It's a brutally agressive looking machine - I assume intentionally so. That flat front pretty much guarantees padestrian/cyclist/motorcyclist fatailities in a collision. And over on Ars Technica they say "Musk implied that in a crash with another vehicle, the Cybertruck [...] will destroy the other vehicle." [1] - and presumably therefore kills its occupants too.
Opinion: this is the purest physical realisation of the Musk/Tesla world-view. A kind of Conway's law for cars. Deeply depressing, and the tech merely distracts from this a little. Why do we need this thing, again?
We also need more legislation holding automakers and drivers liable for the impact of their designs on other road users. I'm not up to speed on product liability, but this type of statement from Musk seems likely to invite lawsuits from anyone injured by a Cybertruck.
Hopefully the car has a good pedestrian avoidance system. Otherwise, it seems to have a large blind spot for the driver. The nearly flat front also looks dangerous as well.
Lets remember that most sedan [and smaller] cars do not fair well in collisions with pick-up trucks like the Ford F250... and neither do pedestrians and cyclists. Then consider all of the even larger, heavily industrial vehicles on the road...
Does look like the cybertruck might be even burlier than a F250... but the point is, we already share the road with "mini-tanks" [that are intrinsically more dangerous to other vehicles in collisions]. Adding one more niche model is not a significant risk increase.
Don't forget that aggression and belligerence in vehicle design is a selling point to certain segments of truck buyers. It's not enough that the vehicle will protect its occupants in a crash. Its ability to destroy the thing it crashes into is a selling point to some people. I have more than once heard people boasting about how much their truck would damage a [slur] little Prius (or whatever) if they ran into one.
The impact to pedestrians is taken into account. The impact on other cars isn't, because I don't see how you'd do that objectively - do you just crash it against an identical model? A selection of several other cars from different categories/brands? How would you determine those? Do you just test head-on collisions, or the whole gauntlet of impacts? Wouldn't that make any test require dozens and dozens of vehicles, and ultimately tell you very little because the variety of vehicles on road is so huge that your crash results against a Honda Jazz might mean nothing in a crash against a Civic or anything else.
Well I think one can start with a bit of an average car. I mean humans vary a lot too. Both in size and resilience. If there’d be some wireframe made that can represent a bit of the car rigidity of an average 2008 car for example we can definitely see how this monolith would vaporize any car, versus the Jazz that’d mostly dent itself in a crash. And include that in the rating as well.
Current SUV trends are abysmal for others with their 800bhp and near 3000kg kerb weight. It’s I think a solid way to stop this race to the bottom.
This is just an initial response, so probably flawed, but I'd suggest testing against a vehicle which only exists to represent the lowest safety rating (for occupants) that is allowed on the roads of whichever jurisdiction this is.
If the new design results in harm to the passengers, it's unsafe for existing legal road users.
well a strong enough crash will always result in harm to either or both sides. One still has to define the type of crash etc.
I hate these minitanks but I acknowledge it's not simple to test like this.
Make heavier car forbidden on some roads or make them pay proportionally to a ratio of their empty weight vs. weight fully loaded would seem fair. This way trucks are not impacted, but stupidly heavy SUVs are. And apply a factor for EV, due to battery.
> well a strong enough crash will always result in harm to either or both sides. One still has to define the type of crash etc.
Sure, but that's way beyond the scope of a comment on a web forum to enumerate let alone describe in detail. Whatever the current survivability standards are, they'll say speeds and directions etc., so reuse those but with the new car as the other object in the collision.
No crash test is perfect, but some are useful. Cars don't change that much from year to year and manufacturers tend to copy each other quite a bit. Developing a suite of tests against a selection of typical vehicles seems very doable.
Existing crash tests don't perfectly cover every scenario, and people quibble about the details, but the tests still provide useful information.
it would be possible to test the effect of the car on a (or several) standardized objects, and compare the car resistance to these standardized objects
The issue with that is that manufacturers would obviously work to make sure their cars score super well against those specific objects. Would you be able to make sure it translates well to collisions against real life cars in real life situations? I'm not sure - usually when you start judging manufacturers on a certain metric they make sure to do well on that one metric at the cost of everything else.
It is. One of the key differences between the EU and US regulations is (was?) that there is a greater evaluation of what happens to a pedestrian when hit by the car being tested.
During the initial cybertruck announcement, Musk said this is their first vehicle they were designing to only be exclusively sold in the U.S., specifically because they could create a crazier design by only having to conform to one set of regulatory constraints.
Are flat fronts and apparent indifference to truck-pedestrian interactions specific to the cybertruck, or did Tesla just miss an opportunity to improve the status quo in this regard? I am trying to calibrate my Musk skepticism.
It actually did great. The occupant area was minimally damaged - the front end absorbed the collision as it was designed to do. The driver would have walked away from this collision.
Tesla makes some of the safest vehicles on the road from a driver/occupant perspective, but lately HN loves to hate on Tesla.
Well, not really - not much crumple zone in the front and the way the sides haven't crumpled at all means all of that force went into the occupant area.
Tesla does make some of the safest vehicles, I agree, but probably not the Cybertruck. Let's wait and see the crash test results before speculating, either of us could be wrong.
He shouldn’t appeal to most anyone regardless of party affiliation, but he supports the “my freedom of speech” people by allowing and unbanning some of the worst of Twitter, so he has a particular audience he’s attached himself to. Mind you, he was left until they started paying attention to who he was and once that happened, he found it easier to oppose the more right-leaning folks. Musk will pander to whichever crowd is easiest to appeal to
Depressing yes, but not because of Musk/Tesla. We'd be surrounded by SUVs, trucks, carjackings, and deer regardless. Unfortunately the best I can do is get the biggest steel cage possible and look out for #1.
His statement is clearly hyperbole, if anything it shows that he gave up on protecting pedestrians long ago when it became clear most vehicle buyers and the regulatory bodies don't care.
A big part of protecting pedestrians is visibility and automatic braking. I know Cybertruck has a bumper-height forward-facing camera, and I would expect the Tesla software to be very good.
As for direct visibility, while I'm sure it's worse in a Cybertruck than with a small car, I'm interested to know how it compares to other trucks. With a shorter front (in both height and depth) you would think it would be better, and I'm guessing it probably is.
Seems like there's been relatively less attention on the 48V/800V architecture and the Ethernet comms/steer by wire setup, but I think those are what make this particular vehicle quite interesting. Up until recently I think 48V power electronics have been fairly rare outside of telecom/other high cost situations, but I suppose one major difference is that at 48V, transformer-based DC-DC conversion is usually a better choice for digital electronics compared with a simple buck, which historically seems to be a significant jump in cost and faff to design. Perhaps PCB planar transformers will help here, but this may be one reason we don't see 50V EPR USB C devices yet (disappointed that the Cybertruck didn't decide to be the first 240W USB-C device, still stuck at 65W)
Seems like if there were to be some kind of electrical failure, now with full steer-by-wire it could be quite a harrowing situation.
Based on the images posted from the event [1] it seems to have two discrete power steering motors (we know from previous vehicles that these have two motor driver channels internally for failover), so there's probably a decent amount of redundancy here. There seems to also be some kind of a sensor that's only populated on one side, though I can't tell what it does from the picture (position sensor?)
Given that the steering is variable gain now, seems like the vehicle speed data would also be important, as in, the communication bus is now quite important for the function of the steering module.
With the Ethernet architecture they're using now, it's likely that it's not as problematic as with CAN bus (where water intrusion can take down the whole bus) but it would be interesting to see what the design choices there were.
Sounds like a terrible idea to me, honestly. Even Boeing aircraft still have a mechanical linkage. And Cybertruck won’t be a fighter jet no matter how much Elon proclaims it so, it’s just worlds away in terms of maintenance and safety engineering compared to what happens on an aircraft. Not saying it will be common but some sucker will eventually be killed by this.
> Even Boeing aircraft still have a mechanical linkage.
Airbus has been FBW for nearly 40 years now. And recent Boeings are FBW as well, the mechanical linkages are only between the yokes, something which is not relevant on a car.
I think aeroplanes are not a good point of comparison.
For one, mechanical steering is still very complicated, with many meters (miles?) of hydraulic hoses, actuators, pressure control systems etc.
Two, aerospace is healthily paranoid about QA and failure modes. I'm sure a steer-by-wirw can be extremely safe when done with that mindset. But Im not sure if that's the car industry's mindset, let alone Tesla's.
Finally, fly-by-wire offers enormous safety benefits in aeroplanes, because of what it enables. But I have no idea what steer by wire enables for a car.
>For one, mechanical steering is still very complicated
Yes, and digital steering is by nature even more complicated.
>aerospace is healthily paranoid about QA and failure modes. I'm sure a steer-by-wirw [sic] can be extremely safe when done with that mindset
What? So if we have the right 'mindset' then we can ignore any complexity and adapt anything we want. Why even let users drive cars now? Make their fleet 100% autonomous. Just do it with a mindset of QA and safety!
> Not saying it will be common but some sucker will eventually be killed by this.
People are killed by vehicles every day, and some of those are vehicle failures as well. Saying someone will be killed by it isn't interesting. The question instead is will it fail more often than existing designs, which is something only time will tell. But we've had throttle by wire for a long, long time now, and unintended acceleration issues caused by the system failing are largely unheard of. It's completely possible to engineer a robust electrical system just as it's completely possible to have design faults in the mechanical systems that cause premature wear & failure.
Yikes! Even assuming it all works correctly and safely, who actually wants a steering wheel like that? What's the upside?
The only possible advantage I can think of is that when you start the car up again after having reverse parked, it'll be more obvious what way the wheels are currently pointing, so you can straighten up. But that's such a trivial problem.
Tbh I still think it's a bit of a silly idea. But it's not completely without its merits(the one done by Tesla was though - that was completely entirely pointless).
No, that just seems to be variable speed power assisted steering - so at high speeds it gives you little assistance, at low speeds it gives you loads.
With this it literally changes how much your wheel turns for the same amount of steering wheel/yoke movement. So at high speeds turning the yoke by 90 degrees will turn the wheels maybe 10 degrees so you don't kill yourself, but at low speeds the exact same movement will move the wheels 45 degrees so the car is a lot more manoeuvrable.
Oh I guess it's just that once you elimited the need to ever turn the steering device more than 90 degrees, it doesn't need to be a wheel anymore - same reason why bicycles don't have steering wheels but handlebars.
The yoke is to make visibility of the dashboard better. You can deal with rectangular screens easily then instead of needing to force things into a curve. Not necessarily a good enough reason, but it's not entirely frivolous.
I had a BMW from 2007 that had something called "active steering", where an electric motor in between the steering wheel and the rack-and-pinion sort of "adjusted" the steering, which gave it a variable steering ratio (add according to speed) and also stability control interventions (it would countersteer in a slide even if I didn't turn the wheel).
The stability control part is probably the biggest safety benefit of this steer-by-wire system.
Other manufacturers have had similar levels of electronic steering "augmentation" of one kind or another for a long time (e.g. electronically steered rear wheels). In this kind of thing, the safety case is probably that the system only provides small adjustments so that:
1. The driver can overcome any errors in the electronic augmentation system using the main steering system
2. If the system fails, it can switch off and the driver can still steer the old-fashioned way.
In those systems the steer by wire works in cooperation with a mechanical system. Other cars have had backup mechanical steering systems that engage if the steer by wire fails.
What's new about the Cybertruck is it _only_ has a steer by wire system with no mechanical linkages at all. But this is being misreported as the first steer-by-wire system which doesn't cooperate with a mechanical linkage- Nissan has done that for quite a while in some models.
The E-GMP solution is also a clever one. I believe the inverter is limited to about 150 kW sustained (I think it can peak a little higher to the motors). 150 kW isn't bad but it's also a fair ways away from the 230 kW E-GMP will do on 800V.
