CyberTruck were the size of a Honda Ridgeline or Ford Maverick, I think truck folks (who skew conservative) would look at it a lot less derisively. There are entire swathes of the half-ton truck market that the Cybertruck simply cannot compete in due to a seeming fundamental misunderstanding by the design team of what the vehicle needs to be capable of and amenable to. This is especially evident in the fleet/work truck market where the unibody design immediately shuts out folks who need to put an aftermarket bed replacement (think plumbers, welders, and other trades).
It straddles the 1/2 to 3/4 ton segment in terms of specs, but it is fundamentally impossible to tow a 5th wheel or gooseneck trailer with a Cybertruck.
Again, there is "think different" and there is "misunderstand the market."
latexr 3 hours ago [-]
> the amount of hate it gets when they are at least trying to push things outside of the normal makes me sad. The amount of negativity towards anything new that's not perfect is insane.
A significant portion of the hate they get is for what they represent and who they’re from, not because they’re “new” or “different” or “not perfect”.
wahnfrieden 3 hours ago [-]
Not only was it not perfect, it was a total failure - they are stopping all production
plagiarist 2 hours ago [-]
There is so much you are hiding behind "not perfect" and I think you know that.
rdiddly 3 hours ago [-]
You don't think its origin as the brain-fart of a mediocre and megalomanic billionaire has anything to do with it?
dilap 2 hours ago [-]
You guys are living in a different universe. I can get hating Elon, but mediocre? Really? Completely absurd.
rdiddly 13 minutes ago [-]
I mean the things you acknowledge people hating him for probably overlap considerably with the things I'm thinking of when declaring him mediocre. To pick just one: Think of the boring CEOs who work hard to instill and drive an inclusive culture at their companies, and who make sure their people are treated as human beings. You haven't heard of any, because they're not out there trying to be an entertainment personality.
oortoo 1 hours ago [-]
Outside of hoarding wealth, I haven't seen much evidence that Elon is particularly good at anything.
dilap 44 minutes ago [-]
What wealth did he hoard? His wealth is all in his ownership of companies he lead to great success.
kattagarian 33 minutes ago [-]
He just spend 400 million dollars on the election, half of this in texas alone.
TheBlight 3 hours ago [-]
Doubt you had anything to do with that
PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago [-]
>My kids, and any friends of theirs riding with us, will boo whenever they see them on the road
Because adults around them groomed them for those actions. Kids don't just start booing at objects out of the blue, they parrot the learned behavior of the adults around them.
andrewjf 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah we did
PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
vegan_because_i 3 hours ago [-]
kids do live in a society
PorciiVorbesc 3 hours ago [-]
And the leaves move when the wind blows.
kaldev 3 hours ago [-]
Hipster coffee shop
MOARDONGZPLZ 3 hours ago [-]
I’m an ultra lib, despise Elon, hope he faces a jury of peers to answer for all he has done, but this seems like learned behavior. My toddler son thinks they look really good (wife and I think they look atrocious and our anti-Elon bias doesn’t help).
burnerRhodov3 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Matl 3 hours ago [-]
Also cut essential foreign aid, likely to result in thousands extra deaths, fired essential government workers for no reason that then had to be hired back at extra expense, while asking others to send him an email justifying their employment, accessed government records of citizens he should have no visibility into, likely misusing them, made up claims about 200+ year olds receiving pensions, made Grok available to assist in committing war crimes in Iran and Latin America, not to speak of Grok 'undressing' random people on the internet, spent millions on election interference etc. etc.
Otherwise you're of course right.
burnerRhodov3 1 hours ago [-]
> Also cut essential foreign aid...
Why are my tax dollars going to foreign healthcare, education, and food banks when we could definitely use that here?
> claims about 200+ year olds recieving pensions
Elon and a SSA inspector general investigation identified approximately $298 million paid to 24,000 deceased beneficiaries over a period spanning 1998–2019. Some of that money was recovered.
He did nothing. He was an advisor to the president, and his team made reccomendations. Also, there is a GAO that has reviewed all canceled contracts. All of the recipients had the right to protest... unfortunately, most of the NGO's simply had to show up to court to get the contracts back, but they didn't because it was obvious fraud.
And, that grok part? What is all that about? Any AI, can do all of those things? Spending on election interference? So all money donated to political orgs are election interference?
The reasons you seem to hate him, all seem like good things to me?
vel0city 34 minutes ago [-]
> Why are my tax dollars going to foreign healthcare, education, and food banks when we could definitely use that here?
I somewhat agree. You vote for universal healthcare, or against it?
Either way, addressing communicable diseases in far away places also helps keep them from becoming nearby diseases. It's far cheaper to fund some vaccines in a far away land than deal with widespread disease domestically. And in the end, cutting these things did practically nothing for the deficit. It was a rounding error of spending to save so many lives around the world.
And they want to argue they're instituting a "Christian" nation. How about following His red text words?
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
komali2 2 hours ago [-]
I mean, surely you know already the responses to these?
1. Elon didn't "create jobs," he profited off other's labor by having his name on some pieces of paper. Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent.
2. He's the richest man in the world. I don't care the volume of tax he paid, I care what percentage of his spending power it is, because that's how my taxes and my neighbor's taxes are calculated, and it's only fair his should be as well. By that measure, he pays functionally no taxes. My taxes impact my purchasing power and I have to budget for it. His should as well. After all, his money only has value because of the existence of this government.
3. SpaceX sucks the air out of the room the same way his fake drill company killed California HSR. Stop letting crony capitalists suck government contracts dry and then have their buddies sell the "more efficient private solution" that also doesn't get delivered. It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
burnerRhodov3 56 minutes ago [-]
>Elon didn't "create jobs," he profited off other's labor by having his name on some pieces of paper. Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent.
I worked at Tesla for two years on the capital expenditure team... He literally goes around the factory making hundreds of changes. Sometimes those changes are bad, and are reverted but in my experience, he's right 95% of the time, and the other 5% he'll revert when shown evidence of why it's a bad idea. I'm sure he does the same thing at SpaceX. He is literally the HEAD ENGINEER. He approves the factory layouts, he is responsible for tak time personally, he is constantly on the factory floor.
>"Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent."
WTF are you talking about? Who could possible keep him from being uninvoled? he is on the factory floor bi weekly making adjustments and negotiating equipment delivery. No one has the power to try and "Keep him uninvoled" and if so, they would be quickly fired.
>It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
Uhh... we tried that. it'd called NASA, and it's been behind the soviet union since the early 2000's.
What happens when you nationalize it? You realise you can't force people to innovate, right? Do you think Gavin Newsom will be a better CEO of SpaceX? Do you think we have any chance of reaching mars after nationaliztion?
Why do you feel the right to be able to take what someone else has built?
His efforts with DOGE should be further investigated for corruption. Musk might have had a "mandate", laughable as it is, from the Executive, but sure was mighty convenient how many programs that had stood in the way of his companies got the axe, and how much data ended up in places it shouldn't.
qwerpy 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
NewJazz 2 hours ago [-]
Booing a car isn't bullying.
cloverich 2 hours ago [-]
Real question: If the person's window is down and you boo it to their face, is it? If everyone in the city boo's it to their face, is it? There are many fashion related items I think are absurd looking, from clothing to cars to haircuts. I'll hate on it with my disgruntled friends. But... I genuinely can't imagine booing any of them in front of the person' who demonstrably likes them.
qwerpy 2 hours ago [-]
Still, a good teaching experience for how to have a thick skin around unpleasant people. Unfortunately (?) there aren’t people like that where I live.
mylies43 2 hours ago [-]
Im crying laughing imaging a full adult thinking children not liking their car is bullying. Nooo you dont understand my consumer choice is my entirely personality nooo
sphinxterai 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
slowin 3 hours ago [-]
Sounds like they have pretty good taste to me! We're talking about a failed product, very few people found this thing attractive.
giarc 2 hours ago [-]
My kids and their friends play a game where when you see certain cars, you do certain actions. Like "punch buggy" with VW bugs but with a bunch of different cars. Cybertruck is "cyberslap" and you get to slap someone when you see one.
jesse_dot_id 2 hours ago [-]
There is absolutely no chance these will function in 30 years.
darknavi 1 hours ago [-]
It certainly could, but likely very Ship of Theseus'd. I feel like enough of the parts are DRM'd hard by Tesla you'd need to Frankenstein the thing to do it.
PacificSpecific 3 hours ago [-]
Kind of like a delorean
tyoma 3 hours ago [-]
I think this is exactly it. They are different and unlike anything else on the road.
afavour 3 hours ago [-]
It’s certainly not exactly it because the Delorean has an indelible association with a classic film that’s beloved by many. It’s iconic without ever seeing one on the road (and most people have not)
The Cybertruck does not have that quality.
fwip 2 hours ago [-]
And before that movie, the DeLorean actually had a very similar story - an expensive low-quality car that nobody wanted to buy, founder embroiled in controversy. The reason Doc Brown had the car in the movie was because it fit his image as an untrustworthy mad scientist.
marcosdumay 22 minutes ago [-]
If any movie character gets a a Cybertruck in the next 20 years, it will be a villain, not a sympathetic hero.
KerrAvon 1 hours ago [-]
Without BTTF it would absolutely be a minor footnote instead of a major one.
slowin 3 hours ago [-]
Except one looks like a sports car and the other looks like a garbage truck/can.
mturmon 2 hours ago [-]
s/cocaine/ketamine/
jms703 3 hours ago [-]
De Lorean status in the future.
newspaper1 2 hours ago [-]
Definitely not, not only is the De Lorean a cooler car (by far) it wouldn't even be a collectors item if it wasn't in one of the most popular movies ever made. The cybertruck has the exact opposite associations, instead of being in a cool movie it's the pet project of one of the most hated humans alive.
lkramer 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe there needs to be a new Back to the Future that uses them instead of a DeLorean:)
swang 2 hours ago [-]
no one is going to care about this in 30 years.
panzagl 2 hours ago [-]
I grew up on Big Trak, Kitt, and the Landmaster from "Damnation Alley". The kids are right.
mahboi 3 hours ago [-]
I know a teenager who got a Fisker Karma. Maybe he bought the dip.
hexagonsun 3 hours ago [-]
no way the batteries last that long
richwater 3 hours ago [-]
I mean the 4680 cells are used in the model Y and the pack assembly isn't that complicated. I don't expect it to be financially ruinous to replace over time.
orbital-decay 3 hours ago [-]
The software of a smartphone on wheels might be a bit harder to replace.
wahnfrieden 3 hours ago [-]
That's because adults taught them that behavior
newspaper1 2 hours ago [-]
I think if you were to compare the cybertruck with other things kids like, you'd see that it looks like a hot pile of garbage. There's nothing about it that would attract a kid, it looks like a refrigerator.
lettergram 3 hours ago [-]
I think there's a lot of kids (and parents) being influenced by politics more than pure ascetics.
The classroom of kids Ive seen (my kids attend 3 different schools), all of them are amazed by them - age ranges: 3, 7, 9 all their classrooms loved them. Same with some of the older kids I've been around. They're all boys, I do imagine it's a very boy-friendly car.
I personally don't have a cyber truck, not big on it personally, but never put my own opinions into my kids. The kids may not "like it", but they are amazed by it.
I'm in an area that doesn't really hate Musk, so I think that does have an impact.
mahboi 3 hours ago [-]
I've never met or known a person IRL who cares about Tesla's ownership. I know people who hate Teslas cause they drive in the carpool lane or because they had bad experiences owning one, that's about it.
dgacmu 3 hours ago [-]
You must have different kids than I do. Mine point at them and observe that they spotted another dumpster.
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
I suspect you influenced them to feel this way.
CharlieDigital 3 hours ago [-]
I have two girls; never mentioned Elon, Tesla, nor CT to them.
Both think it looks ugly.
No need to influence most people, IMO. Vehicles are shaped the way they are because the designs have broad appeal in general (familiarity? proportions? trends?). Most of us would find a normal, well-tailored black suit to be appealing and be baffled by avant garde, high fasion men's clothing.
Why should anyone be surprised that a completely novel design isn't appealing to most?
throwup238 3 hours ago [-]
> Vehicles are shaped the way they are because the designs have broad appeal in general (familiarity? proportions? trends?).
Isn’t it mostly fuel efficiency standards and manufacturability? You’ve got a chassis that’s used for like five different models for five years between refreshes, not a lot of room to innovate without driving up all the costs so only the luxury cars can afford to look different.
CharlieDigital 3 hours ago [-]
Most cars are and have been roughly the same shape for decades now. Rare innovations here and there, but largely still hold the same basic shapes across manufacturers and markets.
mrguyorama 44 minutes ago [-]
But that's part of it. Cars look the way they do because that is an efficient shape for something doing the job of "Car"
People who want cars to look different for it's own sake are saying they want worse cars.
Why? Why do those people need their cars to be shittier cars just to look different? What are they after? I bought a car as a toy, but it's average looking and not really special, and that doesn't have to actually impact how much I enjoy it. My previous shitty car was also very much enjoyed.
I don't understand the insistence that it looks "different" as if there is any virtue to a car design that was randomly generated to look different.
faefox 3 hours ago [-]
That's just good parenting. :)
seizethecheese 3 hours ago [-]
Do you think so? I'm not arguing here, I genuinely don't know.
My kids are too young for this, but surely there's a tradeoff here. Should you override some of your child's natural wonder because of adult aesthetics (or worse political concerns)? Yes. But how often? I'm not sure the line should be drawn at a truck design. (Although, maybe you're teaching your kid taste, again I'm not sure.)
faefox 3 hours ago [-]
I was admittedly being a little facetious. It's not surprising to me that kids, especially kids who are at that age where monster trucks, construction equipment, the Batmobile etc. are the coolest things in the world would be drawn to the Cybertruck because it certainly does stand out and look larger than life in a way, like it was ripped from the pages of a comic book. I don't think there's any real harm in that, setting my own feelings about Elon and what he has come to represent aside for a moment. Let them enjoy the weird shiny thing while they're still too young to understand why it sucks. ;)
gchamonlive 3 hours ago [-]
I wouldn't use disliking Cybertrucks as a proxy for good parenting. You can hate everything a symbol represents and still find the symbol cool, like I think motorcycle clubs are awesome but despise the toxic masculinity stereotype many reproduce.
fleroviumna 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
dgacmu 3 hours ago [-]
I suspect you're right. :) I think it's ghastly and poorly engineered/ designed.
14yo probably influenced -me- more than the other direction, though. That one has strong opinions.
This is the same 14yo who when she was younger would delightedly point out every Tesla (then, mostly model S's) she saw on the road. Probably still responding to both aesthetics and politics but it was interesting to see the shift.
WillowWithAWand 3 hours ago [-]
Gonna let you in on a little secret:
Every parent influences their children. It's called parenting.
apercu 2 hours ago [-]
Eh, even a 11 year old kid can see this thing is what a 5 year old kid thinks is "cool".
jwineinger 3 hours ago [-]
Same. Mine like calling out "cyber-yuck!"
stephencanon 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah. The kids I coach (1st-4th grade) generally call them 'stupidtrucks'.
kevmo 3 hours ago [-]
My toddler saw one and got really excited "Look, Mama, a barn is driving!"
soperj 3 hours ago [-]
yeah, my kids will call out, look another "Cyberbarf"
sphinxterai 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dgacmu 2 hours ago [-]
You don't actually need to post this kind of comment in the first place, or insult people. This isn't 4chan.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
This theory backs up my opinion that every rich person who drives an exotic car is just an eight year old who had a Lamborghini poster on their wall growing up
LatencyKills 3 hours ago [-]
I own a exotic car for the same reason I own mechanical watches. I love the engineering and craftsmanship. (But yes, I had several Lamborghini posters growing up) ;-)
settsu 1 hours ago [-]
> They are going to be very valued collectors items in 30 years
There's going to be 3 owners perpetually going to Cars and Coffee with theirs, rotating with their pristine Pontiac Aztec.
And that's all they'll do with it because there is no way a CyberTruck is going to last 30 years otherwise.
eqmvii 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah my 5yo falls in this camp and is resistant to nuanced political discussions about it FOR SOME REASON
danans 2 hours ago [-]
> Kids really love these things and get very excited to see them on the road
Unsurprising, as they look like they were designed by an 8 year old.
afavour 3 hours ago [-]
I suspect we’re going to discover a depressing future for today’s era of cars. 40 years from now will the Cybertruck software even let you turn it on? When will the last update have been? What servers does it communicate with that’ll end up long since decommissioned?
(FWIW my kids giggle at the Cybertruck and say it looks silly. In a sense they do love them but I’m not convinced they’ll long for one in years to come)
llm_nerd 3 hours ago [-]
> Kids really love these things and get very excited to see them on the road.
Do you have anything empirical to back this up? This feels like someone kind of hoping something is true. It's like the Harley rider sure that everyone thinks they're super cool with their super loud bike.
SCdF 3 hours ago [-]
I'm sure they will hold value as Hitler's paintings do
3 hours ago [-]
3 hours ago [-]
newspaper1 2 hours ago [-]
Every kid I've ever met hates Elon Musk, so I'm 100% sure that this failed product will not be a "collectors item".
slowin 3 hours ago [-]
Every kid I know hates the cybertruck, they literally call it a boomer-mobile.
emtel 4 hours ago [-]
I get so much joy from seeing these on the road. They are not to my taste, but it’s so nice to see something new on the road.
I still remember years ago seeing one in a grocery store parking lot, with a banana yellow wrap and the Zelda unlock sound as its lock chime. A brief moment of inconsequential joy.
Lastly, having the cyber truck drag race a Porsche 911, while towing a Porsche 911 (and win) has to be one of the best marketing stunts of all time.
serioussecurity 4 hours ago [-]
I feel so much anger seeing these on the road.
A bad design that costs too much, the only people who bought these were ideologues committed to the vision of a man responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths, the gutting of the American state, and some of the most destructive politics of hate in living memory.
I celebrate their passing.
qwerpy 4 hours ago [-]
Some of us just got one because it’s a fantastic self driving electric family car. I have a family and live somewhere nice, life’s too short to get so wound up about politics. And you’ll still be seeing them on the roads for many years to come :)
dozerly 4 hours ago [-]
Life is certainly too short to support nazis
AlexandrB 2 hours ago [-]
The modern Democratic Party is more authoritarian than the Republicans. Neither are Nazis though and it's disheartening how far that term has been watered down. When the real Nazis show up, no one will listen.
culi 2 hours ago [-]
I was one of the people who believed it was "just an awkward gesture". Egg on my face when a few days later he went and spoke at the far right German parties conference
archagon 2 hours ago [-]
You should have seen his Twitter feed. Just fuming, virulent white supremacy 24/7. (Of course, he wiped a lot of it after the election. Fucking coward.)
Sohcahtoa82 1 hours ago [-]
In what way is the Democratic party more authoritarian?
Republicans are the ones that insist on protecting police no matter how much they trample on people's rights.
NoImmatureAdHom 30 minutes ago [-]
- Deciding not to prosecute crimes they agree with / which are commonly committed by their base. There are two ways to use the police against the people, you know.
- Speech controls (they wanted compelled speech, which is a line the Americans have so far managed not to cross - Biden managed to get it in to Title IX)
- Rabid, senseless, confusing opposition to gun rights, a civil right in the U.S. Gun ownership does not result in more or worse crime, it's very clear.
- Totally opposing widespread, bipartisan support for voter ID
Let me be clear, I'm no fan of either side.
ceejayoz 6 minutes ago [-]
> Deciding not to prosecute crimes they agree with / which are commonly committed by their base.
"A federal court today ruled that the Trump-Vance administration unlawfully compelled civil servants at the U.S. Department of Education to transmit partisan political messaging from their government email accounts during the ongoing federal shutdown — violating core First Amendment protections."
> Rabid, senseless, confusing opposition to gun rights, a civil right in the U.S.
As is their First Amendment right. Do you oppose that civil right?
> Totally opposing widespread, bipartisan support for voter ID
Another propagandized fool who thinks they see the world for what it is and the rest of us don't. The real nazis did show up. They are wearing the same red hat you have in your closet.
watwut 2 hours ago [-]
Bullshit. Like, you are just straight lying in both of your sentences.
We see what modern republican party does - literally last two years.
The guy literally tweets and retweets neo-nazis and white nationalist content on a regular basis. He celebrates an election win with a literal nazi salute. He openly supports fascist parties and politicians. Being aghast at someone calling him a nazi is ridiculous.
seki285 3 hours ago [-]
His brain is damaged from all the ketamine use
joquarky 1 hours ago [-]
Do we let drunk drivers off the hook after killing a bunch of people due to their reckless behavior?
criddell 1 hours ago [-]
Yes, sometimes.
3 hours ago [-]
polymork 3 hours ago [-]
If someone’s “different ideas” involve literally praising hitler then it is logical to call them a nazi. The only way someone believe what you said is if they have not listened to a word Elon has uttered for the last 8 years.
Tadpole9181 2 hours ago [-]
He did a Nazi salute on national TV!? Three times!
bothers 3 hours ago [-]
This is a pretty heartless thing to say when one person's politics are repsonsible for making many lives so much shorter and more miserable.
georgespencer 3 hours ago [-]
I pity the family of someone who cannot get “wound up” about a man who gleefully dismantled USAID at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives,[^1] ploughed hundreds of millions of dollars into far right politics, and did a fucking nazi salute.
Outside of Mad Max it’s hard to conceive of a more dangerous car to be involved in a pedestrian collision. The cybertruck is a symbol of staggering ignorance and selfishness.
We’ll probably still see them on the roads for many years to come—and laugh at the lickspittle Elon toadies who gleefully bought them, knowing full well what they symbolize.
Hear, hear. As much as this man is a lightning rod for rage, it’s still only a tiny fraction of what he deserves for the atrocities he’s committed. I hope he rots in prison.
Henchman21 2 hours ago [-]
The rest of us assume you’re a supporter and collaborator because you’ve adopted the symbols of hatred. But hey life is too short amirite??
skywhopper 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, why worry about the politics you’re supporting with your money? Presumably you believe you aren’t a likely target for the hate and violence Musk spends that money you gave him advocating for. Must be nice not to have to worry about your or your family’s personal safety or emotional well-being. Thanks for the advice about “getting wound up” over politics.
expedited123 4 hours ago [-]
Life's a lot easier when you just close your eyes and pretend the problem disappears, huh?
sirshmooey 3 hours ago [-]
Have fun driving a Scarlet Letter, bro.
howunfortunate 3 hours ago [-]
You...you do know who the "bad guys" were in the Scarlet Letter, right?
mrguyorama 16 minutes ago [-]
The scarlet letter didn't have "Good guys" and "Bad guys". That was sort of an important theme of the book since the priest himself was the baby daddy.
sirshmooey 3 hours ago [-]
Probably a better question for Elon's harem of birth-mothers
howunfortunate 3 hours ago [-]
Again, I'm begging you to go look up a plot summary. Hester is the hero protagonist!
sirshmooey 3 hours ago [-]
Congratulations, you've rewired the metaphor.
qwerpy 3 hours ago [-]
Hahaha. This is too good. These hateful people are so caught up in their outrage that they don’t realize they’ve become the bad guys.
bothers 18 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
howunfortunate 3 hours ago [-]
Probably every third car in my area is a Tesla.
The drivers are like 98% East Asian or Indian. Like half the cars have a "new driver" or "baby on board" sticker.
Teslas are unpopular in rural areas.
So ironically I think the ideologues (on either side) are the only people NOT buying Teslas.
badrequest 3 hours ago [-]
They're not driving cybertrucks, is the point.
RetpolineDrama 3 hours ago [-]
> ideologues committed to the vision of a man responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths
Utterly insane take. Your media sources have filled your mind with poison.
archagon 2 hours ago [-]
That is literally what happened, even if you refuse to believe it. (Swap “millions” with “hundreds of thousands for now” if it makes you feel better.) Maybe spend some time off Twitter.
Whatarethese 4 hours ago [-]
I own one. I hate Elon and everything that he has become. I wanted an EV truck that can drive itself on my road trips.
skywhopper 3 hours ago [-]
What you do matters more than what you say.
howunfortunate 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed, so please spare us the virtue signaling and go start an EV company that makes better cars than Tesla
pxmpxm 12 minutes ago [-]
Either missing /s or you’re one of those “terminally online” people that the interwebs keeps telling me about.
maxlin 11 minutes ago [-]
This is nothing but comic villain energy. Sorry for whatever happened to you.
4 hours ago [-]
htk 3 hours ago [-]
You sound very ideologue yourself.
culi 2 hours ago [-]
Someone with a trillion dollars being an ideologue is different than a middle class person being one. Wealth is power and power brings with it ethical responsibilities. Always.
It's absolutely valid to expect more from politicians and people who hold power over our lives than we do from regular people.
3 hours ago [-]
lokar 4 hours ago [-]
As a pedestrian I certainly don’t enjoy being around them, or any of the absurdly oversized American trucks.
RetpolineDrama 3 hours ago [-]
As a pedestrian a tesla is the least likely vehicle to actually hit you.
The best collision is no collision.
iugtmkbdfil834 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
kannanvijayan 3 hours ago [-]
As an owner and daily driver of one of these absurd oversized tonkas, I have to say that it's almost like they're precision engineered to murder children.
I'd trade this princess in for a hi-lux or a road-worthy late 90s ranger any day of the week, but try finding that on the market.
scarecrowbob 2 hours ago [-]
I agree.
I own a large truck for logistical reasons (mostly hauling water and equipment and egressing a snowy area). I had a 2wd 4-banger tacoma prerunner and was going to sell it, but it's a lot better for actually driving the oil field roads where I live and much easier to park than the long bed.
I don't see why anyone would drive some giant truck when they don't have to- it's not a fun vehicle to drive, certainly not safe for other folks, and I avoid driving it in places where there are humans.
Having lived in the truck bed for a while it's nice to have some space.
I'm on off-grid solar and am looking forward to paying $90K ($14k in 2026 dollars) for a chinese fully electric when they become sale-able in the US.
kannanvijayan 2 hours ago [-]
Yeah they're fine/reasonable rural vehicles - functionally ok and the critical features work well. But the size is just.. comical, and an absolute hazard in urban environments. I have similar needs to you - I semi regularly use private wooded unmaintained roads where there's some chance of needing to saw a fallen tree out to keep moving.
I don't really want a second vehicle as it would get rare use. Urban driving with it is just an unpleasant experience. I am forced to be hyper-aware of any and every corner a tyke COULD have walked out of and entered into my driving range without me seeing, especially when running errands for the kid to places where other kids are around. Cannot relax for a moment.
iugtmkbdfil834 3 hours ago [-]
I hear ya. There is a reason when you watch Houthi's videos you don't really see much outside Toyota and Nissan trucks.
lastofthemojito 3 hours ago [-]
I get that.
I'm not an Elon fan in the least, but it does feel like most cars are designed by committee and converge on a few well-defined shapes and segments. And they sell a ton of them, so sure, of course.
But there's certainly some charm when you see a weirdmobile that doesn't conform and somehow got by the bean counters and into existence. The MINI Clubvan, for people who needed something compact and cargo-focused. The Cadillac CTS-V wagon, for people who wanted to haul ass ... and the family. The Toyota MR2, which felt like Toyota engineers decided "let's take these Corolla parts and build them in the shape of a Ferrari".
With the high costs of certifying a new car for sale it seems like we see fewer and fewer of these oddballs, and that feels like a shame.
So even though I'd never personally consider driving a poorly rendered dumpster from a 1980s video game, perhaps the world is a bit more interesting due to its existence.
Choad_20261104 3 hours ago [-]
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esalman 2 hours ago [-]
I saw someone sleeping on one on a highway. They should be regulated out of existence.
iugtmkbdfil834 4 hours ago [-]
I agree. I was personally getting really sad on how all design appeared to be converging on one 'allowed' shape without considering any other possible -- ah ha - angles. I posted on this before, but I will repeat it here, because it is relevant.
Those cars did have uses, but those uses revolved around drawing attention ( think advertising ). Whenever I saw one in my neck of the woods, they were selling something.
threetonesun 4 hours ago [-]
> Lastly, having the cyber truck drag race a Porsche 911, while towing a Porsche 911 (and win) has to be one of the best marketing stunts of all time.
I suppose, if you don't really like cars much, this was interesting. No one debates the ability for EVs to have absurd 0-60, 0-100 times, but there's almost no overlap between why you'd buy a Cybertruck versus a 911 besides status symbol, which gets back to... maybe it's neat, if you don't really care about cars much.
fbd_0100 4 hours ago [-]
Agreed. Even if the design is polarizing, has quality issues, whatever about elon and politics, it is refreshing to see something different and distinctive on the road in a sea of blobby SUVs and extended cab trucks.
archagon 2 hours ago [-]
Joy. Heh. What they remind me of is the atrocities that Musk committed, and also that the driver probably doesn’t give one iota of a fuck about them.
xattt 3 hours ago [-]
Can we just make the world a better place by bringing back dopey, happy cars like the Cube?
Isn't that kind of the dream of Slate? I reserved two, btw, hard agree.
boringg 5 hours ago [-]
Who wouldn't?
VikingCoder 4 hours ago [-]
I can't find the post where the guy wanted something like Uber, but the driver shows up in a beat up pickup truck, and just agrees with everything you say, "Hell yeah, brother!"
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
Yet again I consider the disparities between the US market, as described by commentors, and the UK market. Cybertrucks never made it to road legality here, and would probably have required an HGV license (if the maximum manufacturer permitted vehicle+load weight is over 3500kg).
The US style pickup is pretty rare. There are some Ford Ranger/Raptors, which look comically large but are apparently smaller than the common F150 (??). People who need a truck bed get a Ford Transit or similar with the bed variant.
Agricultural use cases are handled with actual tractors (who can use the cheaper "red" diesel!)
Tsiklon 4 hours ago [-]
The pickup in the US is a staple of the plumber, roofer and other tradesmen, and as you say; this use case as a tradesman’s tool is broadly filled by the panel van in Europe.
To some extent you even see this in New York too. Certainly there’s a need for these vehicles in rural areas where road conditions may be poor or absent altogether and the work needs done regardless.
The cybertruck on the other hand isn’t a work vehicle, it’s bought by the same people who buy the super kitted out models and who have no interest in using it for work, let alone taking the thing off road.
Ultimately I think of it as the modern Delorean, but I don’t think it will engender the same level of good will when it ages out and becomes less common due to the increasingly negative profile of Musk and his connections to the politics in which the vehicle was created.
If their range was better this would be my next vehicle purchase…
tzs 4 hours ago [-]
If you would be using it just locally, as opposed for road trips, note that it has an LFP battery. LFP batteries are perfectly happy to be always charged to 100% and discharged down to 10% (lower is OK but most people want to keep some spare in case they aren't able to charge when they expected to).
Lithium nickel batteries suffer accelerated aging at high charge and at low charge, so it is usually recommended to stay in the 80-20% range, only going to 100% shortly before a road trip.
A Slate with a 200 mile range operated 100-10% would give you 180 miles between charges. That would be the same range as a lithium nickel battery EV with a 300 mile range operated 80-20%.
josh-sematic 4 hours ago [-]
I only have one car at a time (not married). I frequently visit family that lives about 80 miles away that live in a charger desert. I used to own a Chevy Bolt and it could get me to those family and back on one 100% charge with a little bit for grocery runs etc. while there. Even that I wish had like maybe another 20 miles of range lol.
ctkhn 4 hours ago [-]
What are your use cases that need more range than 200 miles? I used to drive a nissan leaf with 90mi range in southern california and only had to stop to charge outside the home a few times for days where I went between LA and Orange County. Otherwise I never really cut it close - and this was with the slowest wall outlet charging at home.
jknoepfler 4 hours ago [-]
Personally I live in the Midwest. I make fairly frequent drives of around 200 miles to visit friends and family. I drive a pluggable hybrid. EV charging stations exist at both destinations, but are very spotty in between.
During the winter, range plummets. That 200 isn't getting me all the way from A to B. Having a hybrid fueling option is just much more practical for me.
I'm not saying I couldn't get it done, I could, but sitting for hours waiting for some slow-ass EV charging station in the middle of winter is not bullshit I'm signing up for.
WarmWash 4 hours ago [-]
Not that I am trying to argue with you, I'm not, but people have a "gas station mindset" about EVs and it leads to confusion, so let me spell out how this trip would look with a "charging station" mindset:
Leave home at 100%/200mi
Drive to destination (approx 3 hours) arrive with ~0%/0mi
Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
Begin driving back home with a 20%/40mi deficit of range.
Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
Charge for 20%/40mi (~10 minutes)
Complete drive home and fully charge again.
Total extra time on 400 mile trip vs gas (assuming 300 mi tank range, so 1 fill-up): ~5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you stop for a quick charge on the way so you don't have to white knuckle down to 0%).
For cold driving in the winter, it would probably be closer to an extra 20 minutes.
coldpie 3 hours ago [-]
I love my EV, but you're really not being at all realistic here. That's more of a perfect possible case scenario based on numbers from a website, not a real world scenario. I take a ~350 mile drive to Milwaukee in our 300 mile range car (2025 Ioniq 5) and we have to stop three times on the trip in each direction.
You're not actually going to get 200mi from 100% when you have 2 people and baggage loaded and traffic exists, and no one sane would be comfortable arriving with literally 0% battery. Charging stops take minimum 10 minutes just accounting for getting off & back on the freeway; usually more like 30-40 minutes because why would you not just charge back up to 80% since you're stopped anyway? Your destination hotel almost certainly does not have a charger, or if they do they charge an idle fee, so you can't just leave it overnight, so really that has to count as another charging stop.
For a 200mi each way trip, realistically you're talking probably two 30 minute charge stops in each direction. That's not completely unacceptable (eg just have some lunch at one of the stops) but your 5-8 minute quote is absolutely not realistic. A bump up to 300mi range would drop that down to one stop in each direction, which would be a real benefit.
WarmWash 3 hours ago [-]
Sorry to be blunt, but if you need to stop 3 times to charge to go 350 miles in an 300 mile range EV, you are doing something severely wrong or there is a problem with your car.
The only way I can make this happen in my head is the combination of driving in freezing temperatures, with the heat blasting the whole time, while doing ~80mph.
Mind you we do trips to Maine in the winter and only have seen ~20% range loss. Heated seats, cruise control at 65, heat on only as needed (about 5-10 minute an hour).
fullstop 2 hours ago [-]
I occasionally drive 300 miles in an EV rated for ~319 miles, and I have to stop once in each direction, but I also have to charge at my destination. There's a Tesla station near there, and the rates are fantastic if you get there before 7 AM.
I keep it at 65 and let the heater do whatever it wants to do so that people are comfortable. Temperature, elevation differences, and wind definitely change things.
There's a section of the drive where I average something like 1.3 mi/kWh on the way up the mountain, but something like 6 mi/kWh on the way down. On the return trip, it's kind of fun to see the guess-o-meter show 110 miles remaining over the course of 25 miles, or have it actually increase.
I'm sure that gas vehicles follow a similar pattern, but I don't pay attention to usage like I do in an EV.
coldpie 3 hours ago [-]
A drop from 80% to 20% in a 300mi car is 0.6 * 300 = 180 miles. It's a 350 mile trip. 350 / 180 = 2 80-to-20 discharges, and that's assuming no little detours for stopping at a cheese store or whatever. So we could do it in 2 stops if we were OK arriving with 20%, but we need some charge at the destination for getting around MKE, so it's three stops. And yeah, we drive 75 because that's the speed of traffic and the HVAC does whatever it does to make us comfortable.
WarmWash 2 hours ago [-]
Why are you leaving home with 80% charge and why are you limiting discharges to 20%?
Also using heat instead of seat warmers just hurts you for the same level of comfort.
coldpie 1 hours ago [-]
There are 30-50 mile (>10%) stretches with no fast chargers in WI. I'm not going to risk being stranded if one is broken and I need to make it to the next one. I'm not really interested in nibbling around the edges & hypermiling to save one half-hour stop.
fullstop 3 hours ago [-]
A few things -- I am not op, but I do drive an EV and sometimes drive it through some rural areas.
> Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
This is the aspect which isn't really possible in very rural areas. There is nowhere to stop at to charge, or the options are very limited. It's getting better, but it's the reason why people want more range.
Plus, in the midwest, the ranges tank in the dead of winter, due to sub-zero temperatures and headwinds.
baby_souffle 4 hours ago [-]
> Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
If you can.
I have some family that doesn't have any power near where I park when I visit.
I'm also there for less than the _many, many_ hours it would take to get an EV from ~0 to ~80% on a standard 15A/120v outlet.
In one case, they have a pretty big tesla super-charger something like 40 miles from them so I can top all the way up just before I get there if I go slightly out of my way. In the US, we still have a long ways to go in the US before _high current_ charging options are as ubiquitous as gas.
malfist 4 hours ago [-]
Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes and it has 300+ mile range and 135kWh battery. And its still a 400v architecture
baby_souffle 3 hours ago [-]
> Slow ass ev charging? My f150 charge from almost dead to almost full in 35-40 minutes
Unfortunately a lot of people only really have a level1 class charger at home and that's a 10+ hour charge on a F150. Probably somewhere around 5-7 hours for a level 2 charger but that's only a "given" on new construction.
If you live close to a level3 charger than you can get topped up in under an hour but that also isn't as convenient as plugging in when you get home and forgetting about it since you have to drive to the charger.
coldpie 4 hours ago [-]
It's pretty perfect as a 2nd family car (and I may buy it for exactly that if the production model reviews are good) but yeah, it's a tough sell for a primary car with that range. Assuming they manage to meet their sales targets and stay in business, I bet it'll improve rapidly over the next couple of model years.
brahadeesh 3 hours ago [-]
Exactly. 200mi EPA is essentially 130-150 highway in winter, which is stopping for charging every 2hrs going 65 - not feasible for anyone living in the midwest.
cosmicgadget 5 hours ago [-]
Sort of glad I wasn't tempted to buy a Tesla yute.
lithos 5 hours ago [-]
Edge Trucks starting next year
imdsm 5 hours ago [-]
I think about this a lot
testfrequency 5 hours ago [-]
It looks so smol IRL
mysterydip 5 hours ago [-]
most people don’t use the capacity of the pickup trucks on the road today. I’m not going to tell people what to drive, but I know personally a smaller pickup with occasional bed use and better efficiency and parking the rest of the time would be an easy sell.
marssaxman 4 hours ago [-]
My '96 Toyota T100 is exactly that. I would never want to downgrade to a modern monster-pickup.
ErroneousBosh 5 hours ago [-]
I don't really see the point of them. They can't carry anything, because the back is exposed.
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
> I don't really see the point of them.
Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types. Exposed bed is often an advantage!
I have a welder, the safety instructions include "Never carry the gas tanks in an enclosed vehicle" -if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
Most things I carry don't need to be inside constantly. A little rain won't hurt anything, I wouldn't want to store anything outside but just a couple hours won't harm most things.
Also it is a lot easier to load things in a truck than a van. I can lift it over the sides (perhaps with a forklift). I can stand up in the back while arranging things - even when it is full I can stand upright.
I have used both trucks and vans to carry things over the years. Both are a compromise - and like all compromises there are negatives where something else would be better. Overall I fall on the truck is better side for what I do most often - but that is overall and I recognize there are good reasons some will choose something else.
Lifting things in and out is considerably easier when you don't have to lift it over the sides.
Sohcahtoa82 1 hours ago [-]
> if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
This is something so many people don't realize.
When you hold your breath for too long, that feeling of suffocation isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, but the build-up of CO2.
If you replace the oxygen in a room with an odorless gas non-oxygen gas, your body doesn't tell you. You don't feel like you're suffocating. You just start suffering the effects of lack of oxygen. Dizziness, confusion, lightheadedness, but you likely won't realize anything is wrong. Your judgement and ability to react goes away and you lose consciousness without ever experiencing the desperate urge to breathe.
Another good example of this is when pilots fly too high without supplemental oxygen or adequate cabin pressurization and become hypoxic. They become confused and lose coordination while feeling perfectly fine. By the time they realize something is wrong, they may no longer be able to do anything about it.
Triphibian 4 hours ago [-]
Every Saturday I fill my truck bed with garbage cans and dump them at a transfer station across the highway from where I live. (We have no trash service in this rural area). I used to cram bags of trash into the back of my Honda CRV, which worked, but was often messy and stinky. You can hose out the back of a truck bed.
I used to think trucks were mostly useless, but have found that many people have weekly uses that make a lot of sense.
I do question the logic of lifting your truck so high you can't reach into the bed.
kube-system 4 hours ago [-]
The rear being exposed makes them bad at carrying things that need to be inside, but it makes them good at carrying things that should be outside.
Also they are much easier to load items with heavy machinery.
aworks 4 hours ago [-]
Tonneau covers on the bed work well.
thecrumb 4 hours ago [-]
Not going to load manure into the back of a minivan.
vehemenz 4 hours ago [-]
Even a minivan wins in most categories, but they don't have the towing or hauling capabilities that live in the imaginations of many men.
techdmn 4 hours ago [-]
I keep a minivan as a secondary vehicle / "work truck". It tows, I can fit 4x8 plywood or drywall sheets flat on the floor, and drive them around in the rain. Then put the seats back in and take 6 kids to a movie.
I bought one in the US for $8k for hauling equipment around. I love it. 40mpg, gets the job done.
dghughes 5 hours ago [-]
EV trucks sound good but you can't haul anything heavy or your range plumments. Unless the battery is huge but that is weight. A truck that can't haul is just for show.
Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.
not_a_bot_4sho 4 hours ago [-]
I feel like this is less true nowadays. Or at least, less of a concern.
I have a Rivian and my 400mi range gets cut significantly (down to 200 or 300, depending on the trip) when I have 7k lbs on the back, but never enough to stop me from towing. And with good charging in the area, it's a non issue. And waaaaayyyyy cheaper than diesel.
Maybe if I was towing daily, I'd feel different. Your mileage may vary. (Couldn't resist the closer!)
Edit: btw instant torque is a game changer. You can't beat an EV on that front
tarheels100 4 hours ago [-]
I used to think this way, but it turns out that EV trucks hold up on range better than one would expect thanks to regenerative breaking. The added weight of cargo requires more energy to get up to speed, but you get most of that back when breaking, so it's not lost energy. Meanwhile, a gas or diesel truck's range plummets when hauling since all the energy used to accelerate the load is lost in breaking. I'm not saying that EV hauling is perfect or a solved problem, but that the trades offs aren't as intuitive as they might seem.
davrosthedalek 4 hours ago [-]
I think regen braking only helps if the load is on the bed. If it's on a trailer, the trailer will have normal breaks and a lot is lost.
(Edit: spelling)
antisthenes 4 hours ago [-]
It also doesn't help if you have a long freeway trip where you don't brake.
kibwen 4 hours ago [-]
Trailers may not have regenerative braking today, but that's a chicken-and-egg problem; trailers already have wiring hookups, and once EVs become the default for personal vehicles, it's easy to imagine that regenerative braking will become standard.
discreteevent 4 hours ago [-]
braking
mercurywells 5 hours ago [-]
You should watch this video - aero dominates vs weight (factors very little), especially with strong regen
+1 recommendation for this video. Also the owner of the channel participated in an EV cannonball run several times. I don't think they made it in one go, but still very cool how they had to plan for the trip and modify the vehicle.
throwaway894345 4 hours ago [-]
> A truck that can't haul is just for show.
I borrow my brother’s truck all the time to transport various DIY supplies. I could probably get a roof rack for my car for things like plywood and drywall, but borrowing the truck is easier.
kccqzy 4 hours ago [-]
First, the intended customers of the Cybertruck don’t need to haul anything; it’s a lifestyle vehicle. Second, EVs have solved the torque problem.
origini 4 hours ago [-]
Are you from 2010?
My EV has 470PS, it can hauul plenty heavy for long range. Weights 2.2 tons.
Even the Ford F-150 Lightning was already able to pull 4.5t and has a range of 300 miles.
Kirby64 4 hours ago [-]
I think you’re missing the second half: or your range plummets.
Theres been plenty of F150L towing tests and the results are… bad. Maybe 100mi of range if you’re towing something big?
malfist 4 hours ago [-]
I have an f150 lightning. Weight isn't a problem for range you barely notice it. Towing though matters mostly about the number of axels and aerodynamics. I have a small trailer I occasionally tow and it knocks the range to just under half which is... Not great but not terrible either. Running around town towing is fine, but if we were doing long distance (hundreds of miles) I'd probably rent a ice vehicle for it.
But I've done a 600 mile each way trip with the bed fully loaded and it's completely fine
origini 4 hours ago [-]
I might be ignorant here as a german but how often are people towing something big 100 miles and more were they do not have time to just charge? I would have said 2-4 times a year (lakelife location far away twice a year?).
I mean for sure, if you are the person who constantly need this, EVs might need a little bit more advantages, but what does an avg F150 owner would tow 100mi every day / regularly?
kjellsbells 3 hours ago [-]
I would put it like this: many many truck drivers in the US go years without towing a thing. Even work trucks (eg plumbers rarely need to tow anything). But, for the people that do tow, they tow a lot.
And the US is an incredibly large place. West of the Rockies it's essentially empty until you get to the coastal cities. So if you do anything agricultural, or your business is located in the rural places because of local resources (wood, minerals, whatever) you will be towing heavy things long distances.
Fun example of distance: last month I was in Tonopah, Nevada. My spouse wanted to try McDonald's. No problem, the sign on the billboard says there is one nearby (that exact word). It was in Hawthorne. 150km away. Americans, especially rural Americans in the Western states, have a different view of driving distance than Europeans. Bill Bryson was not really joking when he wrote that Americans will drive 60 miles for a taco.
rizzom5000 4 hours ago [-]
For towing, 75% of truck owners claim to use this feature once a year or never.
More than 60% of truck owners use the bed to haul at least once per month; but it's difficult to determine the percentage who could have used a car instead. A small car can fit quite a few bags of soil in the trunk, for example.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
I'm looking foward to the arrival later this month of my 280PS ""compact"" EV (Abarth 600E), which will be roughly as much power as every other car I've owned put together.
crote 4 hours ago [-]
A huge fraction of the truck owners barely (if ever) haul anything, so that's not a dealbreaker for an EV truck.
It just has to look manly and rugged, any actual offroad or hauling capabilities are at best a nice-to-have.
limagnolia 1 hours ago [-]
How do you define huge? How do you define "barely if ever"? Do you have any evidence to back your claim?
0xbadcafebee 3 hours ago [-]
Some gas engines have low end torque, big block V8s and anything turbo. But yeah if hauling uphill is your thing diesel is a no brainer. It would be great if our half ton and midsize trucks had diesel options but as usual other countries have better options.
Personally I'm going hybrid truck next time. The advantages of electric (torque, 240V inverter) with the flexibility of gas. Payload is lower but I'm hoping they fix that by the time I need a new truck
maxdo 3 hours ago [-]
politics aside, Cybertuck is/was an engineering breakthrough.
48 volts, steering wheel, no paint ( better durability), trunk, wipers etc.
the car pushed the boundaries. If you compare level of creative thinking of cybertruck vs lets say electric ford, it's not even comparable. I respect that despite one person behind it. I don't care how it looks. It's polarizing. oh well.
My 11 y.o. relative from abroad asked me to take rl pictures of the truck, after he heard my neighbor bought it.
classictraffic 3 hours ago [-]
I think Tesla did some cool things with it, but I think it's a little too early to label it as an engineering breakthrough. I'm not convinced some of the things they did and decisions they made (one large wiper, the stainless steel is susceptible to surface corrosion, various pinch points, weak control arms) will hold up over time
The etherloop between zone controllers and the resulting reduction in wiring is pretty cool.
mahboi 3 hours ago [-]
The lack of paint is the only cool part
knute 1 hours ago [-]
And Delorean did that 40 years earlier.
mahboi 44 minutes ago [-]
Stainless steel without paint, yeah. It's cool that the Cybertruck is a thicker and more rigid kind of steel, so it's not just lack of paint.
3 hours ago [-]
jmcqk6 2 hours ago [-]
> no paint ( better durability)
And yet there were still durability issues with the truck? My understanding is that there were many manufacturing issues, and it also experienced several recalls.
zerotolerance 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe through a very specific engineering perspective it was interesting. From a broader engineering perspective it was embarrassing. It is called a truck, very much not a truck. Nearly no actual utility. No hauling capability. No durability. Falls apart because it is glued together. Shows every place where someone brushed up against it. Poor fit to the operating environment.
I'll give you that it was a unique design. But if we're talking about engineering... it could not have promised more or delivered less.
kristjansson 2 hours ago [-]
> no paint ( better durability)
instead of paint/clearcoat getting scratched you can pit / etch / scar the raw metal!
cubefox 2 hours ago [-]
Its made from hard steel, which is much harder to scratch and damage than ordinary car paint (or indeed ordinary car bodies, which are made of softer steel).
dofm 2 hours ago [-]
And you can do that without even being near the vehicle, because the panels fall off.
idlewords 1 hours ago [-]
It was an engineering break something, for sure.
AlexandrB 2 hours ago [-]
I think the main breakthrough was cost-engineering: glued on panels, cast-aluminum frame, "metal" accelerator pedal glued onto a plastic component. Which is ironic considering how expensive the thing was.
I blame Tesla and their "giant iPad" interiors for many of the cost-cutting trends we see in cars today.
craigmcnamara 3 hours ago [-]
It's a hulking pile of shit built to be hostile to the people and things it shares an environment with. The middle fingers and thumbs downs people aim at them are fully deserved by the buyer and driver. They don't fit in parking spaces and are driven by people who think they're the main character of earth. I look forward to the day when the last one melts from a faulty battery fire.
baron816 4 hours ago [-]
I’ve been seeing complaints on the internet about how all cars look the same nowadays. I think the cybertruck proves why. A lot of design has coalesced around the same thing, not just for cars but for websites and apps, logos, furniture, etc. because people like that stuff.
Something new and fresh can be accepted and loved, but it still needs to be familiar and somewhat iterative. A radical change like the cybertruck is hated for that reason. (People also hate it because of Elon, but they don’t hate the other Teslas nearly as much as they hate the cybertruck)
mft_ 4 hours ago [-]
When the Cybertruck was first announced, Musk was still the darling of the left and progressive wealthy. It was daring and different and cool, and it was explicitly meant to be an experiment in making cars differently.
By the time of its delayed release, Musk had become deeply unpopular with many of that original coalition of fans and buyers, the truck was more expensive than originally promised, his new ‘base’ probably couldn’t afford to buy many of them, and it was structurally a fairly normal car underneath the steel panels. It also suffered plenty of embarrassing issues, which people were of course gleeful to publicise.
It could have been a cool funky status symbol, but Musk screwed it all up.
jhonof 4 hours ago [-]
> When the Cybertruck was first announced, Musk was still the darling of the left and progressive wealthy. It was daring and different and cool, and it was explicitly meant to be an experiment in making cars differently.
People still hated it when it was announced, the online discourse was largely negative surrounding it. I remember being in my tech office at the time and we were all talking about how bad it looked.
mft_ 4 hours ago [-]
Not universally. Your tech office and online spaces may have disliked it, but I also saw a lot of excitement and positivity about it, both online and IRL.
wongarsu 2 hours ago [-]
From my memory, a lot of the excitement was directed at what the design was trying to achieve: a structural body made from easy to make pressed steel panels. This was meant to enable a much cheaper car while also removing the bottlenecks plagueing Tesla's production lines at the time
None of this materialized. The truck that ended up in production was a traditional body construction, but with unpainted steel panels so it looks like the truck Musk presented. It ended up with all the drawbacks of a steel body, while still being expensive and hard to manufacture
mft_ 2 hours ago [-]
I agree that this was part of it - I referred to this twice in my original post.
Once the structural body concept failed (has it ever been adequately explained why they failed?) it would have made sense to either drop the Cybertruck altogether, or pivot to a more traditional design. But ego prevailed, sadly.
IMO the big missed opportunity was to follow the model 3 with a 'model 2' - a smaller, cheaper car - probably in the VW Golf / BMW 1-series class.
qlte 2 hours ago [-]
The Cybertruck announcement was a couple years after the Thai Rescue Divers "pedo" incident, which was the tipping point for many people (including on the left) to realize he wasn't actually the Tony Stark character he pretended to be and actually a pretty shitty person.
This was well into the Tesla flamethrower/short shorts/funding secured/etc period of $TSLA meme stockification. Also pushing Dogecoin/crypto.
He certainly wasn't the "darling of the left" by then. But you are correct that his image was significantly less tarnished by political meddling and later obsession with woke/trans/culture war of the day stuff.
He was the darling of the emerging meme stock day trader/gambler/WSB crowd which in broad strokes tends to anti-correlate with the "left".
mft_ 52 minutes ago [-]
Yes - fair point. His image was on the move, but not full MAGA crazy. Maybe ketamine was in his orbit already.
unethical_ban 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed. When it was first announced, I was kind of interested. I laughed at imagining it as a screenshot from an N64 game.
But it didn't live up to the selling points, it is very expensive, has design issues that weren't necessary for the aesthetic, and the company's owner turned out to be a really horrible person contributing meaningfully to changes in my country that are dangerous.
BigTTYGothGF 3 hours ago [-]
> Musk was still the darling of the left
I can assure you he was not.
mft_ 51 minutes ago [-]
I know this isn't Reddit, but I'm chuckling at your username :)
muddi900 46 minutes ago [-]
This is rewriting of history. It was ridiculed even by the reddit shitlibs that hung on to Papa Elon's every word. Breaking the glass twice was a meme.
fckgw 19 minutes ago [-]
Cars look the same because they're trying to his specific mileage and safety standards. There are a few common shapes that can do that, and every angle you flatten into a curve gets you a couple more MPG.
Trucks don't look quite the same because they have different standards to adhere to.
rgreasons 36 minutes ago [-]
One thing I think gets overlooked in cybertruck discourse that I didn’t appreciate until I saw one in person is that it’s really big. It FEELS really big. With all those hard edges, it also seems more imposing and aggressive.
It doesn’t give me the impression of “radical change.” It felt familiar and iterative of the modern, oversized F250-style pickup truck in all of the worst ways.
paxy 4 hours ago [-]
The design isn't what led to its demise, the $80K-100K sticker price did.
muddi900 40 minutes ago [-]
Or maybe "I am not like other girls" is not a good personality to hang on. An exceptional athlete stands out. But so does the village drunk. Just being different is not enough.
The product failed because it was a shit product. In the grand scheme of unreliable American built cars, it was just another one. It was certainly not as bad as a Jeep. But it was ugly, and did not do what it was supposed to do; be a truck.
This is every top comment ITT, and I am checking user's post histories to confirm they are real. I understand I might be in the minority, but this belief that just being different is a merit unto itself is ridiculous.
brookst 4 hours ago [-]
There’s a school of thought that anything is better than blandly conformative design. In that school, the Cybertruck counts as progress.
To me, it’s more like answering a complaint about the blandness of pop music with electric bagpipes and nails on chalkboard: if you can’t be different and good, maybe don’t try so hard to be different.
deflator 4 hours ago [-]
I think a lot of the reason most cars look the same is they all have to pass similar pedestrian crash standards. Once you account for all of that, the basic shape of the vehicle is set and there is only so much unique styling you can attach.
declan_roberts 4 hours ago [-]
Have you seen any of the videos where they push fake kids in front of Teslas versus other cars?
I don't think the safety argument holds up here when you're comparing Teslas with standard automobiles.
deflator 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed. That's why its a pickup truck, which I believe is exempted from a lot of those pedestrian protection standards in the US
j2kun 4 hours ago [-]
People don't just hate it because it looks different. They hate it because it's ugly, unreliable, and a symbol of the modern idolatry of the billionaire class.
JeremyNT 4 hours ago [-]
Exactly so.
It's a massive, gaudy symbol of unfathomable decadence, and every purchase was made to visibly support the passion project of the world's most influential white supremacist.
It's one thing for a vehicle to be "ugly," but this one stands for so much more.
bilsbie 6 hours ago [-]
I really thought it would have had a lot of potential for cheaper manufacturing. No paint process is huge. And originally they were talking about basically building it like origami from a sheet of steel.
stetrain 5 hours ago [-]
The steel exoskeleton idea didn't survive to production. The production truck has a mix of aluminum castings and welded steel unibody, with the stainless panels just acting as the skin. Maybe they bring some structural rigidity, but not like the origami plan that was originally discussed.
The end result is a vehicle with all of the costs of a normal unibody design plus the costs of dealing with cutting, folding, and attaching thick sheets of stainless steel.
It never delivered the promised $40k starting price or the promised 500 mile top spec range either.
acdha 5 hours ago [-]
It’s staggering how much money they wasted because Musk didn’t want to listen to real experts. It was years late because stainless steel is so much harder to work with, especially when it has so many complicated geometries, and every one of those delays was a chance for him to say “maybe the people I hired for their expertise know something I don’t” rather than “I’m the boss, make it work”.
They could’ve done something like the Slate truck a decade earlier.
gangstead 4 hours ago [-]
Part of the delay was also the 48V architecture. So in addition to the obvious new things like stainless steel panels they also had to redesign mundane parts like window motors and interior lighting. The Cybercab is also using a 48V architecture so even though they've never talked about it being an R&D platform maybe they'll retcon it that way.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
That forces a redesign of all the car electronics. While it might well be a good idea anyway from an R&D point of view it's undeniably expensive.
(I have a very slight visibility on 48V car audio R&D, for example. Most digital electronics could be adapted with a different DC-DC converter but the audio power amp stage takes direct supply voltage)
ErroneousBosh 5 hours ago [-]
> They could’ve done something like the Slate truck a decade earlier.
They could have Roadstered it.
Buy Ford Transit 350 "gliders", work out how to make them FWD, RWD, or AWD using your own transaxles and batteries. Pickup, van, or just a bare chassis-cab to go to a coachbuilder, it doesn't matter.
The Transit has been around for 61 years. Sticking electric motors in it that you already have is a no-brainer.
Real experts said reusable rockets were impossible ...
sanderjd 4 hours ago [-]
Did they?
genxy 4 hours ago [-]
A real expert told Elon that self landing rockets were possible over chutes. The retconning to build the myth of Elon is ridiculous.
Lars Blackmore was doing self-landing rocket research before he went to spacex. Musk's reusable rockets (who doesn't want that, this is why the shuttle exists) wanted to use parachutes.
moralestapia 4 hours ago [-]
Yes. Is my comment ambiguous or something?
Seems to me like a sentence that's quite easy to understand.
BigTTYGothGF 3 hours ago [-]
Lots of false sentences are easy to understand.
kibwen 4 hours ago [-]
No, no rocketry expert ever said that reusable rockets were impossible. They would have told you that the cost to develop them would not recoup itself based on the then-existing demand for orbital payloads, and that banking on such demand materializing would be a massive gamble (which is why Starlink exists).
origini 4 hours ago [-]
Falcon 9 is partial reusable, took a lot of money to do so and yeah its a good product. Not sure how expensive it was for US americans to gift it to Spacex but sure.
The highest number though is like 30 uses and Starship still hasn't profen itself.
Also the boring company, Doge, Solar City, the cybertruck etc.
So what do we get out of this? Musk is for sure not just an idiot, he for sure sees sometimes good opportunities, but also he had the money to invest in these and he got lucky a few times too.
Btw. the cybertruck he announced, never came.
parineum 3 hours ago [-]
> Falcon 9 is partial reusable, took a lot of money to do so and yeah its a good product. Not sure how expensive it was for US americans to gift it to Spacex but sure.
How much money have Americans gifted NASA to pay Russia for launching payloads ton Soyuz rockets?
Do you frame all government funding as "gifting"?
wongarsu 2 hours ago [-]
And you could just as easily frame it as Musk "gifting" something to the US government by offering cheaper launches than Roscosmos and Boeing/ULA, and developing new capabilities cheaper than Boeing
lbriner 5 hours ago [-]
> Musk didn’t want to listen to real experts
"real experts" are not always correct. A bet a lot of people told him that the original Teslas were a bad idea or SpaceX would never...wait for it...take off.
But sometimes people win when they push the boundary of what might work, push the problems to the surface and then solve them.
I don't like the guy but you can't really deny his ethusiasm and single-mindedness.
acdha 5 hours ago [-]
An engineers isn’t going to say “EVs will never work” or “reusable rockets are impossible”. They’d say things like “we’re really going to need to minimize weight and try to build better batteries to hit that range goal” or “it’s going to require a lot of money to do the R&D for reusable boosters, you need to land a NASA contract so we can afford dozens of tests”. Engineers express tradeoffs far more than absolutes.
Musk has enthusiasm, yes, but he’s let his luck at PayPal and successfully buying Tesla from the original founders go to his head. Nobody is right all of the time, and no serious project goes perfectly according to the original vision without adjustments. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of an electric truck — companies with better engineering culture are making great ones — but the Cybertruck failed exactly the way everyone who isn’t a superfan expected: it’s designed in a way which guarantees high costs and it just doesn’t deliver corresponding benefits for most people. Diving into the culture wars against a large chunk of potential Tesla buyers was a bad idea but even if he hadn’t, there just aren’t that many people who have that kind of money to spend and the ones who do usually won’t accept so many limitations and flaws.
mft_ 4 hours ago [-]
That’s a little bit revisionist. I don’t like Musk much either but to be fair:
- no one in the established “expert” car companies thought that mainstream EVs were feasible. Sure, there may have been individuals, but it didn’t make it into corporate strategy or product delivery. The Model S plus the Supercharger network changed the face of the car industry.
- none of the clever brains spending billions in NASA, ULA, ArianeSpace, et al made a reusable commercial rocket a reality. They had an infinite head start vs. SpaceX and failed to innovate. Even now, having their lunch money regularly stolen by SpaceX, where is the reusable competition?
kibwen 3 hours ago [-]
> no one in the established “expert” car companies thought that mainstream EVs were feasible
No executive in the established "expert" car companies had any reason to rock the boat. Establishing EVs as a credible alternative to ICEs required a build-out of charging infrastructure that none of them were willing to commit to. But non-established companies had no such risk, and the emerging companies in China would have developed no less quickly even if Tesla never existed.
> none of the clever brains spending billions in NASA, ULA, ArianeSpace, et al made a reusable commercial rocket a reality
All of them would have told you that there's nothing impossible about a reusable rocket, only that their customers were happily served by their current offerings. Without Starlink, there would be no commercial demand that would make up for the cost of R&D.
mft_ 2 hours ago [-]
Yes. Musk and his colleagues revolutionised two technical and entrenched industries. You make it sound like this wasn't a difficult proposition.
> Without Starlink, there would be no commercial demand that would make up for the cost of R&D.
Not sure about this analysis.
a) SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 relatively cheaply - ~$300m to it simply being a viable launch platform (i.e. without reuse, Dragon, etc.)
b) NASA contributed to some of the costs.
c) SpaceX was already offering launch services cheaper than their competition before perfecting reuse or conceiving of Starlink.
Therefore it's likely that they'd have had a positive (albeit lower) business case and made back R%D costs over time, simply by offering launch services and capturing a majority of the market thanks to their lower prices. Reusability lowered their launch costs, when it came. Starlink was an answer to the question of how to capitalise on all of the cheap surplus launch capacity they'd made available.
genxy 3 hours ago [-]
The clever brains at JPL worked on self landing rockets before they went to spacex. Your tax dollars at work.
Indeed. That was why I deliberately wrote "made a reusable commercial rocket a reality".
malfist 4 hours ago [-]
It's not just high costs, its high costs that are only there to appease one man. The stainless steel sheets don't provide features that the average consumer even considers and has more than a few drawbacks
jfengel 2 hours ago [-]
I can deny that his enthusiasm and single-mindedness are the reasons for his success.
His initial success, PayPal, was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Online payments are an obvious thing and a natural monopoly. He guessed right that PayPal would be the one that succeeded.
That gave him the opportunity to place more big bets that paid off. Neither electric cars nor reusable spacecraft were obvious wins the way online payments were, but it's also no sign of genius to have happened to place bets on companies that succeeded.
The evidence for that is that his luck ran out. He keeps backing audacious projects, and they keep failing. Anybody else would have been bankrupted a dozen times over. He keeps going because he got lucky the first time, with so much money that it's almost impossible for him to lose it all.
That is to say, I think it's more survivorship bias than the merits of his "enthusiasm and single-mindedness". A decade ago he had such a string of successes that I would consider the case that he was actually smarter than average, but he's had such a string of conspicuous and obvious catastrophes that the net result simply seems average at best.
tdhz77 5 hours ago [-]
I can deny it because he overpromises on everything just like Elizabeth Holmes. Only difference in space isn’t something new the us government did it in 1960’s and didn’t destroy nearly as many rockets. Elon isn’t smart enough to try an interfere with production rockets. His distance from decision making is what made it a success.
squidmaster 5 hours ago [-]
[dead]
bena 5 hours ago [-]
You invented a fictional group of people, got mad at them, then declared what you imagined they did was wrong.
I want you to know that.
Musk came into Tesla as funding. People were trying to make the cars.
With regards to SpaceX, he was looking for people to build rockets to go to Mars. But no one wanted to sell to him. So he hired rocket scientists to build the rockets.
And yes, while there will always be some asshole who says "That won't work", there were plenty of ""real experts"" who were working at those companies.
cheaprentalyeti 4 hours ago [-]
And the "real experts" left us dependent on Russia for launching a couple capsules a year to the space station.
They could have done what Musk did with Falcon 9 in the 90's. Instead they chose to mess around more with solid fueled heavy lift vehicles, all the while proclaiming that they were the experts/science.
genxy 3 hours ago [-]
The fallacy you are committing here is making all the non-spacex experts a homogeneous straw people.
InsideOutSanta 5 hours ago [-]
Found Elizabeth Holmes's alt.
(I don't necessarily disagree with you, but there's a difference between thinking outside the box and trying new ideas, and literally ignoring factual reality and repeated clear feedback from people who actually know what they're talking about.)
0c3ca83 5 hours ago [-]
> "real experts" are not always correct
That's why you should always hire someone unqualified.
felixgallo 5 hours ago [-]
not always, but usually!
guywithahat 5 hours ago [-]
I mean once you buy the tooling, it’s still probably cheaper to produce stainless steel trucks than paint normal steel. I agree on everything else though
stetrain 3 hours ago [-]
If that’s true it would only be the case if you could amortize that tooling across enough vehicles. Selling 10k-20k per year from a production line planned with a capacity of 125k per year won’t get you there.
origini 4 hours ago [-]
Why?
Steel is heavy, you have to paint the frame anyway, people like cars with colors, the steel has to be maintained too (scratches etc.).
ErroneousBosh 5 hours ago [-]
Not really. Stainless is expensive and brittle. It's a lot more work to form complex panels out of stainless, and then they're essentially scrap if there's even a tiny amount of damage. A small dent will start a crack.
therealpygon 5 hours ago [-]
At least it delivered on being bulletproof unless you shoot it.
InsideOutSanta 5 hours ago [-]
It's 100% bulletproof except for the parts it's made out of.
luke5441 5 hours ago [-]
Would be interesting to know how much the useless steel body detracts from the range compared to a lighter material.
Even more interesting would be how much the steel hurts the tons-to-orbit in the Starship.
InsidiousWombat 5 hours ago [-]
Painted piece of plastic gonna be cheaper than sheet of stainless steel. Stainless is significantly more expensive than typical materials used on car, which would be normal steel or plastic depending on panel.
Also painting IN THE FACTORY isn't expensive. Re-painting the part on repair is because of all of the prep work required (take apart, clean, color match etc).
Might be break-even, but I doubt it would be cheaper
"It will be cheaper" is a perspective of ignorant "smart guy" that thinks because he got successful in one thing that they can weight in on industry processes they have no idea about
intrasight 5 hours ago [-]
They developed, at great cost, the process used for the cars with the giga press and the plastic. It would've been a fine process for an inexpensive truck.
beAbU 6 hours ago [-]
Speaking out of my ass here, but I would not be surprised if it's much cheaper to paint cheap stamped steel, compared to using more expensive stainless steel that's treated to remove all surface marring/scarring from the stamping process. Those panels don't come out all brushed from the metal presses...
jacquesm 6 hours ago [-]
Stainless steel is far harder to work than regular steel. There is no way that process was cheaper.
ErroneousBosh 4 hours ago [-]
What happens if you scrape your fridge getting it into the kitchen?
You go to the DIY shop and buy a tin of white spray paint.
What happens if you scrape your brushed stainless fridge getting it into the kitchen?
Well, now you get to either live with it, or come up with some really clever ideas on polishing out the scratch and then sanding it back to disguise it with the rest of the surface which will never really look right.
bunderbunder 5 hours ago [-]
Stainless would be standard on economy cars, and the Cybertruck would be painted so as not to look like a Ford Pinto.
beAbU 5 hours ago [-]
Wait, not sure I understand you. Where are stainless panels used on economy cars?
Not sure I follow your ford pinto comment either.
bunderbunder 5 hours ago [-]
If unpainted stainless were actually cheaper then it would be the standard on cheap cars.
HarHarVeryFunny 5 hours ago [-]
I don't think the poor sales is primarily due to the cost - it's just a design with limited appeal.
alt227 5 hours ago [-]
The original design is what gave them millions of pre-orders, it was the reduction in range and increase in cost that made most people cancel those pre-orders.
kube-system 4 hours ago [-]
A $100 fully refundable deposit is not a very high bar of commitment. I suspect many of those reservations were non-serious.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
$100 is a fair chunk of money for the average person. I agree some preorders were probably half hearted, but the $100 commitment definitely weeded out some the jokers for sure.
kube-system 4 hours ago [-]
$100 is a fair chunk of money for anyone who would have never been a buyer anyway.
$100 is also a trivial amount of money for a larper with half the budget required to complete the purchase. Or someone with plenty of money who just put in a reservation "just in case" they wanted one.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
Thats not really fair, the $40k promised price is not that much higher than your average middle class car purchase. I think anyone willing to go to the site, sign up, and hand over $100 would be willing to to take on a payment plan for a $40k car.
kube-system 4 hours ago [-]
The average buyer in the US can't afford a new car of any kind. The average car sale is a used car. Used cars outsell new cars 3 to 1. And the average used car sells for $27k.
Entertaining the idea of a new car purchase is an upper-middle class thing, and a fully-refundable $100 is impulse buy territory for most of them. Yes, many of them would have been capable of taking on a $40K purchase, but $100 is not a serious indicator that they were serious about doing it. People who have this money are doing relatively well and blow $100 on much more inane things that aren't refundable.
A traditional dealer would ask someone with much less money looking at a used Nissan Sentra to put down $500 to hold a car.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
> $100 is not a serious indicator that they were serious about doing it
OK, but I think it is. So can we agree to disagree, is that ok with you that I have a differing opinion?
kube-system 3 hours ago [-]
You are fully entitled to your opinion but the data shows very little overlap between the groups of people who buy new cars and the groups of people for which $100 is a significant amount of money.
If you want to hold reserve a damn Toyota the dealer is going to ask you to show up in person, put down $500-1000 and fill out a credit app.
Tesla knew the $100 reservation was too low to show serious commitment, and this was intentional for two reasons:
1. to float an interest free loan
2. to manipulate investors
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
> You are fully entitled to your opinion
Thanks very much, have a great day! (Didnt read anymore of the post as it was unnecessary)
HarHarVeryFunny 4 hours ago [-]
I wonder how many people liked the design vs tolerated it? If Ford offered a cybertruck trim on the F-150 without changing the price would people buy it?
No doubt there is some demand for an "out there" design, but I'd have to guess that the projected $40K price was itself a large part of the attraction.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
Possibly, but as it cost $100 to put down a deposit I would be surprised if that many people were willing to actually pay for something they only tolerated.
