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Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck. Apparently, many people think it's ugly. I absolutely love it. It took the jellybean esthetic of modern vehicles and ran it over. Twice. There's simply no point in saying anything about this truck -- you have to look at the pictures:
In order to make this TFS less short, a few specs, but really, they don't matter until you see if it appeals to you which it either will or won't in spades. The low end 250 mile range version is supposed to be about $40k. The body is unpainted cold rolled stainless steel. Upmodels will have a towing capacity variously described as 10-14k pounds and at the top end, a 500 mile range. They'll cost a lot more.
"Bulletproof" Musk Cybertruck fail
Elon Musk bragged that his "cybertruck" was bulletproof to a 9mm round, but two separate attempts to demonstrate just how tough it is failed when ball bearings thrown by hand literally caused the windows to come crashing down in pieces. So much for safety glass; even on cyber trucks, windows sucks.
We created an exoskeleton," Musk said to rapturous whoops from those attending the Los Angeles launch. "It is literally bulletproof to a 9mm handgun."
Franz von Holzhausen, Tesla's chief designer, asked Musk if he could lob a metal ball at the window of the vehicle. "Really?" said Musk. The window smashed. "Oh my fucking God," said Musk. "Maybe that was a little hard."
Showing confidence in the vehicle, Von Holzhausen then suggested he should lob it at a second window. "Try that one? Really?" asked Musk moments before the rear window was also smashed. "It didn't go through, that's the plus side," a stunned Musk said.
Also at Ars Technica and Wccftech.
See also: Hot takes as opinion cools on Tesla Cybertruck
Tesla trademarked Cybertruck and 'Cybrtrk' ahead of its planned debut
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RedGreen on Friday November 22 2019, @09:19PM (24 children)
"Apparently, many people think it's ugly."
I think the word for that abomination has not been invented yet, you do the word ugly a disservice by using it in the same sentence.
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 22 2019, @09:23PM (5 children)
Not only is it butt ugly but some people seem confused about the purpose and properties of safety glass.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:22AM (4 children)
Form follows function, and this was obviously poor form causing poor functionality. Good functionality (strength) comes from proper, in-fight form.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:48AM
The solution is to make the Cybertruck's flat windows out of sapphire glass, transparent aluminum, or something.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday November 23 2019, @04:20PM (1 child)
Also the coupling with the frame is important. A glass rigidly coupled is easier to break. Being a prototype means possibly shoddy assembly.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @07:41PM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:26PM
...the person responsible for the two shattered Tesla windows is Vladimir Putin... while the steel ball was thrown by Tesla’s chief designer, it was really Putin’s hand doing the throwing. [twitter.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Sulla on Friday November 22 2019, @09:38PM (2 children)
I find boxy and angular things better looking than bulbous cancer vehicles of the past 20 years, so I found this vehicle to be nice.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:31AM (1 child)
It would be nice, if it had a full size bed and flat rails. Or he should have enclosed the whole thing like a van, down by the river, with a little turbo pump or water wheel to keep the battery charged, so Buzzard could listen to Limbaugh, or Baker, or any other one of those "healers", while he's out there fishing
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:12PM
yes, i'm sick of these fake ass truck beds. i don't need to haul a goddamn 50cc 4 wheeler, ffs! i need to haul plywood and shit. that shit is 4x8! 2x4's are 8 foot long. it's almost as if elon doesn't spend any time working on his shack...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Friday November 22 2019, @10:52PM (5 children)
This is one of the things about so many people that drives me crazy. Focus on the superficial, on their totally subjective ideas of beauty, which are strongly influenced by what they find familiar, and ignore the functionality. They won't use wheel skirts or vortex generators, because that's "ugly". Used car shoppers are way too easily swayed by a car wash, and shiny applied to the black plastic and rubber parts of the engine and tires. It's not the paint that makes the car go!