Presumably it can charge either at 400V or 800V depending on the charger it's plugged into. But I think you're right, Ultium is still a 400V drive architecture versus this being an 800V drive architecture.
TBH, I'm really looking forward to seeing the Tesla tested on 800V CCS chargers via the adapter. It seems like it is at least possible that it might charge faster on those than on the current 400V superchargers.
Of course, that would change if Tesla starts enabling 800V support on V3/V4.
Yeah, I saw that, but tbh, I'm taking it with a grain of salt at this point. We've already seen one screenshot of the charge rate at ~70% and it wasn't great. It was showing ~10 minutes remaining to get to 80% too. That was on a slower charger, but the charge rate was less than 80 KW.
Considering how bad the 4680 Model Y was, I'm not optimistic.
> ... but I suppose one major difference is that at 48V, transformer-based DC-DC conversion is usually a better choice for digital electronics compared with a simple buck, which historically seems to be a significant jump in cost and faff to design.
There's no such thing as 'simple' transformer-based DC-DC conversion. If you want to use just a transformer, you're looking at AC. If you then want to convert it to DC after, you're going to need a rectifier plus a buck converter. The CyberTruck is 48VDC meaning if you want to do any kind of voltage conversion you're going to use a switching architecture of some sort.
> ... Perhaps PCB planar transformers will help here, but this may be one reason we don't see 50V EPR USB C devices yet (disappointed that the Cybertruck didn't decide to be the first 240W USB-C device, still stuck at 65W)
EPR is 48V.
Switching regulators are a pretty well known quantity now - and super efficient. I don't think there's much faff.
> There's no such thing as 'simple' transformer-based DC-DC conversion
Pretty much all DC-DC converters nowadays are switching - and those chopping - and - rectifying steps you mention would be standard for any DC-DC converter whether or not it uses a transformer. In this particular case, a transformer is necessary in addition to those components, as opposed to a simple fixed inductor.
> EPR is 48V
Yes, I got confused with the maximum rating on the most popular EPR capable tester (Power-Z KM003)
> Switching regulators are a pretty well known quantity now
I'd agree with this, insofar as they're very common and we know how to design them effectively. With that said, I think it can be observed that topologies used with higher voltages generally do come with increased cost and complexity. First of all, the transformer is going to be a custom part, as opposed to something with jelly bean substitutes like inductors. Second of all, the kinds of components typically used with higher voltages like 48V are less integrated than ones for lower voltages, likely due to the kind of process technology you need to use to handle it. It's possible to get "smart" drive chips for applications like Intel processor VRMs that integrate all of the switching, gate drive, and control logic, but with higher voltage you typically have to source discrete gate drivers, controllers, feedback, etc, and I'd think it does add complexity.
In this particular case, it's because the CAN bus shares two wires across all devices, with everything connected in parallel. Water ingress or catastrophic failure to any of the wires, connectors, or terminations/devices can result in an open or short circuit, or at least enough load to cause the signal drivers to be incapable of driving the right levels.
Although this particular example is from what some would consider a controversial video, this is an example of how water ingress can result in the disablement of vehicle electronics: https://youtu.be/Gio3DSTkQH4?feature=shared&t=181
Correct neither CAN or Ethernet say anything about IP ratings, but I guess having an ethernet switch as a distribution rather than everything on a chain restricts the failure to one device.
This is the same kind of failure you used to see in 10base5 and 10base2 networks, where one computer having a loose terminator could cause the entire LAN to be offline. With 10baseT (and I assume automotive ethernet) the bus is contained in the hub/switch/router instead of needing to be terminated (as in CAN bus, from my brief research anyway)
Definitely nothing stopping it, according to the wiki star architectures are supported, but I don't think many of the parts suppliers build them that way, would be my guess.
I think the question would be why would you want to? At the point you're doing that, ethernet already exists including plenty of industrial specced hardware.
Presumably so you can reuse all of your existing CAN car parts. Even the lights are on CAN now, it's going to be a lot of stuff to transition to Ethernet.
And you have thieves stealing cars by hacking into the easily-accessible car light CAN bus - a CAN network switch could also act as a firewall to fix those thefts without re-engineering every single part.
It makes sense for Tesla since they're more vertically integrated but other car manufacturers seem more "parts bin" and having to migrate your whole car over to a new architecture will limit the parts you can use massively until the whole industry switches.
A few reasons: Ethernet electrical is more expensive and ethernet drivers are bigger code size then CAN, and more complex (buggier, you have a lot more buffers and way more state to manage with ethernet versus CAN). Plus CANFD can accommodate different frequencies, so cheaper hardware can participate on the same bus. This may change over time as larger cores are used (Renesas comes to mind) and bigger ethernet stacks that are already scrutinized can be shoehorned in.
This one is a little bit different since there are actually still two (well three systems here: 48V, 12V, and the ICE).
These systems have existed for quite some time, since it was a lot easier to use high voltage rated components for all of the 48V high power stuff (e-turbochargers, e-hybrid-compressor-whatevers, other motor driven stuff) but keep just a single downconverter to 12V for everything else.
The problem is that most digital electronics expect something like 1-5V to operate, including most controllers, processors, sensors etc, and typically this conversion is done at the module level in a distributed way. Going from 12V to 1V isn't really a problem (or 24V ish for that matter, which is what they use in notebooks), and 20V and 30V class semiconductors are easy to find and have desirable performance characteristics.
Going from 48V at every module to 12V as an intermediate bus, usually requires a transformer because otherwise you'd be switching the current on for a very short time per cycle (duty cycle proportionate to voltage ratio), and this has implications for efficiency and component sizing. So I'd think this is quite a huge change compared to the old mild hybrid systems
I'm hoping the 800V architecture at least leads to Tesla supercharger stations my Ioniq 5 can actually use after NACS takes over.
The current 400V architecture would charge even slower than the raw math would imply, because it requires the car to handle the voltage difference internally. Going through that path bottlenecks the charge rate at something Chevy-Boltish like 50kW that's simply not very viable for road trips.
It means where you put the steering wheel doesn't have to have a firewall penetration and mechanical linkage through to the engines. That's a lot of mechanical joints which need to be continuous, and need greasing, sealing and have limits on relative angles between them that you don't need - as well as they have to have enough strength to transmit the forces involved.
By contrast, with steer-by-wire your system is essentially a black box you bolt on somewhere and then a more compact set of motors which can be coupled to the wheels at whatever is mechanically optimal.
The main reason not to do it is because your control systems need to be perfect. Conversely, above a certain vehicle mass, it's also not realistic to think that a human would be able to control the car anyway if the power steering failed, or that control system failures would still be devastating (i.e. if the power steering starts fighting you, you're going to lose).
Big rigs used to not have power steering, i think with adrenaline you'll be able to steer. I do concede that the power steering fighting you would be bad
You can absolutely get feedback from steer-by-wire. Ask any racing sim enthusiast. Those racing sim wheels can provide enough feedback to rip the wheel out of your hands.
It's important to keep in mind what the actual market for the vehicle is. It's not a sports car. Road feel is an anti-goal, it's undesirable in this market. Just like it's undesirable in the market for the Lexus - luxury SUVs. All you want here is some dynamic weighting for cornering loads and even then not that much of it.
It's kind of nice to still be able to steer a car that is disabled and needs to be pushed around. Not always feasible depending on the disability, of course.
Yes, tow trucks are great, but sometimes it's handy to push a car out of the way while waiting for a tow.
Allows you to vary the steering ratio dynamically (how many "turns" lock to lock). Means a lot less arm twiddling during lower speed maneuvers, and can gradually increase the ratio as speed increases. Traditional mechanically linked steering racks (electric or hydraulic) don't do this and are the same number of turns lock to lock regardless of speed - they can only dynamically vary the amount of power assist, not the ratio. It's been something car manufacturers have wanted to do for a while.
Another benefit in theory is packaging - you can free up more space for cabin, front trunk or motors etc when you don't have to route a physical steering column.
It's not really the same at all in practice though. With steer by wire you can get the lock to lock literally as little as you like - 150 degrees at low speed lock to lock in the Lexus system for example. In theory it could go from one extreme to the other in a single degree, its just software, although obviously no one sane would implement this. Active Steering on BMWs doesn't get remotely close to 150 degree low speed lock to lock.
It's a system that changes the ratio of the steering wheel rotation to the wheel angle dynamically while still mechanically linking the wheels to the steering wheel. It does not have the same parameters as Lexus system but many other things differ between BMWs and Lexuses too.
I’ve been driving a BMW with the variable ratio steering rack for over 10 years. It’s great. But it’s only variable ratio, not a dynamic ratio. Don’t confuse the two.
A variable ratio is just a regular rack and pinion setup, except the teeth on the rack are more narrowly spaced at the centre. It’s pre-defined, fixed and static. 30 degrees of steering input will always result in the same movement of the front wheels. It’s mechanically fixed.
The Cybertruck is a truly dynamic steering ratio. 30 degrees of steering input will result in a different outcome depending on othe variables such as road speed.
Active Steering is dynamic. It's not in every BMW though, you can test if your car has it by turning the steering wheel when stopped: it should only require 2 turns between locks with AS.
It has rear wheel steering, so there would be a lot of linkage needed to do that mechanically. That said, GM has been doing rear wheel hydraulic steering for a couple decades and the front steering is still mechanical in those (at least historically, not sure if that has changed with their EV lineup).
They almost always only vary the amount of power assistance, not the ratio. The ratio is fixed on virtually all electrically power assisted steering racks ever shipped. There is still a fixed mechanical linkage - decoupling this is what allows the ratio to be dynamically adjusted. To date only a handful of Lexus production cars have had dynamic variable ratio and decoupled steering via drive by wire.
Electric power steering is essentially the same in use as traditional hydraulic systems - they just replace the hydraulic assistance with electric motors.
The big advantage of decoupling and steer by wire is dynamic variable ratio, as well as packaging - no steering column to worry about making space for.
Nah, there are variable ratio mechanical systems. On a rack and pinion setup, for instance, you vary the spacing of the teeth on the rack. ZF's been doing this for decades.
Generally speaking almost all mechanical steering systems are not dynamic though, you are missing the point entirely. It can't change the spacing of the teeth on the fly - steer by wire effectively does. The number of turns lock to lock on a mechanical system is almost always the same, regardless of speed.
With steer by wire, you can easily implement say one turn lock to lock at low speed for easier parking, increasing to 2-3 turns at highway speeds for stability. Which is essentially exactly what the recent Lexus model with such a system does. At low speed it can turn its wheels from one extreme to the other in just 150 degrees of steering wheel rotation - no hand over hand turning etc. 150 degrees is essentially unthinkable on a mechanical rack and pinion system, as it would make the car incredibly twitchy on a highway.
It can't change the spacing of the teeth on the fly.
Geez, Elon really ought to start a goalpost moving company. But hey I'll play: yes, yes it can. That's precisely what BMW's active steering is, yes it's mechanical, yes it varies the ratio depending on speed, and yes it's been around for a couple decades now.
BMW active steer doesn't get remotely close to 150 degrees lock to lock when maneuvering (minimum rotation reached is ~720 degrees/2 turns), or offer the infinite and instant range of adjustability you can get with a drive by wire system. But sure, it's just the same. I couldn't care less whether the system is on a Tesla or not, its just abundantly clear there are some design and packaging advantages when you lose the mechanical link in anything with a steering wheel.
The vast, vast majority of rack and pinion systems ever made, both old and modern, don't adjust number of turns lock to lock at all, whereas the ability to essentially infinitely adjust it is inherent in all drive by wire steering systems.
Before we change the goalposts again it's worth noting that Tesla (and to a lesser extent Lexus) make vehicles where the primary focus is on the gadgets and BMW's focus is on the driver interface.