HarHarVeryFunny 4 hours ago [-]
It was a refundable deposit (and small), so I wonder how many people were even that serious - no real commitment.
2019 USA annual car/pickup sales were ~17M. I find it very hard to believe that 10% (2M cybertruck pre-orders) of those purchasers were seriously interested in a cybertruck - it really is not a design made for mainstream tastes.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
If you owned a company and announced a product that 2 million people went and paid you $100 each for to preorder it, Im pretty sure you would think differently.
HarHarVeryFunny 1 hours ago [-]
Not sure what you mean by that - I'm sure Tesla was happy to have the reservations (great publicity - maybe that was the point), but there is no indication they took the numbers seriously.
stackghost 4 hours ago [-]
The design looks much better rendered on screen than in real life.
I thought the early images looked amazing but I see them all the time in real life (a few people in my neighborhood own them) and they just look so stupid on the road.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
Agreed, but this thread is duscussing the original popularity and whether Elon was wrong to believe it or not.
With false but great looking renders and false but great sounding promises, the hype and interest was real. It was only when the real product became apparent that it became a joke and interest was lost.
You would think maybe Musk would learn something about overpromising from this fiasco, but judging by things like DOGE I guess not!
stackghost 1 hours ago [-]
>You would think maybe Musk would learn something about overpromising from this fiasco, but judging by things like DOGE I guess not!
You're talking about the guy who has a fake twitter account tweet at him things like "you're such a good father, Elon, your kids are lucky to have you".
He's absolutely desperate for attention and approval, because not being perceived as cool is crippling to his sense of self-worth.
Of course he won't learn from overpromising! He inhabits a different reality, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men.
alexcano 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
bryanlarsen 4 hours ago [-]
A folded stainless exoskeleton without paint has the potential to make low volume car manufacturing much cheaper.
A press brake is generic and cheap. Molds for presses are cheap if the cost can be spread over many vehicles, but are expensive for low volume manufacturing.
Paint shops are similar. They're not expensive if you're running a lot of cars in the same color through it, but at low volumes with custom colors they are fabulously expensive.
Of course the final production Cybertruck didn't use the exoskeleton design so it was the worst of both worlds, but it does feel like the original design wasn't expected to sell well and was designed for low volume manufacturing.
venzaspa 5 hours ago [-]
This idea was never going to work out. In my opinion Slate have got a far more sensible approach with their replaceable body panels.
I live in the UK so I'll likely never be able to get one, but I'd love a car I can just buy new panels for and wrap them with minimal tools.
jbombadil 6 hours ago [-]
Same. Initially I was optimistic about the Cybertruck because I though “flat metal panels and no paint is going to make both manufacturing and repairs so much easier and cheaper”.
bluGill 5 hours ago [-]
Paint has been well studied. We know how to do it really cheap and automated these days. Cheap is relative. I'm sure that we're talking tens of millions of dollars to get all the equipment needed. But on a scale of factory and for how long it will last, that's cheap.
Flat metal is more expensive than curved metal. Curved metal, you design the curves to help support the stress points: you can get by with thinner sheets. Flat metal requires thicker heavier more expensive sheets of sheet metal in order to be strong enough.
Curved metal also lets you design the whole thing to be more aerodynamic. which is an important consideration even with something as un-aerodynamic as a truck.
fps-hero 5 hours ago [-]
> I'm sure that we're talking tens of millions of dollars to get all the equipment needed.
Painting cars really is a hugely optimised process that materially affects performance characteristics such as weight.
Its very difficult to appreciate just how many cars are made worldwide wide, but just think if a completely optimised fully robot optimised line cost a billion dollars, in only needs to process a few million cars to fully pay itself off. Just look at how much a “paint option” costs. Enough people paying for a premium colour would completely pay for the entire production painting line.
bluGill 5 hours ago [-]
Painting cars is also a process that scales. If you want to do a great job on one car everything you need can be had for less than $3000 (inflatable spray booth, large air compressor, a paint gun, and lots of sand paper). A good job can be done for less (a cheap air compressor and paint outside can still get good results), and most people who want to paint a car already have most of the tools so the cost goes down. The above setup will also handle a small auto body shop that is painting a couple cars per month, and you can upgrade equipment as needed (I'd start with a spray building instead of an inflatable booth).
At the scale of Tesla the millions of dollars on a fully automated setup is cheap because amortize the cost of so many cars
AlotOfReading 4 hours ago [-]
Painting actually introduces some scaling issues in manufacturing. Any painting step prevents you from haphazardly mixing all the parts produced on a line. Most vehicles will have multiple lines that eventually converge across multiple suppliers. Painting forces you to either coordinate the production of each individual component so that they're all painted the correct color during final assembly (which becomes difficult if any parts fail QA), or buffer painted parts in a giant warehouse. There's other advantages to the warehouse, but I wouldn't call it cheap.
Very common to use a mix of both strategies in practice.
MSFT_Edging 5 hours ago [-]
They built that truck backwards and upside down. The single-piece forged aluminum frame was basically impossible to repair and brittle. Typical truck frames flex, they're part of the suspension. For small accidents, the frame can be bent back. The CT would just crack, requiring extensive aluminum welding to fix which is waay harder than welding a steel frame.
origini 4 hours ago [-]
I thought this is not relevant tbh.
Either you have a modern expensive car and insurance which knows how to handle it properly, or it doesn't matter anymore and you got to a cheap car doctor.
sandworm101 5 hours ago [-]
There were no flat panels. That was a sales pitch. In reality, a slight curve to a panel adds so much strength that it can be made considerably lighter/cheaper than a flat panel of sufficient strength. Flat panels also tend to dent inwards very easily, which is not a good look for a car. Then there is the issue of thermal expansion. A pre-bent bit of metal will expand in a predictable way. A dead-flat panel could buckle in multiple unexpected ways.
I had a jeep wrangler once. The window was "flat" but not if you looked at its reflection. There was an almost imperceptible but complex curve, no doubt for strength.
meindnoch 5 hours ago [-]
Repair will be easier and cheaper? :D
As the DeLorean community will tell you, repairing unfinished stainless steel to aesthetically pleasing levels is almost impossible.
Take a piece of tinfoil, crumple it, then try to uncrumple it to its factory finish.
Repairing painted bodywork is easy and cheap: hammer it to get a rough shape, apply fillers, then paint & polish to factory finish. Simple as.
InsidiousWombat 5 hours ago [-]
how you repair steel panel and also make it look nice ?
...you don't. You replace it in whole. You can't use filler to mask small dents and paint over it, if you want it to look as before, you have to pretty much replace it.
idiotsecant 5 hours ago [-]
A steel panel would we repairable with the same tools a curved panel is. You can pull out dents without filler - filler is for fiberglass.
jfoster 5 hours ago [-]
I think they are mostly not doing paint going forward. CyberCab also doesn't use paint, but uses cheaper materials than stainless steel.
baggachipz 6 hours ago [-]
That original process was what should have led to lower prices. Instead, they couldn't do it and had to resort to gluing steel panels onto a body-on-frame design which is much more expensive. They still managed to keep it just as hideous, so kudos there I guess.
GuB-42 5 hours ago [-]
I doubt that replacing painted regular steel with fancy stainless steel is going to be cheap. Paint is expensive, but so is stainless steel. I also can't imagine the "origami" technique to be cheaper than stamping, the reason they suggested that is because their fancy stainless steel can't be stamped. And in the end, Tesla couldn't even do it, so they glued the parts on...
I don't know any item where the unpainted stainless steel version is cheaper than the painted steel version, thinking about kitchen appliances for instance. For cars, the most famous car with a stainless steel body is the DeLorean DMC-12, which was notoriously expensive, even without the time circuits.
PLenz 6 hours ago [-]
In that way the Slate pickup seems to be the truck Cybertruck promised to be
bitcurious 4 hours ago [-]
Slate hasn’t made a single delivery yet, so in that sense it’s definitely the truck Cybertruck promised to be.
bjacobel 4 hours ago [-]
> originally they were talking about
Elon talks about a lot of things. Consider if you might be part of the media ecosystem that enables that strategy.
paxy 3 hours ago [-]
They were also talking about how it could become a boat. All the hype in the world eventually has to meet reality.
spiderfarmer 6 hours ago [-]
Elon promised a lot but delivered almost nothing when it comes to the Cybertruck.
6 hours ago [-]
brookst 5 hours ago [-]
A “truck” that’s can’t haul, tow, or offroad is a very interesting product decision. Right up there with a two-person taxi.
It’s like they completely forgot the “what do people need” phase of product management.
pjc50 5 hours ago [-]
Two-person taxi is actually reasonable for the modal journey, but absolutely doesn't cover all use cases or accessibility.
The cybertruck was an early example of what someone on bsky called the "everyone is twelve now" theory: it looks like it was drawn by a small boy's idea of "cool", with zero further thought.
HeyLaughingBoy 5 hours ago [-]
There's a comparison that's been making the rounds on social media for a while.
In once panel, there's the Cybertruck whose owner bragged about it carrying a large round hay bale (weighs around 1,500lbs) with the suspension looking like it was about to die. Next to it is a shot of a circa-1980 Ford F250 carrying three of the same bales and sitting perfectly level. TBF, the F250 probably had air bags in the rear suspension, but still...
That thing is only a "truck" because they decided to call it that.
hylaride 5 hours ago [-]
Even modern trucks have turned into giant "luxury" vehicles that can't haul much more than the smaller trucks of 30 years ago. For most trucks bought by families, the heaviest thing they lug around is cat litter.
Most people should just buy a sedan. :-/
llm_nerd 5 hours ago [-]
Somehow everything turns into a misdirection with Elon, where failing to innovate yields ridiculous distractions. When the Cyberjunk was clearly a poor product, they pivoting to "doubling as a boat" and being bullet "proof". And also you can play shitty ports of video games, awkwardly, on your in-car screen.
At some point this gimmick misdirection nonsense has to stop working.
Oh look, if you have a transport-truck sized massive compressor in your garage and use 100kWh to spend a day filling a tank, your ComingSoonNow(TM wink) Roadster can do some silly stuff if you dedicate much of the interior to a giant explosion hazard.
actionfromafar 5 hours ago [-]
I think they wanted to make SpaceX and Tesla somehow look "related".
rchaud 4 hours ago [-]
Another prediction from the Simpsons comes true. The 1991 episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" where Homer designs a car with zero input from anybody besides himself. The result is an overpriced behemoth with random features nobody needs and nothing customers want (fuel efficiency, affordablility).
There's a pattern here: when an Elon Project is successful, he jumps in with Elon innovations, like cyber truck. The next example that will follow this pattern is building a rocket that's too big for orbital payloads, but takes 22 refueling flights to get beyond orbit.
brandonagr2 5 hours ago [-]
What do you mean too big for orbital payloads? Mass to low earth orbit is what matters, which starship is well optimized for. You could always put a tiny third stage on there to go places, but that is back to the apollo style yeeting a tiny amount of mass somewhere else and would not help with getting serious tonnage to the moon and mars
kibwen 4 hours ago [-]
> Mass to low earth orbit is what matters
For a company, matching products and services to demand is what matters. Being able to get more mass into orbit only matters if enough people are willing to pay to get stuff there. The analogy is that jumbo jets exist, but almost no passenger flights bother with jumbo jets because it's not economical. Unlike with civilian aviation we have yet to observe a natural experiment which would allow us to place an economically practical ceiling on rocket payload size, but it very much still remains plausible that something Falcon 9-sized is actually the sweet spot, especially given that Starlink is the only commercial offering that's pushing the existing Falcon 9 capacity. And yes, this completely ignores any mention of going to the moon or Mars, because although there may be incentives to do so (e.g. scientific incentives, political incentives, philosophical incentives), there is no economic incentive other than getting some government contracts which will be just as short-lived as Apollo was once the public loses interest.
staminade 3 hours ago [-]
Starlink is SpaceX's biggest revenue stream by far, and they are retiring Falcon 9 and quitting the contract / launch market, so they are matching very well with their own product, which is what they actually care about?
ErroneousBosh 5 hours ago [-]
> And originally they were talking about basically building it like origami from a sheet of steel.
It turns out that sitting in your office wearing an adult nappy and snorting cat sedative until your bladder no longer functions might give you a lot of quite "creative" thinking, but it doesn't make you an engineer.
At some point Elon has to climb out of the K-hole and realise that these things are better left to proper engineers.
api 6 hours ago [-]
The original wasn't what shipped. From what I read the cheaper easier process wasn't, which isn't unusual.
It's also an ugly-ass car. If it had turned out to be super-reliable and cheap and "hackable" that would make up for it, even earn its strange look a cult following, but no it just ended up as an overpriced weird ugly-ass car.
InsidiousWombat 5 hours ago [-]
Why would Tesla make "cheap" ? That's not their customer base.
Cheap hackable electric work truck (I imagine chassis with basic cabin that you can expand in various ways, like the EU van options have like half a dozen chassis) would be great but it's not something Tesla ever wants to make
lotsofpulp 5 hours ago [-]
>Why would Tesla make "cheap" ? That's not their customer base.
95% of their cars sold have been in the $30k to $60k range. They have long been the best bang for the buck electric car (in the US, since BYD isn’t allowed.
neutronicus 5 hours ago [-]
Isn't "hackable electric work truck" a bit of an oxymoron?
Just because the big batteries are so dangerous?
anyonecancode 5 hours ago [-]
Who are their customer base? Musk seems to have decided to fire his actual customer base, but getting a new one more ideologically aligned with him hasn't quite worked out.
dh2022 4 hours ago [-]
Based on my casual observation, middle school boys :)
I know its not fashionable to have such pesky concerns as priority in US, but pedestrian safety was simply non-present, hence it was banned all over Europe. Not missing it here, not missing that fugly ego whim of a sick man at all.
gopher2000 1 hours ago [-]
All other things aside, the worst part of the Cybertruck's design, to me, was its sloped truck bed walls (on the sides). Anyone who frequently uses their truck bed will know that getting access to stuff quickly and easily is key. And the Cybertruck's sloped walls go too high for anything in the very back of the bed to be reached. That just seems like such an unnecessary functional miss.
LastTrain 23 minutes ago [-]
They look quite silly but I really love it when a car manufacturer takes a chance and does something out of the ordinary. In a few years these are going to be really popular at car shows.
muddi900 51 minutes ago [-]
I must say, America is very much isolated in the World of EVs. The Chinese have pretty much conquered the rest of the world.
Also, all the top level comments sound the same. Is there a reason?
siliconc0w 4 hours ago [-]
I kinda like that it existed. It was ridiculous, like a production concept car. I just saw one the other day with a pink wrap.
jeffnappi 19 minutes ago [-]
If they had made this an SUV the size of the Rivian R1S it would have sold far better. Big truck people weren't ready for this.
I've rented a Cybertruck, and whatever you think if you drive one you'll be blown away.
rohan_ 12 minutes ago [-]
Tesla's insistence on disrupting themselves is exactly why they're going to be successful.
int32_64 3 hours ago [-]
Electric trucks in general seem terrible. You only see Rivians and Cybertrucks in urban settings, the electric F150 was discontinued. Anybody who knows how people that actually need trucks use trucks saw this coming, I never once saw a cybertruck used as a truck.
WJW 3 hours ago [-]
I always got the impression that the vast majority of the F150s are never used as trucks either. Americans just like really really big cars because fuel is cheap there and none of the cities are old enough that big cars are impractical.
Powdering7082 2 hours ago [-]
Obviously it doesn't affect the electric vehicles but light trucks being excluded from CAFE def did a lot to acculturate americans to always buying a big car
No, the F150 has great sales numbers but this is mostly due to commercial/work use. And commercial buyers need trucks that can tow, haul, be fitted with large toolboxes, booms/cranes, winches, plows, etc. The F150 electric solved none of those problems.
lyelibi 3 hours ago [-]
You're dismissing a cultural aspect of the popularity of trucks in america. There is way more trucks in Texas than say in Indiana, or Massachusetts on the road. Texas is one of the only states where people still drive hummers. They're not all doing off-roads
shawn_w 2 hours ago [-]
You need a 250 or 350 class truck for a lot of those uses - plows or heavy loads for example.
SoftTalker 34 minutes ago [-]
Well that's true. Loads of F150s in service as work trucks though. Potentially many could be EVs but the added cost and need for charging infrastructure for a fleet works against that.
NewJazz 2 hours ago [-]
The f150 did all of that. Range may have been an issue, though.
The chevy/gm ev trucks have bigger batteries.
SoftTalker 36 minutes ago [-]
Yeah my neighbor has a Sierra EV truck and he claims 500 miles range towing a camper, which I doubt but he loves it. He's all-in on EVs, has a another car as well and solar on his roof to help charge them.
achierius 2 hours ago [-]
Big cars are certainly impractical in SF, but it's more due to parking than anything else :)
anticorporate 3 hours ago [-]
> Anybody who knows how people that actually need trucks use trucks saw this coming
I'm a current truck driver and very excited to swap out my ICE truck for a Slate next year. I need something that can haul my trash to the dump, grab a load of wood chips for the garden, and bring home the occasional sheet good from the home store.
I agree with your assessment as it applies to the Cybertruck or F150, but not the idea of an electric truck. Some people buy trucks because they need a light-duty hauling solution; unfortunately, the market seems to only want to sell luxury SUVs that happen to have truck beds.
mindslight 2 hours ago [-]
cough small dump trailer (<3000 GVWR). Can be pulled by a light SUV. No shoveling those wood chips. Depending on where the trash is going, no having to lift that a second time either. I've carried 25 sheets of 3/4 ply in mine (and unloaded them by myself, as the tilting bed meant I could tilt up a bit and easily slide them off)
anticorporate 30 minutes ago [-]
I have a hitch for my current truck and honestly a dump trailer wouldn't be a bad idea anyway for some use cases, but even if I had one I'd probably only use it when I had to. The convenience factor just being able to hop in and drive, or having the truck bed with you when you didn't plan on moving something just wins out.
mindslight 14 minutes ago [-]
I think there are still tradeoffs of conveniences. A separate vehicle is handy for being able to slowly collect things to get rid of in one later trip, or to store something you just got until you're ready to put it somewhere else (I've got what remains of a 1/2 yard of sand sitting in mine). And being able to just dump something and drive away is quite nice (especially when you can put it into the trailer using equipment to begin with).
On the other hand, I've never experienced being able to just haul something without a little planning first, so I don't miss it.
cucumber3732842 1 hours ago [-]
Trailers aren't a silver bullet. I own multiple trailers (one even has a crane on it) and will still use anything else given the chance because it's just such a hassle once the empty weight of your trailer gets above what's convenient to move around by hand (which it will if you want to beat what a half ton truck can do, not what's within the rating, but what it can do).
mindslight 26 minutes ago [-]
The thing about equipment is no matter what you've got, you're always going to want something bigger.
You just need to cover the bulk of uses, not every last thing you might need to do. I think the light SUV + utility trailer is a pretty good sweet spot, even better for many things than a pickup truck on its own. Like have fun lifting 20 sheets of plywood up onto a pickup truck and back down, assuming you've even got one with a full length bed that can support that whole pile.
And sure I'd think larger trailers get to be a hassle to move empty by hand, but isn't that what having more equipment is for? And isn't that well into the tier where you need a truck for a tow vehicle regardless?
DubiousPusher 2 hours ago [-]
Not wrong. I combined my truck and SUV budget and bought a used X7 m50i and a small utility trailer. No joke it's the best pulling vehicle I have ever owned. Super heavy, super grippy, in trailer mode the torque comes on fast. It's brilliant. My old 03 Silverado sits even more now.
yummypaint 3 hours ago [-]
Most people driving trucks in the US don't use them as trucks, especially in cities. I think most people willing to take on a $1000/mo truck payment for their personal vehicle in the current economic climate are doing so for social reasons anyway. Whether the electric trucks on offer at the same price can compete on that front is a much more slippery question.
If we can get some affordable electric trucks in the US, it will be very interesting to see how the more rational segments of the market react once they are no longer priced out.
bryanlarsen 3 hours ago [-]
Unlike electric cars, the price for a used F-150 lightning is still a substantial fraction of new price. There is still substantial demand.
Work trucks are a very different market than for passenger vehicles. Their usage is a lot more consistent and known. This means that electric works very well for some work trucks and very poorly for others.
The other aspect of work trucks is that they're generally purchased by very conservative businesses who don't want to buy the bleeding edge, they want several years of reliability data before committing. The F-150 Lightning was cancelled just as that data was starting to come in.
Of course, most F-150's are sold as passenger vehicles rather than work trucks. Along with almost all Cybertrucks.
crsv 3 hours ago [-]
I've only ever heard positive things from every electric truck owner I know and this is coming from a market that's very truck-forward in terms of culture.
maerF0x0 3 hours ago [-]
In my observations it appears there are 3 kinds of truck drivers.
1. People who need to haul stuff in the bed
2. People who need to tow stuff behind them
3. People who buy them for some form of self expression.
Electrics are probably fine for people in 1 & 3. But for 2 I have yet to find one that both tows and gets range.
eitally 3 hours ago [-]
I would suggest there are 4 kinds:
1. People who need them for work.
2. People who need to carry bulky loads
3. People who need to tow.
4. People who buy them for some form of self-expression.
The only real use case for electric trucks, imho, is construction site supervisors who do most around-town driving but may occasionally need to haul stuff. Their towing range is absolutely abysmal (F150 Lightning range dropped to about 90 miles when towing a moderate trailer!).
onlypassingthru 2 hours ago [-]
An acquaintance saved thousands of dollars (over ten thousand, easily) by using his Cybertruck while building a cabin up in the mountains. All those trips to the hardware store and picking up random building materials add up very quickly when you are going up and down the mountain for materials and the big box hardware store is two hours away.
ElevenLathe 3 hours ago [-]
I see electric Silverados and Hummers (not a truck, but effectively the same vehicle as the electric Silverado) all the time, usually pulling landscaping utility trailers (flatbeds with huge commercial lawnmowers, etc.). I have no idea if this is economic or not (they definitely aren't cheap) but I've heard electric towing can't be beat for responsiveness, torque, etc.
DubiousPusher 2 hours ago [-]
It's pretty economical. Towing about halves your range. So you're still paying quite a low gallons/mile equivalent. However, that decreased range is a killer. So it makes sense why you'd see them doing lighter duty local work like landscaping.
muddi900 37 minutes ago [-]
The BYD Shark is all the rage in Asia.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
Truck brained people are notoriously stubborn. If it isn’t like daddy’s old truck they simply can’t see past it
I live in the PNW and you see people not using their trucks as trucks every single time you go out on the road. This includes urban areas.
I’ve owned an F150 and an R1T and for camping, overlanding, snow trips, etc the Rivian is hands down the most capable vehicle I have ever driven. You couldn’t pay me to go back to a Ford
snypher 3 hours ago [-]
We recently had a guy drive 146 miles out of the cascades, to Oregon City, to get a replacement radiator for a Jeep after a trailside wreck. We don't know how to fix a Rivian when it breaks down, or where to get parts.
kube-system 1 hours ago [-]
Parts availability for a new and/or low volume vehicle is always tough whether it's an EV or otherwise.
But process of replacing a radiator on a Rivian really isn't any different than replacing one on a Jeep.
Most people who work on any vehicle don't know what the fuck they're doing, there's plenty of people in Autozone buying their 3rd O2 sensor for their Jeep that's throwing a P0420 as well.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
That sounds like a you problem.
Iknowsheknows 1 hours ago [-]
Sounds like a problem for anybody who owns a rivian frankly.
dilap 3 hours ago [-]
I definitely see them from time to time here in Austin loaded up with stuff being used as real work trucks. (But mostly not.)
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
Given US pricing of $6.50 diesel, the cyber truck with 11,000 lb towing capacity actually makes a lot of sense.
It just looks too weird.
bluGill 3 hours ago [-]
People who are towing a lot may like the idea of electric. However they need range, and EVs when towing don't deliver. It is too bad, I'd like a electric truck, but when I tow I'm trying to get someplace and EVs don't deliver.
It doesn't help that nearly all chargers are arranged such that I'd block important parts of the parking lot for half an hour if I was towing when I needed a charge, then I have a complex back out (where something is behind me that I need to avoid). Most gas stations are designed so my trailer might block a pump from someone else using it but otherwise I'm not in the way.
nozzlegear 2 hours ago [-]
> People who are towing a lot may like the idea of electric. However they need range, and EVs when towing don't deliver. It is too bad, I'd like a electric truck, but when I tow I'm trying to get someplace and EVs don't deliver.
Depends on why you're towing something. My brother-in-law is a contractor, for example, and the first thing you do when you start your own contracting business is buy a big ass pickup and a trailer to haul all of your tools and materials to your job sites.
Agreed on the chargers though, sometimes it's difficult to use a charger even with a normal-sized car just because every manufacturer wants to put the ports in a different, weird and quirky place on EVs.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
The range loss on an EV is comparable to the 5 MPG you are going to get with a 3/4 ton truck towing anything 10k pounds as well
The only actual difference is time you need to charge. Pull through charging stalls are ubiquitous where I live
And I just don’t know…how often are people towing loads over 100 miles regularly for this to be a problem? Where I live I see pavement princesses towing the occasional boat or landscapers towing gear and rocks.
Neither of those is going to max out the range on an EV truck in an average day
nozzlegear 3 hours ago [-]
The standard F-150 uses gasoline, not diesel. Not that gas isn't expensive right now either.
criddell 58 minutes ago [-]
I've been seeing more and more JAC small pickups (I'm in Austin). They use small diesel engines. I kind of thought the era of small diesel engines was over (thanks VW), but maybe it's coming back?
fooker 3 hours ago [-]
I have seen rivians being used as trucks pretty often in small towns.
soperj 3 hours ago [-]
I know people with Rivians and F-150 Lightnings and they love them.
trashb 3 hours ago [-]
Indeed that target audience (people that actually need trucks) should be looking at a diesel vw passat from the 00's instead.
seizethecheese 3 hours ago [-]
Truly terrible for pedestrians. Modern trucks are already death traps with their super high front grills, multiplying the weight compounds the problem.
AnthonyMouse 46 minutes ago [-]
Vehicle mass is a significant factor in collisions between vehicles because taking two thirds of the impact is a meaningful increase over taking half of it. Heavier vehicles are much more dangerous to lighter vehicles.
It's basically irrelevant in pedestrian collisions because the pedestrian is already taking ~95% of the impact even from a lighter car and the <5% difference between that and an arbitrarily heavier vehicle is completely dwarfed by any of the other variables like the speed of the collision. For a pedestrian it's better to get hit by a freight train at 35 MPH than a 3000 pound vehicle at 39 MPH.
richwater 3 hours ago [-]
F150 Lightning was ruined by the dealership network who had 0 interest or financial incentive to sell them. When they did sell them, they added huge markups.
The quality of the vehicle is actually quite high.
ballsac 3 hours ago [-]
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firasd 3 hours ago [-]
I noticed that the cyberpunk wedge cars that inspired it are 2 seaters… maybe this shape isn't right for much larger cars?
DeLorean is the real life 80s reference of course, but in cyberpunk revival media like the coupe in Ghost in the Shell 2017, the spinner in Blade Runner 2049—those cars are all much smaller cabins than the cybertruck
aidenn0 3 hours ago [-]
The first two series of the Lotus Esprit had similar design language as well.
ribaspatel 3 hours ago [-]
The dimensions felt off to me. I had it as a loaner and enjoyed it a bit, especially since it had HW4. But I would never buy one.
The size is just too impractical. It would never fit in my garage. On top of that, the standby drain was significant. Just sitting idle, it would lose 10 to 20 miles of range.
Magicrafter13 2 hours ago [-]
Why would they focus on "cybercab" over this. Everything that makes the cybercab cool will never be legal in a consumer product. Cybertruck is definitely more useful to an average person.
jmbwell 2 hours ago [-]
An average person has no use for a truck that costs more than twice what an average person makes in a year and half or more what an average person spends on an average house
tonymet 2 hours ago [-]
the economics of Tesla , a company with lots of capital, renting out their fleet make more sense in a market of consumers with little disposable income.
kjellsbells 3 hours ago [-]
The good: someone trying a radically new design. Polarizing like the Fiat Multipla or Pontiac Aztek or even the first Chrysler minivan, but credit for trying.
The bad: didn't seem to be very good as a truck (eg build quality). That would not have been too bad, but it's dangerous when the design already alienates some buyers. Carmakers need time to get it right, and that needs sales.
The terrible: Elon torching his reputation in all sorts of ways and essentially insulting his past and future customer base. The politics, the bait and switch over features, etc etc. Eventually people tire of it.
It's tragic, because for better or worse Americans love their trucks, so the team that solves the electric transition is doing the world a huge favor.
muddi900 34 minutes ago [-]
The Fiat Multipla is one of the ugliest cars ever. But it was a very good compact.
The other two cars you mentioned look pretty run of mill.
Topfi 3 hours ago [-]
While I will happily admit, the initial Multipla looks awful both inside and out to my sensibilities, I have to defend it vs the Cybertruck. Purely from the practicality standpoint, it was ingenious, having three seats front and back while being small, light and cheap solved a real need and I do still see quite a few, especially compared to other Fiats from that time, because of it. It also has what I feel is the most impactful facelift of any vehicle ever.
Had the Cybertruck brought forward the manufacturing innovations that were alleged to cause the weirdness in its design, I could draw the comparison with the Multipla, but as it stands, it has all the visual appeal of one, with none of the practical reasons for it. Having something ugly for good reasons, I can appreciate, function over form to the nth degree. Looking awful just for the sake of looking awful, not so much. Cybertruck is the car equivalent of intentionally bad Balenciaga releases (like the plastic bag), wherein even with taste being subjective and beauty in the eye of the beholder, there is a point where it just becomes as close to objectively ugly as is possible.
Can't comment on the Pontiac, have never seen one outside Breaking Bad.
linesofcode 3 hours ago [-]
That’s unfortunate, I quite enjoyed the brutality of its aesthetic.
mahboi 3 hours ago [-]
I don't like the design but don't hate it either. At least the jaggedness is for a functional reason. There are uglier cars, about 10 of which are from Kia and Hyundai.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
A lot of people did and thats a fine opinion to have, but be careful saying that around here you will get roasted for it.
adventured 3 hours ago [-]
There's nothing wrong with an interesting design. It's not a serious market however. The Cybertruck was a pet project forced onto the market by an out of control CEO (there's a large disconnect between Musk and the consequences of his actions). Tesla requires very high volume selling vehicles to prop up its comical market cap. The entire company is resting on one car model. They desperately need another highly successful model, the Cybertruck could never be that.
Frankly Tesla is dumb lucky the Europeans and Japanese have botched the EV market so badly overall. Tesla shouldn't even exist at this point with how trivial their lineup is.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
All we said was some people like the design.
ballsac 39 minutes ago [-]
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gwbas1c 4 hours ago [-]
I would have liked a 3-row SUV based on the Cybertruck; but the Cybertruck was just too expensive to be competitive. At least the Model Y's price dropped (right after I bought one) to something more reasonable.
What's most frustrating is that I had to trade in my Model 3 for a 3-row SUV, and Tesla just didn't have anything competitive in that segment.
mpalczewski 3 hours ago [-]
I liked the styling. Thought about getting one. Got a chance to get in one the other day. and it was so uncomfortable. felt like sitting on a park bench. I thought this was supposed to be not a real pickup. Rather a suburban big old thing with blade runner styling and reviews said lots of comfort. No, just a big old vehicle, that's not even that roomy on the inside (hip room felt like that of my old integra), with the comfort of an 80's pick up. not much of a point to it.
busymom0 7 minutes ago [-]
The wrapped versions of them looked very cool imo. Without wrap, they looked like a fridge.
danans 2 hours ago [-]
They can cancel it, but it will always symbolize the time period and culture associated with its creator, that probably just ended. I bet future generations will use its image that way.
Disabling Javacsript lets you read the article already. There's no need to visit archive.today, where you participate in executing DDOS attacks against anyone who criticizes the site's creator.
wmichelin 5 hours ago [-]
I legitimately would have bought it if they made it look more like a regular pickup truck, and if Elon didn't go full crazy.
I did buy a Model-Y shortly before his Trump endorsement, and then sold it for technical reasons.
On a cold January morning, I was pulling up to a stop-sign, didn't have any autopilot turned on, and the car accelerated.
I think there is just too much software between gas pedal and the machinery of the car. They're honestly kind of dangerous vehicles. The average person can't handle the responsibility of a self-driving vehicle.
I told all of my friends and family that I would not recommend the vehicle yet to a non-technical person, even when I was myself driving it and loving it.
Gareth321 5 hours ago [-]
Setting your experience aside, my national transport agency in Denmark recently approved Tesla full self driving because the data confirmed that it’s safer than the average driver. I think it’s both true that these cars can fault, and that they’re safer on average than humans. To be clear, Denmark is not alone. Many European countries have approved it for the same reason, and many more are evaluating. Holland is the toughest to pass, and they passed.
muddi900 31 minutes ago [-]
Self-driving cars have fat-tailed risk.
Some outside factor might cause a signal failure, causing cascading destruction.
amanaplanacanal 3 hours ago [-]
I assume you meant full self driving supervised, not actual full self driving.
Gareth321 2 hours ago [-]
No points for the nomenclature. Tesla calls it “Full Self Driving,” but it is supervised.
paxy 5 hours ago [-]
"Safer than the average driver" is great if all the below-average drivers start buying Teslas. But if you're converting drivers on the other end of the spectrum then the roads become less safe overall.
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
I wish someone who had access to the data would address this.
I do know that there is not much better than average driver! There is much worse than average: people who drive drunk, and a few other classes of people who shouldn't drive at all. However the vast majority are all about equal: in reasonable mental health and limited to the same eye and reaction times. A few people have and follow better training and so are slightly safer - but this is slight. Most people think they are better than average because they excuse their mistakes as a "one time mistake", while confusing "the other guy's" mistakes with the other guy must be a bad driver.
Gareth321 2 hours ago [-]
Denmark compared FSD data to national incident rates for regular passenger vehicles. So it’s a true average across all passenger vehicles.
readthenotes1 4 hours ago [-]
That's if you ignore the ability to look everywhere all at once which even the best human driver has trouble doing.
It will be interesting to see if the substantial safety margin decreases as more people buy in.
parineum 3 hours ago [-]
Why would you assume that the group of people would be anything other than the average driver?
dyauspitr 5 hours ago [-]
Yeah same. It was too strange looking for me and Elon’s turn to the far right kind of ruined Tesla for me. I ended up getting a F-150 lightning instead and it’s been a great experience. Unfortunately they stopped making those too.
5 hours ago [-]
vel0city 4 hours ago [-]
> I think there is just too much software between gas pedal and the machinery of the car.
There's a shit ton of software between the gas pedal and the machinery of just about every car on the road today whether that be an ICE, hybrid, or EV. We're a long ways away from the go-go pedal directly pulling a cable opening the throttle plate.
jdlyga 3 hours ago [-]
It was a great idea, and there's some amazing technology in it, but it's absolutely terrible implementation.
dan_shipattest 24 minutes ago [-]
Cybertuck should do a security check for all the new models.
ortusdux 3 hours ago [-]
I'm not a fan, but I was hopeful that the direct sales model would drive others to confront the dealership tax. Ford floated the idea with the Lightning, but faced a mutiny.
I am the exact target audience of their new Fathom, but I abandoned my preorder sign up process when I saw the phrase "dealerships set the final price".
maxlin 21 minutes ago [-]
Sad, but reminds me of the Model S line teardown in making space. CB truly was ahead its time in how it pushed Tesla's tech, and will always be futuristic. Still, I can't help but to feel like it died too early. Its spirit lives on in the Roadster, and I sure hope this won't be the last "truly exceptional" Tesla among their "quality sleeper" EV's.
No other car is as awe-striking to see on the streets, especially in the EU. This will be the Mustang Fastback or Testarossa of the 2040's ...
