Comment by Pxtl
7 years ago
I'm a child of the 80s. I remember StarFox and the F-117 stealth plane being the neatest stuff ever. The old lambo countache with the faceted shape that was almost starwars-y and was the coolest thing on wheels.
I'm nostalgic about those things.
So this polygonal look is targeting my demo.
...
That is the goddamned ugliest vehicle I've ever seen.
> That is the goddamned ugliest vehicle I've ever seen.
Let me try to beat that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_Multipla#/media/File:Fiat...
What I find fascinating is how strong my negative visceral reaction to that thing is. It's a car. Who gives a shit whether it looks "good"? What even is my internal metric for "looks good"? I have no idea, but, God, this thing is revolting.
My hunch is that this is because we use some of the same mental wiring for processing human faces to process the front of a car. (Automotive designers refer to the front of a car as its "face".) So we think it's ugly because some of the same wiring that recoils to disfiguring human faces is kicking in.
I just stumbled onto: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26181746
It looks like two cars on top of eachother and if it's a face then it reminds me of this unsettling face illusion:
https://i.imgur.com/5lslbsJ.jpg
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ah, the Homer
https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer
The Fiat Multipla is literally a car with a "muffin-top"!
They were fairly popular 10-ish years ago but I don't think Fiat will ever do that again.
Unlike say the Aztec, this truck is “radically functional” design. No paint and simple geometry make it easier to manufacture and more durable.
I don’t think the mandate was “make this look strange” as much as it was “make this thing rugged and fast and powerful and we’re perfectly fine with it looking strange”.
We’ll see if they were successful, but I like the ambition. I’ll be curious, too, to see if some of this more radical thinking comes over to the Tesla Semi.
Radically functional... unless your intention is to use it as a work truck.
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Also curious to me was the mention of a totally new and customized UI for the truck. Would love to see it!
I was discussing this the other day with an automotive designer. Yes Fiat Multipla is ugly, but imagine the courage Roberto Giolito (the designer of Multipla) had when he proposed this to the management of FCA! Almost nobody in modern automotive industry dares to match this outside of the concept cars.
I'd guess about the same amount of courage as Homer Simpson.
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Same amount of courage as it took Apple to remove the headphone jack? :)
The Multipla was also very successful, and also happens to be one of the few Fiats that hold their value. A utility vehicle doesn't necessarily need to be attractive to be successful...
The aesthetics of the Multipla didn't look out of place in China, where it was sold as the Zotye Multiplan and Zotye M300 Langyue.
As China's economy grew a number of American truck/van designs started looking more weird to western eyes like the Multipla than anything the likes of Dodge had previously designed. Designs target intended markets first and foremost.
Hey I rented one of these and actually was great, drove well, very practical, loads of space and lots of light.
But that doesn’t make it beautiful.
I think the S-Cargo is uglier.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_S-Cargo
Also, it has a pun in the name.
On the rare occasions I see a Multipla in real life, I actually have feeling* of disgust and revulsion - it really is a hideously ugly car.
I think there is something insect-like about the bulbous part that houses the lights - I wonder if perhaps something about the shape is triggering something innate, similar to how we may be hard-wired to fear snakes?
I think the Fiat Multipla is distinct in that it is unlovably ugly.
I can get behind the ugliness of vehicles like the Cybertruck because it just looks absurd, but the Fiat is just grotesque.
I wonder if this is because the curvature of the Multipla makes us interpret it as organic and deformed, like a teratoma; it makes us feel disgust.
The Cybertruck is overtly synthetic and brutalist. It's to be admired for its impressiveness, not its beauty.
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I like the Fiat Multipla! It is cute, it looks like a beluga. De gustibus...
Only slightly worse:
https://media.wired.com/photos/593252a1edfced5820d0fa07/mast...
What on earth is that! :)
ok the multipla is clearly leftover parts from 2 other car models stitched together in the midline. top one was a van, bottom part was a convertible
I've been waiting for years for something uglier than the Aztek. We have a new champion.
The tent attachment really drives the point home:
https://i.redd.it/0x2qva4ge6041.jpg
I know I'm crazy but I think that looks cool as fuck.
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I love that look (not being sarcastic), reminds of my primary school car drawings! (still not being sarcastic, I'd totally get that car).
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That's right, the Aztek had a built-in pop-up tent for tailgating. Good memory!
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The Millennium Falcon style pop out loading ramp is fun too.
You know what I'm tired of? Every 4-door sedan on the road looking like the same boring bar of soap on wheels. It's gotten to the point where all major car brands are indistinguishable from each other besides small details like the grill and headlights. Nobody has any imagination anymore. You guys laughing at "ugly" cars are part of the problem, and the reason why car manufacturers won't take any risks anymore.