BMW active steer doesn't get remotely close to 150 degrees lock to
lock when maneuvering
Well, no. Super fast steering ratios are not an advantage, they're a necessary evil with a square steering control. There's nothing inherent in the BMW design that would prevent such a fast ratio beyond the reputation for emulating analog interfaces with quite a bit of fidelity. It speaks more to the intended use (gadget vs car) than to the underlying technology itself.
its just abundantly clear there are some design and packaging
advantages when you lose the mechanical link in anything with
a steering wheel.
Every time I see this I wonder if the commentor has seen a hydraulic power steering pump. They're tiny as hydraulic and pneumatic drives are often quite a bit smaller than comparable electric ones (e.g. cordless vs pneumatic power tools). The only clear advantage that electric steering offers is one of efficiency (as a result of not driving a hydraulic pump all of the time). The rest is largely a series of trade offs, especially if you look at recirculating ball / worm gear vs rack and pinion drives.
> Every time I see this I wonder if the commentor has seen a hydraulic power steering pump. They're tiny as hydraulic and pneumatic drives are often quite a bit smaller than comparable electric ones (e.g. cordless vs pneumatic power tools).
The pump or motor size is totally irrelevant to this discussion and to the packaging advantages.
There is no steering column with steer by wire. If you have seen a mechanical steering column, as found in all hydraulic and electric power steering systems, it requires a significant amount of space to route from cabin to the front wheels, and you are limited in the paths and angles it can take to reach the rack. This is completely gone in steer by wire - that's the packaging advantage - not the pump, not the motors.
Taken to the extreme, you can do designs that are completely impossible with mechanical steering columns - see the Canoo design for example, which uses steer by wire to create a cabin that would literally be impossible with a steering column:
You could even design interiors that can switch from left hand to right hand drive, with a sliding steering wheel. It also reduces the cost of shipping left and right hand drive variants, as you no longer need to engineer space on both the left and right sides of the car to fit the column for different markets.
But no need to take only my word for it; ZF, as in your earlier examples, also make the exact same arguments about packaging (and also about infinite adjustability, fwiw):
> "SbW's (Steer by Wire) additional advantages include gaining space in general and new design options in the cockpit... There is now more legroom because there is no longer a steering structure running through it."
> "In terms of steering experiences – from sporty-direct to comfortable-relaxed – every setting is possible in the same car. The system can also translate the same steering wheel movement variably depending on the driving situation, i.e. for parking and at low city speeds, the wheels angle (very) strongly for the change of direction, while they angle only slightly at high highway speeds."
> "we can make the steering ratio completely variable depending on the driving situation – unlike the fixed steering ratios used for a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels"
> "Installing steer-by-wire steering systems reduces the assembly effort needed to build today's right-and left-hand drive versions of the same passenger car model."
I have in fact had to remove the column on one of my cars, mostly to deal with the attached electronics. It's a relatively small device with a couple of u-joints.
see the Canoo design for example, which uses steer by wire to create a
cabin that would literally be impossible with a steering column
See the first three generations of Volkswagen vans.
There is literally air between the steering wheel and the rest of the car in the Canoo, as well as significantly more front leg room - its nothing like the VW, which has an almighty big steering column between the drivers legs. Unless of course ZF and the rest of the car industry are also wrong about it taking less room to package and permitting new designs?
If you have seen a column - congratulations, you will then know it needs room to route to the wheels, and is restricted in the paths it can take to get there quite significantly, vs of course plain ole wires that can snake any way you like. Those restrictions are exactly why your VW vans have a column between the drivers legs.
This is getting genuinely funny now, however I think I'm about done with this one. Enjoy the rest of your day.
> "SbW's (Steer by Wire) additional advantages include gaining space in general and new design options in the cockpit... There is now more legroom because there is no longer a steering structure running through it."
As far as I know there is no technological problem for BMW system to have whatever desired rate of adjustability and speed of reaction. It uses planetary gearset with adjuster motor connected to one of the gears - a bot similar to how Toyota Prius's transmission works. So it's more a question of how manufacturer decided it should feel for the user.
No matter what we think about FSD, Tesla's end goal are robotaxis – eventually probably with no steering wheels. Steer by wire is a stepping stone in that direction.
Steer by wire is cheaper to produce, as it allows you to reduce costs for RHD markets (e.g. Australia, New Zealand, UK, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, etc).
For example, Ford F-150 and RAM 1500 trucks from the US are exported to Australia where they need to undergo an expensive conversion process before they can be sold. This is why a base model F-150 is US$74000 in Australia.
Many modern cars are throttle by wire. Orthogonally, many have electric power steering instead of hydraulic power steering, depending what is multiplying your force, but still with actual linkage from your arms / steering wheel, to the turning of the wheels.
I am not aware of many that are actually steer by wire.
Nope, you are thinking of EPS. This is a steering wheel that is not connected to the steering rack at all. It is like a racing wheel for a game console and the steering rack is like a car in the game. Just software.
The complaint wasn't that they used an off-the-shelf controller, it's the fact that it was a no-name aliexpress special (and wireless to boot). They didn't even bother to use a well-respected brand like the wired xbox 360 controller, which has been used in all kinds of similar applications (they also didn't have a spare). It was obvious even to a relative layman that this was emblamatic of a cowboy attitude, compared to the carbon fibre hull which is much harder to evaluate.
Yep, Airbus went full fly by wire 40 years ago, and while the feedback and some of the integration choices have been debated, I can’t say I remember concerns about the reliability. Boeing has also switched to FBW on their recent planes. And military went FBW a while back, in fact since the F-117 FBW has generally become a requirement because they’re all aerodynamically unstable to improve manoeuvrability and integrate stealth geometry, so they pretty much can’t fly without the FBW system adjusting constantly.
Though I would also guess the mechanical linkages of an airliner are under a lot more stress than a car’s, so the gains from FBW would be a lot larger, even aside from not having to run mechanical linkages through the entire hull.
Has this ever happened to you? Good god, i want less SW in a car, not more. W/o power steering i can at least control a vehicle, only the brake pressure lost is a serious problem.
Same with keyless starters, i remember this story about some French car experiencing a kind of highway run-off that couldn't be stopped due to this BS solution to a non-existing problem.
Yup. Got a set of Saturn Vue gearshift linkage cables in the garage because one broke and left the car in a non-drivable state and it had to be towed home. I have the entire assemblies because I was able to get by with just replacing the broken part and not entire cable going through the firewall.
I could go through a list of critical mechanical systems that have broken on cars I've driven over the years, including my beloved Toyota pickup.
> i want less SW in a car, not more
I just want Good Engineering Practice. Good engineering encompasses a lot, including doing a DFMEA (Design Failure Modes Effects Analysis) that will advise whether the software system is safer than the hardware linkage or vice versa.
Yes, I've had:
- cruise get stuck on, car didn't have disable cruise on breaks
- gas pedal stuck under seat mat
- gas pedal siezed on due to cable issue
- brake pedal failure to master cylinder
- steering wheel slipping during turns
- shift lever disconnect
- breaks failed due to cracked rotor
- breaks failed due to leaking master cylinder
shit breaks a lot when you'e been driving for 35+ years
Yeah... I've encountered thousands of software bugs in my lifetime. Including with critical car systems like the gas pedal on my Toyota.
I don't know anyone with a passenger car who's ever had the steering wheel linkage break to the point turning the steering wheel stopped affecting the wheels. I like the failsafe there. Hopefully at least the brake cylinder is still connected to the brake pedal mechanically?
It's much harder (impossible, really) for a owner to mitigate against firmware bugs, though. Regularly servicing and inspection should prevent/detect the vast majority of major mechanical issues, not to mention than many are slow-onset.
A firmware bug just happens, and there's no way (as an owner) to detect it beforehand.
Software isn’t unpredictable. Issues that are known can be resolved. Unknown hardware issues are just as bad, and they do happen. Most safety recalls are mechanical in nature today.
Fly-by-wire systems in airplanes are way more complicated than cars and they have excellent safety records, which even improved as those systems became widespread.
The reason so much bad software exists in the world is because of the prevalence of people writing software without an accredited engineering education, licensing, or regulation. Software can be good if built to the engineering standards expected of any other engineering discipline.
There is something quite shocking (pardon the pun) to older car enthusiasts about just how fast off the line dual-motor EVs are.
The super coupes of one’s youth are utterly obliterated on the dragstrip, not by EV coupes, but by family SUVs and pickup trucks.
That said, just because they can go fast in a straight line doesn’t make them in any way equivalent to a 911. Give me a mountain pass or a racetrack, (and no kids or stuff to carry) and I’ll take the 911 every single time.
I drove a rented SUV a few weeks ago (GMC Acadia Denali) that had quite shocking acceleration -- 310 horsepower or so -- and the handling of a dead fish. It was kind of scary, and overall a really unpleasant experience. I don't understand why the manufacturer would choose that combination other than being able to market the HP. And this was gas, not EV.
This seems like a fairly common point as well in car reviews. Super fast cars of any type are only fun in a very limited set of circumstances, most of them not on a normal road. In contrast, even your daily commute can be made more fun with a car that's lightweight or has good handling or an engaging manual shifter or whatever. It's basically the entire premise of the Mazda Miata.
It's an unfortunate trend with EVs too (thanks in large part to Tesla IMO). You can get a ton of acceleration with big electric motors and batteries, but the car will otherwise drive like ass because it's so heavy and so little attention has been paid to anything besides speed.
I keep saying this to people and they literally don't believe me - my 86bhp volkswagen e-Up is more fun to drive than my 400bhp Mercedes-AMG ever was.
Seriously, I haven't been hit in the head.
The AMG was fun for a total of 4 seconds, which is exactly how long it took you to get to the legal speed limit, then you just sort of pootled along, unable to push hard and enjoy it. Yes it had grip, yes it had the noise, but I'd say out of the 4 years I owned it, I had "fun" in maybe a total 5% of those 4 years.
In the e-Up? I can push it hard all the time. You can get on some countryside roads, keep the pedal flat, and chuck it around, and it takes ages to get to any kinds of illegal speeds. And it's electric so the torque is always there, there's no waiting for the dual clutch gearbox to finally decide what it wants to do, you press the throttle and you go, it's absolutely beautiful how you can thread this car out of a corner. My enjoyment of hard driving this car is probably 10x that of the AMG, partially because you can actually do it for longer, and partially because I'm far less likely to kill myself or land in jail doing so. And it's only 1200kg so it's not like an oil tanker in turns, despite having wheels from a lawnmower.
Yeah kinda surprisingly I think the enjoyability of accessible cars peaked with the 90s/2000s enthusiast tuning scene ie "ricers." A 2500lb civic si or corolla xrs with a cold air intake was more fun than anything made since and they were like $22k.
Most BEVs also have low center of gravity and even mass distribution, so they’re not as bad as a heavy ICE car.
On public roads, 0-30mph acceleration is probably most fun you can have within realm of legal and sensible driving. Handling is not an issue at speed limits of public roads.
Limiting EV torque off the line is probably one of the lowest-hanging emissions reduction fruits out there, given that (by estimates I've seen) tire wear for current EVs is in aggregate 20-50% faster than ICE vehicles.
The tire thing you've heard has been started by one article that misleadingly bundled tire and breakpad particles with all other emissions summed up by weight.
This was extremely misleading breakdown, because it discounted all of the ICE gases that are toxic, but weigh almost nothing, and lighter combustion particles that stay in the air, versus tire particles that are typically heavier and stay on the ground.
Of course worn tires aren't environmentally neutral, but that framing was used as a regressive "gotcha" in EVs vs ICE, without daring to mention any real solutions like reversing heavy macho-pickup-truck and SUV fashion created by a workaround for emissions regulation, or moving freight from trucks to rail.
Is it or is it not true that EVs shed tire rubber particles at a significantly higher rate than like-for-like ICE vehicles?