Truly one of the most baffling stories in recent automotive history. All they had to do was make a normal pickup truck with Tesla tech. Hell, go ahead and use it as the testbed for 48V, steer-by-wire and whatever else if you want to - but the amount of time and money wasted to make what was in the end an absolute monstrosity that failed to deliver on any of its price, performance and range promises strains credulity. Cybertruck is the most visible inflection point marking Elon's descent into madness.
I don't understand why anyone ever bought one of these in the first place. Fads are a crazy thing.
Gareth321 5 hours ago [-]
I love that they took a swing for the fences. Car makers are so fucking safe these days. Sadly it didn’t land, but it’s awesome that it exists. I think if it had used a more conventional design it would have done so much better. Owners report an incredible driving experience. I also think battery technology held it back. It was originally advertised as having much better towing range, and production came in very underwhelming. This made it much less appealing as a utility vehicle. It ended up being used for picking up groceries and this wasn’t broad enough a market.
bryanlarsen 4 hours ago [-]
Not every swing is a home run. You can win with a few home runs or a lot of singles.
The only guaranteed way to lose is if you stop swinging. And Tesla has stopped swinging. They haven't revealed a mass market consumer vehicle since 2019.
There is some incredible technology in the Cybercab that allows them to be built cheaply in high volume. Instead Ford looks like they are going to be the first Western consumer vehicle out of the gate with the unboxed production method with their Ford Fathom. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese are ahead here too.
xur17 1 hours ago [-]
They've stopped swinging at the consumer market. I'd argue that they are swinging at other markets though (Cybercab and Optimus).
Gareth321 2 hours ago [-]
Hasn’t Musk been clear that he’s abandoning traditional passenger vehicles? He’s retooling for Cybercab and Optimus. Model Y and 3 are selling too well to abandon but there won’t be new models. We’d be lucky for refreshes.
smallmancontrov 5 hours ago [-]
Agreed, I love to see long shots even if they don't land, and in this case the price/performance fundamentals were likely the biggest problem. The "limited TAM for a bold stand-out design" was probably another, but Elon also didn't do any favors by vigorously adopting the opposite politics of his customers at the same time he was trying to launch a bold/iconic design.
sanderjd 4 hours ago [-]
Was the unusual design a "swing at the fences" or was it just a vanity project?
browningstreet 4 hours ago [-]
I disagree. Teslas used to be nice designs and pleasant to see on the street. Cybertruck and Cybercab designs are an affront. Intentionally ugly. I’m glad we don’t see a lot of trucks on the street, and I despair at the thought of millions of Cybercabs about.
The 3/Y and the screens had lots of design and product innovations. Iterating on those lines would’ve been quite nice.
baggachipz 4 hours ago [-]
The Y redesign to adopt more of the "Cyber" ethos is such a mistake. It won't age well, but then again neither will the brand.
browningstreet 3 hours ago [-]
Agree. I'm still quite fond of my earlier Model Y design.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
For better "swing for the fences", have a look at Renault.
taco_emoji 4 hours ago [-]
It's not admirable to "swing for the fences" if you're holding the bat upside-down
singularity2001 6 hours ago [-]
but electric trucks are very successful in China. Why not in the rest of the market?
m4ck_ 5 hours ago [-]
I think the cybertruck appeals to a very narrow market. It's too expensive for most people who just want a big vehicle to get groceries and run kids to around, and doesn't really have any qualities that make it useful for commercial use, outside of being a rolling billboard. Unless it just really appeals to you and you have cash to burn, I don't know why you'd buy a cybertruck over a Ram/Ford/GM. A RAM 1500 w/ etorque costs half a cyber truck and gets decent fuel mileage... If you need a work truck a RAM 3500 is cheaper and will reliably haul 30-40k loads 12 hours a day and the warranty isn't void the second your tires touch dirt.
toomuchtodo 5 hours ago [-]
It’s a status symbol masquerading as a utility vehicle.
GuB-42 5 hours ago [-]
And it failed at it too.
People who buy trucks as a status symbol want to be "tough". And Tesla clearly intended to appeal to "tough guys", it is big, powerful, and supposedly indestructible. Elon even twitted at some point that it would destroy the other car in a collision, a morally questionable comment, but the implications are clear, a though vehicle for people who don't give a fuck about others.
And then, they managed to break the unbreakable window during the presentation, followed by the rusty trucks, and most importantly, the whole fiasco with glued panels that came off. So, you market a tough vehicle, but it falls appart. Who is going to buy that?
pydry 5 hours ago [-]
also a status symbol inextricably linked to elon's "brand" which doesnt help
tsunamifury 5 hours ago [-]
Aka 99% of trucks.
neogodless 4 hours ago [-]
While we could quibble on the exact percentage, I think that's the point. Why spend $100K on an ugly status vehicle, when you could just get any half-ton pickup quad-cab short bed and prove to the world how big of a truck you have, but only spend $50-60K?!
The Cybertruck is weird and a "status" symbol, but most people want to fit in, but also have the "nicest" looking status symbol, so they convince themselves that "this particular truck" is really nice. (And also if I own it, it's clear I do lots of hard physical things.)
wffurr 6 hours ago [-]
The Slate and Fathom are going to sell like hotcakes in the US.
neogodless 4 hours ago [-]
I think the Fathom will outsell the Slate 10 to 1 despite costing more, because U.S. buyers have adapted to "luxury" in every trim level of vehicle. I mean, yes base level Corollas still sell quite well (but these days even those have features you dreamt about in a luxury sedan not too many decades ago.)
The Slate represents an ideology that combines the nostalgia of what trucks used to be (especially the Ford Ranger) with a modern EV powertrain, but most people don't actually want the stripped down basic vehicle, even if their eyes light up over the idea.
baby_souffle 3 hours ago [-]
> The Slate represents an ideology that combines the nostalgia of what trucks used to be (especially the Ford Ranger) with a modern EV powertrain, but most people don't actually want the stripped down basic vehicle, even if their eyes light up over the idea.
I have debated this extensively with some friends. I *jumped* at the slate pre-order precisely because it doesn't have any 'luxury' trim options. I don't want to pay out the nose for a fancy infotainment system that will use the cheapest possible under powered electronics from a decade ago, run a 10 year old version of android that spies on me, gets no useful updates...etc.
I certainly have my biases but I suspect that most people only _tolerate_ most of the painpoints w/ the various 'luxury' items in their cars and if given the opportunity to start simple and upgrade they would.
> but most people don't actually want the stripped down basic vehicle
Perhaps. But if you put two options side-by-side and show people what they get at the two different price points, I'd bet that the ~30k slate compared to the ~ 50k typical new car price will get a decent chunk of people thinking about what _else_ they could do with 20k in savings.
hn_submit 6 hours ago [-]
Everything that's cheap will sell like hotcakes, but that doesn't mean the companies selling them will make much profit from them.
willismichael 6 hours ago [-]
There is more than one definition of "very successful". Maximizing shareholder value isn't everything.
bluGill 5 hours ago [-]
Maximizing shareholder value is not the most important consideration. The most important consideration is don't go bankrupt. Once you have a product that sells, you can start asking, well how can I maximize shareholder value? But you have to make those sales in the first place or you're going to go bankrupt and that is far worse for shareholders than not getting maximum value.
Successful companies well understand they don't know exactly what maximizing shareholder value requires. They are always making small experiments to see what really works in the market. Many of those they know will fail and in turn cost shareholder value because of a bad investment. But you have to try bad investments in order to find one that is good.
acdha 5 hours ago [-]
It’s also important to remember that while some people talk like there’s a legal responsibility to maximize shareholders value which forces businesses to make decisions focused on short-term profits, those people are simply wrong. There’s an extraordinary level of deference given to executive discretion which means it’s quite rare to see successful lawsuits for anything plausibly good-faith. For example, right now there’s a fad to lay people off but any business which chooses instead to invest in their capacity is unlikely to even be threatened with a shareholder lawsuit because no court in the country is going to say that “we are investing in long-term capacity” was clearly wrong.
millerm 5 hours ago [-]
Constant growth is capitalism and it's so damned flawed.
swed420 4 hours ago [-]
I wonder if anybody wrote about this problem, like, a century and a half ago.
brookst 5 hours ago [-]
High volume, low margin is a completely legit strategy.
hn_submit 3 hours ago [-]
That works for foodstuffs but not the manufacturing industry. Because you know people need to eat, always. They don't need a new truck all the time.
idiotsecant 5 hours ago [-]
I have a slate preorder but it's a niche vehicle. It's a small 2 door 2wd pickup that can't meaningfully tow and has a 200 mi range.
It's not going to appeal to people who want a truck as a symptom of fragile insecurities around their masculinity and that's a biiiig part of the US truck market
sanderjd 4 hours ago [-]
I don't think this is a failure of electric trucks, it's a failure of this specific design.
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
Look at the F150 lightening to see the failure of electric trucks. Chevy, Dodge and Ford all have, and it shows. Chevy's electric Silverado has a lot more range because more people want a truck for towing than the 1% that hacker news claims, and so range became and issue. Ford and Dodge are instead looking at plug in hybrids for the future: use an engine when towing, and battery for acceleration and shorter trips.
paxy 5 hours ago [-]
Trucks are a status symbol in the USA. EVs were becoming acceptable in the mainstram, hence the initial surge in sales, but that has cooled off since 2024. Now very few outside of the big tech cities are spending money on EVs. Hence the fate of the electric F-150 as well.
rsynnott 4 hours ago [-]
That's electric semi trucks. The market for pickup trucks in general in China would be pretty small.
throwaway473825 5 hours ago [-]
Cybertruck is only available in countries that don't want EVs.
moolcool 4 hours ago [-]
The Cybertruck is not very good at being a truck, but it is very good at being a social signifier.
ubermonkey 5 hours ago [-]
This isn't about the idea of electric trucks.
This is specifically about the Tesla Cybertruck, which has been shown to be fairly shoddy in construction AND is tied to a very, very divisive figure.
sbseitz 5 hours ago [-]
Overpriced, not good at being a truck, eDong, yep.
doikor 6 hours ago [-]
Because cybertruck is a bad truck.
Yossarrian22 4 hours ago [-]
It's also illegal to sell in EU because of how bad it is for pedestrian safety.
InsidiousWombat 5 hours ago [-]
bad truck suggests it's bad at being truck not just... at everything related to transport
bluGill 5 hours ago [-]
Most vehicles are used to get one person to and from work every day. There are a lot of people who don't have kids or only have one kids and so they don't need use passenger space or hauling capacity. The Cybertruck is aerodynamically terrible, but if people are not using it as a truck, well I guess it's transport that works for them.
However, people are talking about the same truck as if it is a truck. And it's a terrible truck for people who need a truck. On the other hand, a lot of other trucks are also terrible at being a truck for the people who need a truck. You have to go into the three-quarter ton or one-ton range to find a decent truck these days, even though a modern half-ton probably has more power and weight carrying capacity than a 30-year-old three-quarter ton truck. The way it's set up means it's not going to work as well as a truck. The 30-year-old truck is going to have a longer bed, which is something that someone who needs a truck is going to want in the truck.
mwt 5 hours ago [-]
Very frustrating that trucks have morphed into tank-like SUVs with small beds tacked on back. Expensive and has every fancy feature one could want ... except the thing that makes it a pick-up truck
doikor 2 hours ago [-]
A lot of that is US tax code making it cheaper if the car (truck) is big enough.
I have very mixed feelings about the Cybertruck. Personally I absolutely hate it, it's just not my cup of tea and I would never in a million years buy one. However as a general lover of cars, I have to appreciate just how striking the design is and how it was a complete departure from pretty much any other car on the road.
There's nothing quite like the Cybertruck and I don't think there ever will be again.
xfil 2 hours ago [-]
Largely agree with your mixed feelings. When the Cybertruck was revealed, I thought it was atrociously ugly, but I appreciated something radically different in a market of converging (and IMO boring) styles. I could see the style being more successfully applied as a Cybercar / Cybercoupe.
Brings me to a point I'd like to make: it boggled my mind that Tesla decided to execute the 'Cyber' aesthetic via a pickup truck, particularly after the US auto industry ramped up marketing the pickup truck's familiar shape as a cultural facet during/after the Great Recession and the fuel economy regulation changes.
Tesla could've capitalized on the billions Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and others spent in the 2010s marketing pickup trucks as God's gift to humanity, but instead decided -that- was the best market to try a complete novelty in. It makes no rational sense -- I've heard it ultimately came down to Musk stubbornly wanting the Cybertruck, but I don't know if that's factual.
x3haloed 3 hours ago [-]
I had a pre-order. The reason I canceled was because the delivered product had a lot less range and was much more expensive than previously announced.
There were other things that contributed to the decision, too: the announced "stressed skin" exoskeleton was panned in favor of adhering the body panels to the body with glue, it became clear that Tesla's profit and valuation were funding Elon's right-wing political project, and I would have preferred a solid-axle design.
The absurdity was not what was wrong with it. It's OK to be absurd. I really liked the stainless steel design. Less trail damage when off-roading and no need to worry about paint scratches causing body rust. The door wedge design? Meh. But it enabled the stainless steel body.
In the end, I want what the Cybertruck failed to deliver: a full-size electric pickup at a good price with excellent range. I currently have my eyes on the RAM REV. We'll see if that one gets axed, too.
nazgulsenpai 3 hours ago [-]
I have very little interest in electric vehicles, Tesla, Elon Musk, etc. But I still think the Cybertruck, at least the design, looks awesome. It looked like something you'd see in the "Another World" or "Out of this World" intro cinematic.
mrob 3 hours ago [-]
Agreed. I see it as the successor to the angular style of the Lamborghini Countach, which far more people are willing to admit looks cool.
whynotmaybe 3 hours ago [-]
Both look extremely cool to me but Elon's behaviour is the only reason I'll never buy a tesla. Even though the cybertruck looks awesome but it's impossible for me to be seen in this. I wouldn't be surprised if they'd used a cybertruck in a BTTF remake
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
Do you have the same concerns about the executives at Ford, Honda, etc?
I just find the moral grandstanding a bit off. The vehicle industry isn’t exactly a paragon of executive virtue
whynotmaybe 3 hours ago [-]
I haven't seen any other executive do a Nazi salute and some people won't buy a car based on the country of origin so I don't see why I can't dislike a brand because of its leader behaviour.
I don't know what the others think so I can't judge on that, but I can judge based of what Elon says and does.
And aside, Elon's been lying for years about everything and promising stuff Tesla can't deliver.
IMHO, there's a strong parallel between the Elisabeth Holmes/Theranos situation and Elon/Tesla.
kstrauser 3 hours ago [-]
I don’t recall seeing Ford spend $400M trying to influence the US elections. People have strong feelings about Elon, and only Elon, doing that.
toyg 3 hours ago [-]
The cultural element is the difference. It's a suburban vehicle who wants to pretend it's a truck, exactly like the pompous suburbanite assholes who want to pretend they are rugged alpha types just because they drive a truck they don't really need: both would fall apart in a minute when faced with real problems.
The Countach was just the usual Lamborghini luxury scam, and I say that as someone who grew up a few km from the factory. Nobody cared if it was kinda crap inside, because it existed just to look like a cool car. A truck is supposed to, y'know, be a truck.
giantrobot 3 hours ago [-]
Having seen both in person, a Countach actually looks cool. The Cybertruck looks like a shitty unused model from a PS1 game.
Just because something is "angular" doesn't mean it's in any way comparable to a Cybertruck.
mrguyorama 1 hours ago [-]
You don't see how an angled polygonal shape sold in 1974 might be more loved than the same angled polygonal shape sold in 2020?
You realize style evolves right?
That style was futuristic in the 70s. It is not futuristic anymore. A lot has happened since the 70s to change what the future should look like.
Ironically, I am finding myself thinking that all the supposedly "bland" electric cars nowadays finally look like cars from the future, simply by being normal car looking, with very slight and subtle styling accents.
Because that's what a future car looks like: Roughly the same aerodynamic profile but with electric motors. That's literally what everyone wanted in the first place, as was Elon's thesis for Tesla as more than a niche car company.
The Cybertruck aesthetic is stupid because it is literally a middle finger to what people want, as Elon himself noted.
I don't get why people are so stuck on "But it looks different" as a good thing.
It's a car. Why are you so stuck on needing your car to stand out? Why is it a problem for you if cars look the same?
bredren 3 hours ago [-]
I also think the design is rad.
Doesn’t the new ~flying car have similar design vibes?
delecti 21 minutes ago [-]
It looks like something that would be fun and cool to drive around in a video game. I would never get a Tesla for unrelated reasons, and would especially not get a Cybertrunk because it's not fit for purpose, but I thought the hate for the aesthetics was overblown.
But then I saw it in-person, and it looks indescribably weird and bad, akin to the uncanny valley. The problem is that it's a real vehicle and not in a video game.
laughing_man 3 hours ago [-]
For an "unwanted" truck, I sure see a lot of them on the road.
FireBeyond 1 hours ago [-]
Less than 50,000 of them ever built. And didn't SpaceX and the DoD (thanks, DOGE) buy about 2-3,000 of those between them? (I think SpaceX bought a thousand).
You might see "a lot of them" because they stand out and are "memorable".
swaptr 3 hours ago [-]
As with most marketing gimmicks, they have little to no value outside of their insane marketing.
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
Used resale value is around $80,000.
tombert 3 hours ago [-]
I kept thinking the design was going to grow on me as I saw more of them on the road, but nope. I still think it looks unbelievably ugly. I do not think it looks like something that you'd see in Another World, it looks more like something I would have designed when I was fourteen playing with Lightwave.
iAMkenough 3 hours ago [-]
Personally, I think it looks like a silver dumpster.
To those that downvoted, I’m sorry my opinion offended you.
linksnapzz 3 hours ago [-]
There's someone near me who has one with a white wrap over it.
I see it parked, and I thought:
"If Kenmore had the wherewithal to manufacture 4wd electric chest freezers...that's what they'd look like."
...but I'm not offended by it. I think that sort of whimsical craziness is all too often missing from modern durable goods, so I'm glad it got built.
I'm even happier that its existence upset mincing, peevish little eurotwee Conde-Nasty scribblequeefs like this Wired author. If it'd guarantee him leaping off of a tall pier, I'd pay MSRP for a Cybertruck.
Zigurd 3 hours ago [-]
A fugitive ice machine that escaped from Motel 6
t1234s 4 hours ago [-]
I imagine we will see it reincarnated into a moon rover variant.
clircle 1 hours ago [-]
I can only believe this car is unpopular if I step outside of my mental bubble. In suburban Washington DC I see these things everywhere.
latexr 3 hours ago [-]
As this is a thread of its discontinuation, might be worth looking at the thread of its announcement.
Haven’t explored it yet, but it might be interesting to see how the sentiment shifted.
tamimio 3 hours ago [-]
Open source it entirely from parts to software, and let whoever wants to maintain it themselves to keep it.
bufordtwain 45 minutes ago [-]
I'd like a cheap basic pickup with an 8 foot bed please.
hypfer 3 hours ago [-]
I wonder if we will see less aggressive and generally hostile car designs in the future, now that public sentiment towards the tech oligarchs seems to have shifted.
Renault is designing cute things again, so that's a good development. So is Citroen, apparently?
So that's a good development
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
mmayberry 1 hours ago [-]
concerning?
jmyeet 5 hours ago [-]
Behold the Toyota Hilux [1], a truck so reliable that it is the truck of choice in many developed nations and even less developed ones. It's so cheap and reliable it became the platform for a war [2]. It also has a truck bed equivalent to a Ford F150, a vehicle significantly larger. But you can't buy a new Hilux or equivalent in the US because cars younger than 25 years cannot legally be imported [3] (to stop grey imports on Mercedes in the 1980s, originally) and because of CAFE standards [4].
Electric vehicles obviously don't have the hurdle of meeting emissions standards so Tesla, or any other company really, had (and has) the opportunity to create a small, cheap, mass market utility truck that no gas-powered vehicle can compete with. This is what the Cybertruck should've been.
There have been breakdowns of the Cybertruck and it is such an incredibly bad design. Things like the weight of stainless steel panels but with an aluminum frame. Why is that a problem? Because aluminum is prone to catastrophic failure with the up and down motion of towing a heavy load than stainless steel simply isn't [5].
The rumor has been that the only thing propping up Cybertruck demand is Elon forcing his own companies like SpaceX to buy them [6]. Other than that, the Cybertruck became a weird political statement [7]. Those people are getting crucified on resale. It's even a trend on Tiktok and elsewhere to watch these trade in videos. People who paid $150k+ are getting <$70k less than 2 years later.
Anyway, I'm shocked no US manufacturer is tackling the EV small utility truck market. Yes there was the F150 Lightning but it's still too big (and thus expensive).
Oh man, I was wondering if anyone was gonna bring up Slate.
I try not to get excited about stuff, but the idea of The Next Big Thing in Cars being a total lack of garbage nonsense screens and giving us back CRANK CRANK WINDOWS -- this is pure joy.
Wheels. Seats. Motor[1]. Box to keep rain off. Done.
Oh you attached a bed to that? Double awesome.
[1] Enough top end cruise speed for American interstates.
chuckadams 4 hours ago [-]
> But you can't buy a new Hilux or equivalent in the US
A Tacoma is basically the US model of the Hilux.
jmyeet 4 hours ago [-]
The Tacoma is more like the modern Hilux. I should've been more specific. The 1980s and 1990s Hilux weighed in at 1000-1200kg. Now it's 1700-2100kg. It's a lot bigger truck. Those 1980s and 1990s trucks were indestructible and so easy to service.
Now I get why the gas powered Hilux has changed. Emissions standards have changed. Fuel efficiency is more important. Modern cars are full of computers and microcontrollers. But an EV is relatively simple. It's one of the big advantages. Yes you have an OS and it's not just turning the ignition but the drive system itself is fairly simple, the thing that turns battery power into movement (compared to ICEs). No moving parts (in the engine), basically.
You could absolutely make a small EV utility truck. Remember that part of the reason why people were excited about the Cybertruck when it was announced was the price point (~$35k). Of course it turned out to be 3 times that.
Look at what BYD is doing [1]. Now these are PHEVs rather than pure EVs. Other automakers are making smaller pure EV trucks.
The Cybertruck wasn't really designed as a volume item, it was designed as the testbed for Tesla's next gen tech (ethernet-based fieldbus, 48V tech). You can do only so much in the lab, and sometimes you have to push your tech into production to find the last few% of failures, which will cost you dearly if you actually put them into your volume sellers.
I mean it's probably not that comforting for owners to unknowingly have signed up for a beta test, but that was the plan for Tesla for a while with the Cybertruck.
This was also the reason for sloppy stuff like steel panels glued to the aluminium frame, and not following up on their initial promises - the car morphed from a serious project into a low volume testbed sometime during its production.
Tesla seems to be killing its non volume cars the S and X are dead as well, I've heard rumors the Model 3 might be on its way out.
j45 3 hours ago [-]
It's good to dare to try things more than a little different.
Who would think we could get satellite internet that works?
magicalhippo 6 hours ago [-]
I mean as much as I love thd idea of actually doing something bonkers, the lack of sales seemed inevitable to most I assume, so that should come as no surprise. Should have stayed a concept car.
dmix 6 hours ago [-]
Like most things it came down to price most of all. Cars are way too expensive in North America.
HarHarVeryFunny 5 hours ago [-]
Even if it was half the cost, say $40K rather than $80K, I think most people in the market for a vehicle would choose something else!
bunderbunder 5 hours ago [-]
I wouldn’t be surprised if cost were the only reason its sales weren’t even lower. If it’s expensive it’s at least a plausible status symbol. At a reasonable price it’s just an incompetently designed utility vehicle.
fourside 4 hours ago [-]
Reading through some of the comments in this thread feels like being in the Twilight Zone. This is the company of a man who poured almost half a billion dollars into the US election to try to buy favor in Texas. He tried basically bribing voters in Wisconsin before. Weeks ago, he used Starlink for political retribution against Ukraine. He’s unelected, unaccountable and has repeatedly and brazenly tried to undermine US democracy and insert himself in international affairs.
And yet some of the comments talk about this like these cars exist in a vacuum, detached from the realities of the person behind them. Some of them even praise this hideous, low quality, overpriced, impractical abomination of a truck. Parts of the tech world really do live in a bubble.
deepsquirrelnet 3 hours ago [-]
This is the world that the Supreme Court dreamed up for us in their Citizen's United ruling. Now that money is equivalent to speech, we all have to carefully weigh if our purchases will be used against us in our political system.
To anyone who is/was a crusader against cancel culture, recognize the source of it. Become a crusader against Citizen's United instead. It would be a much more productive coalition.
sirbutters 1 hours ago [-]
It was absolutely the nail on the coffin for democracy, right after Mitch blocking Obama's SC nominee.
b0rbb 4 hours ago [-]
Yeah I find myself in the same boat. I don't know if it's a thing with just Bay area tech folks or what.
(btw dope earthbound reference in your username if that's what it is)
qwerpy 4 hours ago [-]
Try leaving your bubble sometime, and live somewhere where people generally have good lives and don’t care about politics. Orange County, for me. Lots of teslas and cybertrucks everywhere, mostly owned by first generation immigrants who don’t care about the political noise, just want a practical electric car.
amdsn 3 hours ago [-]
it sounds like the bubble is in Orange County. Not everyone is able to ignore the side effects of "political noise"
fourside 3 hours ago [-]
Ah yes when I want to escape my insular, ivory tower life, when I want to connect to common, everyday Americans, the first place that comes to mind is Orange County, CA. These salt of the earth people don’t worry about frivolous little concerns such as the cost of living. Unaffected by petty concerns, Joe Mainstreet of Orange County, CA looks at a line up of electric car options for him and his family, and every the pragmatist says “give me the $80k giant toe nail clipper”.
RetpolineDrama 3 hours ago [-]
>Weeks ago, he used Starlink for political retribution against Ukraine. He’s unelected, unaccountable and has repeatedly and brazenly tried to undermine US democracy and insert himself in international affairs.
You are deeply, utterly misinformed and loudly ignorant.
Ukraine uses StarShield, which is owned/operated by the USGov. Starlink is a civilian service not for military use.
If you can't be bothered to perform a simple google search to educate yourself about basic matters such as this in a few seconds, why should anyone listen to any of your other (ridiculous) points?
qlte 2 hours ago [-]
You yourself might want to do a quick Google search or AI chat and note:
Musk says SpaceX did restrict Starlink, as Ukraine says the tech has been restored
> In a post on social media site X, Musk said that Ukraine had been violating Starlink's terms of service by using it for offensive military activity.
> On Saturday, Ukraine said that Starlink and the military's use of the related Starshield technology were back to high operating speeds after more than a week of disruptions.
> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that the restoration began overnight.
> "The most important thing today is that Starlink and Starshield operations have been restored to the speeds we had before the restrictions," Zelenskyy said. "The speeds are now where they need to be."
declan_roberts 4 hours ago [-]
We know. A lot of people want him dead. Let's talk about the car instead.
xyst 2 hours ago [-]
Headline of article is: "RIP Cybertruck. You Were Unloved, Unwanted, and Utterly Absurd"
No point in editorializing it.
hn_submit 6 hours ago [-]
Musk was a fool to mistake the hollering of a small group of enthusiasts for that of the truck-buying U.S. population. Nobody was actually wanting for the CyberTruck. He should've listened to his marketing people and not be guided by social media and his right-wing instinct.
Then again, he's a con-man who's now quietly distancing himself from CyberTruck ("I had nothing to do with it") and moving on to the next con-trick: the CyberCab.
bombcar 5 hours ago [-]
Tons of people wanted (and still want) a CyberTruck, but at something like a $40k price point.
Those people are just as loud as others, but never actually buy, because a $40k CyberTruck never existed.
boobsbr 5 hours ago [-]
I would want one for $40k in Europe.
psp99 5 hours ago [-]
thank god that's not happening.
readthenotes1 4 hours ago [-]
Well, if you're dreaming, instead of a cyber truck at 40K, wouldn't you want instead a Chauffeured Rolls-Royce and the Swedish bikini team to keep it maintained?
bluGill 4 hours ago [-]
That depends.
When I want to go to the symphony I want a chauffeured Rolls-Royce. I don't care how it is maintained, that is the chauffeurs job. If I want to see under dressed girls I'll go to a strip club after if, or maybe hire an escort to sit next to me.
When I want a truck to "go mudding", the fun is driving it through the mud. Maybe my chauffeur is tows the truck to the mud pit, but I'm getting it stuck in the mud myself. Sometimes the local cheerleaders are holding a fund raiser and I'll pay them to clean the truck after I'm done.
When I want a truck because I need to haul things - I want to pay someone else to take care of it when I'm not around.
In reality I'm not rich enough for the above. I do a lot of maintenance myself because I can't afford to pay someone. I have one vehicle that is a bad compromise for everything because I can't afford more.
In reality I have moral objections to under dressed girls and so I'm not going to the strip club or hiring escorts. But if I was that type I wouldn't be paying them to maintain my car. I have had the cheerleaders clean my car while I watched, but I wasn't paying them to be "eye candy" even though I did enjoy looking, and the next week is was the boys wrestling team (which I don't enjoy looking at) that got paid just as much for the same job.
In reality I'd prefer public transportation, but that is a different story.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
No, Id like a cyber truck with 500 mile range for $40k which also is a boat and is bulletproof, all as originally promised. That would be awesome. The product we got in reality is a terrible shadow of the original idea.
Insanity 6 hours ago [-]
That would have been antithetical to his existence.
alt227 5 hours ago [-]
Small group of enthusiasts?
Tesla took over 2 million preorders for the Cybertruck before they closed the program due to high demand.
paxy 4 hours ago [-]
And sold 70,000 total. The fact that ~96.5% (likely more) of preorders were cancelled should tell you all you need to know about popularity.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
I was replying to the parent comment where they said:
> Musk was a fool to mistake the hollering of a small group of enthusiasts for that of the truck-buying U.S. population. Nobody was actually wanting for the CyberTruck. He should've listened to his marketing people and not be guided by social media and his right-wing instinct.
It wasnt social media and his 'right wing instinct' whatever that is. It was massive amounts of paid pre-orders feeding their opinions that it was going to be popular.
EDIT: Oh I see you have edited your comment since I wrote mine. The massive amounts of pre order cancellation came after it was released, so how does that factor into their initial opinions that it would be popular during development?
neogodless 3 hours ago [-]
Based on the lie about how much it would cost, how many they could produce, and how soon they would be delivered...
Even very ugly cars will sell if they give you a really good deal for the money. The Cybertruck at $39,999 was a shockingly good deal. It was just a lie.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
No one is arguing that, but in turn you cant argue there was real buzz and popularity of the product on announcement. Whether that was caused by a lie or not is irrelevant, it was popular big time before anyone knew what the real product was going to be like.
timacles 6 hours ago [-]
I’m sure we can trust a sharp business man like Musk to learn from his mistakes and come up with better ideas
Btw have you seen the roadster??
2OEH8eoCRo0 6 hours ago [-]
My five year old nephew will be devastated.
wffurr 6 hours ago [-]
My kid loves these things too and I have to keep the eye-rolling to myself.
boringg 5 hours ago [-]
Future collectible market will be willing to pay good money for these! Big future nostalgia factor amongst 3-9 yos.
nalekberov 6 hours ago [-]
This ugly piece of shit doesn't belong on the roads.
jm4 5 hours ago [-]
It's a little extreme to want to deny Elon a driver's license over his looks...
Animats 2 minutes ago [-]
So this leaves Tesla with two car models, a Robotaxi that doesn't work very well, and a humanoid robot operation that didn't ship product on schedule[1]. Why is this worth a 1.4 trillion dollar market cap?
Truly the peak of 2020s antisocial car design. The car looks designed to plow through other vehicles, barriers, and pedestrians without slowing down to count the bodies. "Bulletproof bodypanels" is only a selling point on a mass production car if you routinely piss people off enough to make them grab iron. Folks who need pickup trucks for the utility they provide have stuck with trucks that are actually fit for purpose. It was a way to signal to the world that you had extremely poor judgement and low standards.
chamomeal 2 hours ago [-]
I feel like cybertruck’s main issue is that driving one is a political statement. Maybe not intended. A lot of people just think they’re neat.
But where I live (deep blue territory) most people would not be caught dead driving Musk’s favorite car around
barbecue_sauce 3 hours ago [-]
There are plenty of people who drive pickups because they like them, not because they fulfil a utilitarian purpose, and not all of them are assholes.
I would say the issue is more that there has been little to no progress in mainstream consumer car aesthetics in the past 25 years. It used to be that you could clearly tell a 50s car from a 60s car from a 70s car from an 80s car, etc. Everything from the past 25 years or so is pretty indistinguishable, so something comes along with a clear but possibly misguided aesthetic vision, its naturally going to appeal to some people.
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
In the real world it has fsd + non-fsd capabilities to immediately stop before hitting a pedestrian.
The steel chassis provides rigidity instead of a traditional frame. They ended up having to be flat, not curved, to meet the design goal.
I guess we all just want something that “looks like a pickup”, is heavy, and guzzles $7 a gallon diesel fuel
Kapura 3 hours ago [-]
modern cars are literally designed to deform on impact to keep the passengers safe. they're called "crumple zones" and they exist to dissipate kinetic energy to keep everybody involved safer. adding "more rigidity" isn't serving any meaningful purpose.
thrwfjauci2aa 3 hours ago [-]
Yeah, that totally explains how it got top honors from both major U.S. safety organizations.
input_sh 2 hours ago [-]
NHTSA very notably didn't care about pedestrian safety at all. Luckily that finally changed, they started testing for that for 2027 models onward.
IIHS only really tests how good a car is at preventing an accident, not what happens when it fails like for example Euro NCAP does (and so does NHTSA starting nowish).
Kapura 2 hours ago [-]
if it's so safe why is it banned from many european countries for safety concerns?
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
> I guess we all just want something that “looks like a pickup”, is heavy, and guzzles $7 a gallon diesel fuel
No actually the lightning and the R1T are pretty well loved by the people who took a chance on them
jrauser 3 hours ago [-]
I'm convinced that Elon made it just because he thought it would be funny. "Let's make a truck that looks like it came out of a 90s low-polygon video game! That'll be hilarious!" He never cared for one moment if it was actually a good product.
The poor people that bought them were the butt of his joke.
paularmstrong 3 hours ago [-]
No, he legitimately thought it was edgy and cool. He has the taste and desires of a 10 year old.
nailer 2 hours ago [-]
It is cool, in terms of it doesn't care what people think and doesn't mind people hating it (like the parent post).
There's nothing wrong with nostalgia and the Cybertruck felt like it was from Hard Drivin' or 4D Sports Driving/Stunts.
SoftTalker 3 hours ago [-]
The first Tesla was based on a Lotus Elise. It was stunningly good looking. It changed people's minds that an electric car had to look like a glorified golf cart.
Later cars from Tesla looked more generic but still like looked like regular cars.
The cybertruck seems like a throwback to the old electric cars that looked like something out of nerd's sketchbook.
win311fwg 3 hours ago [-]
Compared to other pickups on the road, he's not wrong. It wasn't a good design, but the competition isn't very fierce.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
The competition isn’t very fierce but he sure did squander his advantage in the EV segment to get beaten to market by a company that had never shipped an EV before
Rivian selling the first EV pickup truck even after Elon’s announcement of the cybertruck is pretty embarrassing
agnosticmantis 2 hours ago [-]
Tesla's forgotten how to make actual products people want to buy thanks to its meme stock status, government handouts, state & federal tax and carbon credits, not to mention the absurdly high tariffs on foreign competitors.
It has received zero actual feedback from the market so the new products are based on ketamine high visions rather than market needs.
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
muddi900 1 hours ago [-]
>The US EV maker only began delivering the Cybertruck to customers in late 2023. According to Kelley Blue Book, the company only sold 20,237 Cybertrucks in the US last year, down 48% from 38,965 in 2024. Before the pickup truck launched, Musk had predicted annual sales of 250,000 units.
ouch
schiffern 4 hours ago [-]
>blaming the problem on the wrong type of glue, a new adhesive “not prone to environmental embrittlement.”
