Comment by billti
5 hours ago
I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination. Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
>I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics
That and also it's just a bad product.
>That said, even though it's not to my taste, I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it.
A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
edit: agree there's a market for the raptor off-road tremor package thing, but it wasn't ford's first and they've been selling commerical trucks for 75 years. A true tesla f150 competitor would have sold like crazy, I think
> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
The modern US pickup truck isn't built for utility. It's a $60,000 four-door lifted luxobarge with leather interior and a short bed. It signals (perceived) wealth while preserving working-class alignment. It can also be justified by way of having to pick up used furniture for TikTok refinish and flip projects or bimonthly runs to Home Depot to buy caulk and lightbulbs. Independent tradesman can write them off as work vehicles or, allegedly, use COVID-era PPP loans to buy them.
It's the suburban equivalent of a yuppie's Rolex Submariner. Investment bankers generally don't go scuba diving and if they did a dive computer would be vastly preferable.
I say all of that to say that making a pickup truck for that market segment isn't a bad idea from a numbers perspective. You just can't market it as a luxury vehicle because the whole point is that it is but it isn't.
Bingo.
Sprinter vans, utility vans, or even minivans are far, far more useful for trades than modern pickups. Heck, my minivan was the goat for home renovations—it’d easily fit a dozen full 4x8 sheets of drywall/osb/ply/mdf/etc and I could still close the rear gate. I always got chuckles from guys awkwardly wrangling/securing sheets onto a pickup’s bed at the supply yard when I’d easily slide the sheets off the cart directly into the van by myself.
A heavy duty pickup makes sense when you have regular towing, or large bulky transport, needs. While on this topic, I’ll take a moment to lament the demise of the light duty pickup that provided a bit of extra utility while still fitting in a normal parking space.
You're out of touch with the working class. Some people practically live in these trucks. A little comfort goes a long way toward making their day bearable. Leather is easy to clean, power adjustment makes the seat more comfortable. Auto wipers, climate, etc., help them focus on the calls they're taking. And so on. Fleets of these are bought for commercial purposes as well. Companies wouldn't spend that kind of money without a reason.
There's a reason these "luxobarges" are the best selling vehicle in the U.S., and the answer is not virtue signaling.
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The venn diagram between people who say what you just said (which to be clear, I'm not disagreeing with) and people who screech about safety if they see a pickup being anywhere near full utilized is way too close to a circle for me to take either seriously.
As someone who's just been trying to buy a crappy used truck to haul some crap to the dump a couple times a year, you're absolutely spot on. I even live in the southwest US where trucks make up a considerable portion of vehicles on the road.
Crappy used trucks simply aren't up for sale. And even the rare listing I do come across, the asking price is ridiculously inflated.
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They can be luxury vehicles with reasonable running costs - regular gas and less depreciation than the usual luxury brands. They also have utility in case you need it. Pickup trucks aren't my cup of tea but it can be very rational to buy one even if you don't need it as a work truck.
It is utility, just not the utility you're thinking of. Try spending all day, every day in a basic, rough riding pickup truck, then compare it to spending all day in a "luxobarge" that can still tow a 7,000lb trailer.
To the people I know who drive trucks like that, they're basically mobile offices.
The modern US pickup truck still has the utility image and they make sure they sell a bunch to people who want utility to ensure that the image is not lost. That is why the lightening came in a cheap pro trim clearly targeted at the things pros are likely to want. (I don't know how well it worked, but they seriously tried to sell to that market)
Of course the real money is in the high trim levels that sell for twice as much but don't really cost much more.
Yes, and they're awesome. Also much closer to 100k.
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Class tourism is a succinct term here. Blending in with hardworking blue collar Americans is a whole marketing industry in itself.
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> max utility
As the owner of a rusty 1985 pickup with manual windows and no radio, I can tell you there is great demand for utility pickup trucks that the manufacturers WILL NOT MAKE.
The first problem is CAFE rules. Congress legislated the light pickup truck out of existence. To get around CAFE rules, manufacturers increased the size of trucks and added a back row so they could be reclassified in a way that skirted CAFE rules.
