this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Some Tesla engineers secretly started designing a Cybertruck alternative because they 'hated' it::"They were like, 'You can't be serious.' They didn't want to have anything to do with it," Franz von Holzhausen said, according to Walter Isaacson.

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[–] LEDZeppelin 182 points 1 year ago (11 children)

Cyber truck looks absolutely shit. The only thing it had going for itself was that it would have been the very first fully electric pick up truck - when it was first announced.

After more than 5 years Tesla is nowhere close to mass producing the ugly while Ford stole the thunder with announcing and launching the F150 Lightning. If I was in market for an EV pick up, I’d no longer consider Tesla cyber truck, let alone the Fascist ElMo’s shenanigans.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Good luck getting a base model F150 at a decent price. I tried earlier this year and only 3 dealers East of the Mississippi had the base model and they all wanted $30,000 OVER MSRP. Ford can lick my butt for not making enough base models and trying to push their XLT and platinums starting at $75k. I need a truck to work in not have it open and close the lift gate for me.

At this point I'll take a shit looking truck at a decent price over whatever the duck Ford and their dealers thought was a good idea with producing so little of the base model, not to mention base model with extended range batteries were ONLY available to fleet purchasers.

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[–] EpsilonVonVehron 164 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Any day now, the cyber truck will come whizzing down the hyperloop with its sub 10 micron build tolerance and tornado proof glass, fully autonomously driving of course. Any day now.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago (2 children)

With its flat body panels flapping in the wind.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 year ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That was pretty painful. Not even a rumor that he said it, he tweeted it lol

Literally any vehicle can be briefly amphibious.

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[–] [email protected] 101 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You just know Elon had a personal hand in designing it, because there's no other reason a car company would go ahead and build the equivalent of "The Homer".

[–] TwoGems 26 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He didn't have a personal hand in designing anything, because he doesn't have an engineering degree. And that's why everything he does is stupid.

"Musk doesn’t have an engineering degree - and kind of has a science degree. He began the first in physics at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, after he moved to Canada from his native South Africa. He completed it at the University of Pennsylvania, where he transferred after two years to earn his second bachelor’s degree, in economics, at the Wharton School. He completed it the following year. Musk then headed for Stanford to start a Ph.D. in applied physics, which he dropped out of."

https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/elon-musk-has-a-problem-with-rocket-scientists-thinks-engineers-deserve-all-the-credit-3136538.html

[–] [email protected] 46 points 1 year ago

Oh, I know that. Neither did Homer.

He likely doodled it (or got some lackey to be his remote controlled pencil), and then it was some other poor fucker's job to turn that sketch and a handful of vague notes into an actual car.

[–] BroccoliFarts 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I don't like Musk, and I'm not a fan of Tesla in general, but I kind of dig the design. Completely understand why it's controversial and how others could perceive it as ugly, but I like it.

Then again, I liked the PT Cruiser when it came out (compared to all the other cars of the era), but within a year it became the car that was falling apart and owners hated it, and within 5 years it looked really dated.

I still like the Chevy HHR and Plymouth Prowler designs. They are truly "bold" designs in that they make decisions that a large percentage of people disliked. Not the marketing "bold design" which means "we slightly exaggerated a popular design feature that's in style right now so no one will object to it".

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)

You'd probably like the Fiat Multipla, the Renault Avantime or the Lotus Europa as well.

[–] Barack_Embalmer 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I actually really like all those designs. They're bold, playful, distinctive. Much more interesting than the dreary crossovers of today that all look identical - bloated hatchbacks with unnecessarily high ride-height, angry anime eyes, and oversized grilles. Full-width tail light bar like a dollar-store Porsche completes the look.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Liking the design and deciding as an executive that this is what your company are to spend money and resources at are different things.

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It looks like a shitty futuristic movie prop

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Fapper_McFapper 55 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s looks like a little kid was drawing a house and halfway said, fuck it, it’s a car and put wheels on it.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Homer Simpson designed a better car than Elon.

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[–] Furbag 50 points 1 year ago (17 children)

There's no way in hell this shit doesn't completely flop, right? Like, who in their right mind would buy this garbage aside from techbros riding Elon's pole?

[–] Cornpop 16 points 1 year ago

There's a ton of goobers that want it, but very few are actually going to be able to afford it. It's going to be 80k plus

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Completely flat steel's gonna ding like a bitch and it'll never come out. You'll need an entire new sheet to replace it if you want it to look right.

That said, it will never look right since it's not being built with thermal expansion in mind.

[–] ivenoidea 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It‘ll also slice really nicely through pedestrians. I don’t see this being allowed in most EU countries.

[–] BroccoliFarts 23 points 1 year ago (7 children)

The US laws on bumpers has been refined in blood over the years. At least 20% of the people I know in my area have damaged their car by hitting a deer.