That quote was about the new glue, not the old glue?
>some RWD Cybertruck owners merrily driving along could be disconcertingly overtaken by their own wheels.
If they read their own link, that never happened?
Who's doing the proofreading at Wired now? Is it all just AI?
CharlieDigital 3 hours ago [-]
> If they read their own link, that never happened?
> The issue stems from the brake rotors, and the report says more severe road conditions "may strain" the stud holes in the wheel rotor, causing cracks to form. If the cracks persist and worsen, it may result in the wheel detaching entirely.
> In a recent off-road escapade at the King of the Hammers event in Johnson Valley, California, a Tesla Cybertruck experienced a mechanical failure resulting in one of its wheels snapping off. The incident, captured over the weekend, has raised eyebrows about the durability of Tesla's much-touted electric truck.
I can't remember the specific video, but I recall seeing someone breakdown some of the poor materials/engineering choices for "truck" use cases and of the mass of the CT.
Obviously the NHTSA ('Highway' is in the name) doesn't care if you boulder-crawl and break your car. That's easy, in any car!
Boulder crawling typically involves heavily modified vehicles for a reason.
CharlieDigital 3 hours ago [-]
Read the recall link:
> If the cracks persist and worsen, it may result in the wheel detaching entirely.
>
> ...engineers determined that continued use under strain could eventually lead to separation of the wheel stud from the hub.
Watch the YT video.
Telsa made bad engineering choices on this vehicle. There's no point defending it.
Is it because your world view fractures with a fallible Musk?
schiffern 2 hours ago [-]
I know what happened, no thanks to Wired. ;)
Original point being, Wired is (best case) bad at proofreading and worst case trying to lie by omission and imply that this actually happened, while "merrily driving along" no less. In reality no such failure occurred.
TL;DR however much you distrust the media, it's not enough...
CharlieDigital 47 minutes ago [-]
> however much you distrust the media, it's not enough...
The YT video is not from a Tesla hater, but shows real, structural failures with the CT and the engineering (using cast aluminum instead of steel).
I don't trust any singular source, but looking at evidence in aggregate across many sources, there are clear problems with the CT from material selection to parts engineering to overall capability vs what was sold.
gyanchawdhary 3 hours ago [-]
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gyanchawdhary 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dgacmu 3 hours ago [-]
That article seems to be fairly flattering of the technical tricks tesla used to make the demo roadster flip? Your claim about "paying his mortgage ... critiquing everything Elon does" is certainly not backed up by this citation. Dude clearly doesn't like the cybertruck, but to a first approximation, that pretty much describes everyone.
As someone who described himself in an earlier post as a "Big Elon fan boy", perhaps the source of bias here lies in a location other than the author of the WIRED article.
Kevin_Flynn 7 hours ago [-]
Im curious about the timing of this announcement.
On the surface, it seems to take the wind out of their sails.
They told us the cybertruck was awesome.
They told us flying cars soon.
Now we see the fate of the first promise.
I would have delayed this announcement for as long as possible after the flying car show from a PR perspective.
Which makes me think this announcement is throwing a bone to the financial bean counters ahead of the potential merger with SpaceX.
Cleaning the companies books of fat before the big game.
qlte 1 hours ago [-]
You have it backwards.
The Musk strategy is to quietly drop failures/broken promises from a previous hype cycle after kicking off a brand new hype cycle to take its place.
This is entirely consistent with his tried and true strategy to constantly redirect attention forward to the distant future, and never stay idle long enough to encourage looking back at the ever growing pile of ideas that didn't work out.
alt227 5 hours ago [-]
They have also renamed the 'Full Auto Driving' feature to 'Driving Assist'.
Literally nothing Tesla promised is coming true.
x187463 5 hours ago [-]
It's called Supervised Full Self Driving (FSD) and that is an accurate name given it controls every aspect of the vehicle's operation, only requiring the driver to pay attention as a supervisor. And, essentially, the same software and hardware available on a Model 3 and Model Y is present on the CyberCabs that are driving people around a few cities, now, without input mechanisms. Elon is a PoS, and it took a decade longer than he said, but the cars are driving themselves.
It's Tesla Assisted Driving in Europe. In the US, it's still FSD.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
Yes thankyou for confirming my point.
How did I know you would come and be pedantic about it?
I live in Europe, and here its not called Full Self Driving because regulators disagree with you that the car is driving itself. Therefore your original statement of "It's called Supervised Full Self Driving (FSD) and that is an accurate name given it controls every aspect of the vehicle's operation" is not true here at all.
If the US is happy with Elon lying about his cars abilities then thats on them. Not surprising really judging by the mess that is the USA in recent years.
small_model 3 hours ago [-]
European regulation is a joke, that why they are failing, look at the riots in France, businesses strangled by regulation.
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
> businesses strangled by regulation
Trumps current mess with huge increases of cost of living, and subsequent popularity decline is an example of what happens when you let business run free.
lotsofpulp 7 hours ago [-]
This isn’t news to anyone following the business. I’m pretty sure it was announced months ago that model X and Cybertruck (and maybe Model S too) were being discontinued.
And Model 3 and Y have always been 95%+ of the cars Tesla delivered.
momento 6 hours ago [-]
It was also mentioned in the Roadster presentation that the Roadster would be the only nonautonomous car produced by Tesla long-term.
DonHopkins 6 hours ago [-]
Not everyone may have seen Robby Roadster's famous presentation:
Just to be clear, the earliest possible date for no further increase in temperature under the most optimistic IPCC scenarios is 2050. Actual decline to pre industrial levels at best around 2100.
flohofwoe 6 hours ago [-]
Oh man... if you want to start a professional career as internet troll you have a really long road ahead of you.
tiohijazi 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
khalic 6 hours ago [-]
*flying car shaped air tank and thrusters
agnosticmantis 2 hours ago [-]
Tesla's forgotten how to make actual products people want to buy thanks to its meme stock status, government handouts, state & federal tax and carbon credits, not to mention the absurdly high tariffs on foreign competitors. It has received zero actual feedback from the market so the new products are based on ketamine high visions rather than market needs.
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
fitsumbelay 44 minutes ago [-]
No fan of Elon here but I prefer Cybertrucks to Hummers based solely on observed owner behavior. Hummer drivers are DICKS. Cybertruck drivers are just driving around in some metallic 3-D geometry with little (observable) ill intent
pxmpxm 7 minutes ago [-]
Well this thread has taught me that “I don’t like Elon, but “ appears to be the new pronouns for people that find it important to signal their left wing bona fides.
Honestly thought we’re done with that …
1970-01-01 3 hours ago [-]
Unloved and unwanted is outright false. Go to cybertruckownersclub.com for a more balanced take. Somehow Wired managed to completely miss the best U-word description of it: Ugly.
InsidiousWombat 3 hours ago [-]
Just because someone likes a given piece of trash doesn't make it not a piece of trash
1970-01-01 3 hours ago [-]
That's not how the ancient idiom goes..
bigstrat2003 3 hours ago [-]
But it does mean that the thing isn't "unloved and unwanted".
alt227 3 hours ago [-]
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method_capital 3 hours ago [-]
We need this person to tell us all what we should like!
I notice this internet world we live in, networked behind screens, really demonstrates the average person's drift to totalitarianism. It's frightening to me.
hbn 3 hours ago [-]
Just cause an internet blogger thinks something is trash doesn't make it trash.
trollbridge 3 hours ago [-]
I test drove one, liked it, had no intention to buy but asked what it would take to get one.
The answer was wait a long time since they’re sold out. Obviously someone wants them.
paularmstrong 3 hours ago [-]
But they didn't sell out. There were storage lots in Florida full of them. Were they falsely claiming demand and hiding away their stock?
kstrauser 3 hours ago [-]
The article says they sold about 12,000 in the first 3 quarters of this years. That’s about 1 per 30,000 Americans.
With numbers that small, any vagary of demand can lead to lots full of unsold vehicles or waiting lists.
Mashimo 2 hours ago [-]
Was that RIGHT after they got released? Or later on?
3 hours ago [-]
dfxm12 2 hours ago [-]
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For better or worse, it looks unique, and while a truck probably should be functional rather than flashy, I appreciate the swing they took with the design.
Kapura 3 hours ago [-]
>go to a forum for the owners club for a more balanced take
hilarious sentiment
1970-01-01 3 hours ago [-]
Go look before you have a knee jerk reaction.
howunfortunate 3 hours ago [-]
I mean owners are often quite regretful?
It's certainly more balanced than a forum of non-owners who's only knowledge about the issue is that they hate Elon with an undying passion.
hbn 3 hours ago [-]
...yeah? You should get an opinion from people who use the product, not people who dislike the company's CEO for political reasons and their dislike of it was a foregone conclusion.
Grombobulous 3 hours ago [-]
Unfortunately not very many people use the product.
I’m sure there are passionate people over at the Mitsubishi mirage owners club as well.
We can’t blame political reasons for the Cybetruck failing, especially in the context of the Model Y and Y L selling like hotcakes.
No, the problem with the Cybertruck is the styling is polarizing in person, it came in overpriced and under-ranged, and it wasn’t built for a buyer demographic that exists in large numbers.
Slate understands truck buyer motivation and demographics a lot better than Tesla. Chevrolet with the Silverado EV understands much better what their buyer demographic for an EV truck needs to succeed (be a regular half-ton truck, get as much range while towing as possible). And those companies are still likely to struggle or are struggling to sell EV trucks, respectively.
If Tesla knew what they were doing they’d have made a true full-size 3 row SUV similar to the EV9, and they’d also make a city car for Europe. But they blew development money on a bespoke single-country truck.
jjuel 3 hours ago [-]
"There are dozens of us...DOZENS!"
2 hours ago [-]
demo4567 4 hours ago [-]
Good riddance from the taped on glued on pump and dump scheme for fElon.
acdevlin42 25 minutes ago [-]
Can't believe I had to scroll down this far to see anything other than Musk bootlickers.
jklowden 22 minutes ago [-]
We can add the truck’s 25,000 annual unit sales versus Musk’s 250,000 prediction to the long list of his other failed and bogus predictions. The top of that list has many contenders: date of mars colonization, date of driverless car, everything about his ridiculous tunnel system in Las Vegas. Yet the media regularly credulously report, “Elon Musk says…”.
kstrauser 4 hours ago [-]
No Wired love for the Incel Camino? The Deplorean?
3 hours ago [-]
100111011111 5 hours ago [-]
Ugliest car ever screaming insecure and politically controversial owner who can't shut his mouth, what could go wrong
rjmalagon 2 hours ago [-]
Maybe they will upgrade the polygon count, anti-alias some of the improperly cut borders and implement proper Béziers curves...
Eji1700 42 minutes ago [-]
It did sort of identify/lean into something that I think many people don't really want to acknowledge, which is, yes the "truck" has become a status symbol rather than a work vehicle.
Had Musk leaned into it as the "luxury"/GT of trucks (like the H2), there probably would've been less pushback. Granted he's functionally incapable of not just lying about things being the best every and setting stupid impossible goals, but I do think there's outcomes where we see more things "akin" to the cybertruck, leaning into the Pavement Princess market.
hbarka 3 hours ago [-]
I still remember the marketing for the Cybertruck. Tesla teased a partial neo-noir silhouette of the truck which had everyone guessing which part it belonged to. Childhood fantasies about Blade Runner designs were conjured in people’s imaginations. Fanboys were truly generous with the design expectations. Embarrassed to admit now, I did go to the unveiling and when it rolled out I thought this must be a gag and the real Blade Runner would follow any second now, only to realize that this ugly thing was it. If you could only see the collective shock amongst the attendees. Only the drunks were cheering. Then the boss had the designer throw a ball through the window. Twice.
(Edit: the actual designer had the assistant designer throw a ball through the window.)
hn_submit 3 hours ago [-]
Why isn't Tesla responding to queries as to whether production will cease completely? Are they ignoring bad news and bad rap? Childish of them.
Tesla could simply come up with a more conventional looking EV pick-up truck of course.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
The Ford F150 lightning was killed because of low demand and loosing the company money. That looked just like all the other F150s and that didnt help it. I dont see you criticising them them.
hn_submit 33 minutes ago [-]
I don't see a reason why there isn't a market for a EV pickup truck. Maybe the American public simply isn't ready for it. Or the Lighting may have been too expensive compared to its ICE counterpart.
But the CyberTruck is just one man's doodle-after-an-acid-trip kind of design.
alt227 24 minutes ago [-]
Yeah I agre, someone will crack the EV truck market.
Ford failed due to massive production costs which they assumed would go down as the tech got better. They bet wrong, and ended up loosing thousands per unit.
Battery tech needs to get better and cheaper for it to work properly.
That's disrespectful to a guy who made a nicer car and had a less destructive drug habit.
dylan604 3 hours ago [-]
In what way? That's a strained way to poke fun at someone just because.
jjuel 3 hours ago [-]
"That's gold, Jerry. Gold."
ramesh31 3 hours ago [-]
>"Elon truly was inspired by Delorean"
He wishes. Delorean is a modern classic, regardless of commercial success. Cybertruck will go down like the H1/H2; something entirely emblematic of the worst excesses in the time it was conceived and marketed in, that later generations will go "did they really think that was cool?".
linksnapzz 3 hours ago [-]
A modern classic, thanks to Bob Zemeckis; without whom it would've been right up there with the Bricklin SV-1.
Setting aside JohnZ's personal failings, the car and its production was a catastrophe.
mingus88 3 hours ago [-]
Hilariously the deloreon speedo didn’t even go up to 88
linksnapzz 2 hours ago [-]
Part of that was a NHTSA rule that hilariously (from 79-82) made 85mph speedometers mandatory; but even later, because of tooling costs, those dials persisted.
Not that the DMC-1's PRV v6 and tall Renault 5-speed were gonna make getting to 85 easy...
browningstreet 4 hours ago [-]
I recently had a Tesla service call at my house (routine maintenance for my Y). He showed up in a darkly wrapped Cybertruck. It didn’t occur to me that they’re just dogfooding their own vehicles to use them up.
Hilarious but a logical end state option for them.
Quitschquat 3 hours ago [-]
Money better spent on your roadster reservations.
cdrnsf 2 hours ago [-]
What a shame. They were a good way to filter out folks to avoid whenever you saw someone driving one.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
Please tell me, what can I look out for to avoid you?
cdrnsf 1 hours ago [-]
If you're driving a cyber truck you won't have to.
andsoitis 4 hours ago [-]
They are probably the ugliest vehicles ever produced. They're an eyesore. Good riddance.
hn_submit 26 minutes ago [-]
I can assure you there are much uglier vehicles out there. I once stopped at a stoplight and there was this car ahead of me, I don't know which make or model but when I saw it I just laughed out so loud. I think it was Korean or Japanese, but I'm not sure.
You rarely see them, probably because they're so dog-ugly that hardly anyone buys them.
DarkNova6 5 hours ago [-]
The cybertruck was announced like a bad meme and now dies as one too. What we see is the logical and long overdue conclusion of a story that lasted longer than it should have.
Good riddance.
dofm 2 hours ago [-]
Tired: all terrain vehicles
Wired: special purpose vehicles
throwaway5752 10 minutes ago [-]
I struggle with why I should care. A low selling, controversial truck that is the brainchild of an eccentric billionaire is being discontinued. It's a triumph of Tesla marketing that anyone should care.
They have sold 70k Cybertrucks since 2023. Ford has sold more than 10 times that alone of F-series. Toyota sells that many RAV4s every two months.
For anyone that bought one and loves it - I'm not questioning your choice and I hope the vehicle will be well supported. Many popular vehicles that sell better have been discontinued like the entire companies of Geo, Saturn, and AMC. The Chevy Malibu sold twice as many cars per year pre-Covid than total Cybertrucks have been sold, and they were discontinued in 2024.
It's relatively neat that Tesla tried something new but they should consider focusing on operations and not losing further ground to BYD globally.
dmschulman 5 hours ago [-]
Someone knows the government infinite money machine, which Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, and many other Musk companies took advantage of, is about to get cut off.
brandonagr2 5 hours ago [-]
What government money do you think Tesla gets? Consumer tax credits went away a long time ago, and that benefit went to customers, not Tesla.
aceazzameen 5 hours ago [-]
A government credit still means Tesla gets paid the full price from a sale. So yes, Tesla got government money.
But yes, those credits have been vanishing for a while.
etchalon 45 minutes ago [-]
It was absolutely shocking that this thing launched at all.
It was so bad, yet, Musk managed to make buying one became an identity thing, selling far more than the product warranted.
moolcool 2 hours ago [-]
Like the ideology it represents, it's presence is impossible to ignore, but in the worst way possible. Plus it's a shitty truck.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor, and it's a wonder it stayed in production this long.
trymas 4 hours ago [-]
side-topic: why trucks are so popular (especially USA)? Is it all in the fake testosterone virtue signalling and pretending to be hard working country people?
To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine.
If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
No, you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If you want truck adjacent vehicle, get Toyota 4runner or Highlander. Humongous cars, vast and closed cargo space. It will pull a trailer, it will haul all your stuff and family.
bluGill 3 hours ago [-]
Because vehicles are a compromise. A truck can do everything a sedan can. A sedan cannot do everything a truck can. A flatbed truck can do more than a smaller truck - but it also is bigger and not easy to drive because of the size. The costs to own extra vehicles is very high and so people won't own different a vehicle for each use (renting is not a good answer - too often I've gone to rent something and it was sold out. Also most rentals have restrictions on use)
> To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine. If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
Minivans and trucks get similar fuel mileage. For the average family there are not enough kids to need a minivan.
> If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
Obviously you are not in the trades and don't know anyone in them. I've heard plenty of people in the trades debate the merits of truck vs van. They are compromises and there is no clear winner.
> you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If I need to tow something even once every two years then I need to own a truck. I've tried to rent a truck to tow something - turns out most rental contracts don't allow towing. There are exceptions, but the cost is so high, and finding a place to rent is so inconvenient that I will just own my own truck instead - it is worth it.
vessenes 4 hours ago [-]
I wasn't pro truck until I lived on an island with limited infrastructure. Once you need to take care of some of your own infra, a truck is a great tool, beating your full list. That said, a beater truck is generally preferred -- you want reliable, cheap and something that you don't care if it gets banged up.
qwerpy 3 hours ago [-]
Not a “truck guy” but I have a cybertruck because it’s the only self-driving electric car that has enough room to carry my family’s stuff when we go to the lake, ocean, camping, etc. My ideal car is a van or large SUV but there aren’t electric self-driving versions of those yet.
marricks 1 hours ago [-]
Tesla is now two cars away from offering no cars? There's just model x and y which was built off of x. It does seem like they'd do fine as a meme-stock company though.
akmarinov 6 hours ago [-]
Yeah the Roadster is never getting mass produced …
Also i wonder whether in 5-7 years Model 3 and Y will be around
rootusrootus 5 hours ago [-]
Isn’t the Model Y consistently leading the sales charts? I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon. The Model 3 is also selling reasonably well.
akmarinov 57 seconds ago [-]
It is now, but what if Cybercab demands eclipses it?
Also Model Y/3 battery/charging is ancient at this point. It hasn’t had any meaningful improvements for 8 years now.
Look up a Model Y’s charging curve it’s horrible. There are cars out there with much more consistent ones, 400 kW charging, much more range etc etc
bluGill 5 hours ago [-]
Car companies have long been on a cycle for their vehicles. It varies but generally we could say every seven years they're going to do a major redesign of a car. So I think it's safe to say the Model Y and Model 3 won't be sold in seven years. The question is, in seven years, will they have a different model, loosely based on the current Model Y and Model 3, that carry those same names? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe Tesla goes bankrupt and the cars aren't for sale. Maybe Tesla continues and the names exist.
rootusrootus 3 hours ago [-]
They may try a bigger refresh than they did at the six year point, but I imagine they will keep the model names in any case.
But with such strong sales, the incentive is not to rock the boat. Incumbents refresh more often because they have a lot of competition.
Tesla does not have any meaningful competition for the Model Y. The closest competitor is the Ford MME, and just behind it the Ioniq 5. But Tesla still sells like 3-4x as many Model Ys as both of those combined.
The Model 3 has even less direct competition. But that's probably because the sedan market as a whole is not as strong as crossovers. The biggest competitor to the Model 3 is probably the Model Y. And to put some context on this -- even as a sedan, the Model 3 outsells the Subaru Outback. Anybody wondering whether Subaru will stop selling Outbacks?
usrusr 5 hours ago [-]
Following the DeLorean example in more than just body surfaces.
Danox 3 hours ago [-]
The Delorean of our times…
UltraSane 2 hours ago [-]
I can only imagine how many people told Musk that the Cybertruck was a horrible idea and he completely ignored them and probably fired a lot of them. Musk basically re-enacted the Simpsons episode where Homer's brother lets him design a car and it is so bad it bankrupts the company.
wnevets 4 hours ago [-]
I can't help but laugh at the number of people on HN that kept trying to convince everyone this wasn't a terrible product.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
The original promise wasnt terrible. The reality was!
wnevets 4 hours ago [-]
I'm actually talking about the people defending the reality of what was released.
alt227 4 hours ago [-]
...and Im replying saying the original promise was good. Its a shame it wasnt kept otherwise what you are saying might not be true.
craigmcnamara 3 hours ago [-]
I taught my now 4 year old that those are called dumpsters, so he very reliably says, "Hey Dad! A dumpster" whenever he sees one. The number of people he has loudly roasted while getting out of their dumpster is too high to count. Perhaps my proudest parenting achievement so far.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
Shame you would pass your unnecessary prejudices on to your kids like that.
I hope some random kid roasts you for something you like that they dont.
cdrnsf 2 hours ago [-]
We went with "dumpster on wheels".
netsharc 6 hours ago [-]
... in order to free up production capacity for the Cybercab.
Hah, feels like when someone says they're going to stop dating the unemployed slob to focus on dating the alcoholic.
A taxi with only 2 doors, what an improvement!
wffurr 6 hours ago [-]
The Zeekr with sliding doors that Waymo is using seems like a way better concept for a robotaxi. Still fits in a standard parking space but can carry a group at need without being terribly inefficient for a single person.
bakies 4 hours ago [-]
how come waymo can buy Chinese cars but i cant?
vel0city 4 hours ago [-]
How many billions do your close friends and family have?
Seems like that might have something to do with it.
yourusername 6 hours ago [-]
Without a steering wheel which guarantees it won't be road legal in most countries anytime soon.
Aboutplants 6 hours ago [-]
A people mover that moves the minimum of people (2)
rdtsc 6 hours ago [-]
> A people mover that moves the minimum of people (2)
You meant maximum? Though minimum would be fun, too: taxi won’t start unless you agree to socialize and chat with a random stranger. As soon as silence is detected it pulls over and the ride ends.
masklinn 5 hours ago [-]
Minimum to qualify as "people" rather than "person".
rdtsc 5 hours ago [-]
Ah yes. That makes sense now. But I guess the minimum of people for taxis would be one in general. A small taxi for one person is plausible. Zero won’t work as it would be a delivery vehicle only then.
small_model 3 hours ago [-]
90% of taxi rides are 1 person 95% 2 so its based on, you know, business intelligence rather than your hot take which is anti Elon rhetoric like most of this thread or any for that matter here (keep thinking this is reddit)
j2i3jl23ij4 1 hours ago [-]
Darn, elon must be on downers since his attempt to buy elections for half a billion dollars failed utterly
cmrdporcupine 3 hours ago [-]
I just imagine what an incredible success Tesla would have had just making a "boring" Tesla branded competition to the F150. "Just" a model 3 with a standard pickup body.
Americans, for whatever reason, only buy SUVs and trucks. They've left the whole truck market untapped by creating a vehicle only a very small niche could/would want.
I don't understand what product marketing was up to, or if they just completely lacked the spine to stand up to Elon.
nunez 4 hours ago [-]
Reminder that the INFINITELY MORE PRACTICAL Model S and X lines died for this boondoggle. Still upset over that one.
lo_zamoyski 5 hours ago [-]
Thank goodness. What an eyesore. Of course, it does have the instrumental benefit of acting as a shibboleth.
ex-aws-dude 51 minutes ago [-]
"You never see a whole family in a cybertruck, its always just one man"
i_love_retros 2 hours ago [-]
I always feel sorry for people who own cybertrucks. Or Teslas in general.
wittjeff 6 hours ago [-]
As a small-business utility vehicle designed specifically to be wrapped in advertising, I thought it was brilliant. For other uses, eh.
bunderbunder 5 hours ago [-]
Outside of certain kinds of construction contractors, I rarely if ever see pickup trucks used for this purpose.
This anecdote might indicate why: We recently had a bunch of work done on our house. The siding crew had a pickup truck, and every morning the very first thing they did was unload the entire contents of the truck into our back yard. The plumbers and electricians would just get the stuff they were actually using and then lock the van.
HarHarVeryFunny 5 hours ago [-]
A ford Transit van fits that requirement much better - much more useful as a utility vehicle, much more space for advertising, much cheaper...
apercu 2 hours ago [-]
Ok, I know I will take a lot of flack for this here with all the Enron fanboys but..
On one hand: "Ha ha!"
On the other, oh no, all these yahoos that bought this trash may make their money back if they hold on to this garbage long enough for the rarity to drive up the value as a collectors item.
mschuster91 5 hours ago [-]
Surprise: a car that can only be legally sold and used on mainstream roads in the US makes poor sales, even in the US, after its design was widely ridiculed.
The Model 3 was a masterpiece of design, the Cybertruck is more like Cybercuck.
adventured 3 hours ago [-]
All the clown show at Tesla had to do is clone the F-150. This was one of the easiest product failures to predict in recent memory. Musk can't help himself. Tesla continues to desperately need a Shotwell at the helm.
At present all Tesla has propping it up is bubble dust and one car model (one increasingly dated car model). Somehow after 14-15 years (Model S released in Summer 2012) these people still can't release a real SUV of any sort. The model Y is a grotesque joke of a fake SUV, a mutilated model 3 that doesn't really look like an SUV in any regard. The model Y is an SUV like the Cybertruck is a truck. They might as well have unlimited money to do it, and they can't do it. Same reason they couldn't release the roadster even after all this time. It's a fundamentally broken company because Musk won't get out of the way. Whatever Musk is good at it, it's not running a large scale automotive company.
alt227 2 hours ago [-]
If its that easy, why have Ford stopped making the F150 lightning?
3 hours ago [-]
haspok 6 hours ago [-]
"Oh, no! Anyway..."
danielktdoranie 5 hours ago [-]
[dead]
silverFork 5 hours ago [-]
They are not selling in USA. Chinese are buying the Chinese made ones..
This seems to be about a totally different class of trucks.
> Zero-emission trucks over 12 t ·
(Cybertruck is still in the <3.5t class afaik)
> Zero-emission Class 7–8 trucks
These seem to be the classical cargo carrying trucks, not the pickup trucks.
silverFork 2 hours ago [-]
You are right. I hadn't notice that.. Pick up truck category is different.
rsynnott 4 hours ago [-]
These aren't pickup trucks.
pjc50 5 hours ago [-]
No mention of Tesla on that page?
silverFork 5 hours ago [-]
Even if one assumes all tesla trucks.. share of electric trucks in USA is 0.3%.
Tesla cyber truck sales are going down from 38k a year to 20k a year. The Chinese net sales of electric trucks is massively more than Tesla's production if you look at the data that I posted.
No added information, with a thread full of ad hominem attacks
throw03172019 3 hours ago [-]
I always stare at them and wonder who designed them. Hideous.
baggachipz 2 hours ago [-]
And also, who would buy one?
shawn_w 2 hours ago [-]
Lots of people, based on the number of them I see on the road.
throw03172019 39 minutes ago [-]
if it was a hit, they might not be cutting production.
Krasnol 2 hours ago [-]
The overall positive responses here are kinda...concerning.
This sharp edged, fire hazard which was aimed at a certain group of people who seem to be dangerous themselves is not really something that should be cheered.
And yes, it looked different but there are different looking cars all over the world. They usually serve a purpose though like kei cars in Japan.
shevy-java 2 hours ago [-]
Does anyone want this ugly spy device anymore?
Ecstatify 5 hours ago [-]
The Cybertruck is today’s DeLorean
Aboutplants 5 hours ago [-]
However, if it showed up in a movie as a supposed “cool car” it wouldn’t be taken seriously
Maxatar 5 hours ago [-]
The DeLorean wasn't taken seriously when Back to the Future was released either... it looks like a cool car now, mostly because of the movie, but back then it was considered a joke of a car and the company went bankrupt less than two years after it began production.
sanderjd 4 hours ago [-]
Yeah I could totally see a similar trajectory for the cybertruck. I think it will be more popular in its death than it was in its life. Every elementary aged boy I know thinks it's really cool.
moolcool 4 hours ago [-]
The Cybertruck will never be looked back on as a cool car, since it's existence is inextricably linked to doomed social and political movements. Like the ideology it represents, it's presence is impossible to ignore, but in the worst way possible. Plus it's a shitty truck.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor.
pjc50 4 hours ago [-]
The owner has not (yet) been arrested for cocaine trafficking, though.
(The history of John DeLorean is quite the read!)
delichon 5 hours ago [-]
The DeLorean was yesterday's Tucker Torpedo.
sbseitz 5 hours ago [-]
Yusssss!
gorpy7 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
5 hours ago [-]
InsidiousWombat 5 hours ago [-]
found the cybertruck buyer lmao.
There was nothing "new" in cybertruck. Delorean had bare metal panels!
It wasn't a good truck, vehicle, EV, anything. It was Elon's crayon drawing turned car. That's not "innovation" we should applaud
philistine 5 hours ago [-]
It was the first fully drive-by-wire production car, and it was the first car with steerable rear wheels. That's an innovation, on one of the worst vehicle of all time.
HarHarVeryFunny 5 hours ago [-]
> it was the first car with steerable rear wheels
Not even close - there are probably at least a dozen 4 wheel steering cars going back to the mid 80's starting with things like Nissan Skyline, Honda Prelude, etc.
venzaspa 5 hours ago [-]
This isn't really true either, there have been a few production steer by wire cars before and quite a lot more with steerable rear wheels - there were Porsches with rear steerable wheels in the 1980s.
olex 5 hours ago [-]
Rear wheel steering has been pioneered long before the Cybertruck. Tesla hyped the feature, sure, and it worked really well with steer-by-wire. But they were far from the first.
adrian_b 5 hours ago [-]
I am pretty sure that I have seen cars with steerable rear wheels already a half of century ago, when I was a child.
However, I do not know if any of those was series-produced.
They may have been only demonstration prototypes.
12993877 6 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
Ericson2314 6 hours ago [-]
Democrats will not take him back, but he will try.
kakacik 5 hours ago [-]
not if they have any sort of spine left... an open question
6 hours ago [-]
mihaaly 6 hours ago [-]
A Cybertruck for a redneck sounds like barbecue barrel in the middle of the Trump penthouse in New York. Out of place.
Rendered at 19:09:01 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
The battery capacity on those things is equivalent to 9 Tesla Powerwall units or something close to it.
They may be ugly, but the emergency prepper in me always wanted one after hearing that story. Before, I always wanted to install powerwalls...but I never considered in an extended event being able to drive my powerwalls somewhere to recharge them.
> Most of the disasters I'm aware of people either get their power back in a short enough amount of time that they can use a normal generator for the gap
TBF an EV car has an absolutely massive battery relative to the electric consumption of a house, unless you're using resistive heating all around. Especially if you ration use.
https://youtu.be/yO5fJ8z66Z8
It has other downsides, obviously. But the notion of "emergency power for your house" isn't really anything special.
My experience with power outages (after big summer storms, not a hurricane thank goodness) has been that my neighborhood is impacted, but that places nearby have power. They tend to restore commercial first, so the supercharger near me is up and running before my house.
I am guessing that one of the use cases is a support unit to charge an EV just enough to get it to a charging station.
But it is still cheaper to stockpile some generators and gas than stockpile a cybertruck. If there's an EV charging station up within a 1 hr drive, gas stations are also going to be up.
A Cybertruck has nearly 10x the battery capacity of a single Powerwall, and to buy that much Powerwall capacity would cost at least as much as a Cybertruck. Even a Tesla Model 3 (which now supports home backup) is over 5x Powerwalls.
You still have to pay to install home backup support on your home’s breaker (at least $10k), but you don’t need anywhere near the amount of very expensive supplemental home batteries.
Also, even an EV with a 120V outlet and no home backup support could be very useful for recharging a portable battery bank.
Regardless, the thing that’s really great for cost effectiveness is that the same large battery can be used everyday for driving and also used rarely for emergency home backup systems.
If you can choose between a truck that can’t power your house and a truck that can, prepper mentality is to choose the one that can.
You can stockpile diesel for a generator (unlike electrons). That's what actual prepping looks like.
Take it from a Ukrainian.
And if the needle is so far towards apocalypse, then the horse beats your diesel. Repairs itself, refuels itself, and replaces itself.
Take it from a Ukrainian.
PS: my dual-fuel gasoline/LPG Renault Twingo in Poland will outrun any Cybertruck on the continent.
And, unlike electricity, you can stockpile gasoline.
Not really. Some areas in California have multiple PSPS outages during fire season. Many people have gotten gas generators or powerwalls to deal with it, but using your EV would be ideal.
Generators have solved this problem. My family used to lose electricity anytime there was a semi serious snow storm. We got a gasoline generator after the second time and it was always sufficient. We never needed to siphon gas from the car either. We later transitioned to a natural gas generator. The lines are all underground and tie into the existing system for the stove and dryer. No car involved.
No. It's like a generator except way more power and mobile. Rechargable via solar. So basically just a much better generator.
But for the other 99.99% of humanity, there are certainly more cost-effective ways. A portable power station and solar panels are probably the better move unless you have some really massive power needs.
(Admittedly, a nuclear winter reduces the effectiveness of those solar panels somewhat)
Doesn't make sense for what they are charging for it. But still!
Where I'm located, in most cases when there is an outage, neighboring areas do have power.
Specifically for my model 3, I've been considering tapping into the HV system manually to keep my Ecoflow battery topped up, but I wish there was a way to directly connect it.
It’s niche just because natural disasters are thankfully relatively rare, but I still think having good contingencies is worth it.
Fuck being seen in a cybertruck though.
Electric vehicles won't, ever, be prioritized over bringing up residential, commercial and emergency services. The fact that even on a super charger it's 20+ minutes to charge a Cybertruck means the two or three at the local gas station will just end up with 12+ hour lines. Even now generators are fueled before private vehicles.
Bringing up power after disasters is super dangerous as is. A lot of systems that hadn't been turned off in years do a cold start, and sparks fly. It's why the power company and fire departments coordinate very very closely on grid work.
You know someone's going to try and bypass any safeties and circuit breakers and end up taking down their house when they try to restore power after a flood or something. People already regularly die from running their generator in the garage and most of these aren't wired directly into house mains.
I think this is why these EV trucks don’t do well (ford also cancelled the F150 lightning). For truck things, they aren’t particularly capable (you’d get less than 100 miles towing). For daily driving duty, a car or small suv is much more efficient. You can power your home during a storm from most EVs these days, you’d just have to top it up more often
Yes, but the energy density of the energy storage mechanism in the cybertruck is substantially lower than a gas pickup truck
Not a Cybertruck fan myself, but unless you are going to tow or take many long road trips, an EV truck will work great for anyone who can charge at home. And most people don't tow, or take long road trips, with their trucks.
I am not a fan of the truck, but let’s make some sense here
I have a lightning and it averages 0.5kwh/mile and my electricity price is $0.15/kwh, so it costs me $0.075/mile to drive. At current gas prices that's pretty much the same as a very efficient hybrid compact car (55mpg @ ~$4/gallon). If I had solar I could probably offset almost all of the lightning fuel cost based on where I live (sunny) but it's so cheap it's not worth it.