However, there's a big demand for pickups, so people bought these because they needed trucks, and nothing else was available. Manufacturers took advantage of demand and started adding features normal pickup drivers didn't want or need, to access a high-market class of buyers. "Where else are you gonna go?"
$100k pickups, here we are.
Manufacturers are in no hurry to go back to the low-margin pickup days, even though that is what classic pickup buyers actually want.
> A pickup truck should just be max utility
A working truck should be max utility. Around the core market of "working trucks," there are various wannabe truck products that do not have to be max utility. For example, a Subaru Brat or a Hyundai Santa Fe. Niche products compared to an F-150, but they had/have their fans.
I personally can't stand the design, but the idea of an impractical "halo vehicle" that appeals to a niche audience but burnishes the brand as "forward-looking" is not a bad one. It's just the execution of this particular halo vehicle that I would have a problem with were I in the market for a lifestyle look-at-me vehicle.
All trucks should be working trucks. There is no reason to drive something that large and heavy that isn't better served by smaller vehicles that don't damage our shared infrastructure while being safer to drive.
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I can't speak for the Santa Fe, but most Brat owners admit they have no intention of using it as a utility vehicle. The same cannot be said for most F-150 owners I know.
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>A pickup truck should just be max utility,
The problem is as soon as you go EV, you use a lot of utility from the get go. With a truck specifically, because its a brick aerodynamically. There is no reason to buy a Cybertruck or Lightning when you can get a gas or hybrid F150 (or a Raptor) for a little bit more, and be able to sit at 80 mph on highways without worrying about range.
The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender. They have 3 cylinder ecoboost engines that would have been perfect for that.
Here's a different aspect of utility: The F150 Lightning includes 120V and optionally 240V outlets, so it replaces the need to carry a separate gas-powered generator.
That's probably more relevant to fleet vehicles for construction and maintenance firms than to individuals towing boats. But just to offer an example of how the F150 Lightning is a great fit for certain uses.
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My brother has one, it is an amazing vehicle with better range performance than Tesla. It's dramatically better in the snow. Towing of large loads is a valid downside, but reality is that most people don't tow, and people who do are probably fine with 80% of the use cases (construction trailers, lawn trailers, etc).
The business problem Tesla solved at Ford cannot is the dealer network. He pre-ordered his, and the dealer he was stuck with tried to rip him off like 4 different ways.
The other issue is that car guys are afraid of electric, as the entire supporting industry is essentially obsolete. It's hard to get excited about something that will take away your ability to pay your mortgage. Every car dealer employee and mechanic knows that.
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Next generation of lightning is doing exactly that with a smaller battery, they're claiming 700+ miles of range: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-ge...
> The biggest suprise about the lightning is that Ford didn't put in a gas engine in it as a range extender.
They announced that along with the EV Lightning cancellation: https://www.fromtheroad.ford.com/us/en/articles/2025/next-ge...
You have one reason listed, which is going 80mph (which is illegal in most states). They also can't tow long distances easily, but are superior in nearly every other way.
You also gain some utility. Infinite torque at idle, cheaper 4wd, better traction control, fewer mechanical problems, etc.
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> pickup truck should just be max utility
Except the main demographic buying F150s is suburban dads driving to their office job.
I think the reason this take gets push-back in discussions (including here) is that it's highly regional.
I've lived in parts of the US where I doubt more than 10% of pickup trucks on the road (and there were a lot of them) were really justifiable purchases as trucks. They were aspirational purchases, and/or were selected for status/class/politics signaling.
I've lived other places in the US where the whole region had far fewer trucks (but a hell of a lot more Volvos... like, easily 10x as many as the other place) where I bet at least 50% of pickup trucks saw enough truck-use to really be justifiable.
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And using the truck on weekends to tow the boat, or do other work with it. Not every weekend, but once a month in summer.
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Gas doesn't cost enough.
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> A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
That's very unrealistic considering the market.
I don't know much about car economics but I'd think Tesla probably should have built a truck to sell as a fleet vehicle first. There are very few car brands that aren't part of a larger entity doing b2b vehicle sales.
