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.
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, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday November 23 2019, @12:24AM (2 children)
You'd think from a design perspective angles and simple polygons are more simple to draw than all the smooth contours in all those other modern truck bodies.
Either that or Tesla is in such serious financial trouble that their design team had to downgrade to 386 workstations and use Sierra's Stunts for design inspiration. I'd believe both possibilities.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday November 23 2019, @02:52AM
I heard somewhere that the faceted design is imposed by the thick Starship-steel alloy of the structural panels. Stamping it would me an expensive nightmare, but they can fold it into flat planes.
(Score: 2) by corey on Sunday November 24 2019, @09:42AM
Ethanol, I usually disagree with and don't like many of your comments, but you deserve a +1 on this one, because you mentioned Stunts! Kudos.