Do you mean "much more efficient" in places where electricity rates are significantly higher than the national average? Or only much more efficient when compared to when you're charging at charging stations?
Of course the Prius Prime on electricity is way more efficient than both, but it still uses a lot more energy than a house.
Yes, driving, compared to living, uses ridiculous amounts of energy.
Actually newtons are just a constant factor (3.6) compared to Wh per km, since there are 3600 seconds in a hour while there are 1000 watts in a kilowatt. For example 144 Wh/km (or 14.4 kWh/100 km) would simply be 518 N. This also means that pushing along a Tesla on the highway at constant speed is roughly as hard as holding a 50 kg weight, giving you an intuitive sense of how "hard" it is to keep things moving.
Of course, in everyday life, since we buy electricity from our utilities in kWh rather than joules, it's more convenient to talk about kWh per km (or per mile).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW5b8_KBtT8
- the Cybertruck uses almost twice as much energy as your Niro EV
- the 40% efficient Prius uses about 2.5x as much energy as your 95% efficient Niro EV.
what seems off?
Driving in general uses a lot of energy. It’s the physically moving a 1,000 kg or more object that takes a lot of energy. Orders of magnitude more than a few lights or a phone. Same with flying of course; also moving a heavy object.
ICE trucks are equally inefficient for towing. People just don't seem to be able to factor it in.
Imagine a trailer takes 1 unit of energy to move, and ICE truck takes 5 units to move itself, and EV truck takes 1 unit to move itself.
The ICE truck towing it would go from 5 units to 6 units, reducing the range by 16%.
The EV truck would now go from 1 unit to 2 units, reducing the range by 50%.
So the better your efficiency, the worse you are at towing. Ideally EV trucks would have such a huge battery that even when the range is reduced by 50%, it is still as long as a gas truck's range, but modern battery technology is still too sucky to achieve this.
Not so sure about that one, boss. I can fully-load up a Ford Ranger to its 7500lb rated towing capacity and lose ~10% in fuel economy/range while you just dropped something like 30% (from the base power package range of ~240 miles, platinum package at 300 miles you're losing half if you only get 150 miles out.)
All cars just use a ton of power moving a lot of mass. It is actually impressive, it's like 100KW at full tilt. I think i saw someone do the math for how much power transfer you would need to get EV charging as fast as gasoline refuelling: It's in the megawatts.
The only way you could signifigantly reduce power usage of vehicles is to reduce mass dramaticially with a motorcyle or autocycle. The Aptera is an interesting autocycle design based on this line of reasoning, but we are also seeing the emergence of a lot of electric motorcycles.
Also regarding filling up an EV as fast as gasoline, there’s a company in China that has demonstrated charging from 20-80% in 5 minutes. They’re using 3MW charging.
It makes you realize why gasoline has been so popular for so long, you can stop for 5 minutes and dump 500 kWh of energy into your tank. Unfortunately most of that is wasted as heat during the combustion process.
Yeah that's the exact post I saw. I didn't believe the video at the time but I suppose it's possible with enough battery paralellism and cooling.
https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/new-ev-technology-cha...
https://www.peravescz.com/electric-version/
I think in general, a country trying to become industrious and eco-friendly by saving energy is like a person trying to become a millionaire by pinching pennies. Once you have optimized an economic system to eliminate the major cost centers, you're going to have extremely hard time improving it through further cost savings.
For example, If my expenditure roughly matches my income, I would need to eliminate 100% of my expenses just to make enough surplus to match doubling my income. Once I have managed the major cost centers (rent, insurance, etc.) it's not going to be worth my time to further optimize my expendature, the time would be better spent improving my income
For EVs, the fuel cost is already low. The next cost centers are like maintainance, tires, battery life. It would be better to attack these other cost centers or somehow pursue functionality that increases utility of the car.
That said if you have a Mall Crawler who's heaviest loads are your monthly Costco run, an electric truck would probably be great for you. I still wouldn't recommend a Cybertruck though.
https://www.tesla.com/powershare/#vehicles
> Powershare allows you to draw power directly from your compatible Tesla vehicle to power your devices, your home or the grid.
> Powershare is currently available for all Cybertruck vehicles, and all new Model 3 and Model Y2 vehicles ordered on October 1, 2026 or later.
> To verify if your vehicle has Powershare, navigate to ‘Software’ > ‘Additional Vehicle Info’ > ‘Powershare Support: Enabled’ on your vehicle touchscreen.
I don't think the residential power generator is needed anymore if you have an electric car.
Completely missed opportunity. I won't be buying an electric vehicle that doesn't allow powering my house, ever again.
Only available on Tesla models ordered after October 1, 2026
Tesla models older than 6 weeks are SOL (for now? Maybe it just needs some backwards compatibility testing)
It sounds like it will require a hardware retrofit, that isn't being offered to consumers yet: https://www.notateslaapp.com/news/4585/tesla-publishes-vehic...
We have a 12v port that we can get ~200W out of, so that could power our internet.
But I agree, a real joke to have 150KwH (two EVs) in my garage and no way to even plug in a fridge.
V2H/V2L is a must have in my next EV.
Don't give the USB consortium any ideas...
As soon as we got the adapter for our Ioniq 5, I sold generator to a neighbor. The car will run what we need for four days, which is longer than the generator and five gallon can of gas is going to last.
1) if you're permanently modifying your home or electric panel you're over $1k. (General Motors "Vehicle2House" is ~$10-20k for hardware + installation... an EXTREME investment unless you plan on regular "emergency" usage of it)
2) if you're buying some portable solar panel "battery boom box" you'll likely run out and the folding solar panel it comes with is more gimmick than reliable
3) if you're buying a "real" gas/diesel generator, you have to run it + change the oil every 6 months otherwise it might not start in your emergency situation
...just buy a thing that clips to your car battery and dangles out the front hood of your car!
You already maintain your car every 3-9 months, you already (should) have at least 1/2 tank of gas at all times (especially in a weather / outage situation), you can generally idle your car for at least 2 days off a tank of gas in an emergency, and if this thing can charge your phone/battery packs, keep your fridge running (kindof?), and run a small space heater overnight...
It makes soooo much more sense to buy a $500-$1000 emergency accessory that piggybacks off the car you already maintain than trying to stand up a whole extra distribution mechanism for "survival-ish power, maybe 1-2 times over 3-4 years".
Despite the dealer saying the used one I bought supported it, it turned out to not be available in the trim I got. My fault obviously for believing something a car dealer said.
It sounds amazing. Only thing I wonder if it can even be set up so that it will be like an Uninterruptible Power Supply. So that when there is a blackout, the V2H supplies all the power without any interruption.
I have several computers but no UPS yet. Imagine if I could buy an electric car and when I am not using it, my car is UPS for my whole house including my computers! :D
That's the point of V2H (or a residential battery, which it emulates). Although you still want a UPS for computers. Although "without any interruption" is probably not at the scale of a UPS, and possibly not at the scale a desktop computer will require. So you'd still want UPSes for that. Notably it depends how the grids cuts off, if it cuts off in one shot (like throwing the breaker) the failover should be almost instantaneous, but if it fluctuates before failing the battery might need a lot longer to engage.
If power loss is a regular event you probably want V2H, but if it's just a remote fear or something that happens once every 5~10 then V2L and a few extension cords will do.
Of course there are two issues that are completely solveable if we had reasonable governance:
1. Adopting an Australia-style solar installation regulation and permitting scheme, which is literally 1/5th tho cost of the US method, and pays their tradespeolpe higher salaries than US workers get
2. Allowing EVs to feed back into the grid. This is something that naysayers would never be useful because nobody would ever want to waste battery cycles on their home. Which of course has always been nonsense. Don't buy EVs without this basic capability, IMHO.
This combines to ensure that any solar installer will do lots of very expensive things: 1) have a large sales force to close the sale, which last I looked accounted for 30%-40% of the overall cost of solar in the US, 2) roll out trucks many different times during the planning and install, each costing lots of money, 3) never have to compete with a bunch of other hyper-competitive installers and find efficiencies like batching installs together in the same general area.
There are also massively high solar PV tariffs in the US, more than tripling the cost of the panels, but that's not even that big compared to the rest of the needless inefficiency in the system.
Went looking for the campground host and bumped into another camper, who was pissed the power went out. "Don't worry though - if you need to charge something, you can put it in my truck."
Ended up on a phone charging expedition that landed me in a local library for the first time since I was a child.
Came back and met the host: "Sorry about the power last night - some dumbass tried to charge his truck and tripped the breaker to the whole campground."
(I'm sure there's more to the story, and the details aren't important, but if charging a vehicle is tripping breakers for the whole campground there's something wrong.)
Depending on how much you want to power, there are 'rollable' battery packs that you can plug into a transfer switch. They can be recharged with (foldable) solar panels or a traditional generators (perhaps on cans of propane, which does not go bad like petrol can).
This is a pretty common feature in High capacity cars.
Even my mid-range BYD came with power strip attachment so you run basic electrical appliance with it.
An $80K-100K car that replaces the two isn't some genius purchase.
Sure you can spend all the money you want on a luxury toy, nothing wrong with it, but it's weird trying to justify it as anything but that.
In Australia, $10k would buy not only a ton of solar panels but also batteries. The US has decided to make solar and batteries at the home super expensive, unnecessarily.
That doesn't mean electric cars shouldn't be considered as power backup, or that buying a nice electric car vs a nice gas car doesn't come with the added benefit of "Don't need a 10k generator anymore".
From redundancy perspective, a genset + car is hands down a better combo. A functional ICE car is cheaper and goes everywhere without any trip planning around charging stations, which is another plus.
I never said EV is not great and it is nice that it is working out for you, but facts are facts. Also, while EV footprint is growing around the globe, there is wide vast world beyond USA where charging issue is still true (and the repair shops).
If you're looking at two $55,000 cars, and one has power interconnect and one does not, it's not like adding a $1000-$10,000 generator on top is somehow immediately better unless you're adding in factors that make it better (like buying a cheaper car). There's 3 or 4 superchargers within a few miles of my house, and every time I've lost power I could easily go charge my car so I never worried about that.
Not everyone lives in that situation or has the same "one or two days without local power but chargers still work" threat model. It just so happens that's been the biggest actual, real, problem that my car could have fixed for me.
If you live in an area where you can only get ethanol gas, then you definitely don't want it sitting more than 6 months, even with Sta-bil (in my experience). So that means yeah, you gotta cycle through the generator's tank twice a year, which if you live in an area with reliable power, means spending more money than you need to on gas and oil. Also, keep all containers (including fuel tanks) as full as possible, to minimize the amount of air in the container, to minimize the amount of moisture the ethanol can suck out of the air.
That puts the total setup price to about 10% of a CT-Energy station.
We could start comparing used EVs if we want to.
Or rather, you can take half of the difference in price and install some proper PV + battery system in your house that can be used when there's isn't a catastrophe too.
If there is a major outage most bosses understand that you won't be working normally because you need to deal with the emergency.
There is an entire genre of welding equipment designed for this scenario.
https://bakersgas.com/collections/miller-engine-driven-weldi...
Our solar panels kept the fridge running, but we were heating the house with a wood stove (it was very cloudy, so we were getting maybe an hour of sun a day). If we had bidirectional house charging, we could have had warm showers + used the heat pump: We would have been able to fast-charge the car at 100-200kw in town. The house can limp through 20-30 hours on ~ 25kwh, so the charger would charge the house at a few days per hour, including losses from driving to and from town + round tripping through the battery, and also running the house heat pump.
None of the other people around here stayed online. Some propane-dependent people had no electricity for > 2 weeks (with rationing, they managed to keep their generators online for about a week, and PG&E took three weeks to fix their lines).
This was in the outskirts of Silicon Valley, so better-than-puerto-rico infrastructure, but only just.
We are far away from, but slowly approaching, Mad Max levels of institutional failure, and everyone seems to treat it as normal and unavoidable.
I really wish my Model Y had the V2H support... my next car definitely will.
Most people just plug an extension cord into the onboard inverter. You have to manually flip it on and plug it in, but 240V30A is plenty for an emergency. Doing it this way isn't any different from any other vehicle with an onboard inverter though.
On the other hand there are no tricky rules for an electric truck to have extra power outlets in it.
The whole comment comes across as an AI agent that is lacking severe human context by posting a complete non-sequitur, regardless if it is actually an agent or not.
First time I’ve been compared to an AI agent.
Cybertruck was announced first. Then Ford _released_ the F150 Lightning, including the ability to operate as a backup battery for a house. And a dozen or so months later, Cybertruck comes out at a much higher price than F150 Lightning ever was.
As has the F150 lightning. It lost so much money and demand was so low that Ford had to kill it to stop bleeding money.
If all you're after is the V2L feature, you can get it for much cheaper: for 16% of the price of a Cybertruck, you can get 86% of the battery capacity (about 8 powerwalls) by buying a used Fisker Ocean Extreme with a 107kWh battery, vs. the cybertruck's 123kWh
You can get a generator that will get the job done for under 1000 bucks and you can store diesel or propane to get the job done.
That's before we factor in the likelyhood needing to travel quite a distance (and assume there is no access to grid power), and that you won't have any of the cybertruck defeating issues like heavy rains or standing water that might void it's warranty and fry it's electronics.
A prepper rig is a mechanical diesel that can be roll started or hand cranked without batteries, has no electronics to get fried except the radio, and can burn almost any combustible fuel source on hand. Slap a 200 Gallon transfer tank on the back and keep it full and you can drive across the country without fueling up. And if you also have that diesel generator to power your house, you've got a years worth of fuel for that generator.
You can get all that done for around 25k USD, so, not sure how a cyber truck even enters the conversation.
It’s unclear to me how a vehicle battery can be 9-10x the size of a house battery, be used as a house battery, include an highway safe cabin, motors and wheels and only cost 4x what a single home battery costs. Oh, and at least Kia rates their battery warranty based on miles driven, so using it as a home battery does not impact any 10-year capacity guarantees.
AI tells me they are completely different though, so I must be missing something.
5kWh of battery cells at the moment run around $500. The rest of the cost of production is in the power electronics (probably around another $500).
It's why you can buy 4kwh worth of battery backups from Amazon for about $2k right now. Yet the same thing sold as a home battery backup costs $5k.
Lack of competition and likely low amount of sells is what's causing the margins to be so high.
Propane generators here have the same problem.
That still doesn't explain the price gap. You can literally just get a V2H EV and use it instead of a home battery (or, you could if the ecosystem was more mature).
They want ~9k for a freaking 13.5kwh pack.
I can buy a UL certified, 16kwh, outdoor rated pack for 3.5k (ex - EG4 allweather)
I can buy just the LFP batteries themselves for the new powerwall 3 LFP version (no BMS, no shell, no certification) for $1116... https://18650battery.com/products/byd-302ah-3-2v-lifepo4-pri...
Powerwall is a scammy product. WAY too expensive for the storage it provides.
---
So the summary is: Cybertruck is using a different battery chemistry, Powerwall is a scam.
(I mean - to be clear, the Cybertruck is also a scam, but it's a different kind of scam not directly related to the battery capacity, since it's hauling around a 123kWh NCMA battery pack)
[0] https://caredge.com/tesla/cybertruck/depreciation
It's exhausting reading these kinds of articles from a tech publication none the less. It's just so negative. Here is a summary of paragraphs:
Cybertruck is ceasing production
Here's a mean tweet from some X account with 2,649 followers: "Fuck that shitbox"
The car rusts sometimes
Truck sold very few units
Even with low sales they're still going down
Wildly unpopular with design flaws
Mention embarrassing demo from 7 years ago
It just goes on, truly exhausting.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a36715409/why-does-...
I just bought a kit to convert to natural gas though. Most people who've done it are happy to not change bottles all the time. It won't help after an earthquake but the regular PSPS outages I get make natural gas a better fit for the moment.
It’s possible to get larger propane tanks and refill them more cheaply (rather than exchanging expensive grill tanks at the store). Some hardware stores will refill tanks directly. You can even get very large tanks (refilled by a truck that comes to your house) if you want weeks of power on tap. But this is probably overkill for most, unless you’re very remote.
This is a common enough occurrence in rural Louisiana, at least. And I think almost everyone I know has a 200gal or larger propane tank in their yard, specifically for multiday outages. My father-in-law doesn't have a single propane appliance, but he does have a 250gal tank, for his generac.
We don't we have a single 100lb tank, but that will run the little AC for 3 or 4 days.
This is important enough to me that I researched slow start AC units ~8 years ago when replacing my AC. I learned that almost any heat pump will do, so that's what I have.
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/heat-waves-and-annual-death-ra...
In a traditional house with thick brick/stone walls and large roof overhangs you'd be uncomfortable but a lot less likely to die
Also, I built it myself so the labor costs aren't included but I am about $8k into a system (4kw of panels, 6kw inverter, 15kwH battery).
I personally wouldn't be able to make vehicle cheaper than having no grid tie. I get that the costs are different once you include labor. Also I am on 40acres so the panel set could be ground mounted.
But to make something commensurable with a propane home-powering generator seems a lot more do-able.
The quiter part makes sense, but there are a lot more practical solutions to that too.
A propane generator is a temporary solution but likely is good enough for most folks who just need to keep the fridge cold and maybe charge cell phones. It's not going to be able to run your house AC or anything, though.
You also need to have the house setup to run off a generator. You don't want the truck power feeding back into the grid. IIRC, that's usually done with a big switch near the main panel.
There is a model of Ford Lightning that has power sharing and now that resale values are way down it just might be a cost effective home battery that you can drive around during non-emergencies....
You can also just plug into the 30A240V bed plug and use the onboard inverter on the lightning or powerboost hybrid f150 with less headache.
Car makers are reluctant to support this. In case of Tesla because of market segmentation.
If you are concerned about riding through a 14 day+ event you need a generator. Even a fully off-grid solar / wind setup could be compromised in these kinds of storms. I've seen entire roofs cleaned off by a <100mph storm. Anything not bolted down to a concrete slab cannot be depended on.
What the fuck
The cybertruck was built in an era of high truck prices driven by zero interest rates. It bet on the price of trucks going up, just as the Ford F150 electric did. That was the wrong bet.
If it was a $40,000 truck, it would have a much bigger market despite all the other explanations of its failure. The market moved under it.
- https://www.theautopian.com/the-average-full-size-truck-now-...
- https://www.ceicdata.com/en/united-states/new-vehicle-averag...
When it was announced, for those who wanted an electric truck, it was going to be the only game in town. By the time Tesla delivered, there were several options already on the road from various companies. The people who really wanted an electric truck were already happy customers of another company by the time the cybertruck shipped. I see a fair number of Rivian, F-150 Lightning, and Hummer EVs around me.
When it comes to price, I expect to see a lot of Slate trucks once it starts shipping, with its low price.
It certainly did not "fail" on aesthetics. Few people would not take note of it, and it wasn't overly impractical. Some people hated DeLorean too, which just made it even more popular as well ...
Tesla forecasted selling 250,000 trucks per year by 2025
Actual sales
2024 - 38,965
2025 - 20,237
2026 to date - 11,586
This includes trucks that have been “sold” to other Musk companies.
This product was a complete failure, making the Ford Edsel look like a roaring success
They sold 9,000 DeLorean's _total_. It was a punchline in Back to the Future, it wasn't seen as cool at all.
But the cost is steep when I'm more in the market for an SUV or offroading vehicle than a truck. Not to mention that the extent to which Musk and Tesla are intertwined with politics is really not an easy sell for me.
A sedan built by another company with similar aesthetics without completely ignoring...well basically everything from safety to build quality, would probably be on my potential list.
Tesla scaled up CyberTruck production before finding product market fit.
IMHO, CyberTruck would have been a modest hit if first production run was 100. Treat CyberTruck like Roadster. A niche vehicle for a niche market. Grant enthusiasts the earliest access to the best technology.
I honestly thought that was the plan.
It would have been the cheapest, fastest way for Tesla to de-risk all of the innovations used in CyberTrucks. Major stuff that Tesla's could gracefully, incrementally add to their other models.
Especially for the Robocab (neé Model 2). Design and production of the CyberTruck was a saavy precursor to all the things Robocab needs to be successful (eg cost savings, serviceability).
Oh well. What do I know? Musk is a trillionaire and I am not, so clearly not much.
However, it provided content and distraction and kept the stock high longer than it should have and I feel like that’s what Musk continues to excel at.
I got one, years ago. The bed was not large enough to readily hold full sheets of plywood (the minivan I owned before could hold full sheets!). And yet, the truck was long such that parking, maneuvering in parking lots, etc, was a pain in the ass (here the minivan was about tied with the truck).
So sucked as a regular errand-car, sucked for hauling sheet goods.
(Sold it during the tail of Covid when used car prices were skyrocketing for whatever reason. Never again.)
It's a luxury vehicle that beats SUVs hands down, and most functions of urban trucks as well.
It just gets soccer mom vibes, so it's not $120,000
The vehicle with soccer mom vibes may fit your use case better but that doesn't explain the cost difference. Mini vans are cheaper to manufacture. The frame, axles, brakes, engines, towing, payload hardware etc. are all lighter duty.
I have 2 questions about this:
* are you actually, really, sure? (Is this hard data?)
* does it matter when it's never going to go off-road and rarely strained (e.g. for towing)?
One of the reasons I love a pickup is that it separates the cargo from the interior
A lot of times I have oil/gas/chemicals/something dirty in the bed which I would not want in the cabin space
Also it depends do you care about height of cargo or not?
For example a minivan can fit plywood but not a dirt bike
I always find such arguments comical. Have you seen soccer moms? They all drive huge SUVs. SUVs = soccer mom vibes!
Many trucks are sold as not much more than vehicles to haul around some plants. But, what I would consider 'real' trucks tend to have 8' beds. My old Toyota Tundra was great at towing, had an 8' bed and was generally an all around great vehicle. It was long, but it was meant to be.
Sports cars are for the track, trucks are for hauling, and most drivers don't need either.
I wish I could show you the photo of my Mazda Miata with six 12' 2x6s hanging out the back. :-)
If someone says "I need a truck or suv" then I understand saying "you may not need one." But someone saying they want one then someone else explaining what they need is just condescending.
Someone hasn't seen not the Dakar Rally, but the support trucks class for it. The rally cars need support. Replacement tires, suspension parts, engines. How do they get them? A fleet of support vehicles doing the same course. So then they made that a race as well. The Dakar Rally Truck edition features heavy vehicles weighing over 3,500 kg (7,716 lb) T4/5 racing across 8000km/5000 miles of sand, rocks, and desert.
I had a friend who 'preordered' to get Cybertruck and he couldn't justify the price which was $140k CAD, so he bought a new Chevy pickup truck instead for $70-80k CAD.
I think F150 was the right vehicle but the wrong price point.
I also bought a new Chevy truck recently for less than $40k USD, mid tier trim. Other trucks can be very affordable. The trim and budget options are quite wide. Tesla was never going to get to that as it requires volume.
There's also a big market for luxury SUVs. But you could buy a nice BMW SUV for nearly half the price. So it was really just competing with higher end SUVs.
Which is why I believe it was mostly a price issue, not that there isn't a market for such a hybrid (half SUV / pretend truck) concept.
Also, the RAM's transmission overheated on gentle slopes.
The slate looks great (more cargo weight capacity than our full sized RAM ICE truck; half the price, much lower fuel costs, much more convenient to own).
If their second model is 250 class, we'd probably buy it. The Lightning can only tow 10,000lbs, so it's not great at hauling rock, etc -- it can do it, but only ~2.5 tons per load when you add in the weight of the trailer. This means we have to keep paying $100's to delivery services.
It'd be nice if that hypothetical 250 slate seated 5-6 people too. That'd let it be a backup kid hauler, like the lightning is. The lightning has more bells and whistles, but the aesthetics of the slate are much better, and I like the idea of just buying an aftermarket radio that does not integrate in with the power train.
Of course, if we didn't need a truck, we'd get a Rivian R1S/T. They're great for camping, etc, and what most people want when they buy a pickup truck as a family car.
I think it was killed for political reasons: They repurposed the plant for AI datacenter batteries. I predict we'll have EV pickup trucks again if the 2028 election looks like the 2026 election.
Anyway, my next full sized pickup will also be a pure EV. If I can't get a Ford, then I'll get something else. (The lightning is far better at truck stuff than our late model GMC and Ram trucks were. Maybe I can get a truck from China + register in Mexico? Is that a thing?)
The new Lightning has a useless serial hybrid setup and gets 700 miles of range (who needs that?). I suspect it'll end up being like other serial hybrids, and an option to omit the gas engine will be available, and also substantially lower the price (or enable a larger battery). In the meantime, they'll tell Trump that he managed to kill EV pickup trucks.
If:
Fuel economy regulations had not been suspended and the electric vehicle credits hadn't expired I'll bet there would still be a Lightning.
Unlike the CyberTrash. The question (to me) is did Ford make a semi-rational short-term financial decision at the expense of its future competitiveness?
- The emissions credit market (where Tesla made most of its money) is dead due to lowered standards.
- Manufacturing costs haven't come down.
- EV sales share in the US is down to 6% (and falling every quarter).
- Chinese EVs are dominating every market outside the US.
- All the overhyped moonshots (sub-$30K car, unsupervised autopilot, autonomous robots) are nowhere to be seen.
It's hard to see where Tesla goes from here as a company. The stock is still surviving on Elon hype but has been stagnant for 5 years. The day he gets bored and decides to resign to focus on SpaceX full time the company is basically done.
It's not every quarter, but it's steady and that spells absolute disaster for US car manufacturers:
https://www.coxautoinc.com/insights/q3-2026-ev-sales-report-...
US car companies have been protected and bailed out too many times and are now not only completely uncompetitive on the global market, but set up to be completely demolished as EVs take over.
Their bad leadership and overall inefficiency mean that either investors are going to pay a massive price, or US consumers are going to pay a massive price. If we keep on pushing up consumer costs by propping up bad manufacturers with protectionism and bail outs, the US's entire economy is drug down by that.
There needs to be some creative destruction, ruthless culling of the least efficient manufacturers, so that their best workers can go to the better manufacturers, if the US is ever going to be a top tier car manufacturer again.
I hadn't followed just how bad US manufacturers were failing at EVs the past two years, what with all the other disasters unfolding, thanks for the wake up call. Two years of wasted time, of the US falling even farther behind... such a massive fail and yet not the most massive.
California accounts for roughly 35% of all U.S. EV sales, though some estimates put its share near 40%.
The Big Three have not figured out how to make compelling EVs, without a doubt, but it's not the technology that's the problem, it's the leadership's product choices and failure of implementation.
Meaning that the entire industry will be pushed farther and farther behind in the race, only to be completely disrupted.
This will happen far slower than the transition from Palm to iOS-style phones, because the lifetime of cars is far longer than phones and are far larger investments, but the trend is inevitable. EVs are superior on so many different fronts that there's ~0 chance that gas and diesel engines persist except for a tiny fraction of future market share.
US manufacturers are trying to delay the transition as long as possible, which only ensures their own doom.
Wyoming‘s population of 600k people is less than one percent of total US population, for example. Californians buy about half that number of EVs per year (~300k-400k).
Try two generations. I think it was obvious since the oil shocks that fossil fuels were not a good bedrock of the economy.
Solar panels are an even more remarkable example of compounding a thousand different 1% improvements.
But they aren't really. In terms of efficiency, a 2x increase is a lot yes but the thing that has finally made them really viable is simply the cost dropping like a rock.
I don't care if I have to buy 2x as many solar panels when they cost as much as a fence post.
That cost reduction was entirely investment into production capacity. None of that couldn't have been accomplished decades ago.
That's the saddest part. If we had been adults in the 70s, we could already be done the green revolution basically. We could have seriously prevented global warming.
But a bunch of idiots rejected that and instead voted for people who doubled down on fucking up the middle east and burning liquids.
PV entrepreneurs are the real heroes of the climate movement, IMHO. They figured out markets that would have enough demand to push forward with developing the tech. Germany's government is a major hero too, they pushed the tech forward so far at a crucial time. Then China took up the mantle.
Both supply and demand need to build together for the industry to grow. Government subsidies played a huge role in accelerating this, and will have paid for themselves so many times over. We're going to live in a world of super-cheap technology thanks to the modest tax-cut-based investments of governments the world over.
It does suck that so many powerful people were against the obvious-in-retrospect good idea of solar PV, but I'd love to focus on all the heroes that pushed through anyway and made it happen. They deserve a lot of thanks!
With the strangle hold that these industries have on getting the government to bail them out, we are in a really bad position on the national level. We have let bad politics and weak management override good economic decision making.
Not so in Europe, where the top 10 EVs sold in 2025 [1] has not a single Chinese car.
[1] https://autorai.nl/tesla-van-de-troon-gestoten-als-populairs...
Your source only says: “Top 5 best-selling EV brands in Europe in 2025 Volkswagen – 274.417 (+56%) Tesla – 238.765 (-27%) BMW – 193.186 (+15%) Skoda – 172.100 (+117%) Audi – 153.848 (+51%)”
That EV market share direction in the US, though .. really bad compared to non-petrostates (except Norway)
They don’t do a good job at the car company part. They make nice cars, but the company part has issues. Quick example… I was very happy to drive a model 3 for many years. But the constant changes in price of their new cars destroyed any resale value mine had. Every time Tesla was having a bad quarter, the value of my car dropped. That’s not the way to get me to buy another one.
There are certainly other areas where they could improve too. But my point being - they’ve never been all that good at (or interested in) what it takes to drive long term success in selling cars. It’s just too long of a time horizon for them.
And even if you do keep cars indefinitely, it can still be an important consideration because it affects how things work out when you need to make an insurance claim. It means your car is both more likely to be declared a total loss and more likely to be worth less than what you still owe for it when it does get totaled.
Personally I'm with you. I love my car because its exactly enough car for my needs. I bought it new (in 2016) and I never want to sell it. I'd get so much less (or more to the point I can't buy a new car) for the same money I spent on it.
GM - $74.5B market cap (6.2M cars sold annually)
Ford - $50.2B (4.6M)
Volkswagen - $40B (9M)
BYD - $100B (4.6M)
Toyota - $256B (11.3M)
Hyundai - $57B (7.3M)
Tesla - $1.4T (1.6M)
The numbers simply don't add up.
On that basis if Musk overdoses on ketamine or something then 95% devaluation may well happen.
Closest thing is like the Ioniq 9 but the cargo space really sucks.
For a polished product that ticks all the boxes, I would pay a premium for this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...
If autopilot is basically the only thing Tesla has going for it then they’ve got a risky path ahead of them.
I realize that some of it is just a cult of personality, and that part will be unusually sticky because of things like cognitive dissonance. But that can’t be all of it. My next best guess is a bunch of it is a whole bunch of institutional investors are privately thinking these companies are way too risky, but keep it to themselves because it’s not their money they’re putting on the line and taking a contrarian position would risk angering a presumably vocal subset of clients of unknown size. Which isn’t a great way to make yourself popular with your boss.
The biggest knock on him is that he says something will happen at a certain time and then it comes later. Even the sub-$30k EV. Cybercabs cost < $30k.
"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could gone to some great parties. Did that instead."
This is the richest man in the world being GLEEFUL abut destroying an organization that helps the poorest people in the world. Musk is basically Ebenezer Scrooge.
In an interview when asked about it he insisted their was vast amounts of fraud in USAID.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1886307316804263979?lang=en
Ignoring dozens if not hundreds of promises that never came. You can't wait forever.
Robotaxi is live in some markets. I've used it twice here in Houston. Works quite well.
They are running a fleet of taxis around the Bay Area. It's kind of scary because they aren't that safe, given the lack of LIDAR. But they are doing it anyway.
And also, they are driving fully autonomous in Texas and Florida.
So let me guess, fully unsupervised self driving is rolling out "next year" right?
Is there data to suggest they are unsafe in Austin - as in less safe than a human?
Cybertruck was a mistake but rest of the business is printing cash hand over fist.
A side effect of Trump's war with Iran is that every country which doesn't have sufficient domestic oil production, which is most countries especially in Europe, has accelerated their EV transition. Buyers are grabbing every EV they can get their hands on, and yes Tesla are the leader there.
https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-electric-car-registratio...
"Tesla (TSLA.O), led the UK BEV market year-to-date, with registrations up 25.4% from a year earlier and a 9.53% market share South Korea's Kia (000270.KS), and China's BYD (002594.SZ), continued to compete for second place, with market shares of 6.9% and 6.8%, respectively"
The Kia model breakdown: https://www.kiapressoffice.com/releases/1975 (mostly Niro, now withdrawn, then EV6)
https://www.reuters.com/business/tesla-registrations-surge-a...
It's actually 4th in ev sales in Europe.... https://cleantechnica.com/2026/10/03/europe-ev-sales-report-...
And that's when ranked by manufacturer, which is only slightly less arbitrary than by model as auto groups just use it for market segmentation. If you rank them as groups (e.g. VW group), then Tesla isn't even in the top 5.
Depends on the year. It and the RAV4 switch places now and then.
BYD has 61 different models in its lineup compared to Tesla's 2.
Only when compared to their recent record lows... the broader trend is still downwards. This is disingenuous. They are losing ground to other manufacturers in Europe
Also the Teslas that Europe is buying are made in China not the US.
The countries where EVs are increasing the most are those that have access to Chinese EVs.
They are primarily from Germany. There are some imports from China but they are subject to tariffs.
Huh? The cybercab with no steering wheel is only operating in Austin, in tiny premapped areas. There are 45 registered in Texas, and they have only been operating since September.
This isn’t Twitter, you’re generally expected to at least attempt to provide factual information here.
https://www.fox7austin.com/news/tesla-launches-cybercab-aust...
“Printing money hand over fist” is an interesting way to frame the dramatic drop in their margin on every vehicle sold.
Probably will get acquired by SpaceX to hide the poor financials
But if Optimus ends up with a HW3 problem (current manufactured Optimus bots aren't autonomus yet because the software isn't finished) he'll have a pile of Cybertrucks and early-model Optimus units rotting in a field.
Personally, I just don't see it. If he merges Tesla and SpaceX it won't really be about cars or vehicle autonomy.
Their current stock valuation can't ride this uncertainty forever. At some point he has to have new products that work, no caveats.
They should just be the Toyota of EVs -- mass produce quality vehicles people want to drive -- instead he's trying to be Tony Stark and keep pumping it as a meme stock.
Tesla remains excellent at engineering and manufacturing. They need not seek the exotic.
He's a liability to that company, not an asset, at this point. And his name has become a brand liability.
If Musk left, the stock would crash. But the company would be profitable.
It probably would have been better had they not been mass produced, and maybe did a very limited quantity run - make it more like a collector item... I suppose thats what it'll be now. I see quite a few on the road, it takes away from the uniqueness.
The design aesthetics for automobiles can be stale and this could also be a terrible, unworkable, ugly design.
The amount of hate it gets has been yet another clear indication to me just how annoyingly tribal people are. It shows you’re in the in-group and definitely-a-righteous-good-guy if you hate on the cybertruck. Not hating on the cybertruck is basically admitting you’re a fascist (I’ve had a friend literally tell me this non-jokingly). I think that’s really what 80% of the hate comes down to.
thank god these monstruosities were forbidden in europe
The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.
Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.
Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.
Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss
In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/18/tesla-cyb...
> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Cybertruck-remains-banned-in-Ge...
That’s a platform we can all get behind.
Good design that breaks the mold and then succeeds for that reason is what changes the world. Bad design that starts from the desire to be different without understanding the forces that led to the preexisting equilibrium is what we got. If you start out with hundreds of billions of dollars you can fake it for much longer, but if your premise is fundamentally economically incorrect then it will only last as long as you can subsidize it.
The Cybertruck that was released did not have that, instead the panels are just normal body parts connected to a standard car frame underneath - like any other car.
Most pick up trucks are body-on-frame style.
The Cybertruck is a hybrid. There is an aluminum frame for the tow hitch and battery pack, but the body panels are also structural (unibody).