> That and also it's just a bad product.
I want whatever the v3 equivalent of the Cybertruk would be. Assuming they improve on it.
That's basically the F150 or a rivian
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> A pickup truck should just be max utility
Yet we are in a thread where one with max utility has been cancelled and one flop of the century continues to sell.
> it's just a bad product. So you've never driven one?
> A pickup truck should just be max utility You don't know much about trucks? What does this even mean, max utility? Trucks are designed for different purposes. Should we eliminate all programming languages besides bash or python?
> especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one Seems like you don't know much about business either. Most new products should NOT try to do everything at once the first time.
>A pickup truck should just be max utility, especially if you're a manufacturer making your first one
I don't think this is actually true, most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
Heartbreaking but true. The most popular pickups today are not the most useful pickups. There are no more basic utilitarian pickups any longer, at least in the US.
Pickups are a little bit interesting in this regard. For any given model (eg: Tacoma, Frontier, etc.) the more premium the truck, the worse it is at being a truck. Each feature you add reduces its payload, and in the case of the Frontier, you could drop from a 6' bed with ~1,600 lbs of payload on the base model all the way down to a 5' bed with ~900 lbs of payload for the most premium offroad model.
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Lifestyle sells.
I drive a wagon. Of course wagon owners talk about the utility. And yet, you can buy a wagon with a twin-turbo V8 engine. What's the "sportwagon" segment all about? Certainly not going to Home Depot to buy four toilets for the new house, it's about putting your $15,000 Cannondale Black Ink MTB on the roof and swanking up to the trailhead.
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I struggle to think what vehicle has more all around utility (by my own definition) than my Lightning. The only things it does not do well is tow 300 miles, and drive in NYC. Neither of which are on my requirements list.
> ... most pickup trucks aren't designed for maximum utility. They're designed to sell a lifestyle.
Yes, but that lifestyle can and sometimes does include actual needs for some of the utility. There is a great observation from Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a Democrat from Washington’s 3rd District in an NYT piece a couple of days ago. I included a perhaps too long quote in lieu of apologizing for the paywall.
> “Spreadsheets can contain a part of truth,” Ms. Gluesenkamp Perez told me. “But never all of truth.”
> Looking to illustrate this, I bought the recent book “White Rural Rage” and opened it more or less at random to a passage about rural pickup trucks. It cites a rich portfolio of data and even a scholarly expert on the psychology of truck purchasers, to make what might seem like an obvious point — that it’s inefficient and deluded for rural and suburban men to choose trucks as their daily driving vehicles. The passage never does explain, though, how you’re supposed to haul an elk carcass or pull a cargo trailer without one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/12/opinion/marie-gluesenkamp...
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> I do admire that they dared to do something different and took a big gamble on it. So many vehicles, especially in the truck space, are almost indistinguishable and lack any kind of imagination.
I 1000% agree with this, in fact I love the way it looks, like something out of a SEGA Saturn game. But I would never buy one for the same reasons I would never buy any Tesla, or in fact any EV, or any post-2014 car at all. But the looks of it are not one of those reasons :)
I do have to laugh every time I see a Tesla with one of those “Bought this before we knew Elon was crazy!!” stickers, because to me they just read as “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. It's weird to me to think that other people are thinking that way about their automobiles, because I bought mine (Prius C) based on its features and how they fit into my needs and my life. I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
> Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”. I
I read it exactly the opposite. Somebody bought a car not because they were making a statement but just because they thought it was cool, only to find out later Elon was a nazi nutjob, and they don't want people to think they bought it because they share the same views.
Then sell the car. Putting the sticker on the car won't make you look good in the eyes of Elon fans or Elon detractors.
Nobody thinks you share the same views as the CEO of your car company. Jesus. GP is right. It makes them seem utterly self-conscious.
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Let me get this straight. You bought a "statement car" but not for its statement, and then you assume that other people driving a different "statement car" bought it because of the statement?
