Comment by Loughla
7 years ago
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.
I literally said nothing about GM, Ford or the rest. I didn't even imply anything about them. Who are you replying to?
You literally made a claim about “the rest”.
Who, in your mind, are the companies other than Tesla, if not Ford, GM, et al?
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To say nothing of Toyota, Honda, Mazda, many German manufacturers... amirite?
No, I wouldn’t imply anything about them. The point of discussion is pickup trucks so they’re less relevant.
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.
The average consumer of a truck cares about the looks. Unless the Cybertruck allows buyers to address a use case that is so compelling that they're willing to excuse the looks, Tesla is not going to sell many of these.
Maybe Tesla is banking on luring people who don't usually buy trucks, or that truck buyers are so hungry for an EV that they'll go for it. But someone who doesn't usually buy trucks, would just buy a Model 3 or Y.
Traditional truck buyers tend to be fiercely loyal to their brand so they'd probably be more likely to wait for EV versions from the favorite truck brand.
Yes. Existing truck owners will not buy this truck. They will be afraid they will be laughed at by other truck owners like themselves.
Trucks are very much a product that identifies you as "one of us" vs "one of them". The Cybertruck will fail that test utterly. Owning one screams "I'm one of THEM". Not what you want if you want to make inroads in the mainstream pickup market. (Not to mention that recharging a truck with a 220V line in rural America, where folks often park nowhere near their house, will be a major problem.)
Yes, this truck will be popular initially among well-heeled yuppies who want to stand out -- probably taken entirely from the existing Tesla S market (or S wannabes). But unless you leave SF/NYC/Boston every once in a while, you don't realize how small that world really is. No more than 5% of this country can afford an S. And while this truck is more affordable than an S, its appeal is much narrower. It will attract only the vanishingly small Venn intersection space that's Tesla S + pickup-drivers-who-don't-actually-haul-anything.
This thing will flash on the radar for a year or two, in small sales numbers, then die utterly, with poor sales used thereafter, once the fashionista bloom fades.
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> Unless the Cybertruck allows buyers to address a use case that is so compelling that they're willing to excuse the looks
I'd say "off-road-capable truck that requires no gas and has better specs and lower pricepoints than nearly all other electric pickups" is pretty compelling. The only electric pickup coming up (to my knowledge) that looks more compelling than this is the Atlis XT.
The orders are going though the roof so you might want to revise your statement.
No, I actually believe the opposite. I think it will sell like hotcakes, and be the status symbol of new-age yuppies for 2022.
But only because of the cult-like following of Musk and Tesla.
So I guess, it's a chicken an egg question with this thing. Will it be popular because of what it is, or will it be popular because of who made it.
It gives the yuppies an ugly ass brodozer that out-bros the F350s and other 3500 pickups on the market, without the coal rolling.
And they'll be faster in a straight line too, so they can now get their e-peen off beating out the big, modded 600hp diesels and laughing about how they are so much more eco-friendly.
Like 3500 lbs carry capacity.
Or when you need to wedge a giant door open?
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Or the 14,000 lb towing capacity (about on par with a Ford F-250, though more expensive).