They are going to be very valued collectors items in 30 years once the kids of today have enough disposable income to buy whichever are left roadworthy by then.
Let’s keep in mind that Tesla invested in this truck to be the next F-150, which is the best-selling vehicle in the USA for the past multiple decades.
Even the hated Edsel is worth quite a bit today.
Of course it might be harder to keep a Cybertruck running for 50 years due to all the computerized components. Restorers will probably be relegated to rebuilding Cybertruck bodies with new components.
Really no different than any classic car, really. GM isn't selling OEM parts for a '57 Chevy, for example. If you need replacement parts on those, nowadays, you're likely going to specialty manufacturers given there really aren't any "parts cars" around anymore.
Tesla’s corporate leadership would be much happier if the Cybertruck was selling 100,000 units a year and was not at all a collector’s item.
Good book on the subject: https://www.sup.org/books/history/disaster-dearborn
And all the well-documented reliability and quality issues.
It's always an excuse and everyone else's fault that things are politicized. The same people telling us to leave every social problem to the Invisible Hand get fussy when it actually manifests.
Yep. This is the world the Supreme Court handed us with Citizen's United. Now that money is speech, we all have to accept that when we buy things, our money can be used against us.
This is the world they wanted, and if you hate cancel culture, then you need to get on board with fixing the damage from Citizen's United... not raging against regular people who are doing exactly what they are supposed to do, and using their money as speech.
What you buy is your politics now. It fucking sucks, but look at it with clearer eyes.
This is interesting to say given that by most objective measures of what constitutes a good truck, the cybertruck is a bad truck.
Edit: the stupid bed cover gets stuck when exposed to a not abnormal amount of dirt. In dry climates the thing shocks you every time you touch it. People regularly are slicing their hands open randomly on it. Body panels routinely fall off. Accelerator pedal getting stuck triggering recall. Shape of the bed making it impossible to actually carry anything normal and rectangular, 100 mile tow range when putting actual weight on it, bad visibility. I've seen some hilarious videos of them getting stuck in road conditions my Yaris could handle. I've even seen someone catastrophically damage the wheels by turning them left and right rapidly a few times.
A good truck can carry things in the bed and tow something a long way. It can drive on and off a dirty worksite without critical components failing or getting dug in or snapping an axle. Or ok fine, the Houston family truck special, it should at least be able to take the cooler and kids to the beach without getting stuck.
The cybertruck is not a good truck. It may be a good something else, status symbol or something, maybe it's comfortable to drive, I don't particularly care, it's simply not a good truck.
There is literally no such thing. But regardless, in this subthread, we are discussing the response of children to the pure aesthetics of the truck (or lack thereof) vs. the coached, politicized reaction to what it is claimed to represent.
There are, of course, plenty of subjective measures such as NVH, amenability to modification through the aftermarket, total cost of ownership, offroad capabilities, etc.
From everything I've seen, some of which OP mentioned in an edit, points to the Cybertruck being a terrible truck seemingly designed by folks who have never owned/used a truck. And again, that is ignoring Elon's politics.
Mostly I've seen younger kids love it. I was at the park and a little girl saw a Cybertruck pull up -- "Look, Dad, it's from the future!"
I think Cybertruck is probably ultimately a failure, but the amount of hate it gets when they are at least trying to push things outside of the normal makes me sad. The amount of negativity towards anything new that's not perfect is insane.
If the CyberTruck were the size of a Honda Ridgeline or Ford Maverick, I think truck folks (who skew conservative) would look at it a lot less derisively. There are entire swathes of the half-ton truck market that the Cybertruck simply cannot compete in due to a seeming fundamental misunderstanding by the design team of what the vehicle needs to be capable of and amenable to. This is especially evident in the fleet/work truck market where the unibody design immediately shuts out folks who need to put an aftermarket bed replacement (think plumbers, welders, and other trades).
It straddles the 1/2 to 3/4 ton segment in terms of specs, but it is fundamentally impossible to tow a 5th wheel or gooseneck trailer with a Cybertruck.
Again, there is "think different" and there is "misunderstand the market."
A significant portion of the hate they get is for what they represent and who they’re from, not because they’re “new” or “different” or “not perfect”.
Because adults around them groomed them for those actions. Kids don't just start booing at objects out of the blue, they parrot the learned behavior of the adults around them.
Otherwise you're of course right.
Why are my tax dollars going to foreign healthcare, education, and food banks when we could definitely use that here?
> claims about 200+ year olds recieving pensions Elon and a SSA inspector general investigation identified approximately $298 million paid to 24,000 deceased beneficiaries over a period spanning 1998–2019. Some of that money was recovered.
He did nothing. He was an advisor to the president, and his team made reccomendations. Also, there is a GAO that has reviewed all canceled contracts. All of the recipients had the right to protest... unfortunately, most of the NGO's simply had to show up to court to get the contracts back, but they didn't because it was obvious fraud.
And, that grok part? What is all that about? Any AI, can do all of those things? Spending on election interference? So all money donated to political orgs are election interference?
The reasons you seem to hate him, all seem like good things to me?
I somewhat agree. You vote for universal healthcare, or against it?
Either way, addressing communicable diseases in far away places also helps keep them from becoming nearby diseases. It's far cheaper to fund some vaccines in a far away land than deal with widespread disease domestically. And in the end, cutting these things did practically nothing for the deficit. It was a rounding error of spending to save so many lives around the world.
And they want to argue they're instituting a "Christian" nation. How about following His red text words?
Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
1. Elon didn't "create jobs," he profited off other's labor by having his name on some pieces of paper. Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent.
2. He's the richest man in the world. I don't care the volume of tax he paid, I care what percentage of his spending power it is, because that's how my taxes and my neighbor's taxes are calculated, and it's only fair his should be as well. By that measure, he pays functionally no taxes. My taxes impact my purchasing power and I have to budget for it. His should as well. After all, his money only has value because of the existence of this government.
3. SpaceX sucks the air out of the room the same way his fake drill company killed California HSR. Stop letting crony capitalists suck government contracts dry and then have their buddies sell the "more efficient private solution" that also doesn't get delivered. It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
I worked at Tesla for two years on the capital expenditure team... He literally goes around the factory making hundreds of changes. Sometimes those changes are bad, and are reverted but in my experience, he's right 95% of the time, and the other 5% he'll revert when shown evidence of why it's a bad idea. I'm sure he does the same thing at SpaceX. He is literally the HEAD ENGINEER. He approves the factory layouts, he is responsible for tak time personally, he is constantly on the factory floor.
>"Furthermore it's often reported that rather than an innovative force in a company, usually people have to work hard to keep him as uninvolved as possible, because he's mostly incompetent."
WTF are you talking about? Who could possible keep him from being uninvoled? he is on the factory floor bi weekly making adjustments and negotiating equipment delivery. No one has the power to try and "Keep him uninvoled" and if so, they would be quickly fired.
>It's frankly absurd to not nationalize something as critical to sovereignty as a space program.
Uhh... we tried that. it'd called NASA, and it's been behind the soviet union since the early 2000's.
What happens when you nationalize it? You realise you can't force people to innovate, right? Do you think Gavin Newsom will be a better CEO of SpaceX? Do you think we have any chance of reaching mars after nationaliztion?
Why do you feel the right to be able to take what someone else has built?
The Cybertruck does not have that quality.
The classroom of kids Ive seen (my kids attend 3 different schools), all of them are amazed by them - age ranges: 3, 7, 9 all their classrooms loved them. Same with some of the older kids I've been around. They're all boys, I do imagine it's a very boy-friendly car.
I personally don't have a cyber truck, not big on it personally, but never put my own opinions into my kids. The kids may not "like it", but they are amazed by it.
I'm in an area that doesn't really hate Musk, so I think that does have an impact.
Both think it looks ugly.
No need to influence most people, IMO. Vehicles are shaped the way they are because the designs have broad appeal in general (familiarity? proportions? trends?). Most of us would find a normal, well-tailored black suit to be appealing and be baffled by avant garde, high fasion men's clothing.
Why should anyone be surprised that a completely novel design isn't appealing to most?
Isn’t it mostly fuel efficiency standards and manufacturability? You’ve got a chassis that’s used for like five different models for five years between refreshes, not a lot of room to innovate without driving up all the costs so only the luxury cars can afford to look different.
People who want cars to look different for it's own sake are saying they want worse cars.
Why? Why do those people need their cars to be shittier cars just to look different? What are they after? I bought a car as a toy, but it's average looking and not really special, and that doesn't have to actually impact how much I enjoy it. My previous shitty car was also very much enjoyed.
I don't understand the insistence that it looks "different" as if there is any virtue to a car design that was randomly generated to look different.
My kids are too young for this, but surely there's a tradeoff here. Should you override some of your child's natural wonder because of adult aesthetics (or worse political concerns)? Yes. But how often? I'm not sure the line should be drawn at a truck design. (Although, maybe you're teaching your kid taste, again I'm not sure.)
14yo probably influenced -me- more than the other direction, though. That one has strong opinions.
This is the same 14yo who when she was younger would delightedly point out every Tesla (then, mostly model S's) she saw on the road. Probably still responding to both aesthetics and politics but it was interesting to see the shift.
Every parent influences their children. It's called parenting.
There's going to be 3 owners perpetually going to Cars and Coffee with theirs, rotating with their pristine Pontiac Aztec.
And that's all they'll do with it because there is no way a CyberTruck is going to last 30 years otherwise.
Unsurprising, as they look like they were designed by an 8 year old.
(FWIW my kids giggle at the Cybertruck and say it looks silly. In a sense they do love them but I’m not convinced they’ll long for one in years to come)
Do you have anything empirical to back this up? This feels like someone kind of hoping something is true. It's like the Harley rider sure that everyone thinks they're super cool with their super loud bike.
I still remember years ago seeing one in a grocery store parking lot, with a banana yellow wrap and the Zelda unlock sound as its lock chime. A brief moment of inconsequential joy.
Lastly, having the cyber truck drag race a Porsche 911, while towing a Porsche 911 (and win) has to be one of the best marketing stunts of all time.
A bad design that costs too much, the only people who bought these were ideologues committed to the vision of a man responsible for millions of unnecessary deaths, the gutting of the American state, and some of the most destructive politics of hate in living memory.
I celebrate their passing.
Republicans are the ones that insist on protecting police no matter how much they trample on people's rights.
- Speech controls (they wanted compelled speech, which is a line the Americans have so far managed not to cross - Biden managed to get it in to Title IX)
- Rabid, senseless, confusing opposition to gun rights, a civil right in the U.S. Gun ownership does not result in more or worse crime, it's very clear.
- Totally opposing widespread, bipartisan support for voter ID
Let me be clear, I'm no fan of either side.
Like the Jan 6 pardons and Trump's immunity?
> Speech controls (they wanted compelled speech...)
https://democracyforward.org/news/press-releases/ooo-win-law...
"A federal court today ruled that the Trump-Vance administration unlawfully compelled civil servants at the U.S. Department of Education to transmit partisan political messaging from their government email accounts during the ongoing federal shutdown — violating core First Amendment protections."
> Rabid, senseless, confusing opposition to gun rights, a civil right in the U.S.
As is their First Amendment right. Do you oppose that civil right?
> Totally opposing widespread, bipartisan support for voter ID
Why not? When put to the people for a vote, it fails. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6178993-california-pro...
We see what modern republican party does - literally last two years.
Outside of Mad Max it’s hard to conceive of a more dangerous car to be involved in a pedestrian collision. The cybertruck is a symbol of staggering ignorance and selfishness.
We’ll probably still see them on the roads for many years to come—and laugh at the lickspittle Elon toadies who gleefully bought them, knowing full well what they symbolize.
[^1] https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-led-to-hund...
The drivers are like 98% East Asian or Indian. Like half the cars have a "new driver" or "baby on board" sticker.
Teslas are unpopular in rural areas.
So ironically I think the ideologues (on either side) are the only people NOT buying Teslas.
Utterly insane take. Your media sources have filled your mind with poison.
It's absolutely valid to expect more from politicians and people who hold power over our lives than we do from regular people.
The best collision is no collision.
I'd trade this princess in for a hi-lux or a road-worthy late 90s ranger any day of the week, but try finding that on the market.
I own a large truck for logistical reasons (mostly hauling water and equipment and egressing a snowy area). I had a 2wd 4-banger tacoma prerunner and was going to sell it, but it's a lot better for actually driving the oil field roads where I live and much easier to park than the long bed.
I don't see why anyone would drive some giant truck when they don't have to- it's not a fun vehicle to drive, certainly not safe for other folks, and I avoid driving it in places where there are humans.
Having lived in the truck bed for a while it's nice to have some space.
I'm on off-grid solar and am looking forward to paying $90K ($14k in 2026 dollars) for a chinese fully electric when they become sale-able in the US.
I don't really want a second vehicle as it would get rare use. Urban driving with it is just an unpleasant experience. I am forced to be hyper-aware of any and every corner a tyke COULD have walked out of and entered into my driving range without me seeing, especially when running errands for the kid to places where other kids are around. Cannot relax for a moment.
I'm not an Elon fan in the least, but it does feel like most cars are designed by committee and converge on a few well-defined shapes and segments. And they sell a ton of them, so sure, of course.
But there's certainly some charm when you see a weirdmobile that doesn't conform and somehow got by the bean counters and into existence. The MINI Clubvan, for people who needed something compact and cargo-focused. The Cadillac CTS-V wagon, for people who wanted to haul ass ... and the family. The Toyota MR2, which felt like Toyota engineers decided "let's take these Corolla parts and build them in the shape of a Ferrari".
With the high costs of certifying a new car for sale it seems like we see fewer and fewer of these oddballs, and that feels like a shame.
So even though I'd never personally consider driving a poorly rendered dumpster from a 1980s video game, perhaps the world is a bit more interesting due to its existence.
Those cars did have uses, but those uses revolved around drawing attention ( think advertising ). Whenever I saw one in my neck of the woods, they were selling something.
I suppose, if you don't really like cars much, this was interesting. No one debates the ability for EVs to have absurd 0-60, 0-100 times, but there's almost no overlap between why you'd buy a Cybertruck versus a 911 besides status symbol, which gets back to... maybe it's neat, if you don't really care about cars much.
The US style pickup is pretty rare. There are some Ford Ranger/Raptors, which look comically large but are apparently smaller than the common F150 (??). People who need a truck bed get a Ford Transit or similar with the bed variant.
Agricultural use cases are handled with actual tractors (who can use the cheaper "red" diesel!)
To some extent you even see this in New York too. Certainly there’s a need for these vehicles in rural areas where road conditions may be poor or absent altogether and the work needs done regardless.
The cybertruck on the other hand isn’t a work vehicle, it’s bought by the same people who buy the super kitted out models and who have no interest in using it for work, let alone taking the thing off road.
Ultimately I think of it as the modern Delorean, but I don’t think it will engender the same level of good will when it ages out and becomes less common due to the increasingly negative profile of Musk and his connections to the politics in which the vehicle was created.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxus_T90 (EV version)
Lithium nickel batteries suffer accelerated aging at high charge and at low charge, so it is usually recommended to stay in the 80-20% range, only going to 100% shortly before a road trip.
A Slate with a 200 mile range operated 100-10% would give you 180 miles between charges. That would be the same range as a lithium nickel battery EV with a 300 mile range operated 80-20%.
During the winter, range plummets. That 200 isn't getting me all the way from A to B. Having a hybrid fueling option is just much more practical for me.
I'm not saying I couldn't get it done, I could, but sitting for hours waiting for some slow-ass EV charging station in the middle of winter is not bullshit I'm signing up for.
Leave home at 100%/200mi
Drive to destination (approx 3 hours) arrive with ~0%/0mi
Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
Begin driving back home with a 20%/40mi deficit of range.
Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
Charge for 20%/40mi (~10 minutes)
Complete drive home and fully charge again.
Total extra time on 400 mile trip vs gas (assuming 300 mi tank range, so 1 fill-up): ~5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you stop for a quick charge on the way so you don't have to white knuckle down to 0%).
For cold driving in the winter, it would probably be closer to an extra 20 minutes.
You're not actually going to get 200mi from 100% when you have 2 people and baggage loaded and traffic exists, and no one sane would be comfortable arriving with literally 0% battery. Charging stops take minimum 10 minutes just accounting for getting off & back on the freeway; usually more like 30-40 minutes because why would you not just charge back up to 80% since you're stopped anyway? Your destination hotel almost certainly does not have a charger, or if they do they charge an idle fee, so you can't just leave it overnight, so really that has to count as another charging stop.
For a 200mi each way trip, realistically you're talking probably two 30 minute charge stops in each direction. That's not completely unacceptable (eg just have some lunch at one of the stops) but your 5-8 minute quote is absolutely not realistic. A bump up to 300mi range would drop that down to one stop in each direction, which would be a real benefit.
The only way I can make this happen in my head is the combination of driving in freezing temperatures, with the heat blasting the whole time, while doing ~80mph.
Mind you we do trips to Maine in the winter and only have seen ~20% range loss. Heated seats, cruise control at 65, heat on only as needed (about 5-10 minute an hour).
I keep it at 65 and let the heater do whatever it wants to do so that people are comfortable. Temperature, elevation differences, and wind definitely change things.
There's a section of the drive where I average something like 1.3 mi/kWh on the way up the mountain, but something like 6 mi/kWh on the way down. On the return trip, it's kind of fun to see the guess-o-meter show 110 miles remaining over the course of 25 miles, or have it actually increase.
I'm sure that gas vehicles follow a similar pattern, but I don't pay attention to usage like I do in an EV.
Also using heat instead of seat warmers just hurts you for the same level of comfort.
> Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
This is the aspect which isn't really possible in very rural areas. There is nowhere to stop at to charge, or the options are very limited. It's getting better, but it's the reason why people want more range.
Plus, in the midwest, the ranges tank in the dead of winter, due to sub-zero temperatures and headwinds.
If you can. I have some family that doesn't have any power near where I park when I visit. I'm also there for less than the _many, many_ hours it would take to get an EV from ~0 to ~80% on a standard 15A/120v outlet.
In one case, they have a pretty big tesla super-charger something like 40 miles from them so I can top all the way up just before I get there if I go slightly out of my way. In the US, we still have a long ways to go in the US before _high current_ charging options are as ubiquitous as gas.
Unfortunately a lot of people only really have a level1 class charger at home and that's a 10+ hour charge on a F150. Probably somewhere around 5-7 hours for a level 2 charger but that's only a "given" on new construction.
If you live close to a level3 charger than you can get topped up in under an hour but that also isn't as convenient as plugging in when you get home and forgetting about it since you have to drive to the charger.
Then you need to get our and do more real work of lots of different types. Exposed bed is often an advantage!
I have a welder, the safety instructions include "Never carry the gas tanks in an enclosed vehicle" -if there is a leak the gas tanks (nitrogen, argon, helium) can quickly displace the oxygen inside and I'll die before I know what happened.
Most things I carry don't need to be inside constantly. A little rain won't hurt anything, I wouldn't want to store anything outside but just a couple hours won't harm most things.
Also it is a lot easier to load things in a truck than a van. I can lift it over the sides (perhaps with a forklift). I can stand up in the back while arranging things - even when it is full I can stand upright.
I have used both trucks and vans to carry things over the years. Both are a compromise - and like all compromises there are negatives where something else would be better. Overall I fall on the truck is better side for what I do most often - but that is overall and I recognize there are good reasons some will choose something else.
Lifting things in and out is considerably easier when you don't have to lift it over the sides.
This is something so many people don't realize.
When you hold your breath for too long, that feeling of suffocation isn't caused by a lack of oxygen, but the build-up of CO2.
If you replace the oxygen in a room with an odorless gas non-oxygen gas, your body doesn't tell you. You don't feel like you're suffocating. You just start suffering the effects of lack of oxygen. Dizziness, confusion, lightheadedness, but you likely won't realize anything is wrong. Your judgement and ability to react goes away and you lose consciousness without ever experiencing the desperate urge to breathe.
Another good example of this is when pilots fly too high without supplemental oxygen or adequate cabin pressurization and become hypoxic. They become confused and lose coordination while feeling perfectly fine. By the time they realize something is wrong, they may no longer be able to do anything about it.
I used to think trucks were mostly useless, but have found that many people have weekly uses that make a lot of sense.
I do question the logic of lifting your truck so high you can't reach into the bed.
Also they are much easier to load items with heavy machinery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j76f6E0oOW4
Even gasoline trucks are stupid no low end torque, you need to rev it. I had a 6 cylinder Cummins diesel and at 500rpm idle on a hill it could move the 10,000 pound truck up the hill.
I have a Rivian and my 400mi range gets cut significantly (down to 200 or 300, depending on the trip) when I have 7k lbs on the back, but never enough to stop me from towing. And with good charging in the area, it's a non issue. And waaaaayyyyy cheaper than diesel.
Maybe if I was towing daily, I'd feel different. Your mileage may vary. (Couldn't resist the closer!)
Edit: btw instant torque is a game changer. You can't beat an EV on that front
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA
I borrow my brother’s truck all the time to transport various DIY supplies. I could probably get a roof rack for my car for things like plywood and drywall, but borrowing the truck is easier.
My EV has 470PS, it can hauul plenty heavy for long range. Weights 2.2 tons.
Even the Ford F-150 Lightning was already able to pull 4.5t and has a range of 300 miles.
Theres been plenty of F150L towing tests and the results are… bad. Maybe 100mi of range if you’re towing something big?
But I've done a 600 mile each way trip with the bed fully loaded and it's completely fine
I mean for sure, if you are the person who constantly need this, EVs might need a little bit more advantages, but what does an avg F150 owner would tow 100mi every day / regularly?
And the US is an incredibly large place. West of the Rockies it's essentially empty until you get to the coastal cities. So if you do anything agricultural, or your business is located in the rural places because of local resources (wood, minerals, whatever) you will be towing heavy things long distances.
Fun example of distance: last month I was in Tonopah, Nevada. My spouse wanted to try McDonald's. No problem, the sign on the billboard says there is one nearby (that exact word). It was in Hawthorne. 150km away. Americans, especially rural Americans in the Western states, have a different view of driving distance than Europeans. Bill Bryson was not really joking when he wrote that Americans will drive 60 miles for a taco.
More than 60% of truck owners use the bed to haul at least once per month; but it's difficult to determine the percentage who could have used a car instead. A small car can fit quite a few bags of soil in the trunk, for example.
It just has to look manly and rugged, any actual offroad or hauling capabilities are at best a nice-to-have.
Personally I'm going hybrid truck next time. The advantages of electric (torque, 240V inverter) with the flexibility of gas. Payload is lower but I'm hoping they fix that by the time I need a new truck
48 volts, steering wheel, no paint ( better durability), trunk, wipers etc. the car pushed the boundaries. If you compare level of creative thinking of cybertruck vs lets say electric ford, it's not even comparable. I respect that despite one person behind it. I don't care how it looks. It's polarizing. oh well.
My 11 y.o. relative from abroad asked me to take rl pictures of the truck, after he heard my neighbor bought it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PK_EJ3DyiiA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn4XzbMf9nY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ey0ZAaF2L4E
And yet there were still durability issues with the truck? My understanding is that there were many manufacturing issues, and it also experienced several recalls.
I'll give you that it was a unique design. But if we're talking about engineering... it could not have promised more or delivered less.
instead of paint/clearcoat getting scratched you can pit / etch / scar the raw metal!
I blame Tesla and their "giant iPad" interiors for many of the cost-cutting trends we see in cars today.
Something new and fresh can be accepted and loved, but it still needs to be familiar and somewhat iterative. A radical change like the cybertruck is hated for that reason. (People also hate it because of Elon, but they don’t hate the other Teslas nearly as much as they hate the cybertruck)
By the time of its delayed release, Musk had become deeply unpopular with many of that original coalition of fans and buyers, the truck was more expensive than originally promised, his new ‘base’ probably couldn’t afford to buy many of them, and it was structurally a fairly normal car underneath the steel panels. It also suffered plenty of embarrassing issues, which people were of course gleeful to publicise.
It could have been a cool funky status symbol, but Musk screwed it all up.
People still hated it when it was announced, the online discourse was largely negative surrounding it. I remember being in my tech office at the time and we were all talking about how bad it looked.
None of this materialized. The truck that ended up in production was a traditional body construction, but with unpainted steel panels so it looks like the truck Musk presented. It ended up with all the drawbacks of a steel body, while still being expensive and hard to manufacture
Once the structural body concept failed (has it ever been adequately explained why they failed?) it would have made sense to either drop the Cybertruck altogether, or pivot to a more traditional design. But ego prevailed, sadly.
IMO the big missed opportunity was to follow the model 3 with a 'model 2' - a smaller, cheaper car - probably in the VW Golf / BMW 1-series class.
This was well into the Tesla flamethrower/short shorts/funding secured/etc period of $TSLA meme stockification. Also pushing Dogecoin/crypto.
He certainly wasn't the "darling of the left" by then. But you are correct that his image was significantly less tarnished by political meddling and later obsession with woke/trans/culture war of the day stuff.
He was the darling of the emerging meme stock day trader/gambler/WSB crowd which in broad strokes tends to anti-correlate with the "left".
But it didn't live up to the selling points, it is very expensive, has design issues that weren't necessary for the aesthetic, and the company's owner turned out to be a really horrible person contributing meaningfully to changes in my country that are dangerous.
I can assure you he was not.
Trucks don't look quite the same because they have different standards to adhere to.
It doesn’t give me the impression of “radical change.” It felt familiar and iterative of the modern, oversized F250-style pickup truck in all of the worst ways.
The product failed because it was a shit product. In the grand scheme of unreliable American built cars, it was just another one. It was certainly not as bad as a Jeep. But it was ugly, and did not do what it was supposed to do; be a truck.
This is every top comment ITT, and I am checking user's post histories to confirm they are real. I understand I might be in the minority, but this belief that just being different is a merit unto itself is ridiculous.
To me, it’s more like answering a complaint about the blandness of pop music with electric bagpipes and nails on chalkboard: if you can’t be different and good, maybe don’t try so hard to be different.
I don't think the safety argument holds up here when you're comparing Teslas with standard automobiles.
It's a massive, gaudy symbol of unfathomable decadence, and every purchase was made to visibly support the passion project of the world's most influential white supremacist.
It's one thing for a vehicle to be "ugly," but this one stands for so much more.
The end result is a vehicle with all of the costs of a normal unibody design plus the costs of dealing with cutting, folding, and attaching thick sheets of stainless steel.
It never delivered the promised $40k starting price or the promised 500 mile top spec range either.
They could’ve done something like the Slate truck a decade earlier.
(I have a very slight visibility on 48V car audio R&D, for example. Most digital electronics could be adapted with a different DC-DC converter but the audio power amp stage takes direct supply voltage)
They could have Roadstered it.
Buy Ford Transit 350 "gliders", work out how to make them FWD, RWD, or AWD using your own transaxles and batteries. Pickup, van, or just a bare chassis-cab to go to a coachbuilder, it doesn't matter.
The Transit has been around for 61 years. Sticking electric motors in it that you already have is a no-brainer.
Lars Blackmore was doing self-landing rocket research before he went to spacex. Musk's reusable rockets (who doesn't want that, this is why the shuttle exists) wanted to use parachutes.
Seems to me like a sentence that's quite easy to understand.
The highest number though is like 30 uses and Starship still hasn't profen itself.
Also the boring company, Doge, Solar City, the cybertruck etc.
So what do we get out of this? Musk is for sure not just an idiot, he for sure sees sometimes good opportunities, but also he had the money to invest in these and he got lucky a few times too.
Btw. the cybertruck he announced, never came.
How much money have Americans gifted NASA to pay Russia for launching payloads ton Soyuz rockets?
Do you frame all government funding as "gifting"?
"real experts" are not always correct. A bet a lot of people told him that the original Teslas were a bad idea or SpaceX would never...wait for it...take off.
But sometimes people win when they push the boundary of what might work, push the problems to the surface and then solve them.
I don't like the guy but you can't really deny his ethusiasm and single-mindedness.
Musk has enthusiasm, yes, but he’s let his luck at PayPal and successfully buying Tesla from the original founders go to his head. Nobody is right all of the time, and no serious project goes perfectly according to the original vision without adjustments. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of an electric truck — companies with better engineering culture are making great ones — but the Cybertruck failed exactly the way everyone who isn’t a superfan expected: it’s designed in a way which guarantees high costs and it just doesn’t deliver corresponding benefits for most people. Diving into the culture wars against a large chunk of potential Tesla buyers was a bad idea but even if he hadn’t, there just aren’t that many people who have that kind of money to spend and the ones who do usually won’t accept so many limitations and flaws.
- no one in the established “expert” car companies thought that mainstream EVs were feasible. Sure, there may have been individuals, but it didn’t make it into corporate strategy or product delivery. The Model S plus the Supercharger network changed the face of the car industry.
- none of the clever brains spending billions in NASA, ULA, ArianeSpace, et al made a reusable commercial rocket a reality. They had an infinite head start vs. SpaceX and failed to innovate. Even now, having their lunch money regularly stolen by SpaceX, where is the reusable competition?
No executive in the established "expert" car companies had any reason to rock the boat. Establishing EVs as a credible alternative to ICEs required a build-out of charging infrastructure that none of them were willing to commit to. But non-established companies had no such risk, and the emerging companies in China would have developed no less quickly even if Tesla never existed.
> none of the clever brains spending billions in NASA, ULA, ArianeSpace, et al made a reusable commercial rocket a reality
All of them would have told you that there's nothing impossible about a reusable rocket, only that their customers were happily served by their current offerings. Without Starlink, there would be no commercial demand that would make up for the cost of R&D.
> Without Starlink, there would be no commercial demand that would make up for the cost of R&D.
Not sure about this analysis.
a) SpaceX developed the Falcon 9 relatively cheaply - ~$300m to it simply being a viable launch platform (i.e. without reuse, Dragon, etc.)
b) NASA contributed to some of the costs.
c) SpaceX was already offering launch services cheaper than their competition before perfecting reuse or conceiving of Starlink.
Therefore it's likely that they'd have had a positive (albeit lower) business case and made back R%D costs over time, simply by offering launch services and capturing a majority of the market thanks to their lower prices. Reusability lowered their launch costs, when it came. Starlink was an answer to the question of how to capitalise on all of the cheap surplus launch capacity they'd made available.
https://www.alphaxiv.org/@lars-blackmore
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lars_Blackmore
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=xZvK9z0AAAAJ&hl=en
His initial success, PayPal, was just a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Online payments are an obvious thing and a natural monopoly. He guessed right that PayPal would be the one that succeeded.
That gave him the opportunity to place more big bets that paid off. Neither electric cars nor reusable spacecraft were obvious wins the way online payments were, but it's also no sign of genius to have happened to place bets on companies that succeeded.
The evidence for that is that his luck ran out. He keeps backing audacious projects, and they keep failing. Anybody else would have been bankrupted a dozen times over. He keeps going because he got lucky the first time, with so much money that it's almost impossible for him to lose it all.
That is to say, I think it's more survivorship bias than the merits of his "enthusiasm and single-mindedness". A decade ago he had such a string of successes that I would consider the case that he was actually smarter than average, but he's had such a string of conspicuous and obvious catastrophes that the net result simply seems average at best.
I want you to know that.
Musk came into Tesla as funding. People were trying to make the cars.
With regards to SpaceX, he was looking for people to build rockets to go to Mars. But no one wanted to sell to him. So he hired rocket scientists to build the rockets.
And yes, while there will always be some asshole who says "That won't work", there were plenty of ""real experts"" who were working at those companies.
They could have done what Musk did with Falcon 9 in the 90's. Instead they chose to mess around more with solid fueled heavy lift vehicles, all the while proclaiming that they were the experts/science.
(I don't necessarily disagree with you, but there's a difference between thinking outside the box and trying new ideas, and literally ignoring factual reality and repeated clear feedback from people who actually know what they're talking about.)
That's why you should always hire someone unqualified.
Steel is heavy, you have to paint the frame anyway, people like cars with colors, the steel has to be maintained too (scratches etc.).
Even more interesting would be how much the steel hurts the tons-to-orbit in the Starship.
Also painting IN THE FACTORY isn't expensive. Re-painting the part on repair is because of all of the prep work required (take apart, clean, color match etc).
Might be break-even, but I doubt it would be cheaper
"It will be cheaper" is a perspective of ignorant "smart guy" that thinks because he got successful in one thing that they can weight in on industry processes they have no idea about
You go to the DIY shop and buy a tin of white spray paint.
What happens if you scrape your brushed stainless fridge getting it into the kitchen?
Well, now you get to either live with it, or come up with some really clever ideas on polishing out the scratch and then sanding it back to disguise it with the rest of the surface which will never really look right.
Not sure I follow your ford pinto comment either.
$100 is also a trivial amount of money for a larper with half the budget required to complete the purchase. Or someone with plenty of money who just put in a reservation "just in case" they wanted one.
Entertaining the idea of a new car purchase is an upper-middle class thing, and a fully-refundable $100 is impulse buy territory for most of them. Yes, many of them would have been capable of taking on a $40K purchase, but $100 is not a serious indicator that they were serious about doing it. People who have this money are doing relatively well and blow $100 on much more inane things that aren't refundable.
A traditional dealer would ask someone with much less money looking at a used Nissan Sentra to put down $500 to hold a car.
OK, but I think it is. So can we agree to disagree, is that ok with you that I have a differing opinion?
If you want to hold reserve a damn Toyota the dealer is going to ask you to show up in person, put down $500-1000 and fill out a credit app.
Tesla knew the $100 reservation was too low to show serious commitment, and this was intentional for two reasons:
1. to float an interest free loan
2. to manipulate investors
Thanks very much, have a great day! (Didnt read anymore of the post as it was unnecessary)
No doubt there is some demand for an "out there" design, but I'd have to guess that the projected $40K price was itself a large part of the attraction.
2019 USA annual car/pickup sales were ~17M. I find it very hard to believe that 10% (2M cybertruck pre-orders) of those purchasers were seriously interested in a cybertruck - it really is not a design made for mainstream tastes.
I thought the early images looked amazing but I see them all the time in real life (a few people in my neighborhood own them) and they just look so stupid on the road.
With false but great looking renders and false but great sounding promises, the hype and interest was real. It was only when the real product became apparent that it became a joke and interest was lost.
You would think maybe Musk would learn something about overpromising from this fiasco, but judging by things like DOGE I guess not!
You're talking about the guy who has a fake twitter account tweet at him things like "you're such a good father, Elon, your kids are lucky to have you".
He's absolutely desperate for attention and approval, because not being perceived as cool is crippling to his sense of self-worth.
Of course he won't learn from overpromising! He inhabits a different reality, surrounded by sycophants and yes-men.
A press brake is generic and cheap. Molds for presses are cheap if the cost can be spread over many vehicles, but are expensive for low volume manufacturing.
Paint shops are similar. They're not expensive if you're running a lot of cars in the same color through it, but at low volumes with custom colors they are fabulously expensive.
Of course the final production Cybertruck didn't use the exoskeleton design so it was the worst of both worlds, but it does feel like the original design wasn't expected to sell well and was designed for low volume manufacturing.
I live in the UK so I'll likely never be able to get one, but I'd love a car I can just buy new panels for and wrap them with minimal tools.
Flat metal is more expensive than curved metal. Curved metal, you design the curves to help support the stress points: you can get by with thinner sheets. Flat metal requires thicker heavier more expensive sheets of sheet metal in order to be strong enough.
Curved metal also lets you design the whole thing to be more aerodynamic. which is an important consideration even with something as un-aerodynamic as a truck.
Painting cars really is a hugely optimised process that materially affects performance characteristics such as weight.
Its very difficult to appreciate just how many cars are made worldwide wide, but just think if a completely optimised fully robot optimised line cost a billion dollars, in only needs to process a few million cars to fully pay itself off. Just look at how much a “paint option” costs. Enough people paying for a premium colour would completely pay for the entire production painting line.