Yes, anybody who puts a sticker on their car apologizing for owning it is somebody who bought it to make a statement. I bought mine because I researched best gas mileage, lowest ongoing maintenance cost, and dimensions that fit the the city, and that's what I came up with.
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How is a Tesla a "statement car"? A Cybertruck, sure. But Tesla's are as normal as anything on the road nowadays.
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They also avoid buying certain cars to make a statement.
You're right about it looking like something out of a game. I passed one wrapped in fluorescent green at a gas station the other night (owner was checking the tire pressure) and it indeed made think 'low polygon count'. I would not have been entirely surprised if the driver had looked similar.
Thing is, after the initial momentary amusement the novelty quickly evaporates. It doesn't have the compelling presence of, say, a Tumbler. https://brucewaynex.com/pages/tumbler
> “Wahhh I bought my car to make a statement and now it makes the wrong statement and I am self-conscious about it!!”
The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
I understand you don't think it's a good car, which is fine, but most people who bought one did not agree with you.
Your comment is a little confusing because you obviously understand this concept, you bought a Prius because you thought it was a good car, not because of a political statement others may have projected onto your purchase. The same is true of most Tesla owners.
> The correct interpretation for most people is "I bought my car because it was a good car and now for reasons beyond my control it may appear to be a political statement. Also sorry for giving that guy money, I didn't know he would spend it on Trump."
No, he had it right. Those stickers are idiotic. It won't make anyone like them any better. Sell the car if you don't like it that much.
They may not have put it there because they were "self-conscious" about their "statement car." They may have put it there in an honest attempt to avoid having their car vandalized for something they had nothing to do with.
> I guess the Prius line was a popular “statement car” of the pre-Tesla era, though, like how Brian drives one on Family Guy, or the “Smug Alert” episode of South Park, but it was never that for me.
... So you admit to falling for Toyota product placement in cartoons.
Learn to read. I actually didn't see that episode until years after I both owned a Prius and lived in San Francisco, and I found it very funny :)
Politics or no, the price point ultimately dictated its maximum sales. By that measure it's a reasonable success, and if Elon was forecasting that they would sell multiple tens of thousands of vehicles per year at a $80,000 price point he needs to lay off the drugs. Elon sometimes seems like the living embodiment of "How much could a banana cost, Michael, $10?" parody of out of touch rich people.
I think if people who like trucks didn't see videos of things like the bumper ripping off when towing or minor failures leading to whole vehicle shorts it might have done better. The people who want trucks want resilience and ability to self-service more than the average car buyer.
Cybertruck offroading attempts were also a hoot to watch. The whole vibe is that it is merely a truck-shaped Tesla EV that's terrible at most truck tasks. Sure, there's a market for mall-run trucks with pristine beds and never get any mud on them, but it's not a big one.
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It actually wasn't the bumper that ripped off in that video, it was the entire rear subframe tearing in two.
I remember the "under $40k" announcement price
2019 just before covid was a bad time to make price estimates five years into the future.
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I'll applaud anything that tries to move us away from the current stale design trend where every car looks like the same boring bar of soap and every truck looks like the same aggressive, drivable, mechanized fist.
But anything in this case is a pedestrian-maiming, finger-slicing, dumpster on dubs. Not sure that's really a move in the right direction.
I like the fact the design is bold. I don't like the fact it's criminally unsafe.
There are lots of interesting concept cars on every car show. Too bad companies choose to never make them.
The bar of soap is aerodynamic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drag_coefficient
Right. All cars are converging on the shape of the Dodge Intrepid Hybrid. It is simply unavoidable. It is carcinisation, but for cars.
They're so ugly to me.
Anything with that teardrop shape is immediately out of my purchasing decision matrix.
I like boxy vehicles and sharp angles you could cut yourself on. The Toyota FJ Cruiser. The new Ford Bronco. The new Land Cruiser FJ.
The original DeLorean DMC-12 speaks to me. The Ferrari F40. The Corvette C8.
The Unimog. FMTV trucks.
Nothing that looks like a dollop of sour cream or a tear drop breast implant is ever going to appeal to me. Aerodynamics be damned.
