My understanding is more that economy and safety standards have driven us towards these aerodynamic and impact absorbing shapes. I may be quite wrong though!
The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.
Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.
Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.
Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss
The US safety ratings are incredibly easy to game. I have a sibling who used to be a crash test engineer, and we used to get bored of them endlessly ranting about it at family gatherings.
In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.
> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.
My understanding is more that economy and safety standards have driven us towards these aerodynamic and impact absorbing shapes. I may be quite wrong though!
The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.
Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.
Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.
Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss
The US safety ratings are incredibly easy to game. I have a sibling who used to be a crash test engineer, and we used to get bored of them endlessly ranting about it at family gatherings.
In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.
Curious to hear any examples. In my experience, the US has the biggest, most beautiful safety standards of all.
If this thing had good safety ratings, then there is something wrong with those ratings.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/18/tesla-cyb...
> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Cybertruck-remains-banned-in-Ge...
The real issue is that every car maker tries to be as global as possible so they default to mostly safe and flat and boring designs.
And that's not just in cars but technology, furniture, lighting choices, clothing, etc, we're just converging to the same styles globally.
No more flat primer gray cars.
That’s a platform we can all get behind.