That's the understated truth. All you do today is add a small detail like a full width light bar in the back and that's enough to distinguish the vehicle as unique or new or whatever.
I think it's one of the reasons I like cars like the Kia Soul so much. They look… fun.
It actually has less to do with buyers and more to do with European pedestrian collision standards. Basically, modern cars are shaped to make sure that if they hit a pedestrian they'll safely roll onto the hood and off.
I believe that title has since been taken by the Nissan Juke. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_Juke#/media/File:2017_N...
"In Europe, it is Nissan's second best-selling car behind the Qashqai. U.S. sales of the Juke are slowing in 2015, but the crossover sold 38,000 units in 2013 and 2014, and about 36,000 copies in 2011 and 2012.[28]"
That looks like they were ‘inspired’ by the love it or hate it Citroen DS:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroën_DS
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An upvote just wasn't enough. I'm still laughing.
Tesla doesn't have the manufacturing capacity to sell a truck to everybody, and people that love something are willing to pay more than people who only mildly like something, so it makes sense that they would design a highly polarizing truck that a few people loved but everybody else hated. It's reminiscent of the economic model of fursuit manufacturers.
I 100% disagree, and believe what you're doing is the classic English Major grasping for meaning where none was implied.
I think what we're seeing is what happens when there is no one around to say 'no' to a company. Tesla is being fed, by everyone in at least the US, that they are the future and are prophets of what is to come.
So you take the attitude of 'I can do nothing wrong' and add a dash of Musk's inherent God-Complex, and mix it into the culture there.
And this is what you get.
That's my theory.
This is absurd. Tesla has had a period of danger of bankrupting every two years for its entire existence. Each of which they pulled out of by doubling deliveries.
They’re quite possibly the only car company who has had actual skin in the game in recent years.
The rest of them just went begging to Daddy (Congress) when they got themselves fully fucked.
Your notion that GM, Ford, etc are somehow living in “the real world” seems willfully ignorant of history.
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This has baked in assumption that it will not sell. Even if everyone thinks it's fugly there are a lot of use cases where it will be a perfect fit.
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Are you really going with the "they made it ugly on purpose to avoid selling too many of them" defense? Come on just because this is tesla doesn't mean you need to be realistic. It's a multiplia, someone had a brain fart and we end up with a fugly. It happens.
What? Its like a delorien and an el camino had a baby. Its glorious! I think makes me wan reread all my favorite cyberpunk.
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Elon literally said as much during a previous earnings call. They were going to make it polarizing and then walk it back to a more conservative design if sales were too low.
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You realize for every person who thinks it’s ugly another things it’s fucking awesome? Yes, I think it looks fucking awesome and can’t wait to buy one. Also my friends at work felt similarly.
Weird how some people have different opinions on subjective matters right??
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Not that it isn't fugly but I think they purposely do not want it to look like any other pickup because their target market includes a lot of people who don't like the image pickups often project.
A well compensated white collar professional will get judged hard for driving a pickup in some social circles and I think this styling is to help get around that.
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Economics 101. Any producer would rather sell a tenth of the units at ten times the cost. This is one way to do that.
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Is ugly because it’s a popular opinion and everybody needs to call it the “ugliest vehicle ever” to make a social splash
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They made the look polarizing and a bit extreme for free PR. For the first few years after launch, every time it's seen on the road, people will talk about whether they love it or hate it. If they made it look like the F-150, most people wouldn't even notice.
For what it's worth, the designer of the Renault Twingo (another polarizing design) said something similar way back in the day. Better to design something 20% of people love and 80% of people hate than design something everyone just thinks is okay.
Wow, that is not the analogy that I would have first chosen.
That's basically what Bob Lutz said about the Dodge Ram redesign in the 90's
I think people are not as aware of this: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1197627433970589696
"Tesla Cybertruck (pressurized edition) will be official truck of Mars"
They have designed it to drive on Mars.
"[Designed to drive on mars]"
Premature Optimization if I have ever heard of it.
I hope it doesn’t use touch controls.
Having to remove a space suite so you can adjust the atmospheric controls sounds stupid.
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"YAGNI" seems a pretty likely prediction...
I think that is a bad joke rather than a legitimate plan to pressurize the vehicle. The fact that it is coming from Elon's Twitter and not Tesla's is a big indicator in my opinion. Either way, it isn't a great sign that we can't tell for sure.
I think it will be partly true. Assuming Elon's Mars missions happen, it seems reasonable they'll need a vehicle at some point and I expect that vehicle will use some elements from the CyberTruck design.
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That’s just a marketing stunt. It would be sheer stupidity to actually have the same design goals for both terrestrial and Martian vehicles.
Designing stuff is really expensive, using things made for Earth with minimal modifications really makes a lot of sense.