At the scale of Tesla the millions of dollars on a fully automated setup is cheap because amortize the cost of so many cars
Very common to use a mix of both strategies in practice.
Either you have a modern expensive car and insurance which knows how to handle it properly, or it doesn't matter anymore and you got to a cheap car doctor.
I had a jeep wrangler once. The window was "flat" but not if you looked at its reflection. There was an almost imperceptible but complex curve, no doubt for strength.
As the DeLorean community will tell you, repairing unfinished stainless steel to aesthetically pleasing levels is almost impossible.
Take a piece of tinfoil, crumple it, then try to uncrumple it to its factory finish.
Repairing painted bodywork is easy and cheap: hammer it to get a rough shape, apply fillers, then paint & polish to factory finish. Simple as.
...you don't. You replace it in whole. You can't use filler to mask small dents and paint over it, if you want it to look as before, you have to pretty much replace it.
I don't know any item where the unpainted stainless steel version is cheaper than the painted steel version, thinking about kitchen appliances for instance. For cars, the most famous car with a stainless steel body is the DeLorean DMC-12, which was notoriously expensive, even without the time circuits.
Elon talks about a lot of things. Consider if you might be part of the media ecosystem that enables that strategy.
It’s like they completely forgot the “what do people need” phase of product management.
The cybertruck was an early example of what someone on bsky called the "everyone is twelve now" theory: it looks like it was drawn by a small boy's idea of "cool", with zero further thought.
In once panel, there's the Cybertruck whose owner bragged about it carrying a large round hay bale (weighs around 1,500lbs) with the suspension looking like it was about to die. Next to it is a shot of a circa-1980 Ford F250 carrying three of the same bales and sitting perfectly level. TBF, the F250 probably had air bags in the rear suspension, but still...
That thing is only a "truck" because they decided to call it that.
Most people should just buy a sedan. :-/
At some point this gimmick misdirection nonsense has to stop working.
Oh look, if you have a transport-truck sized massive compressor in your garage and use 100kWh to spend a day filling a tank, your ComingSoonNow(TM wink) Roadster can do some silly stuff if you dedicate much of the interior to a giant explosion hazard.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=gRBDLE06qNY
Today, we'd called "founder mode".
For a company, matching products and services to demand is what matters. Being able to get more mass into orbit only matters if enough people are willing to pay to get stuff there. The analogy is that jumbo jets exist, but almost no passenger flights bother with jumbo jets because it's not economical. Unlike with civilian aviation we have yet to observe a natural experiment which would allow us to place an economically practical ceiling on rocket payload size, but it very much still remains plausible that something Falcon 9-sized is actually the sweet spot, especially given that Starlink is the only commercial offering that's pushing the existing Falcon 9 capacity. And yes, this completely ignores any mention of going to the moon or Mars, because although there may be incentives to do so (e.g. scientific incentives, political incentives, philosophical incentives), there is no economic incentive other than getting some government contracts which will be just as short-lived as Apollo was once the public loses interest.
It turns out that sitting in your office wearing an adult nappy and snorting cat sedative until your bladder no longer functions might give you a lot of quite "creative" thinking, but it doesn't make you an engineer.
At some point Elon has to climb out of the K-hole and realise that these things are better left to proper engineers.
It's also an ugly-ass car. If it had turned out to be super-reliable and cheap and "hackable" that would make up for it, even earn its strange look a cult following, but no it just ended up as an overpriced weird ugly-ass car.
Cheap hackable electric work truck (I imagine chassis with basic cabin that you can expand in various ways, like the EU van options have like half a dozen chassis) would be great but it's not something Tesla ever wants to make
95% of their cars sold have been in the $30k to $60k range. They have long been the best bang for the buck electric car (in the US, since BYD isn’t allowed.
Just because the big batteries are so dangerous?
Also, all the top level comments sound the same. Is there a reason?
I've rented a Cybertruck, and whatever you think if you drive one you'll be blown away.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV#1980s_to_1990s
The chevy/gm ev trucks have bigger batteries.
I'm a current truck driver and very excited to swap out my ICE truck for a Slate next year. I need something that can haul my trash to the dump, grab a load of wood chips for the garden, and bring home the occasional sheet good from the home store.
I agree with your assessment as it applies to the Cybertruck or F150, but not the idea of an electric truck. Some people buy trucks because they need a light-duty hauling solution; unfortunately, the market seems to only want to sell luxury SUVs that happen to have truck beds.
On the other hand, I've never experienced being able to just haul something without a little planning first, so I don't miss it.
You just need to cover the bulk of uses, not every last thing you might need to do. I think the light SUV + utility trailer is a pretty good sweet spot, even better for many things than a pickup truck on its own. Like have fun lifting 20 sheets of plywood up onto a pickup truck and back down, assuming you've even got one with a full length bed that can support that whole pile.
And sure I'd think larger trailers get to be a hassle to move empty by hand, but isn't that what having more equipment is for? And isn't that well into the tier where you need a truck for a tow vehicle regardless?
If we can get some affordable electric trucks in the US, it will be very interesting to see how the more rational segments of the market react once they are no longer priced out.
Work trucks are a very different market than for passenger vehicles. Their usage is a lot more consistent and known. This means that electric works very well for some work trucks and very poorly for others.
The other aspect of work trucks is that they're generally purchased by very conservative businesses who don't want to buy the bleeding edge, they want several years of reliability data before committing. The F-150 Lightning was cancelled just as that data was starting to come in.
Of course, most F-150's are sold as passenger vehicles rather than work trucks. Along with almost all Cybertrucks.
1. People who need to haul stuff in the bed
2. People who need to tow stuff behind them
3. People who buy them for some form of self expression.
Electrics are probably fine for people in 1 & 3. But for 2 I have yet to find one that both tows and gets range.
1. People who need them for work. 2. People who need to carry bulky loads 3. People who need to tow. 4. People who buy them for some form of self-expression.
The only real use case for electric trucks, imho, is construction site supervisors who do most around-town driving but may occasionally need to haul stuff. Their towing range is absolutely abysmal (F150 Lightning range dropped to about 90 miles when towing a moderate trailer!).
I live in the PNW and you see people not using their trucks as trucks every single time you go out on the road. This includes urban areas.
I’ve owned an F150 and an R1T and for camping, overlanding, snow trips, etc the Rivian is hands down the most capable vehicle I have ever driven. You couldn’t pay me to go back to a Ford
But process of replacing a radiator on a Rivian really isn't any different than replacing one on a Jeep.
Most people who work on any vehicle don't know what the fuck they're doing, there's plenty of people in Autozone buying their 3rd O2 sensor for their Jeep that's throwing a P0420 as well.
It just looks too weird.
It doesn't help that nearly all chargers are arranged such that I'd block important parts of the parking lot for half an hour if I was towing when I needed a charge, then I have a complex back out (where something is behind me that I need to avoid). Most gas stations are designed so my trailer might block a pump from someone else using it but otherwise I'm not in the way.
Depends on why you're towing something. My brother-in-law is a contractor, for example, and the first thing you do when you start your own contracting business is buy a big ass pickup and a trailer to haul all of your tools and materials to your job sites.
Agreed on the chargers though, sometimes it's difficult to use a charger even with a normal-sized car just because every manufacturer wants to put the ports in a different, weird and quirky place on EVs.
The only actual difference is time you need to charge. Pull through charging stalls are ubiquitous where I live
And I just don’t know…how often are people towing loads over 100 miles regularly for this to be a problem? Where I live I see pavement princesses towing the occasional boat or landscapers towing gear and rocks.
Neither of those is going to max out the range on an EV truck in an average day
It's basically irrelevant in pedestrian collisions because the pedestrian is already taking ~95% of the impact even from a lighter car and the <5% difference between that and an arbitrarily heavier vehicle is completely dwarfed by any of the other variables like the speed of the collision. For a pedestrian it's better to get hit by a freight train at 35 MPH than a 3000 pound vehicle at 39 MPH.
The quality of the vehicle is actually quite high.
DeLorean is the real life 80s reference of course, but in cyberpunk revival media like the coupe in Ghost in the Shell 2017, the spinner in Blade Runner 2049—those cars are all much smaller cabins than the cybertruck
The size is just too impractical. It would never fit in my garage. On top of that, the standby drain was significant. Just sitting idle, it would lose 10 to 20 miles of range.
The bad: didn't seem to be very good as a truck (eg build quality). That would not have been too bad, but it's dangerous when the design already alienates some buyers. Carmakers need time to get it right, and that needs sales.
The terrible: Elon torching his reputation in all sorts of ways and essentially insulting his past and future customer base. The politics, the bait and switch over features, etc etc. Eventually people tire of it.
It's tragic, because for better or worse Americans love their trucks, so the team that solves the electric transition is doing the world a huge favor.
The other two cars you mentioned look pretty run of mill.
Had the Cybertruck brought forward the manufacturing innovations that were alleged to cause the weirdness in its design, I could draw the comparison with the Multipla, but as it stands, it has all the visual appeal of one, with none of the practical reasons for it. Having something ugly for good reasons, I can appreciate, function over form to the nth degree. Looking awful just for the sake of looking awful, not so much. Cybertruck is the car equivalent of intentionally bad Balenciaga releases (like the plastic bag), wherein even with taste being subjective and beauty in the eye of the beholder, there is a point where it just becomes as close to objectively ugly as is possible.
Can't comment on the Pontiac, have never seen one outside Breaking Bad.
Frankly Tesla is dumb lucky the Europeans and Japanese have botched the EV market so badly overall. Tesla shouldn't even exist at this point with how trivial their lineup is.
What's most frustrating is that I had to trade in my Model 3 for a 3-row SUV, and Tesla just didn't have anything competitive in that segment.
I did buy a Model-Y shortly before his Trump endorsement, and then sold it for technical reasons.
On a cold January morning, I was pulling up to a stop-sign, didn't have any autopilot turned on, and the car accelerated.
I think there is just too much software between gas pedal and the machinery of the car. They're honestly kind of dangerous vehicles. The average person can't handle the responsibility of a self-driving vehicle.
I told all of my friends and family that I would not recommend the vehicle yet to a non-technical person, even when I was myself driving it and loving it.
Some outside factor might cause a signal failure, causing cascading destruction.
I do know that there is not much better than average driver! There is much worse than average: people who drive drunk, and a few other classes of people who shouldn't drive at all. However the vast majority are all about equal: in reasonable mental health and limited to the same eye and reaction times. A few people have and follow better training and so are slightly safer - but this is slight. Most people think they are better than average because they excuse their mistakes as a "one time mistake", while confusing "the other guy's" mistakes with the other guy must be a bad driver.
It will be interesting to see if the substantial safety margin decreases as more people buy in.
There's a shit ton of software between the gas pedal and the machinery of just about every car on the road today whether that be an ICE, hybrid, or EV. We're a long ways away from the go-go pedal directly pulling a cable opening the throttle plate.
I am the exact target audience of their new Fathom, but I abandoned my preorder sign up process when I saw the phrase "dealerships set the final price".
No other car is as awe-striking to see on the streets, especially in the EU. This will be the Mustang Fastback or Testarossa of the 2040's ...
The only guaranteed way to lose is if you stop swinging. And Tesla has stopped swinging. They haven't revealed a mass market consumer vehicle since 2019.
There is some incredible technology in the Cybercab that allows them to be built cheaply in high volume. Instead Ford looks like they are going to be the first Western consumer vehicle out of the gate with the unboxed production method with their Ford Fathom. Unsurprisingly, the Chinese are ahead here too.
The 3/Y and the screens had lots of design and product innovations. Iterating on those lines would’ve been quite nice.
People who buy trucks as a status symbol want to be "tough". And Tesla clearly intended to appeal to "tough guys", it is big, powerful, and supposedly indestructible. Elon even twitted at some point that it would destroy the other car in a collision, a morally questionable comment, but the implications are clear, a though vehicle for people who don't give a fuck about others.
And then, they managed to break the unbreakable window during the presentation, followed by the rusty trucks, and most importantly, the whole fiasco with glued panels that came off. So, you market a tough vehicle, but it falls appart. Who is going to buy that?
The Cybertruck is weird and a "status" symbol, but most people want to fit in, but also have the "nicest" looking status symbol, so they convince themselves that "this particular truck" is really nice. (And also if I own it, it's clear I do lots of hard physical things.)
The Slate represents an ideology that combines the nostalgia of what trucks used to be (especially the Ford Ranger) with a modern EV powertrain, but most people don't actually want the stripped down basic vehicle, even if their eyes light up over the idea.
I have debated this extensively with some friends. I *jumped* at the slate pre-order precisely because it doesn't have any 'luxury' trim options. I don't want to pay out the nose for a fancy infotainment system that will use the cheapest possible under powered electronics from a decade ago, run a 10 year old version of android that spies on me, gets no useful updates...etc.
I certainly have my biases but I suspect that most people only _tolerate_ most of the painpoints w/ the various 'luxury' items in their cars and if given the opportunity to start simple and upgrade they would.
> but most people don't actually want the stripped down basic vehicle
Perhaps. But if you put two options side-by-side and show people what they get at the two different price points, I'd bet that the ~30k slate compared to the ~ 50k typical new car price will get a decent chunk of people thinking about what _else_ they could do with 20k in savings.
Successful companies well understand they don't know exactly what maximizing shareholder value requires. They are always making small experiments to see what really works in the market. Many of those they know will fail and in turn cost shareholder value because of a bad investment. But you have to try bad investments in order to find one that is good.
It's not going to appeal to people who want a truck as a symptom of fragile insecurities around their masculinity and that's a biiiig part of the US truck market
This is specifically about the Tesla Cybertruck, which has been shown to be fairly shoddy in construction AND is tied to a very, very divisive figure.
However, people are talking about the same truck as if it is a truck. And it's a terrible truck for people who need a truck. On the other hand, a lot of other trucks are also terrible at being a truck for the people who need a truck. You have to go into the three-quarter ton or one-ton range to find a decent truck these days, even though a modern half-ton probably has more power and weight carrying capacity than a 30-year-old three-quarter ton truck. The way it's set up means it's not going to work as well as a truck. The 30-year-old truck is going to have a longer bed, which is something that someone who needs a truck is going to want in the truck.
https://archive.is/Q8NSx
There's nothing quite like the Cybertruck and I don't think there ever will be again.
Brings me to a point I'd like to make: it boggled my mind that Tesla decided to execute the 'Cyber' aesthetic via a pickup truck, particularly after the US auto industry ramped up marketing the pickup truck's familiar shape as a cultural facet during/after the Great Recession and the fuel economy regulation changes.
Tesla could've capitalized on the billions Ford, Chevy, Dodge, and others spent in the 2010s marketing pickup trucks as God's gift to humanity, but instead decided -that- was the best market to try a complete novelty in. It makes no rational sense -- I've heard it ultimately came down to Musk stubbornly wanting the Cybertruck, but I don't know if that's factual.
There were other things that contributed to the decision, too: the announced "stressed skin" exoskeleton was panned in favor of adhering the body panels to the body with glue, it became clear that Tesla's profit and valuation were funding Elon's right-wing political project, and I would have preferred a solid-axle design.
The absurdity was not what was wrong with it. It's OK to be absurd. I really liked the stainless steel design. Less trail damage when off-roading and no need to worry about paint scratches causing body rust. The door wedge design? Meh. But it enabled the stainless steel body.
In the end, I want what the Cybertruck failed to deliver: a full-size electric pickup at a good price with excellent range. I currently have my eyes on the RAM REV. We'll see if that one gets axed, too.
I just find the moral grandstanding a bit off. The vehicle industry isn’t exactly a paragon of executive virtue
I don't know what the others think so I can't judge on that, but I can judge based of what Elon says and does.
And aside, Elon's been lying for years about everything and promising stuff Tesla can't deliver.
IMHO, there's a strong parallel between the Elisabeth Holmes/Theranos situation and Elon/Tesla.
The Countach was just the usual Lamborghini luxury scam, and I say that as someone who grew up a few km from the factory. Nobody cared if it was kinda crap inside, because it existed just to look like a cool car. A truck is supposed to, y'know, be a truck.
Just because something is "angular" doesn't mean it's in any way comparable to a Cybertruck.
You realize style evolves right?
That style was futuristic in the 70s. It is not futuristic anymore. A lot has happened since the 70s to change what the future should look like.
Ironically, I am finding myself thinking that all the supposedly "bland" electric cars nowadays finally look like cars from the future, simply by being normal car looking, with very slight and subtle styling accents.
Because that's what a future car looks like: Roughly the same aerodynamic profile but with electric motors. That's literally what everyone wanted in the first place, as was Elon's thesis for Tesla as more than a niche car company.
The Cybertruck aesthetic is stupid because it is literally a middle finger to what people want, as Elon himself noted.
I don't get why people are so stuck on "But it looks different" as a good thing.
It's a car. Why are you so stuck on needing your car to stand out? Why is it a problem for you if cars look the same?
Doesn’t the new ~flying car have similar design vibes?
But then I saw it in-person, and it looks indescribably weird and bad, akin to the uncanny valley. The problem is that it's a real vehicle and not in a video game.
You might see "a lot of them" because they stand out and are "memorable".
To those that downvoted, I’m sorry my opinion offended you.
"If Kenmore had the wherewithal to manufacture 4wd electric chest freezers...that's what they'd look like."
...but I'm not offended by it. I think that sort of whimsical craziness is all too often missing from modern durable goods, so I'm glad it got built.
I'm even happier that its existence upset mincing, peevish little eurotwee Conde-Nasty scribblequeefs like this Wired author. If it'd guarantee him leaping off of a tall pier, I'd pay MSRP for a Cybertruck.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21602437
Haven’t explored it yet, but it might be interesting to see how the sentiment shifted.
Renault is designing cute things again, so that's a good development. So is Citroen, apparently?
So that's a good development
Electric vehicles obviously don't have the hurdle of meeting emissions standards so Tesla, or any other company really, had (and has) the opportunity to create a small, cheap, mass market utility truck that no gas-powered vehicle can compete with. This is what the Cybertruck should've been.
There have been breakdowns of the Cybertruck and it is such an incredibly bad design. Things like the weight of stainless steel panels but with an aluminum frame. Why is that a problem? Because aluminum is prone to catastrophic failure with the up and down motion of towing a heavy load than stainless steel simply isn't [5].
The rumor has been that the only thing propping up Cybertruck demand is Elon forcing his own companies like SpaceX to buy them [6]. Other than that, the Cybertruck became a weird political statement [7]. Those people are getting crucified on resale. It's even a trend on Tiktok and elsewhere to watch these trade in videos. People who paid $150k+ are getting <$70k less than 2 years later.
Anyway, I'm shocked no US manufacturer is tackling the EV small utility truck market. Yes there was the F150 Lightning but it's still too big (and thus expensive).
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Hilux
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_War
[3]: https://www.octane-magazine.com/articles/features/usa-25-yea...
[4]: https://www.thedrive.com/news/heres-how-regulations-accident...
[5]: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/nZcb9TTyneFbxiDav/the-giga-p...
[6]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-04-16/tesla-lea...
[7]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/02/12/tesla-...
I try not to get excited about stuff, but the idea of The Next Big Thing in Cars being a total lack of garbage nonsense screens and giving us back CRANK CRANK WINDOWS -- this is pure joy.
Wheels. Seats. Motor[1]. Box to keep rain off. Done.
Oh you attached a bed to that? Double awesome.
[1] Enough top end cruise speed for American interstates.
A Tacoma is basically the US model of the Hilux.
Now I get why the gas powered Hilux has changed. Emissions standards have changed. Fuel efficiency is more important. Modern cars are full of computers and microcontrollers. But an EV is relatively simple. It's one of the big advantages. Yes you have an OS and it's not just turning the ignition but the drive system itself is fairly simple, the thing that turns battery power into movement (compared to ICEs). No moving parts (in the engine), basically.
You could absolutely make a small EV utility truck. Remember that part of the reason why people were excited about the Cybertruck when it was announced was the price point (~$35k). Of course it turned out to be 3 times that.
Look at what BYD is doing [1]. Now these are PHEVs rather than pure EVs. Other automakers are making smaller pure EV trucks.
[1]: https://www.carscoops.com/2025/12/byd-new-compact-pickup-pro...
I mean it's probably not that comforting for owners to unknowingly have signed up for a beta test, but that was the plan for Tesla for a while with the Cybertruck.
This was also the reason for sloppy stuff like steel panels glued to the aluminium frame, and not following up on their initial promises - the car morphed from a serious project into a low volume testbed sometime during its production.
Tesla seems to be killing its non volume cars the S and X are dead as well, I've heard rumors the Model 3 might be on its way out.
Who would think we could get satellite internet that works?
And yet some of the comments talk about this like these cars exist in a vacuum, detached from the realities of the person behind them. Some of them even praise this hideous, low quality, overpriced, impractical abomination of a truck. Parts of the tech world really do live in a bubble.
To anyone who is/was a crusader against cancel culture, recognize the source of it. Become a crusader against Citizen's United instead. It would be a much more productive coalition.
(btw dope earthbound reference in your username if that's what it is)
You are deeply, utterly misinformed and loudly ignorant.
Ukraine uses StarShield, which is owned/operated by the USGov. Starlink is a civilian service not for military use.
If you can't be bothered to perform a simple google search to educate yourself about basic matters such as this in a few seconds, why should anyone listen to any of your other (ridiculous) points?
Musk says SpaceX did restrict Starlink, as Ukraine says the tech has been restored
https://www.npr.org/2026/10/24/nx-s1-6015482/ukraine-starlin...
> In a post on social media site X, Musk said that Ukraine had been violating Starlink's terms of service by using it for offensive military activity.
> On Saturday, Ukraine said that Starlink and the military's use of the related Starshield technology were back to high operating speeds after more than a week of disruptions.
> Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that the restoration began overnight.
> "The most important thing today is that Starlink and Starshield operations have been restored to the speeds we had before the restrictions," Zelenskyy said. "The speeds are now where they need to be."
No point in editorializing it.
Then again, he's a con-man who's now quietly distancing himself from CyberTruck ("I had nothing to do with it") and moving on to the next con-trick: the CyberCab.
Those people are just as loud as others, but never actually buy, because a $40k CyberTruck never existed.
When I want to go to the symphony I want a chauffeured Rolls-Royce. I don't care how it is maintained, that is the chauffeurs job. If I want to see under dressed girls I'll go to a strip club after if, or maybe hire an escort to sit next to me.
When I want a truck to "go mudding", the fun is driving it through the mud. Maybe my chauffeur is tows the truck to the mud pit, but I'm getting it stuck in the mud myself. Sometimes the local cheerleaders are holding a fund raiser and I'll pay them to clean the truck after I'm done.
When I want a truck because I need to haul things - I want to pay someone else to take care of it when I'm not around.
In reality I'm not rich enough for the above. I do a lot of maintenance myself because I can't afford to pay someone. I have one vehicle that is a bad compromise for everything because I can't afford more.
In reality I have moral objections to under dressed girls and so I'm not going to the strip club or hiring escorts. But if I was that type I wouldn't be paying them to maintain my car. I have had the cheerleaders clean my car while I watched, but I wasn't paying them to be "eye candy" even though I did enjoy looking, and the next week is was the boys wrestling team (which I don't enjoy looking at) that got paid just as much for the same job.
In reality I'd prefer public transportation, but that is a different story.
Tesla took over 2 million preorders for the Cybertruck before they closed the program due to high demand.
> Musk was a fool to mistake the hollering of a small group of enthusiasts for that of the truck-buying U.S. population. Nobody was actually wanting for the CyberTruck. He should've listened to his marketing people and not be guided by social media and his right-wing instinct.
It wasnt social media and his 'right wing instinct' whatever that is. It was massive amounts of paid pre-orders feeding their opinions that it was going to be popular.
EDIT: Oh I see you have edited your comment since I wrote mine. The massive amounts of pre order cancellation came after it was released, so how does that factor into their initial opinions that it would be popular during development?
Even very ugly cars will sell if they give you a really good deal for the money. The Cybertruck at $39,999 was a shockingly good deal. It was just a lie.
Btw have you seen the roadster??
[1] https://optimusk.blog/blog/tesla-optimus-production-timeline...
But where I live (deep blue territory) most people would not be caught dead driving Musk’s favorite car around
I would say the issue is more that there has been little to no progress in mainstream consumer car aesthetics in the past 25 years. It used to be that you could clearly tell a 50s car from a 60s car from a 70s car from an 80s car, etc. Everything from the past 25 years or so is pretty indistinguishable, so something comes along with a clear but possibly misguided aesthetic vision, its naturally going to appeal to some people.
The steel chassis provides rigidity instead of a traditional frame. They ended up having to be flat, not curved, to meet the design goal.
I guess we all just want something that “looks like a pickup”, is heavy, and guzzles $7 a gallon diesel fuel
IIHS only really tests how good a car is at preventing an accident, not what happens when it fails like for example Euro NCAP does (and so does NHTSA starting nowish).
No actually the lightning and the R1T are pretty well loved by the people who took a chance on them
The poor people that bought them were the butt of his joke.
There's nothing wrong with nostalgia and the Cybertruck felt like it was from Hard Drivin' or 4D Sports Driving/Stunts.
Later cars from Tesla looked more generic but still like looked like regular cars.
The cybertruck seems like a throwback to the old electric cars that looked like something out of nerd's sketchbook.
Rivian selling the first EV pickup truck even after Elon’s announcement of the cybertruck is pretty embarrassing
It has received zero actual feedback from the market so the new products are based on ketamine high visions rather than market needs.
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
ouch
Who's doing the proofreading at Wired now? Is it all just AI?
Found: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_scBKKHi7WQ
Obviously the NHTSA ('Highway' is in the name) doesn't care if you boulder-crawl and break your car. That's easy, in any car!
Boulder crawling typically involves heavily modified vehicles for a reason.
Telsa made bad engineering choices on this vehicle. There's no point defending it.
Is it because your world view fractures with a fallible Musk?
Original point being, Wired is (best case) bad at proofreading and worst case trying to lie by omission and imply that this actually happened, while "merrily driving along" no less. In reality no such failure occurred.
TL;DR however much you distrust the media, it's not enough...
I don't trust any singular source, but looking at evidence in aggregate across many sources, there are clear problems with the CT from material selection to parts engineering to overall capability vs what was sold.
As someone who described himself in an earlier post as a "Big Elon fan boy", perhaps the source of bias here lies in a location other than the author of the WIRED article.
On the surface, it seems to take the wind out of their sails.
They told us the cybertruck was awesome.
They told us flying cars soon.
Now we see the fate of the first promise.
I would have delayed this announcement for as long as possible after the flying car show from a PR perspective.
Which makes me think this announcement is throwing a bone to the financial bean counters ahead of the potential merger with SpaceX.
Cleaning the companies books of fat before the big game.
The Musk strategy is to quietly drop failures/broken promises from a previous hype cycle after kicking off a brand new hype cycle to take its place.
This is entirely consistent with his tried and true strategy to constantly redirect attention forward to the distant future, and never stay idle long enough to encourage looking back at the ever growing pile of ideas that didn't work out.
Literally nothing Tesla promised is coming true.
Not anymore, now its "Assisted Driving"
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
I live in Europe, and here its not called Full Self Driving because regulators disagree with you that the car is driving itself. Therefore your original statement of "It's called Supervised Full Self Driving (FSD) and that is an accurate name given it controls every aspect of the vehicle's operation" is not true here at all.
If the US is happy with Elon lying about his cars abilities then thats on them. Not surprising really judging by the mess that is the USA in recent years.
Trumps current mess with huge increases of cost of living, and subsequent popularity decline is an example of what happens when you let business run free.
And Model 3 and Y have always been 95%+ of the cars Tesla delivered.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/31x-4YJUBNE
It'll probably be folded into SpaceX by the time the feedback arrives.
Honestly thought we’re done with that …
I notice this internet world we live in, networked behind screens, really demonstrates the average person's drift to totalitarianism. It's frightening to me.
The answer was wait a long time since they’re sold out. Obviously someone wants them.
With numbers that small, any vagary of demand can lead to lots full of unsold vehicles or waiting lists.
hilarious sentiment
It's certainly more balanced than a forum of non-owners who's only knowledge about the issue is that they hate Elon with an undying passion.
I’m sure there are passionate people over at the Mitsubishi mirage owners club as well.
We can’t blame political reasons for the Cybetruck failing, especially in the context of the Model Y and Y L selling like hotcakes.
No, the problem with the Cybertruck is the styling is polarizing in person, it came in overpriced and under-ranged, and it wasn’t built for a buyer demographic that exists in large numbers.
Slate understands truck buyer motivation and demographics a lot better than Tesla. Chevrolet with the Silverado EV understands much better what their buyer demographic for an EV truck needs to succeed (be a regular half-ton truck, get as much range while towing as possible). And those companies are still likely to struggle or are struggling to sell EV trucks, respectively.
If Tesla knew what they were doing they’d have made a true full-size 3 row SUV similar to the EV9, and they’d also make a city car for Europe. But they blew development money on a bespoke single-country truck.
Had Musk leaned into it as the "luxury"/GT of trucks (like the H2), there probably would've been less pushback. Granted he's functionally incapable of not just lying about things being the best every and setting stupid impossible goals, but I do think there's outcomes where we see more things "akin" to the cybertruck, leaning into the Pavement Princess market.
(Edit: the actual designer had the assistant designer throw a ball through the window.)
Tesla could simply come up with a more conventional looking EV pick-up truck of course.
But the CyberTruck is just one man's doodle-after-an-acid-trip kind of design.
Ford failed due to massive production costs which they assumed would go down as the tech got better. They bet wrong, and ended up loosing thousands per unit.
Battery tech needs to get better and cheaper for it to work properly.
https://x02.me/i/esVNQF.jpeg
Just kidding.
He wishes. Delorean is a modern classic, regardless of commercial success. Cybertruck will go down like the H1/H2; something entirely emblematic of the worst excesses in the time it was conceived and marketed in, that later generations will go "did they really think that was cool?".
Setting aside JohnZ's personal failings, the car and its production was a catastrophe.
Not that the DMC-1's PRV v6 and tall Renault 5-speed were gonna make getting to 85 easy...
Hilarious but a logical end state option for them.
You rarely see them, probably because they're so dog-ugly that hardly anyone buys them.
Good riddance.
Wired: special purpose vehicles
They have sold 70k Cybertrucks since 2023. Ford has sold more than 10 times that alone of F-series. Toyota sells that many RAV4s every two months.
For anyone that bought one and loves it - I'm not questioning your choice and I hope the vehicle will be well supported. Many popular vehicles that sell better have been discontinued like the entire companies of Geo, Saturn, and AMC. The Chevy Malibu sold twice as many cars per year pre-Covid than total Cybertrucks have been sold, and they were discontinued in 2024.
It's relatively neat that Tesla tried something new but they should consider focusing on operations and not losing further ground to BYD globally.
But yes, those credits have been vanishing for a while.
It was so bad, yet, Musk managed to make buying one became an identity thing, selling far more than the product warranted.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor, and it's a wonder it stayed in production this long.
To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine.
If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
No, you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If you want truck adjacent vehicle, get Toyota 4runner or Highlander. Humongous cars, vast and closed cargo space. It will pull a trailer, it will haul all your stuff and family.
> To me trucks are the most useless type of vehicle apart from niche utilitarian cases in farming or construction. Super heavy, gas guzzling, open bed, compromised handling, pedestrian crushing death machine. If you want big family hauler, grocery getter: mini-vans, wagons.
Minivans and trucks get similar fuel mileage. For the average family there are not enough kids to need a minivan.
> If you are in trades: van, box truck or flatbed box truck (where bed is useful shape and size, and all sides can be removed if needed).
Obviously you are not in the trades and don't know anyone in them. I've heard plenty of people in the trades debate the merits of truck vs van. They are compromises and there is no clear winner.
> you don't need 3 tonne vehicle with bajillion horsepower as a daily, because you may need to pull a trailer with your inflatable dinghy once in a two years.
If I need to tow something even once every two years then I need to own a truck. I've tried to rent a truck to tow something - turns out most rental contracts don't allow towing. There are exceptions, but the cost is so high, and finding a place to rent is so inconvenient that I will just own my own truck instead - it is worth it.
Also i wonder whether in 5-7 years Model 3 and Y will be around
Also Model Y/3 battery/charging is ancient at this point. It hasn’t had any meaningful improvements for 8 years now.
Look up a Model Y’s charging curve it’s horrible. There are cars out there with much more consistent ones, 400 kW charging, much more range etc etc
But with such strong sales, the incentive is not to rock the boat. Incumbents refresh more often because they have a lot of competition.
Tesla does not have any meaningful competition for the Model Y. The closest competitor is the Ford MME, and just behind it the Ioniq 5. But Tesla still sells like 3-4x as many Model Ys as both of those combined.
The Model 3 has even less direct competition. But that's probably because the sedan market as a whole is not as strong as crossovers. The biggest competitor to the Model 3 is probably the Model Y. And to put some context on this -- even as a sedan, the Model 3 outsells the Subaru Outback. Anybody wondering whether Subaru will stop selling Outbacks?
I hope some random kid roasts you for something you like that they dont.
Hah, feels like when someone says they're going to stop dating the unemployed slob to focus on dating the alcoholic.
A taxi with only 2 doors, what an improvement!
Seems like that might have something to do with it.
You meant maximum? Though minimum would be fun, too: taxi won’t start unless you agree to socialize and chat with a random stranger. As soon as silence is detected it pulls over and the ride ends.
Americans, for whatever reason, only buy SUVs and trucks. They've left the whole truck market untapped by creating a vehicle only a very small niche could/would want.
I don't understand what product marketing was up to, or if they just completely lacked the spine to stand up to Elon.
This anecdote might indicate why: We recently had a bunch of work done on our house. The siding crew had a pickup truck, and every morning the very first thing they did was unload the entire contents of the truck into our back yard. The plumbers and electricians would just get the stuff they were actually using and then lock the van.
On one hand: "Ha ha!"
On the other, oh no, all these yahoos that bought this trash may make their money back if they hold on to this garbage long enough for the rarity to drive up the value as a collectors item.
The Model 3 was a masterpiece of design, the Cybertruck is more like Cybercuck.
At present all Tesla has propping it up is bubble dust and one car model (one increasingly dated car model). Somehow after 14-15 years (Model S released in Summer 2012) these people still can't release a real SUV of any sort. The model Y is a grotesque joke of a fake SUV, a mutilated model 3 that doesn't really look like an SUV in any regard. The model Y is an SUV like the Cybertruck is a truck. They might as well have unlimited money to do it, and they can't do it. Same reason they couldn't release the roadster even after all this time. It's a fundamentally broken company because Musk won't get out of the way. Whatever Musk is good at it, it's not running a large scale automotive company.
https://evwire.com/etrucks/market-share
> Zero-emission trucks over 12 t ·
(Cybertruck is still in the <3.5t class afaik)
> Zero-emission Class 7–8 trucks
These seem to be the classical cargo carrying trucks, not the pickup trucks.
Tesla cyber truck sales are going down from 38k a year to 20k a year. The Chinese net sales of electric trucks is massively more than Tesla's production if you look at the data that I posted.
https://www.centraloregondaily.com/news/consumer/tesla-to-pu...
No added information, with a thread full of ad hominem attacks
This sharp edged, fire hazard which was aimed at a certain group of people who seem to be dangerous themselves is not really something that should be cheered.
And yes, it looked different but there are different looking cars all over the world. They usually serve a purpose though like kei cars in Japan.
It can never shake the "Ugh, get a load of this guy" factor.
(The history of John DeLorean is quite the read!)
There was nothing "new" in cybertruck. Delorean had bare metal panels! It wasn't a good truck, vehicle, EV, anything. It was Elon's crayon drawing turned car. That's not "innovation" we should applaud
Not even close - there are probably at least a dozen 4 wheel steering cars going back to the mid 80's starting with things like Nissan Skyline, Honda Prelude, etc.
However, I do not know if any of those was series-produced.
They may have been only demonstration prototypes.