I say that if it works, it is beautiful. Form follows function.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Bot on Friday November 22 2019, @11:10PM
Familiar? it looks familiar, if you know about the Pininfarina Modulo, the Carabo, the Countach, the Lamborghini LM001, and the cars you drew on your schoolbook in primary school. I'd say it's late 60s first 70s design. As seen by a kid. By a kid who hates automobiles.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by slinches on Friday November 22 2019, @11:17PM (3 children)
I wouldn't say that the design is ideal from a functionality standpoint, considering the limited bed accessibility and poor rearward visibility (it needs a video rear view mirror). Although, the overall shape really is functional from a structural perspective. It is shaped the way it is in order to be folded up out of a sheet of steel like origami. That means there's minimal tooling costs and special machinery required to produce the body. It's an entirely different way of thinking about constructing a vehicle.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:09PM (1 child)
So, replacement is the only option. And given the poor record of fit and finish for Tesla, and how the term FUGLY describes it to a T, it better be self driving because only incels would be caught dead driving it. Looks like an old Ranchero reimagined in aluminium foil.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:14PM
and that mac-using fag obviously pulled his swing when he hit the tesla.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:14PM
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(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Saturday November 23 2019, @12:10AM
This is the writer -- I'm also the one who modded you funny first. I don't know why, but I've never wanted a vehicle so much as I've wanted that. I'm putting my $100 deposit down after I'm done posting.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 23 2019, @12:11AM (4 children)
Not nearly as ugly as the early-mid-90's Dodge Ram redesign and the faggotorious effects it had on Ford and other copycat truck designers thinking that feminizing their pickup trucks was a good idea. The pickup truck is supposed to be a boxy utilitarian vehicle, not a fucking vintage Rolls-Royce sedan. Even Chevy, who resisted feminizing their trucks and held onto decent aesthetics for a few more years, succumbed to preferring ugly truck bodies.
If we were judging purely on aesthetics, I'd much rather take the Tesla than a dodge. But the way I see it, the Tesla truck is nothing more than a mall-crawler for Silicon Valley yuppies who are too fat to fit in a standard sedan and are hiding behind "utility" as an excuse to get a trendy vehicle that they can enter and exit without wheezing and losing their breath.
The point of getting a truck, before it was to accommodate fat Americans and Mexicans packing their ride clown-car style for their family trips to Wal-mart, was utility. And utility is often simple and durable, not something with gazillions of sensors and valves and little niggling complexities of which any could go wrong with even the slightest tow and render the truck almost unusable.
Elon wants to make a point with this new truck, trick it the fuck out and race it in a real truck race like the Baja 1000 -- even if only for the range of the battery -- something like that would give a lot of cred to the Tesla truck. As it stands now, Tesla owners are the new Prius owners: insufferable smug douches who buy overpriced and underperforming trendy crap with Hillary 2016 and Apple stickers on the back, who have problems paying attention to the roads.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday November 23 2019, @01:13PM
You may or may not be right about the attitude. I don't know enough Tesla owners to say. The Hillary and Apple stickers you see on them could be a function of where you live more than the brand of car. In my experience BMW drivers are always the ones tailgating, swerving in and out of traffic, cutting others off, and generally behaving badly and dangerously on the road.
I would say you are demonstrably incorrect with "underperforming," though. Teslas can out-accelerate almost anything out there, and are further ahead on autonomous features than everyone else. Their fetch feature, where you can call the car in the parking garage to come get you, is awesome. The self-park feature, where you can get out and let it squeeze itself into a narrow spot, is awesome. And of course there's autopilot.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by toddestan on Saturday November 23 2019, @06:36PM (1 child)
I'm not sure if we live in the same universe, or are you just being sarcastic? Are you referring to the 1994 redesign of the Dodge Ram where it adopted the semi-truck look? I'd argue that's the complete opposite - that's the start of where pickup trucks started becoming overly macho - testosterone-fueled, overly aggressive, form over function styling designed to appeal to those that desired a truck as a lifestyle choice as opposed to those that bought a truck because they needed a truck. The 1994 Dodge Ram arguably started us down the path that has led us to the huge, butch, overstyled, and hideously ugly pickup trucks that the big three sell today.
With that said, I actually consider the 1994 Dodge Ram a rather handsome, attractive design that has aged well. It was kind of out there in 1994, but by today's standards it's tasteful and restrained. Dodge really hasn't given us anything but constant reiterations of that design ever since either. While none of the followups match the good looks of the original, that the current Ram is basically a ripoff of the 1994 Ram makes it far better looking truck than what the other two of the big three are offering at the moment.
If anything, it's Ford that made the most feminine truck when they redesigned the F150 in 1997. The previous F150, which was basically a new front clip on a design that otherwise dated back to 1980, was arguably the last "real" pickup truck on the market with its simple, no-nonsense design, base I6 engine and manual transmission. The 1997 design was a very much a product of the 1990's with its jellybean look and extensive use of plastics where there used to be steel. Not a bad looking truck, especially by today's standards, but was a big turning point for Ford in terms of their design language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 24 2019, @06:27PM
i agree. the reason the 94 dodge sold well is because it had a dick nose and all the buyers were like "i, being dickless need to show may massive dick nosed truck to the world!".
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Saturday November 23 2019, @08:18PM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:13AM
It looks like something right out of the A-Team. But not rusty enough.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Saturday November 23 2019, @03:24AM
My favorite description I've seen so far is "angry triangle".
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday November 23 2019, @10:57AM
Maybe the word you're looking for is badass? ;)
I approve of the stainless steel, but they can keep the touchscreen.