Have we completely forgotten about how Tesla dealerships were shot up, firebombed? Video after video showing cybertrucks vandalized with scratches and spray paint?
It may be a terrible car from a terrible program, but these events at least bear mentioning. If you saw it happening in 2025, would it have a cooling effect on your decision to purchase? Who would want the trouble?
The targeted vandalism/terrorism definitely stopped a lot of purchases.
Lots of people are still buying other Teslas.
As someone who has used both light and heavy pickups for work, recreation, and farm work for decades, the Cybertruck is absolutely terrible at everything you want a truck to do.
It's a brodozer for people that are slightly environmentally conscious or have Elon issues.
And again, I say this as an actual cowboy, in that yes, I own cows. And a lineman who ferries manly men (and a few manly women) to do manly man work on high voltage power lines that will kill you so dead it's a guaranteed closed casket funeral. Trucks aren't just dick compensators, they exist to do work. And the Cybertruck sucks at all of that work. The F-150 lightning was a useful fleet vehicle due to the 120VAC outlets alone, aside from being, you know, a usable truck.
There's a reason most of the offering are very similar. We figured out what work pickup trucks need to do and how they're engineered to do it 50 years ago. The Hilux and friends made it highly economical. So you've got the Hiluxies and the SuperManlyMinivans and those are the two main kind of pickup trucks.
I wager people care way more that it simply costs a lot, and they don't like it or need it
You can attribute the failure of this vehicle to politics if you like, but it's fairly obvious to anyone watching why it failed - it came out at double the proposed priced with half the proposed range. It's not even the hideous design, there were hundreds of thousands of "pre orders" who knew about the horrible design. It's the price and range.
Eh, that might explain failure to convert preorders to sales. But it doesn't really matter when comparing to other vehicles in the same market.
The Cybertruck also does the tightest turns because it has front and back wheel steering. I could imagine that to be useful on job sites.
The kinds of people buying cybertrucks aren't going to be caught dead on a job site.
That's not true. Boss likes being flashy. You won't see them being used for actual work, but that's a different proposition.
In my opinion it isn't useful at all because if the only thing you can get into a spot is a vehicle with 4-wheel steering, you have already fucked up your site planning. You aren't going to be delivering materials with that thing, bulk materials are too heavy and light materials are too large. Maybe tools, but it isn't that large to be a tool truck and too expensive for small handyman type work.
2002 GMC Sierras did this, it was called quadrasteer
As did some models of Honda Prelude starting in '87.
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No it doesn't. A regular Suburban without 4 wheel steering still has a tighter turning radius. A fucking Suburban!
A full-size Ford Transit - which is much larger than a Cybertruck, and much more useful - turns in about an 11-metre kerb-to-kerb circle.
That's fully a metre and a half tighter than the Cybertruck.
Not really, sites are pretty much always spaced out. Ironically, it’s best for city and daily driving - it’s a pure luxury feature.
It would be amazing in the city if it weren't two lanes wide.
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Elon Shithead promised a lot for apparently a good price and wasn't able to deliver.
It wasn't just the hate i think.
> Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit
I think the Cybertruck was DOA and his involvement in politics got people who shared his views to buy one in order to signal the same.
Also the fact that many truck deliveries were literally DOA as in the truck bricked itself in the driveway.
This isn't even remotely true though?
I'm one of the few people that love the cybertruck design, but even I can't look at one these days and not think "swasticar". It's terribly disappointing, really. Fully self-inflicted.
I'll always give Tesla, SpaceX etc props for the work they accomplish, even though Elon is at the helm, he's not a perfect dude but I will give him props when he gets something right too. At the end of the day his employees are doing incredible work and it should not be written off because of Elon. To any Tesla / SpaceX employee whether you agree with Elon or not, thank you for helping to build a more interesting tomorrow.
Yeah SpaceX's tech is amazing. Funny China's like "star link launches are bad" then they're trying to do even more, China knows what's up.
The thing with Cybertrucks losing panels certainly didn't help.