I said it was low-hanging fruit because it's my understanding that it is: since EVs (again, correct me if I'm wrong) generate more tire rubber particles because of their comparatively high torque output, it's literally a software fix (limiting torque) to cut those emissions to ICE levels or, potentially, even lower. The only reason not to do it is that many people view their personal vehicles as large, expensive toys, and they will be less fun toys if their acceleration performance is curtailed.
I don't see this as a "gotcha" for EV technology, because it has such a trivial solution, and it was not my intent to suggest that ICE cars are less (or more, for that matter) damaging to the environment. I'm honestly not sure why you would read my comment that way.
---
As for the harm done by microplastics like tire rubber particles, it's my understanding that they don't simply stay on the ground, but rather that drainage carries them into the ground, waterways, and ultimately oceans, where they remain intact for some indefinite period and cause largely unquantified disruptions to local organisms and ecologies. It's not obvious to me that they won't ultimately be more of a problem than airborne pollutants, since they may be much more persistent and difficult to remove.
There's the perfect solution in an ideal world, and there's what actually works given people's actual behavior. For the latter, you have to consider that if you make EVs less compelling, more people might just stick with their ICE vehicles, which are worse overall when you take all pollutants into account.
After the EV transition is complete, though, that'd be a good time to start limiting torque. Unless most people are just riding self-driving taxis by then, which probably won't be doing fast acceleration anyway.
Alternatively: the time to limit torque is now, while consumers are still getting to know EVs and the other substantial benefits they present. Those other benefits ought to be enough to drive adoption, and the longer we indulge the most harmful excesses, the harder it will be to reverse them in the future when the trap has sprung.
I don't really think either of these arguments is obviously correct, so I lean toward the option that immediately limits harm. But I'm also under no illusion that anything other than short to medium term profits are driving automakers' decisions, so in practice we will surely get the worst of both worlds.
Handling is nice for freeway merges but it’s definitely not at high speed. Where I used to live in San Diego there were a couple of ramps where I’d see the SUV drivers wallowing around the curves, tires squealing, visibly struggling to stay in the lane, and it was just like “you do this every day, why?”
This. Who cares about top end speed when I can reliably pull ahead of any other vehicle on the road in my Model Y? I use that capability regularly. I'd literally never go 100+mph - that's a novelty.
What are you even talking about? Maybe if you're driving around the grid of a city. Most driving enthusiasts know where to find roads that are fun at legal speeds.
> The result is terrifying. Both terrifying to drive, and terrifying to realize that these things are out on the road, in the hands of a public I don't trust enough to handle this sort of power. Up on Angeles Crest, the Plaid is incredibly quick, but it doesn't have the chassis, steering, or brakes to deal with the horsepower. Especially irritating is the damping, which is never settled in the Plaid's multiple drive modes. And that yoke steering wheel is just so incredibly stupid.
It is scary. Consumer automobile trends are chasing more and bigger in every dimension and our regulators are either asleep at the wheel or on the payroll. Pedestrian deaths are trending up, we have hard data showing that pickup trucks are 2.5x more likely to kill the occupants of other vehicles in a crash, and there is no sign that anyone gives a single flying fuck about any of these lives that have been needlessly snuffed out—a pile of corpses as a monument to the pigheaded vanity of adult children. It is fucking disgusting.
It's a strange world. Small personal EVs (ebikes, scooters, and so on) are all heavily regulated, often with very limited speed limits - while 3 ton cars that are infinitely more likely to kill someone other than the driver are given a free pass.
It's a world built for cars, and we're only barely clawing it back.
> pigheaded vanity of adult children. It is fucking disgusting.
Presumably you suggest we also banish unhealthy food, cigarettes, weed, and alcohol, right? They are all responsible for significant deaths (especially when combined with any kind of driving) and are only for fun
Addiction and substance abuse are complicated topics, but ideally somebody partaking of tobacco, drugs, or alcohol is aware of the risk to their own person of doing so, and has freely chosen to partake regardless. Unfortunately, though I'm well aware of the mortal danger excessively large and powerful personal vehicles pose to me and my family on the road, the only ways I can opt out of that danger are to a) not drive (edit: or walk, or cycle, or...) on public roads, or b) drive a very large and heavy vehicle myself, thus putting yet more people in mortal danger. Neither is acceptable.
In short, yours is not a good analogy because the danger posed by the use of harmful addictive substances is to the self, while the danger posed by driving an F-450 XLT Cummings Power Stroke 8.0 Liter Ranch King Harley Davidson Edition is to others.
> In short, yours is not a good analogy because the danger posed by the use of harmful addictive substances is to the self,
You didn’t read what I wrote. I specifically called out being under the influence. A drunk behind the wheel of the Corolla is far more dangerous to pedestrians than a teetotaling truck driver. Similar to anyone at a high risk of heart attack or stroke that gets behind the wheel.
I assumed that wasn't what you meant since it's an obvious non sequitur. Driving drunk is already illegal, and the fatality rate is down over 60% since its high point in the early 80s when we really started taking it seriously as a nation. That's the sort of impact taking a public health hazard seriously can have on human lives that might otherwise be snuffed out by it.
Try to cram 7 or 8 people and some luggage into one of those and that 310hp won't feel so powerful anymore. But the handling will be even more terrifying!
I hate getting one of these as a rental instead of a van.
Also a 911 looks like a cool sports car, while the cybertruck looks like it's being rendered by a Super Nintendo. A lot of the attraction of sports cars is the cool aesthetic, which your average family SUV or pickup truck really doesn't have, and the cybertruck has a negative amount of.
If the “Lindy effect” holds true for the 911, it might be quite a long time before the 911 and its variants go out of style.
The same cannot be said for the cyber truck, and all of the other short lived prototype cars that have very harsh angular lines.
The 911 has the highest average resale value, relative to the original price, of any car on Earth. It depreciates less than any other vehicle. I don't think you're going to be correct.
I don’t think that’s how the end of ICE vehicles will happen.
It’ll be death by a thousand cuts. New ICE vehicles will be increasingly rare in showrooms. There will be bans in city centres. Gas stations will start to disappear. Those that remain will be required to sell blends with increasing amounts of non-fossil derived gasoline, which will be considerably more expensive than current prices, and far more expensive to run.
Eventually, driving ICE vehicles will be like horse riding today - a niche, expensive, smelly hobby that is conducted well outside city limits.
This also makes an EV the best tool for convincing "EVs are not manly enough" kind of types, which I expect to be an actually meaningful hurdle in the highly polarized US. I don't think many people will forget the first time they were in any not entirely underpowered EV when the driver floored it.
That's likely one of the reasons for Tesla's success - EVs sell EVs, and Teslas sell Teslas. Tesla can skimp on marketing, the customers do it for them by showing the cars off and the cars sell themselves.
There is a reason all supercar makers came out with electric supercars as when it comes to acceleration you can't beat it. And as more cars are build from the ground up to run electric I think electric would be a better drive.
Insurance executives are also shocked and worried. But it’s really just an extension of what’s been happening with massive pickup trucks given ridiculous Hp.
And the best part: you will still enjoy it even when you are going slow or sitting idle because both cars SOUND amazing.
Maybe I’m a purist but as a 41 year old adult I still sprint off my couch to look out the window every time I hear an interesting car pass by my house.
To each their own I guess. I'm in my 50s but ever since I test-drove a Tesla, and the car pressed me back in my seat with just a quiet swoosh, all that noise has just seemed superfluous and old-fashioned.
I don't know what's going on with that video. If we take Tesla's numbers at face value, which I definitely don't given their history, the 911 Turbo S is dramatically faster on the straights. Is Tesla claiming that the Cybertruck gets faster with a 911 in tow? If so, why isn't there an option for a 911 trailer?
I’m like 90% sure it’s a Carerra T. Satin black Carrera S wheels and no red calipers. It’s definitely not a Turbo or Turbo S cause there’s no side intakes.
Also definitely looks like the car dips briefly meaning it’s likely a manual, and the Carerra T only comes in manual.
It's going to be pretty hard to heat soak a 911 to get it down on power. They're proper sports cars designed to hit the track.
The shenanigans was simply in choosing that car at all. A base 911 only claims a 0-60 of 4s and doesn't even break 400hp. It's never been a straight line car, that's not what it's trying to do or why enthusiasts love it.
It’s also not meant to be a direct comparison of any sort, but for some reason the people on HN manage to completely overlook that. The highly analytical mind truly is a blessing and a curse, especially when coupled with blind contempt for something.
I am a car enthusiast (although not one who could afford either a 911 nor a Cybertruck) but respectfully, who cares about quarter mile times? Most car people I know want a car with some poke, but care much more about how it handles twisties (and how much fun it is doing so). And I'd bet my bottom dollar the 911 would beat the refrigerator-looking truck all day long.
True for sure, but there is a limit.
I actually feel like I’d prefer to have an electronic limiter in “normal” mode that would keep it at a certain level of power. Sport or track mode, go nuts.
I think you missed the point? Tesla brag about fast quarter mile speeds which don’t really amount to much, whereas a really nice driving experience via good suspension and weight distribution is truly wonderful.
They do, or try to. But then there's this awkward moment when you ask about lap 2 or 3 where the Porsche or Audi or whatever is still blazing around the track while your Plaid is pulled over in Thermal Shutdown mode.
The base 911 is not intended to be fast in a straight line. It's actually about as fast as a Model 3 Dual Motor Long range. Base 911 is about experience, feel, and handling.
I say this because the mid-range 911 Turbo S would blow the doors off an unladen Cybertruck Tri-motor with it's 2.2s 0-60.
What sort of comparison are you looking to make here? The Roadster will be competing with 911, not Cybertruck. You’re getting up in arms against a marketing gimmick.
For the longest time, a section of the car enthusiast community has said that 'slow car fast is better than fast car fast'. Now a days, it is taken to mean that a light car that is fast enough is always more fun than a heavier car, no matter how fast.
The Tesla Cybertruck might be the best example of this phenomenon. At 7000 lbs and a high ground clearance, there is no amount of power that can make this car feel nimble.
I have admittedly not test driven it, but there's certain fundamental physical realities that are pretty hard to overcome. Ride height and vehicle weight universally negatively impact handling on the road because they increase your momentum, center of gravity, suspension travel, etc. Weight in particular is hard to counteract because going around a corner relies on being able to redirect that mass using only the friction generated by the contact patch of the tires. Unless Tesla has found unobtanium tires or figured out how to negate the laws of physics, cornering at any kind of speed in a cybertruck is going to suck compared to a lighter vehicle.
> Weight in particular is hard to counteract because going around a corner relies on being able to redirect that mass using only the friction generated by the contact patch of the tires.
Are you sure about that? Tyre friction force is at least to first approximation proportional to vehicle weight, and so is the force needed to turn at a particular radius and speed, so they balance independently of weight. I'd say weight doesn't necessarily make a difference to turning ability. CoM height yes, though.
Motorsports enthusiasts look at Nürburgring lap times. The Porsche 911 is at the highest level of performance on any track where you actually have to use the brakes and steering wheel. If the Cybertruck can do a good lap on the Nürburgring then its "FAST", but it probably isn't, due to weight.
The 911 is not built for drag racing, it's built for a track with corners where you have to use the brakes and steering wheel.
In terms of pure drag racing the Cybertruck is a loser. Top Fuel dragsters can do 0 to 60 in ~0.8 seconds and can do a quarter mile in less than 5 seconds. There's no comparison here.
But the Cybertruck has an insane amount of torque, 10x beyond the equivalent ICE vehicle. It can tow, that's for sure.
It has the same bed as a Ford F150 and that's the most sold "car" in the US.
Reality is, no one needs a truck, but everyone buys a truck. And as long as people are buying trucks for vanity purposes, this pure vanity vehicle is going to be top of their pile.