The steel is cheap on mars too (initially), since you ship it there anyways as part of the cargo starships, which aren't return to earth (since the energy to make fuel is initially really expensive on mars). Manufacture it in Mars and your basically just talking about shipping the batteries, motors, and a small amount of electronics (and machinery you will need anyways).
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The moon would be good enough.
The first thing I want to send to the moon is a bulldozer, you could make one based on that platform.
Also it would be fun to road trip on the moon at the right speed to stay in the sun all month.
Thats only like 3mph max...
I think that was a joke.
The SEC should have a chat with Elon about that. He already put one of his cars in space, and owns a company trying to get to Mars. That puts it at about 80% joke in my mind.
I’m not so sure. As Elon said “We’re going to be using the same alloy in the Starship rocket and in the Cybertruck”. The Tesla truck itself might be a way to subsidize the SpaceX rocket development (or vice versa). It sounds like technology between the two entities is being shared already.
I imagine it going on missions like this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0TrnJ0Wucfk
That's exactly what I thought of when I first saw the car.
So no product update or facelift of Cybertruck until we need pickups on Mars? It should be the longest running car model in history by then!
3 years? If they manage to launch in the 2022 window I would imagine a rover will be included.
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It will probably look better in the context of the Martian landscape, set in the foreground with the first colony in the background.
On Earth, it's ugly.
If there's one thing I want in a truck it's the ability to drive on a planet which I will never actually visit.
It's the logical conclusion of SUV marketing.
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Is that any less logical than owning a vehicle than can drive 2-3X over any legal speed limit?
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The Vaporwave aesthetic goes beyond mere 80's nostalgia into a sort of fetishism. Normally, targeting fetishists is a bit niche; but Tesla has hit on a lot of success targeting market segments that everyone else thought were tiny niches.
I think the truck was built w/ spaceX in mind [1]. You can probably manufacture that thing quite easily from basic sheet metal, when you have limited machinery and labour on another planet.
[1] https://www.motortrend.com/news/tesla-cybertruck-electric-pi...
> You can probably manufacture that thing quite easily from basic sheet metal, when you have limited machinery and labour on another planet.
Not if it's made of stainless steel - stuff is hard to cut and hard to weld (though might be easier in a non-oxygen rich environment like Mars).
For ease of manufacture and maintainability, plus a lot of other "pluses" - I actually like this truck:
http://oxgvt.com/
Too bad it's unlikely it will be available for purchase in first world countries, if it ever gets to that phase.
The low polygon count actually makes sense if you are machining it on Mars...
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It most resembles Centauri's car from The Last Starfighter:
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1015/7033/products/Centaur...
With both looking like they come with a built in VHS player.
I'm thinking laser-disc for the Cybertruck.
> That is the goddamned ugliest vehicle
If the Porsche Cayenne is anything to go by it will do well
So true it's painful.
“911 has nice lines, I guess, but I really wanted something that looks more like a Fiat.”
I feel the same about the Honda Accord. Why are cars getting uglier?
I think part of the problem is that cars are getting bigger and roomier, and loaded with more features and safety equipment. I feel like, in general, larger vehicles are less attractive, and when you design bigger trunks, larger engine bays, thicker doors with higher walls, longer bodies for cabin space, and so on, cars just start looking less sleek. Completely generalizing and spitballing here, though.
> That is the goddamned ugliest vehicle I've ever seen.
I agree! But at the same time I want one right now :-)
Just $100 to pre-order it :) .
The shape appears optimized for driving under semi trailers which are perpendicular to the roadway. Nice touch since it includes autopilot.
The Hummer was hideous as well, but it sold like pancakes for a time
The Hummer was also based on a US military vehicle from the gulf war, which gives it a lot of cachet with people who want a powerful (or want to project an image of power) vehicle. I don't doubt a lot of people will buy one of these things, but I don't see it coming anywhere close to the popularity of the hummer.
I don't know, I think those are exactly the people he's going after with the brutalist look, high tow ratings, nearly 2 ton payload, hardened steel exterior, so on & so forth. He didn't talk about how it was bullet resistant to appease the Model S crowd.
... unless the army starts buying them
The retail Hummer was basically a kit car using a Tahoe/Suburban frame.
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I think the hummer is a really good comparison here. The ground clearance and low center of gravity of the cybertruck will most likely give it legendary off road capabilities. I can't wait to see some footage of one at moab or something.
Depends what kind of off-road. A lot of off-road involves fairly narrow tracks and tight spaces. This is a large vehicle compared to, say, a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.
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Can’t wait to see Kanye blasting through the desert in one of these.
No, it is not ugly at all.
I'm going to borrow a term from architecture. It's brutal. It's a brutalist truck.