A big part of the Cybertruck marketing was the robustness of its unusual design: exoskeleton! space grade materials! They smashed the door with a hammer and it didn't dent (just avoid pétanque balls...), Elon Musk commented that it would destroy the other vehicle in an accident. Morally dubious arguments sometimes, but it appeals to many potential customers.
And then, the vehicle that is supposed to be a tank falls apart by looking at it funny. And the glued on steel plates, is it that the exoskeleton? Not only the design is controversial, but it failed at what it is supposed to represent.
Honestly, both the Lightning and the Cybertruck are just bad trucks. Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
It's a fashion statement, not a work vehicle.
> Some review of the Lightning I read said it has less than a 100 mile range towing a full load.
Because of course towing long distances is the only reason you'd ever want a truck.
Obviously we can start by acknowledging that the vast majority of F-150s (and other half-ton pickup trucks) sold in the US these days are purchased by people who maybe haul a load of mulch or dirt once a year and otherwise use them as daily commuter vehicles for which no part of their "truckiness" actually matters for any reason other than image. I absolutely agree that these people should drive something that's not a truck, but that's a battle we're not going to win, so I'd rather have them driving an EV truck instead of a gas-guzzling V8. It's an improvement in some ways even if in reality that suburban parent would be best off with a minivan as their daily and renting a pickup from Home Depot for that mulch run.
My one friend who has a Lightning is exactly this. She used to have a gas F-150, replaced it with a RAV4 that she didn't like so she rapidly replaced that with the Lightning and loves it. Lots of power, quiet, smooth, and never needs to go to the gas station. I don't think she's ever fast charged it, just plugs in at home and goes about her life.
Where I live there are a lot of people who actually do need a truck or truck-based SUV for recreational purposes but don't really go long distances, like towing their boat up to the lake for the weekend, towing ATVs to the trail, or towing a RV trailer to a nearby state/national park where they'll then plug in to the nice 50A outlet and charge back up overnight without having to think about it.
There are also an absolute ton of commercial fleets that need pickup trucks for one reason or another but their trucks never leave their metro area and always end up back at the office every night. Lawn care, delivery, etc. where the only downside of the current lineup of electric trucks is that they're all only offered as the ultra short bed crew cab configuration instead of a long-bed standard cab.
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EVs are absolutely the wrong choice for time-constrained long distance travel, like long-haul trucking or the midwestern three-day-weekend road trip, but the Lightning and its GM competition that were actually designed to be good at things instead of a pure image machine are very good at certain roles.
I counted 49 pickup trucks with empty beds in the parking garage downtown this morning.
Wouldn't there be a selection bias, as trucks in parking garages are much less likely to be doing hauling /towing tasks?
Half of them sticking out into the roadway blocking half the lane. What an entitlement.
So? You saw them for one subset of what they are doing. Perhaps the most common one, but still just a subset.
I counted 50 sedans with empty seats in the parking garage downtown this morning.
I mean as with most "product" things related to Musk, it's more about the meme stock than any fundamental coupling to finances in the real world.
Ford is a car company. They sell cars. The Lightning was a poorly selling car, so they stopped selling it. Pretty simple!
Tesla is a lifestyle company. They make line go up by owning the libs, catering to edgelord identity, and triggering speculation. The Cybertruck probably gained the company more memetic shareholder value than it lost as a real product.
> I think the timing of the Cybertruck starting deliveries roughly aligning with when Elon got heavily involved in politics hurt it quite a bit. It is such a distinctive vehicle with a strong association with Elon, that there was an immediate brand association. It may have had poor sales anyway, but it certainly didn't help that many folks on the left, who are typically the most 'pro EV', had a large 'anti-Elon' shift around its launch.
IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Basically the only thing "left wing" about it is the fact that it's electric.
> Kudos to Tesla for trying to break the mold and push the category somewhere new.
The only thing it actually did new was the drive-by-wire steering, which is by all accounts impressive but could have been done on any normal vehicle as well. The "unique" styling is mostly just re-learning lessons that John DeLorean taught the rest of the industry decades ago.