> Being able to tow big heavy stuff isn't necessarily a great idea, because big heavy stuff needs to stop as well as start.
is a solved problem in the caravanning | rural | Australian world.
Hayman-Reese hitches with anti sway bars provide strong transfer of pulling force for starting, load control under braking - and heavy load trailers can be dual axle with slaved electric brakes to add to the stopping power of the lead vehicle.
Can electric vehicles (let alone this absurdly ridiculous example) reliably make it around the 'ring more than once without having to recharge? It seems like EV range drops off a cliff in all but the most idyllic driving conditions--flat road, minimal acceleration (cruise control), room temperature, no precipitation, aerodynamically clean, unladen. Add load, off-nominal temp, snow, drag, weight, etc. and range drops precipitously. One example I know of is a Model 3 doing a cross-country road trip in winter with two adults and their luggage couldn't do more than 75mi range per charge in Montana due to strong crosswinds. It would be great to see some actual data on off-nominal performance, which is what actually matters for a utility vehicle as opposed to a road toy.
Was driving an EV in freezing / snowy conditions the other day, up a mountain, with a blinking battery light. I couldn't believe how much running the heater and AC (required for demisting), the cold and going up a hill sucked the battery.
In the same car only a week before in much better weather, I did a similar trip, twice.
Any Cybertruck that could make it to the Nürburgring on its own would lose to pretty much any car. It can't ever go faster than 60mph if street legal in Europe.
Not for vehicles with MaM over 3500kg. They have to be fitted with a limiter that stops them from going faster than 60mph. Can't be overridden by the driver. If you remove the limiter, the car is no longer legal.
Furthermore, you can't drive it with a regular driver's license. Requires you to get a C1 license.
So it may have fast acceleration from 0-60mph, but that's as fast as it will ever go.
You can have the MaM adjusted to 3500 kg. That's what they used to do with H2's. Limit them to 3500 kg so you're breaking the law if you actually use the cargo capacity of your 3 ton tank.
By "loser" I only meant by comparison with the best ICE in that category of pure drag racing. It's definitely not a loser, but it is a "loser" versus ICE.
I'm not saying the Cybertruck is shit. It's a torque monster and I want one. But it will struggle with cornering because of its 6800 pound kerb weight which is double the 911 kerb weight. Too heavy, can't compete.
What's most impressive to me is they figured out how to make flat body panels on the Cybertruck without warping (which would ruin the aesthetics). It would look cheap if they didn't get that right.
Try it with the most illegal electric vehicle. Won't compete with Top Fuel dragsters. Fundamental physical limitations of batteries versus combustion.
But the Cybertruck has 10x the torque of the equivalent ICE vehicle, so it can beat the 911 in a drag race, while towing a 911. Incredible. This is where it completely destroys ICE.
Elon said a long time ago they wanted their vehicles to be a smackdown for Internal Combustion Engines, and I think they're getting there. This is the kind of marketing that make regular people go "Wait, what? How is that possible?".
More than about 10 years ago that was simply unheard of, and I'm certain people would have said it was impossible.
Useful or not, it's a very impressive thing to do. 99% of automakers would be happy if they could build a sports scar faster than a 911, let alone a pickup with 11,000lbs towing capacity.
Eh, it's not really interesting if you can't corner. Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it, all you need is a ton of torque, tires that can take it, and enough weight and length to keep the front end down. Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose, but 1/4 mile numbers are a mostly meaningless pissing contest unless you are actually building drag cars.
Now if Tesla built anything that handled up near Porsche territory, that would be interesting. I guess they sort of did with the 1st one, but that was Lotus's chassis.
> * Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose*
Ahh, no.
The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat with 707 horsepower runs a 11.4 [1]
That is the very definition of a car built to go fast in a straight line. Massive engine, supercharger, massive rear tires, and it's slower than the Cybertruck.
> Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it
Please show me a truck that gets even remotely close to a sub 11 quarter mile. Heck, show me a production sports car (that isn't a super car as expensive as a house) that does.
Hellcats are built to go fast in a straight line with the limitations of a 20+ year old platform. Beating a vehicle Dodge spent about $20 developing in a shed with a giant pushrod engine and hand-me-down parts they got from 90s Mercedes Benz isn't that big an accomplishment.
Going fast in a straight line is easy for electric motors, so it's just not that impressive. It's like a native speaker enrolling in language 101. The A doesn't really mean anything. EVs have been up against the limits of tire adhesion for years now.
EVs with impressive sustained track times are far more interesting since that's actually hard to achieve. Batteries are heavy and that's killer for a real race car.
That 911 will pound hot lap after hot lap until the fuel tank is empty like it's nothing if the owner ticked the ceramic brake option. I suspect the Cybertruck will run out of cooling long before it drains the battery and I guarantee it will cook the brakes hauling itself down from 130 mph.
Edit: plus F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s.
I have seen many videos of folks simply loosing a US V8 muscle car at street races when the road becomes a corner or a quick correction needs to be made.
Gobs of RWD power and seemingly a lack of any sort of dynamic active safety systems for inexperienced drivers to help with this kind of fishtailing or oversteer.
To be fair the the 911 can do 9.9 Seconds. Tesla just chose a slower model/config due to obvious reasons (of course 911 Turbo S is more than 2x as expensive as the top-end Cybertruck).
> You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.
You're assuming that maximizing acceleration in a straight is the main priority for most sportscar manufacturers and they are willing to throw everything else to maximize it.
> Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.
Well a Moto GP bike will easily beat an F1 car in 1/4 mile drag race yet would have zero chances on an actual race track. I'd bet the Cybertruck would do relatively considerably worse even against the base config 911. So it really depends on how you define "absurdly fast".
The comparison is with the 0-60 of a 911, remember? And even then I didn't say the truck would win, just that they are not bad at it (it being, 0-60) out-of-the box. Current F-150s are in the high 3s/low 4s on 0-60. So are some 911's. The 911s will have most of second on them in a 1/4 i guess, but the fords are still pulling 12s which isn't slow. The point was only that truck form factor lends itself to ok 1/4 mile times. Not that anyone should care :)
NB: I didn't say any of these would beat a big electric. Electric motors have real advantages here, nobody claims otherwise.
And yes point remains for any automaker trying to set up a car to compete with a 911. Getting a similar 1/4 mile time would be about the easiest part...
Chris Harris did it back in 2013 with two ICE vehicles (G63 AMG pulling a Fiesta ST) when the modern EV era was just getting started and none were officially rated to tow: https://youtu.be/5Ea7k3VAdi8
That's a cool video, but very strange decision to have audio of Elon at some press conference or something instead of the actual race. You're expecting engines and tire screeches and instead it's like 5 or 10 mildly excited people that aren't there.
They made $1.4 billion in revenue on their Starlink internet service last year. Satellite internet was already a successful product before SpaceX entered the market, and they're providing much faster service at a lower price.
If you look at the space industry as a whole, over 60% of all rockets launched last year were by SpaceX, and their cost per kg launched is a fraction of their competitors.
It's strange to refer to this as "buzz" when they're objectively providing successful services that many people and organizations are paying for.
Consumers don't ever benefit from militaries so the only other option to extract quality of life from space is comms.
But given that 90% of the population lives in urban areas comms are much more efficiently done using 5g cell towers and the good old cable fiber.
The way I see it, SpaceX is like the SR71 or the Saturn Rocket, monodimensional individuals will always fall in love with such toys and will try to reason their way backwards starting from their love for the toys to find and convince enough fools to finance them playing with such toys and not only that also singing their praise, it seems like it's exactly what is happening.
> But given that 90% of the population lives in urban areas comms are much more efficiently done using 5g cell towers and the good old cable fiber.
Don’t be daft, 10% of the population doesn’t by your own numbers. People in rural areas all over (Alaskan native schools, schools on the Amazon River, etc) are getting online for the first time because of starlink.
Your post comes across as “I don’t care about projects to eliminate hunger worldwide because most people have access to food”.
It seems they just picked a slower config to make it look better. To be fair the Turbo S which does 9.9s is 2.5x more expensive than the base config/Cybertruck.
The cheapest F150 Lightning (available today not in 2025) is $50k (vs $60k for Cybertruck), same 250 mile range but AWD standard, and is a regular pickup truck compatible with standard accessories and parts for doing actual pickup truck work.
Of course, most of the buyers of either the Cybertruck or the F150 Lightning probably aren't getting much dirt under their fingernails. Everyone I know doing construction/trade work tends to drive much smaller pickups.
We need a lot more Chevy Bolts and electric buses, and a smaller electric pickup truck with 2 doors, but instead this is what we will get due to the cultural moment we are at, and because of who has the money to spend on new vehicles today.
From what I’ve heard, trucks are huge now due to various fuel efficiency regulations. A big truck is easier to make with fewer regulations. It seems like all the electric trucks want to prove they are bigger and tougher than the ICE trucks, but it seems like the perfect platform for small trucks, as the the efficiency standards would become a moot point. I’m looking for trucks like the old Ford Ranger from the late 90s to come back. The Maverick was a start, but they need to take it a step further.
Maybe it’s like with the Model S. First they have to prove it’s cool and remove all the excuses (too slow, too weak, not enough range), then they can scale down to the smaller more mass market options at lower price points.
> trucks are huge now due to various fuel efficiency regulations
Correct.
It's because of "...the fine print of Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards adopted in 1975, Gerald Ford’s reluctant response to a crippling Middle East oil embargo that sent gas prices soaring. To protect American commerce, work trucks and light trucks were subject to less-strict CAFE standards than family sedans. Trucks are also exempt from the 1978 gas guzzler tax, which adds $1,000 to $7,700 to the price of sedans that get 22.5 or fewer miles to the gallon.
Those incentives encouraged American car manufacturers to double down on trucks. But the CAFE standards also had a more subtle and far-reaching effect: They pushed carmakers to broaden the definition of truck.
“'Cars and light trucks had two different standards. It became easier to meet the standard with trucks. So automobile manufacturers thought of ways to basically build trucks that are really cars, and that’s what generated the SUV,' said Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Christopher Knittel, who has spent much of his career tracing the unintended consequences of government fuel regulations."
It's bizarre that this has been allowed, and that lawmakers didn't immediately fix this hole in the regulations as soon as they noticed car manufacturers taking advantage of it.
It's bizarre that in the middle of a oil market crisis it wasn't expected that the consumer market wouldn't have moved to higher MPG vehicles on it's own anyways. To me, this is one of the hallmarks of a highly monopolized market where consumers don't have any actual choices, and where competition for consumer approval is almost entirely absent.
The correct answer would have been to increase the number of companies manufacturing vehicles, not passing laws that constrained a market and possibly lead to an overall decrease. Now we have a market that's almost entirely bound to congressional whim and mostly disconnected from consumer demand.
>Now we have a market that's almost entirely bound to congressional whim
Agree 100%
>mostly disconnected from consumer demand
Disagree. Sedans are still around (Camry, Corolla, Civic, Accord), but consumers are voting with their wallets for crossovers. Ford killed the Focus and Fusion because they simply couldn't be sold for a profit since most people didn't get the high end models, and to be honest, I'm surprised Chevy still makes the Malibu. The Company Formerly Known As Chrysler doesn't even make a car anymore.
> Ford killed the Focus and Fusion because they simply couldn't be sold for a profit since most people didn't get the high end models
They stopped providing it as a model to the American market. It's based off a Ford platform, though, and other automakers are continuing to use that platform. The Focus also continues to be a model in European markets.
During the beginning of the pandemic there were also parts shortages. Many manufacturers stopped making their lower end vehicles and only produced the higher end ones with the limited parts they could get, because, they can convert those parts into higher profits.
I think these decisions are best viewed as the awful intersection of short term wall street thinking combined with latent and intentionally imperfect measures of consumer demand.