Brutalism is ugly. There are no beautiful brutalist buildings though there are plenty of interesting ones. It’s like the joke about how everyone in central Paris wants to work in the Tour Montparnasse because then you can’t see the Tour Montparnasse.
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Brutalism is concrete. This truck is not concrete.
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I don’t like this truck, but it looks like it’s from the future. Brutalism is just ugly.
Although maybe when it was trendy, brutalism looked like it was from the future too. Maybe in 20 years, this truck will be “just ugly” as well.
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come on. look at the front bumper's angles. It could be more symmetrical even with a boxy look. They intentionally made it ugly. And not in some "retro" kind or "artistic" kind of angled look - it s not reminiscent of a style. It will almost look better crashed.
> it s not reminiscent
As is the nature of futurism.
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I think I like the direction of the polygonal look. That's super cool, but this design looks kind of janky.
I do not feel this will appeal to people who buy a truck for frequent towing. 300 mile range unloaded = 150 mile range under load. With a camper in tow, you'll be stopping every 100-120 miles to recharge. How exactly will you recharge with a 30 foot trailer attached?
This will appeal to businesses that need to broadcast their eco sensibilities to us.
Not sure, but I’d be willing to bet the majority of towing is short range. Bringing equipment to a job site or putting a boat in the lake.
It looks like you can drive it into a lake and then it turns into a submarine. I bet he's gonna unlock that feature a few months after people bought it, and why the windows are "unbreakable"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeBqf6bYZak
Even better. Elon says[1] that a pressurized version will be available for deployment on Mars (not joking).
[1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1197627433970589696
Musk has actually said outright he was inspired by that film.
Made me think of a long forgotten 70's movie - Damnation Alley.
I am of the same demo. I agree it is ugly, but ugly in a good way.
Weirdly reminds be of the lambos I was in love with as a kid
Go back and look at the lines and proportions of the countach[0] and look again at the cybertruck. It reminds me of a lambo in the same way that the phantom menace reminds me of a new hope.
[0] https://rmsothebys-cache.azureedge.net/a/a/2/9/4/f/aa294f0f2...
It looks like they were mimicing a stealth bomber or something.
Looks like an urban weapon for the imminent Mad Mad world Musk needs to finally mass produce his flame throwers.
You mean Mad Muks?
I generally appreciate non curvy designs in many forms. But I agree with you on this, my immediate thought was, "God, this thing is absolutely hideous" Such a missed opportunity.
‘85 here, love the look! Definitely reminds me of the StarFox era :)
Someone on Reddit made a good point. They might be copying Sonic the movie's approach to marketing. Release a ugly version now, and then later on, release an improved version.
Trying to explain simple bad decision making with some kind of grand marketing strategy that involves incredible amounts of wasted work and huge amounts of coordination and the silence of hundreds of people is the most reddit thing ever.
People made the same conspiracy theory about New Coke.
Coke's response:
"Some cynics will say that we planned the whole thing. The truth is we're not that dumb and we're not that smart."
There are too many things wrong with that theory to be plausible. The same is true here.
Yeah I feel like they are almost certainly putting this design out to create some buzz. I can't picture them releasing this hideous thing as-is.
Using a marketing conspiracy theory with about 10,000 holes in it to explain an ugly design is not what I would consider a "good point".
agree but also i love it.
It'd better be available in purple.
https://uzicopter.tumblr.com/
At the same time I preordered I started thinking about potential metallic wrap options.
If you were putting together a mood board for the Cybertruck. These cars might have been on it...
1970 Lancia Bertone Stratos http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nZhhAcyh9Qg/VQxxoTBLCeI/AA...
1979 Insomnia, Dome Zero P2 http://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-g6cc2DJRJIM/VQsxHX-ND0I/AA...
Maserati Boomerang http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bkKWE1sC_dU/VQsxP3_Uk0I/AA...
1976 Alfa Romeo Navajo http://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-11k8tJ20DtQ/VQsxIvr7Y1I/AA...
1980 Citroën Karin https://cdn0.wideopenroads.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/ft...
That was basically my initial reaction... looks like low poly game art. Not interested.
maybe they plan to texture it with high tech holographic textures though
I disagree respectfully. I had sat through and watched the Ford Mach-E reveal but this Tesla has practically made me forget that altogether.
I'm a child of the 90s and the Cybertruck makes me hard as diamonds. Not even kidding, I think it's wicked cool.
yepyepyep! I think literally every one of my friends and me had that poster of the white Countach from Scholastic
Hmmm 200k pre-orders and climbing. The haters may have some humble pie to eat.
I though the lesson Tesla learned/taught was that people wanted an electric car that doesn't look like an electric car. Truck buyers' sensibilities are even more conservative than luxury sedan buyers'--aluminum frame? I dunno about that.
Go outside more if you want to see ugly cars