How will this truck fare if hitting a 90 kg deer? It's different enough that it might be substantially different (better or worse) than a more conventional truck.

I'm also reminded of a famous car made of paneled stainless steel. It was a terrible car and ruined the company that made it. It's only remembered fondly because of a popular movie series.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I thought he was always the only engineer tho. This implies he does not do his own designs. Very sus. /s

[–] TheDramaLlama 19 points 1 year ago (5 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It was supposed to be sarcasm but I guess it didn’t translate well via text. I’ll add the /s, sorry :)

(I am an engineer, so this lie by him has always irked me)

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[–] angrystego 41 points 1 year ago (15 children)

So both the engineers and everyone in the comments is just saying they hate/like the look of it? That's the last important part. As I understand it, the Cybertruck is never going to be allowed to the roads in Europe because of how unsafe it is. That's what people should be interested in. Looks can be pleasing to some and ugly to others and that's ok.

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[–] over_clox 39 points 1 year ago

The OG cybertruck reminds me of Lara Croft in the OG Tomb Raider.

If you know you know, looks like a shitty prototype.

[–] BeautifulMind 38 points 1 year ago

Y'know, I wanted one until I learned anything about Tesla as a company or about Elon, and then I decided it's vaporware and will probably never be delivered for reasons that are stupid. Looking from the outside but with experience shipping big software releases, this smells a lot like what you get when you think of QC not as an engineering discipline, but as a cost to be minimized.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am still very confused why it's not called the X Truck or CyberX TruX or something stupid containing the letter X

[–] FlyingSquid 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

He already has the Tesla Model X. Probably why.

The Tesla models are S, 3, X and Y. Because Musk is a child. He's such a child that he tried to get the 3 to be Model E, but Ford owned the trademark.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

He is also such a child that he had to give his daughter Exa Dark the nickname Y, because he forgot he named his other son X.

He is also a douchebag. Fucking dude has ~~7~~ 10 kids claims to spend half the week with all of them. Claims he works over 100 hours a week and somehow also is the best person to be CEO of four companies... want proof CEOs don't really do much work. Here it is.

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[–] fubo 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Drive one from California to Texas and see where the body panels pop off.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Hasn't Tesla's design language always been about not rocking the boat aesthetically? The model S looks nice, but except for the lack of a grille it kinda just looks like any other car. You could make an EV look pretty weird as you don't really need an engine compartment, but it's harder to sell someone on both an exotic drivetrain and an exotic appearance. This think looks like it fell out of blade runner...

It also doesn't look very aerodynamic. I have some concerns about range, especially considering that Tesla doesn't exactly have the best record of honesty in that particular area.

I guess we'll see how it sells. Eventually.

[–] WhiskyTangoFoxtrot 19 points 1 year ago

This thing looks like it fell out of the 1997 Blade Runner computer game if Westwood had decided to go with polygonal 3D graphics instead of pre-rendered FMV and voxel 3D.

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[–] OhStopYellingAtMe 23 points 1 year ago (28 children)

Am I the only person besides Elon who likes the cybertruck? I hate agreeing with that idiot on anything, but I think the cybertruck looks cool.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 year ago

I thought the concept looked cool, but the one driving around now looks absolutely fucking terrible imo.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I mean I respect the opinion. I honestly think the design just needs to be workshopped. You could absolutely market a futuristic all metal pickup with bullet proof windows and all the other stupid shit it does. It’s just the design that’s the problem. It’s all Elon, and as we know now Elon is actually dumb as fuck. He’s a guy who mistook his type two bipolar symptoms as ‘flashes of genius’, got lucky in the dot com boom, and is now too rich to be told no.

You need that guy in your corner that says ‘I like the first draft Elon, but what if we changed a few things, I think you’re on to something’. Elon fired all those guys. And he probably flatly refused to change his initial design. So we have this stupid shit.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

It's intentionally designed to look polarizing. You're not gonna find a lot of people sitting on the fence on this one and since it looks so different from every other car on the market there's gonna be a lot of people who aren't into the change. But yeah I hate it.

[–] 1847953620 15 points 1 year ago

Yes. It looks stupid.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

you mean, the mockup on a model s chassis that Elon's groupies pre-purchased ? Financing for free (of interests) a multi-billions dollars company ... no!

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (3 children)

There's a lot to hate. It's insanely ugly. It's like a PT Cruiser and a Nissan Cube mated and all the worst car genes went right into the CybeR TruCk.

[–] FlyingSquid 15 points 1 year ago (8 children)

Slightly off-topic, but do you know what I hated the most about the Nissan Cube? IT WASN'T A FUCKING CUBE!

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

Maybe the truck should get a chance to throw a steel ball at Elon’s face.

[–] reddig33 17 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Keep those designs in your back pocket. Teslas gonna need something to replace the Cybertruck with after it flops and investors finally oust Elon.

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