> Sedans are still around (Camry, Corolla, Civic, Accord), but consumers are voting with their wallets for crossovers
This is objectively true but it’s happening against three decades of marketing pushing SUVs hard and especially the messaging that if you drive a small car you’re putting your safety at risk. I think there’s an arm’s race here which is going to be hard to stop absent something causing gas prices to spike or a shift in insurance requirements.
Given that the damage to roads is linked to miles, and then the square of the vehicle's weight, it'd not be difficult for a state to stop putting the road maintenance related taxes on gas itself, and instead just measure those two things. Odometer change, times the square of the weight. Suddenly the really large truck that carries a single person is far more expensive to run than a sedan.
Something kind of like this is already done with stickers for electric cars in many states: Doing that for every car is just extending the program. It won't happen though, because a lot of people would be angry to internalize the cost of their choices
Yeah, I’d love that - or things like charging for parking by the square foot - but your last point is what I had in mind for the pessimistic ending: people REALLY don’t like losing subsidies, so I think a lot of governments are hoping buying preferences change or the insurance companies will do something because then they don’t take the political heat.
But you're right that there's far too little choice in smartphones. They're all fragile thin big touch screens. In the early days, you had smartphones made out of steel with sliding keyboards. What happened to that?
The problem is that you get unfair competition if one type of car is held to different standards than another type. Pickups and SUVs should be held to the same standards of regular cars. And maybe also require a stricter driving license, because from everything I hear, they're a lot more dangerous.
CAFE standards have been around since 1975. Yes, they helped incentivize manufacturers to aggressively market trucks and SUVs, but they don't explain the recent increase in the size of those trucks. That part's new.
Despite some misleading pictures shared on social media, if you do an apples-to-apples comparison (e.g., a 1972 F-150 and a 2023 model with the same bed size), they are about the same length. The differences are vastly better driver safety and fuel economy.
The main difference is that nowadays, there are more factory and aftermarket configuration options available, and people have more money, so you see more people driving heavy-duty trucks with 35,000 lbs towing capacity, which have big engines and thus are rather beefy. But conversely, you also see more people buying small trucks with "stub-length" (4-5 ft) beds.
It's interesting that you don't really have a market of mini-pickups that are seen in Japan, but that's probably partly a matter of weird fuel efficiency regulations, of import restrictions, and cultural factors (few people in the US want to be seen riding anything golf-cart-sized, and it's not exactly a guy-only thing.)
Driving a kei truck is basically the most fun you can have with your pants on and they get a smile from everyone. AIUI, it's primarily the safety regulations that make them unsellable new in the USA. The crumple zone is the drivers knees, just like a VW microbus.
Old ones can't be registered in all 50 states. New Hampshire will let you register one; Vermont is not as accommodating. They're also pretty pricey for a 25 year-old car.
Oh, and they top out at something like 50 mph. Which would be terrifying if you managed to keep your foot planted long enough to get up to that speed.
I've driven one that was a summer camp vehicle, and I'd love to have one, but I live on the wrong side of the Connecticut River :-(
I know what it's like to be in the presence of a typical old truck, compared to a typical modern truck. The modern truck is wider and taller, accelerates faster, and has worse visibility. I'll trust my own eyes and experience over some conveniently angled photos and irrelevant "apples-to-apples". (To extend the analogy: you're doing your comparison using a cultivar hardly anyone buys anymore).
As I understand it, CAFE standards require small footprint trucks to meet an unreasonably high MPG rating or else pay taxes/fines. Large footprint trucks have a more realistic MPG requirement. Therefore all trucks are large trucks.
But is there really no downside to "driving a truck" in US? Out here northern europe, if a car is classified as a truck, then you have lower speed limits, and possibly need to drive a separate truck-driving-license.
Sure, for very heavy trucks. But the Cybertruck is not even close to being heavy enough to qualify.
I live in an area where the Cybertruck is heavy enough that the annual registration fees will be 2-3x higher than a regular car. But then again, if you are a "farmer" then all the truck stuff becomes cheaper. You know that all the largest cities in the US are located in states (New York, California, Illinois, Texas) with huge agricultural areas. And they all have lots of laws to protect and help farmers.
An obvious, easy solution would be to allow car makers to classify a vehicle as either a "car" or a "truck" (once classified, it cannot be reclassified without the car maker being subject to the worst of both worlds).
Cars can be driven with a car driving license.
Trucks can be driven with a truck driving license, or CDL, or have to be registered by a company, or _whatever licensing requirement makes it perfectly feasible for people who need one for work but enough of a PITA that private individuals don't bother getting it_.
And yet trucks are huge without a material increase in bed space. If the auto makers can skirt around the law to make everything a truck, surely In this hypothetical, they would make smaller trucks and make them "cars"
You'd pretty much have to repeal a ton of safety laws. Today's Tacoma is the size of an f-150 of 20 years ago, but still can't tow or haul as much. Gotta deliver practicality!
> Qualifying businesses can claim a deduction of up to $28,900 when purchasing a new Tesla vehicle with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of at least 6,000 pounds. To qualify for the tax deduction, vehicles must be operated for legitimate business use >50% the time.
We’re incentivizing business capital investments. Certainly, it’s not always efficient (Hummers that used this tax treatment), but that is the intent. It would be more optimal if trucks didn’t keep getting bigger, but trucks are still needed for work purposes.
The reason was to avoid tax advantaging sports cars or luxury sedans for executives. At the time SUVs were utilitarian and unfashionable so dividing by weight seemed an easy way to distinguish between "real" work vehicles and "fake" work vehicles.
Of course it backfired so now 6500 pound SUVs (and even luxury sedans!) are easily acquired.
Standard tax deduction for businesses as a work truck. Technically you need to be using it only for business reasons but we all know how fuzzy small business owners get with that kind of stuff sometimes.
A guy at work has a Ford Ranger EV (I think it's the '97?); he's upgraded the battery & the charger. It'd be my ideal vehicle if they were produced, again.
Yep. And according to Wikipedia, it delivered 75 miles of range at 60mph on 26kWh NiMH battery. With 52kWh of today's batteries a vehicle in that format could easily do 150 miles (plenty for a work truck). You wouldn't be able sell it for $50k+ though.
150mi of range assumes nothing in it, no towing, etc. Not nearly enough. Also, that would assume the 52kWh of battery weighs the same. Maybe it does, but if it doesn’t then that may increase weight and decrease range.
Nobody wants 150mj range cars anymore because they suck for day to day use. 20-80% means you’re realistically getting 60% of that range usable. You better plug them in every single day otherwise you might have trouble.
At the time those were referred to internally as the Ranger Glider, which was a name I always kind of liked. I recall many of them going to Mexico at the time, I think as part of a government program.
Toyota is rumored to make a truck smaller than the Tacoma, which is pretty exciting to me, in part because the Tacoma has become ridiculously expensive. But it will undoubtedly be a hybrid at best.
Yep. And that's also why SUVs are the way they are - they fit the regulatory definition of "truck" and get different emissions and fuel efficiency rules as a result.
> The cheapest F150 Lightning (available today not in 2025) is $50k (vs $60k for Cybertruck), same 250 mile range but AWD standard, and is a regular pickup truck compatible with standard accessories and parts for doing actual pickup truck work.
I'd like to nitpick "doing actual pickup truck work". The Lightning gets terrible mileage, to the tune of roughly 100 miles on a charge, while hauling which ICE trucks do not unless under immense load [1]. It comes standard at 7,700 lbs towing or if you pay extra 10,000 lbs. At a $50k+ price an F-150 Lightning is not even barely resembling a truck doing truck things.
For context, my Tacoma cost me $32k, has 6-7k lbs towing, and is much more compact. My point is neither the Cybertruck nor the Lightning are capable of doing truck things; they are rich peoples toys - which is fine until it's conflated with why people who use trucks buy them.
I would love to buy an all electric version of my Tacoma or maybe even a Tundra that for ICE price + $10k can do the same hauling and mileage. There is absolutely a market here, but the technology to do so has not showed up yet.
You can't compare an EV pick up and an ICE truck like that, unless you specify what you call 'doing actual pickup truck work'. Plenty of companies don't put more than 100 miles on a truck every day and that means that their workload is a good match for an F150 Lightning even if it is hauling. Landscapers, city fleets and so on tend to move to a spot, stay there all day and then drive back and it's probably possible to charge them on either end of that trip. And they're never going to be further away than 100 miles from their home base.
Nerds need to stop assuming what's best for tradespeople and offering unsolicited advice.
Ultimately the market will decide.
This usually comes up in the context of telling landscapers they should give up their gasoline powered tools and switch to battery; or, my personal favorite, "use rakes".
The tradesmen will decide what is best for themselves, given the proper incentives, and we will adapt.
My friend who’s in landscaping drives a basic F150 with an 8-ft bed. The payload capacity on his truck is less than the base Lightning. Usually he’s bringing a bunch of tools back there, and depending on the job might be carrying plants, mulch etc.
In cases where he has to haul more (eg. clearing out a huge amount of overgrown plants) he might rent a utility trailer to tow. Which the Lightning is also perfectly capable of handling.
For the truly heavy-duty job requiring several yards of rock, he’s going to pay someone with a dump truck to deliver it.
Since all of his clients, suppliers, and the dump are local, he’ll never need to tow anything 100 miles. This is the only edge case where he’d need to wait around at a charger during a job.
If there are used Lightnings for sale at a competitive price when we needs to replace his truck, he might buy one.
It's actually quite hard to exceed the payload capacity of an F150 unless you're hauling bricks, and even then you could probably mostly fill it up.
How easy is it to supercharge a F150 electric while towing a 20 foot trailer? The way I see most Tesla superchargers oriented, it seems like it would be a pain in the ass.
But also, depending on where landscaping jobs take you, you might be well out of range of a supercharger when you need it most. You might need to finish 5 jobs in an afternoon, and make 3 hauls to the dump and two stops at a supply store and then get to the other side of town as quickly as possible or lose a job. A gas car can be refilled in 3 minutes. You can get another 100 miles of range from 5 gallons, which you can even carry with you for emergencies.
Price is also a disqualifier, imo. A battery replacement on a Lightning is $30k and the battery is warrantied for 8 years or 100K miles. How long the batteries last after the warranty expires I think will have a big impact on an already more expensive truck.
The reason I bought a Tacoma was because I have six feet of bed area, ~7k lbs towing, and 4x4. The general utility of the truck meant it could tackle most things I needed to do.
> The way I see most Tesla superchargers oriented, it seems like it would be a pain in the ass.
Most superchargers have one stall oriented so that you can pull in to it (with the charger on the left side of the stall), with the rest of the stalls designed to be backed into.
I disagree. I have a Tacoma that definitely gets treated as a truck. The bed gets filled with stuff, I use the 4x4 every time I go through the Cascades, mountain passes, or washed out roads, and I've hauled closed to the limit with it several times. Would a van do some of those things? Maybe, but certainly not all, nor for the same price point.
The article I linked shows the Lightning gets close to 100 miles per charge when hauling near the limit. My MPG certainly takes a hit, but not that big and my truck is about half the price and size of the Lightning.
None of the CTs are available today, they're all at some unspecified point in 2024.
The cheapest CT is ostensibly available in 2025, but estimates from this company that far out are hilariously worthless.
Prospective customers of the cheapest CT might remember the cheapest Model 3, which the CEO promised to deliver in July, 2017, but actually began delivery in February, 2019.
> same 250 mile range but AWD standard
That "(EST.)" next to the range is doing a lot of work!
Range expectations should be informed by the company's sordid history of rigging the in-car display to inflate range projections, then creating a special "Diversion Team" to cancel customer service appointments related to range issues, regulatory action and fines for misleading advertising about vehicle range, Edmunds finding that Tesla models often fail to meet their advertised ranges, etc.