> IMO the sort of person who wants a vehicle like Elon's dumpster has a strong overlap with Elon's politics. Basically everything about its design and marketing was aimed at the sort of person who is focused on presenting a masculine image, who thinks they're going to be in a war zone on their daily commute, who wishes they could drive through a crowd of protesters, etc.
Elon is an ass, but this is still the most crudely and childishly stereotyped thing I've read on the internet today. Congrats.
> many vehicles ... are almost indistinguishable
That is so right on the money. I attended the LA Auto Show a couple of months back and the takeaway was that every manufacturer pretty much makes the same safe car. There might be a feature here and feature there, but it's the same car.
In the years past they at least had lots of concept cars. This year, I maybe saw two and they weren't all that "concept".
Elon going off the deep end is the tail wagging the dog. It's an objectively terrible car.
The collapse of the company overall, particularly the Model Y, which is a great car, is all about Elon. Not only his unveiling as a fascist, but he essentially looted the company.
pumped the stock and then tried to use the twitter buy as a way to sell greatly without taking the price too hard.
they wouldn't let him out of the sale -- he sued 3 times to get out of the twitter buy agreement -- so now he owns that too.
gl getting out of one in case of a crash when the battery that opens the doors malfunction
I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
If it was made by some other company I would genuinely consider buying one. But I would never buy another Tesla. I owned an older Model X, before Elon went full-fascism. And even ignoring Elon, the car was awful. It was shoddily built, kept breaking down, and the service experience was shockingly bad. Absolutely atrocious.
But after all that, I can't give money to Elon ever again. I can't fund America's descent into fascism. I could not live with myself.
> I'm very much on the left, and I honestly like the design of the Cybertruck. (I know this puts me in a minority.) It is disappointing that the original "unibody" design was abandoned. The new design where the body panels just randomly fall off is silly.
Function should drive form. The design would be cool if it was for a cool function.
Say you have a beautifully-made, expertly-weighted tack hammer. That looks cool on your work bench and works well. If you refashion the hammer into a kitchen spoon, it looks dumb in the kitchen and works poorly for stirring a pot.
It is designed for cool functions, although a pure exoskeleton turned out to be infeasible the thick panels still help with side crashes, helping it get the Top Safety Pick+ award (equal/better than the competition other than "safety belt reminders). The steel makes it great for driving in places with branches and grocery cart/door dings. The panels also don't just "randomly" fall off, there was a period of time where the manufacturing process didn't follow the spec on applying the adhesive so ice crystals would form and degrade the adhesion.
While largely true, that trucks have adorned the comforts of luxury cars, most are running 6' beds. This largely ignores the evolution of the truck and the job site. My family operates contracting and excavating businesses that operating in all manner of weather and terrain, no one is carrying loads in their truck beds anymore... its not even legal most places unless you convert to a dump bed...
Whats in their trucks? Well, a crew cab occasionally is used for car pooling workers, where they all park their vintage beater trucks at the business... Sometimes weather sensitive tools, or job related items, documents, you can just throw these in a glove box... The bed usually has a gas pump for refilling remote equipment. Cones and other safety shit. Sand hoppers for plowing. Yes they also use these "luxury" trucks to plow.
The thing is... These people are making decent salaries... my direct relatives are multi-millionaires who still pick up a welder, a hammer, a shovel.
Im see alot of assumptions about why trucks evolved the way they did, who owns them, and what for... I would argue the "luxury faker" is a very small crowd, one that likely moved to the cybertruck... and despite the trucks looking modernized, are beaten to pulp over long service lives.
Now, go get in a modern tractor, dump truck, or excavator. They are also all AC, Radios, Computers, Leather Seats, etc... People want to be comfortable.
I mean, in certain circles online, people were literally calling Cybertrucks "Swasticars." Not the greatest for marketing.
I feel like kudos for making a public eye-sore merely because people typically don't make public eye-sores is a bit missing the point.
> it's not to my taste
It's not just you, it's universally tasteless and that's the point: It is a contrarian vehicle.
In an age where the Internet has flattened subcultures into surface phenomenons, the only remaining way to publicly distance yourself from normality is by making patently, obviously bad decisions and using the backlash to further fuel your ego.