We have a pipeline being built through our city right now. It's absolutely hilarious for me to see the temporary company parking lot for about 100 vehicles full of mostly pick up trucks because they're actually being shuttled between the construction site and the parking lot in ... buses. This is what I think of when people talk about how they need trucks :)
Well this is sticking your head in the sand about it.
People own trucks because while trucks might not be particularly good at some things, they're also not particularly bad at them. If you need to move large or heavy items occasionally, it's really handy having a truck...and the thing is, it won't be bad at doing car things either.
To the specific example here, you also have the obvious missing part: people are having to drive from home to the parking lot, to catch the bus to the site. The failure is pretty obvious.
Pile onto that that most construction workers generally have to assume that they might need to use the truck for work sometime, and it's an obvious purchase: you can't afford two cars, but you can afford one slightly more expensive one that will be as good at everything you need as a smaller one.
People complain about trucks without even trying to understand where the motivation to own them comes from.
Most Pickup Truck Owners Don’t Actually Do Any Truck Stuff.
> Only 7.0% of truck buyers frequently use their trucks to tow. About 2% of people use their trucks to tow occasionally, while 63% of owners rarely or never tow.
> But at least 28% of owners frequently use their trucks for personal hauling, while 47% of owners occasionally haul. Nearly 32% of owners rarely or never haul personal items.
These types of stats aren't much good without some measure of criticality. Even if you only rarely use the full functionality of a truck, if it's critical those times you do, it's probably worth owning. It's the same logic used to justify car ownership in areas with good public transportation; you're paying for a capability on demand, even if you're not always using it.
Also, not all trucks are good for towing. Pick-ups/utes are notorious for yielding where the cab meets the chassis, right in front of the bed, because they're designed to take a load in the bed, not at the rear of the vehicle. We don't tow with our truck for that very reason.
One thing that happens when you own a truck, you get called on to help friends and family move, or pick up an oversized item. I do this a few times a year. Multiple people benefit from my truck ownership.
U-haul rents pickup trucks for $20 a day plus mileage, and if you want something bigger, they've got it. Your friends and family would get along just fine without your truck ownership.
For sure. Just having one when you own a home is very handy. Being able to just toss long boards or pipes or large pieces of furniture in the back is great. I really only use my truck for truck related stuff (things I wouldn’t otherwise be able to use a sedan or suv for) perhaps 2-3x a month. But that’s enough to justify owning one. I think even if it was only once every 3 months it would still be justified, since it doesn’t get radically worse mileage than a sedan and I don’t otherwise drive much.
Oh, sure, but that’s a hefty premium to pay if you don’t need it frequently - the $20+k extra people pay for commuter trucks would pay for thousands of truck rental hours, and that’s before you factor in the higher operating costs and insurance.
Both SUVs and trucks are heavily promoted by the manufacturers due to their higher margins - convincing Americans to pay 10-20% more margin is literally what saved Detroit around the turn of the century. The average midsize truck hit $42k and full size is over $60k, but the median buyer doesn’t need anything a sub-$30k sedan could do at more than a couple of times a year, if that - we didn’t add millions of contractors in the last couple of years and the best selling configurations are designed for luxury and image, not utility.
> Only 7.0% of truck buyers frequently use their trucks to tow. About 2% of people use their trucks to tow occasionally, while 63% of owners rarely or never tow.
So that's 72% not 100%.
> But at least 28% of owners frequently use their trucks for personal hauling, while 47% of owners occasionally haul. Nearly 32% of owners rarely or never haul personal items.
That accounts for 107% of truck owners.
The rest of the numbers seem to add up well enough though. Not sure if maybe I'm missing something or the author is.
"People complain about trucks without even trying to understand where the motivation to own them comes from."
Agree 100%. I have a Ford Ranger on order, and I am not a construction worker. I've already fielded some "hurr durr what do you need a truck for / it will never be on a construction site" comments.
The thing is, even if I only need the adjustable roof rack for 5m lengths of timber, or the 3.5-ton towing capacity a few times a year, it's worth it for me. The common argument I hear is "just rent a truck when you need it" - do the people saying this have any idea how much of a PITA it is renting a vehicle vs using one you already own?
A viewpoint I frequently see missing is having a truck is fun, especially when I want to go piss around outdoors. Sure a car is technically more useful/efficient day to day but it's not going to get me over sand, mud, or even slightly rough patches of ground on the weekend. I can throw a bunch of stuff in the back and don't really have to think if it'll all fit.
Construction and hauling aren't the only uses for a truck and without my Ranger my numerous moves would have been significantly more involved and annoying. Plus for road trips having the extra space over a car is more comfortable with the added benefit of the bed, which carries way more than a trunk.
I think the HN folks tend to forget about how spread out the US is and how many people drive for trips. Or maybe they've just forgot how to have fun.
Btw the Ranger is great.
I think this really depends on the mirrors tbh. I run a small fleet of three work trucks. 2010 Ford Ranger, 2020 F-250, 2022 F-150. Out of any of them the F-250 is the easiest to park, all due to the towing mirror/ low convex tear drop mirror. Ridiculously easy to park given its size.
Any of these vehicles is easier to park (parallel especially) than my 2007 Acura TL personal vehicle. Good mirror design goes a long way.
I want to preface this by stating that I am sure your comment wasn't directly directed at me even to it was a reply to mine but I wanted to share:
I drive a unibody suv with full time four wheel drive. It drives like a truck and has many of the same benefits and many of the drawbacks. It's a lexus gx470 if that helps. I have given trucks careful consideration and often observe how people use them when they are driven around loaded and unloaded in the city and on the highway. My brother owns a huge ram truck which I have driven. I am also a homeowner who has made more trips to the hardware store than I would like, including buying/replacing appliances, water heater, flooring, hauling heavy lumber to build a 100 foot fence using large ten foot 6x6 posts, installing sod, and so on. I have moved across country and back and up and down the state. So maybe there are people who complain without trying to understand, but I was not complaining, nor do I lack understanding.
But I think truck culture and ego is a very real thing and when someone jacks up their truck so they now need a step to get in and out, it ruins it. There are other modifications that also ruin its utility and that is some of what I had in mind when I made my comment about ego. Also, one can see in another comment here I compare and contrast truck ownership with van ownership.
Man, this comment got rather lengthy and if anyone actually read up to this point, appreciate it. Not hostile in any way, I just find the discussion around transportation very interesting as I grew up as a car enthusiast and I find myself always looking at optimization problems and trying to come up with improvements.
> Odd for me all my friends who farm or do construction own either the F150 or the equivalent dodge RAM truck.
From what I've seen at local lumber yards, new F150s and Rams are the trucks that the boss usually drives, not the workers who are actually picking up the material. They are buying and driving cheapest truck that gets the job done. It's an F-150, it's an older one. A lot of Toyota Tacomas though.
> Now I’m in Canada, perhaps you’re European?
I'm in the US.
> The other trucks either don’t have cabs big enough to fit multiple workers or fit full sheets of drywall.
Large sheet goods either go on the lumber rack or if it's enough, is delivered on a delivery truck. Usually not in the bed. That's for tools, bags of material, etc.
> Everyone I know doing construction/trade work tends to drive much smaller pickups.
Smaller than an F150? Maybe it's because I live in the Bay Area where there's more money being thrown around but trucks of that size and larger seem to be common for trade workers.
And a number of construction jobs in our house were performed by a gentleman who arrived with a Vespa unless he specifically had to transport something sizeable.
I see big RAM trucks show up increasingly more often in Amsterdam. 10 years ago there was just 1, and this week I think I spotted the 4th in my neighbourhood.
Yes, it's a ridiculous development. Those cars have absolutely no business in the inner city, they're bloody dangerous and much too large for compatibility with the roads. And that's before we get into parking issues. PC Hooft tractors...
No, they've got a point. These are simply not compatible with the old town and that's exactly where they go with them. You have to imagine a city that was made for something the size of a small horse drawn carriage where you take these massive vehicles. It's tight enough with normal cars, this is well across what's feasible in practice.
I live in the greater Detroit area and I pretty much only see contractors driving 1) their own HD truck (F250/ Chevy 2500 or bigger) 2) a big panel van with shelving for e.g. plumbing parts or 3) the company provided Ford Transit Connect or similar. Nobody is driving their own relatively recent Colorado/Ranger/Tacoma, and even those are bigger than the 1984 Ranger I drove in high school. A lot of it comes down to what vehicle can legally/safely tow a dump trailer with a mini excavator on it for sewer/electrical running underground or the relatively lower maintenance requirement for a big truck diesel engine.
Yeah what a weird comment from GP. The refrain that no one needs a full-size truck, that they're mall crawlers or compensation for undersized you-know-what is common on this site but I've never seen it taken to the level that "trades workers largely don't drive full sized trucks, actually".
Most trades workers don't need full-sized pickup trucks. They do need an 8 foot bed. An amazing number of full-sized pickups come with 6.5 foot beds by default, and cost extra for the 8 foot. They won't put 2 tons of gravel in there; they will put plywood sheets and lumber and power tools; boxes of nails and air compressors; the toolbox that they always want, the toolbox for this job, and the toolbox with backup tools that you lend to the guy who 'forgot' stuff. (Not the guy who 'loses' stuff.) None of that needs the big V8.
If you've got a 4 seat cab, you'll be asked to take a couple people out to the other site, but if you've got a 2 seater, maybe you don't get asked.
Four wheel drive and big wheels mean bad fuel economy. If you need them, there's something wrong because the mud is supposed to go on your boots, not your wheels. Your pickup is not an earthmover or a wrecker. One exception: if you've got a really big truck, you might get wintertime snow-plow jobs. They really aren't fun.
I think most trades would be better served by a van rather than a pickup truck. Ingress and egress is much easier. It is also easier to load and drive due to lower center of gravity. Expensive tools are out of the elements and generally safer (and so less risk of tools and material making their way onto the highway). Plus, better drag coefficient and so better efficiency. Finally, a roof rack allows for those items you mentioned like sheetrock and plywood, ladders and pipes.
The biggest problem I see is most of these men have an ego that would never allow them to buy and drive a van.
All but one of the contractors I’ve had working on my house over the last few years used vans: holds more and your stuff doesn’t get rained on or stolen.
The one exception was the HVAC guy who had an old 90s-size pickup, which he liked due to the better mileage. He needed to fit bulky stuff, not massively heavy things.
The independent plumber I use when something goes wrong with the pipes drives a GMC Savana van. He's really good; close to retirement age and very methodical and thorough and his prices are reasonable. The electrician I use also drives some sort of van. I've had a few other contractors out for different projects around the house and I'm starting to notice a correlation: the ones in the giant lifted pickup trucks are unreliable and overpriced; the ones who drive vans are the best.
My electrical contractor relative just bought a Metris over a Maverick because of storage space and interior shelving. This is extremely common. People who work outdoors usually prefer pickups because they have larger equipment and materials, and more varied terrain
Yup, my dad worked as an electrician with an ISP for some years, and he had a van. Think it was a Ford Transit that was fitted with drawers and cabinets for tools and parts. It was literally a workshop on wheels. All the tools and parts you could imaginable need.
Something like a Ram ProMaster van is rated for 6-7000 lbs towing capacity, which may not sound like much compared to pickups that primarily compete on the basis of that particular specification, but it's still definitely enough to be useful.
There are three specs that matter. (4wd matters in the hills, since it is surprisingly easy to get stuck on pavement/gravel when going uphill under load, but that is orthogonal).
The three things are bed capacity, max bed weight load, and towing capacity.
Weight in bed can matter, but once you’re above a few thousand pounds, you need to consider getting a dump trailer. Max carrying load matters more for conversions (e.g. to ambulances, adding toolboxes, etc). Towing matters for moving lots of weight.
In the cheap 150/1500 ICE class, Ford wins these days on bed capacity (3000lbs), due to having aluminum frames. Ram wins at towing capacity (10,000lbs).
As much as I like dunking the cybertruck for its impractical bed and Musk’s shenanigans, it can tow 14,000lbs, making it best in class for quarter ton trucks (assuming you count it in the same class as the ford F150 lightning).
So, I’d like one for driving to and from our local rockery, except that using it for that will beat it to hell, and a used truck + nice EV sedan will cost less, be more fun to drive, and win on total CO2 emissions. The sedan uses much less electricity than the cybertruck, and would be driven many more miles than the truck. I’d only put a few tanks of diesel into the truck per year.
Eventually, the grid will be more decarbonized, and batteries won’t be scarce. At that point, the cybertruck would probably be a better choice for me.
Source: We bought a 1500 truck that is slightly too small for our use cases.
Most full-sized trucks come with beds smaller than 6.5ft, that doesn't change the fact that most trades people drive full-sized trucks.
Four wheel drive is more necessary in specific climates (before the snow tire scolds come in, I run snow tires in the winter) and because an unloaded truck has a light rear end. Many trucks with 4wd can switch between 4wd and RWD. My truck has RWD, 4A (4 auto, aka AWD-ish), 4 high and 4 low as an option. I drive mostly in RWD unless I need power to all wheels for traction in snow and ice or when I am accelerating quickly off an incline (think uphill a dirt road onto blacktop where you have a blind corner) and then I drive in in 4A. I have needed 4 high and 4 low a handful of times. I have a "big v8" and get 21-22 MPG on the highway in RWD and and 18 or so around town. I drive heavy all-terain tires or my MPG would be better.
I've lived up North in Canada and very much liked the F150, even if it was not exactly quality material it did the job and never got stuck no matter how bad the weather got. We built a house with it and it did double duty as farm truck. I don't think there was another vehicle even close in price to that one that would have done the same job. I'd have been just as happy with a smaller engine though, a V6 would have been plenty. Except that one time when I pulled a full size semi out of ditch (that did require some extra weight in the bed). They are pretty versatile workhorses and for that area they're a good match. The only people that should drive them around cities are contractors and landscapers, guys in suits driving big pickups have other issues.
If you're running a profitable business, a few extra hundred dollars a month won't make much of a dent in your profits. OTOH, a larger, more comfortable vehicle is important when it's basically your "office."
M1 MacBook Airs are solid and it's my daily driver as a programmer. But I also drive an F350 King Ranch Super Duty (I tow a 20k pound fifth wheel with it that I live in full time) so go figure.
I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today
> How many programmers do you see with MacBook Airs
The people working on some of the most complex projects of our times rely on compute that isn't available in a laptop, so they're perfectly fine taking an Air. I personally used an M1 Air for a couple of years.
I'd take that bet. The Ranger isn't manufactured anymore (edit: yes it is; can't recall having seen one though) and I've never seen a Maverick used commercially. I don't think I've even seen one that didn't look freshly washed.
I mean, this isn't even hard to figure out: the F-150 is the best selling vehicle (not truck, but vehicle) in the U.S. for what, a decade or more?
For people who want some towing, some cargo, and good mileage. I've seen a couple landscapers using them. If you're towing a single mower and some trimmers/blowers, it's a good deal, and you can still take it into town and not look like an idiot.
> I'd bet good money the average Ford Ranger/Maverick hauls more than the average F-150 today
The Maverick can tow 4,000 lbs - which is pretty prohibitive with a small bed and the weight of a trailer. You're better off getting a modern Tacoma, of which there is an entire subreddit of people who will gleefully show you they too can haul.
Yeah, I live in Iowa and F150/Dodge Ram is the baseline for anybody working construction or farm jobs. My brother-in-law and my uncle both separately run their own construction companies; one drives an F250, the other drives a some kind of diesel Ram. They both use them to haul their trailers full of materials/tools and machines around to job sites. My father’s a farmer/mechanic and drives an older Silverado.
I have a 20 year old Ranger that has been through 20 northeast winters. It's showing its age but no unibody vehicle can match it for long term durability.
FWIW you live on an island with a fraction of the population, and industry of the U.S and a very different geography and urban landscape. Could you haul anything 1000 miles if you even wanted to? Would there be any practical point to point travel where that was necessary without needing to transfer to a boat first? Because in the U.S. there's hundreds, maybe even thousands of trade routes that long.
We don't actually know what the Cyberjoke's range will be. Given Tesla's history with range claims, there's no reason to trust the numbers on that website.
oh common, that is clearly another social media vs Twitter fight. It's not Tesla place the range. It's EPA range.
Just read the article:
>Tesla vehicles failed to accurately account for external factors impacting battery performance and vehicle range, leading to a gross overestimate of the vehicle's range.
So, Karens want tesla to account for a/c temperature preferences, rain, wind, snow on the road, and other factors. No other manufacturers do so.
You have an EPA range, and if you decide to speed 85 m/h while having a 10% charge, you will dramatically lose your range. It's the same with any car.
>Testing is done at EPA's NVFEL facility and by vehicle manufacturers at their own facilities. EPA audits the data provided by vehicle manufacturers and performs its own testing on some of the vehicles to confirm the results.
The only reason it is "estimated", they didn't finish EPA testing yet.
> that is clearly another social media vs Twitter fight.
What?
> So, Karens want tesla to account for...
Tesla customers. People who paid $50,000+ for the privilege of owning a Tesla. Being dissatisfied with the performance of the car makes them "Karens"? Gee, I hope you guys remembered to formally excommunicate them from the Church of Musk.
Edit: Ah, I think I see the problem. Have you considered that the range is really important for a vehicle that can only be "refueled" either at home or at a handful of proprietary charging stations? Having a bad range estimate could really fuck up a road trip, especially before the charging network was built out to a reasonable density.
Nobody who's paid 50k for a car wants to limp to the next charger at 45 MPH with the windows rolled down (or worse, run out of power) because the manufacturer couldn't (or didn't want to) make a realistic range estimate.
How do I mute/block trolls on this website? The FAQ didn't provide any info. These pro oil trolls, which show up on every EV thread, don't provide any value.
AWD is much less important on a truck than most people think. I spent my youth driving my family’s farm trucks around in the mud and driving large cattle trailers to auctions. No one in my family could afford a 4WD, but there was maybe one or two times ever that I felt like I needed it. Mostly it’s just huge cost and a large amount of weight and fuel economy lost for rural people to signal their high status.
I won't deny it can be useful, but it's still not needed. I grew up in Wisconsin (which certainly qualifies as real winters) and you can get by just fine in the winter without 4x4. The biggest problem by far in the winter isn't traction, it's being able to stop when you need to stop. AWD doesn't help with that at all.
The traction control is also significantly better on EVs because you have much quicker response times. I've made it up to ski fields in a RWD Tesla Model 3 with summer tires easily.
You are crazy. Most pickups absolutely need AWD. A little bit of rain and a RWD pick up is sliding all over the place unless you put a ton of shit in the bed.
When you say "we need" do you mean... "you want to see" ? The highest selling vehicles are trucks and so the company that makes the best selling car wants in. Seems logical and good for the industry
The initial Cybertruck announcement had the three trim levels priced at $39,990, $49,990, and $69,990. This is a price increase of between $21k and $30k, across the board. The original top-level $69,990 trim also advertised a 500-mile range, which is now down to 320 miles. Were they just making shit up? If I had put a deposit down back in 2019 I'd be pretty upset.
Edit: I just looked and Musk himself has stated that there have been over 1 million preorders/deposits for this vehicle. So they collected at least $100MM of customer money based on completely made up pricing/specs. WTF.
> So they collected at least $100MM of customer money based on completely made up pricing/specs. WTF.
Correct and correct. And not every manufacturer does this, by the way. The price/specs of the EV I pre-ordered (Volkswagen) did not change much by the time I purchased it.
I'll elaborate more: yes, because with a million plus deposits at such a low absolute dollar amount, certainly a significant portion of those are going to cancel. The ~15-25% of cumulative interest, while probably not that meaningful to each individual reservation holder, will add up in aggregate, and will hopefully act to disincentivize Tesla from making false claims about its future products again.
I'd be extra pleased if the FTC issued a fine in conjunction with the above, for false advertising.
Yeah I agree. But there are a large number of people (I think 100k+) who put down a deposit between 2019 and today. I realize it's refundable but it's still a slimy thing to do.
Inflation adjusted that $35k would be over $43k nowadays so it's actually quite a lot cheaper than promised. And it comes with many features included like Autopilot, which I think was a $3k option back then.
Everyone made fun of me for having one, but it was the perfect city car. Great turning radius & it fit basically anywhere. And the plastic body meant that if someone opened their door into you, it just bounced off instead of leaving a dent.
It's a shame they never made any significant improvements on the range. After degradation, the range on the i3 ends up pretty abysmal. The REx was a fun idea too and even let me take the car on multi-hundred mile road trips, without recharging, after coding the REx to one of the buttons in the car.
yeah, I wonder where it would be if they'd continue to put development money on the drivetrain and battery tech. It just seemed they left the concept behind despite growing sales numbers, and moved towards 6000 lb SUV EVs...
>Of course, most of the buyers of either the Cybertruck or the F150 Lightning probably aren't getting much dirt under their fingernails
anecdotally, the lighting seems to be a pretty popular work truck. maybe not with independent tradespeople, but i've seen quite a few recently across BC and alberta in municipal government fleets. Parks Canada has a bunch, and BC ferries is using them to drive around their terminals. I'm assuming it's part of some government madate to electrify their fleets.
> The cheapest F150 Lightning (available today not in 2025) is $50k
FWIW, I just checked, and I can't find any Lightning base models for sale in my metro area. Are these actually available or is it just marketing? That kind of thing is routine in the auto industry, where dealers never seem to have the base model in stock ("But for just a little bit more, see what you get!").
Whether or not the weird-looking space truck succeeds or fails is yet to be seen, but I really don't think it will be on price. These numbers look very competitive to me. Tesla is slightly more expensive at the low end, but likely makes up for it with the supercharger network. Probably the make/break item is going to be the body styling, which we all suspected.
What you see listed and what the dealer will actually give it to you for are not necessarily the same thing, infamously so in the case of in-demand models like this.
I think probably it's a disjoint group, or at least a disjoint set of circumstances. What the dealers are complaining about are the rules phasing in about what % of your sales need to be EVs. There are some successes, like the F-150, but there are also a ton of terrible legacy manufacturer EVs that nobody wants to buy that are kinda just sitting around. If Ford and the other carmakers could make vehicles as popular as the F-150 in quantity, I don't think the dealers would care.
I heard similar grumbles from Hyundai dealers around San Jose, CA, re: the Ioniq 5, and that model got a lot of accolades and is frequently recommended as an alternative to the Tesla Model Y for its category. I'm not sure what's going on is strictly a legacy model desirability issue.
It might be a "legacy dealers can't sell even good EVs because they don't know enough about them" issue though. Really hard to say, but that definitely would match my personal experience talking to a number of them.
> If Ford and the other carmakers could make vehicles as popular as the F-150 in quantity, I don't think the dealers would care.
They can make smaller EVs that are more popular than the larger and more luxurious vehicles, but they can't sell them as profitably as the larger vehicles.
I dont understand, there are millions of 5 door hatchback evs being sold at the moment, from all different manufacturers, its the most popular form factor for evs by far.
This really excites me. I had 2 Cybertruck reservations, I cancelled them and ordered an Aptera. I think this is what we really need: smaller car with efficiency in mind.
Those things are the Duke Nukem Forever of electric cars. I remember them taking reservations back in the 00s. I love the idea but I have no idea how the company still exists as they haven't delivered anything in almost two decades.
It was tough to find (it's odd that Ford is so subtle about this) but it is listed here: https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/f150-lightning/models/f150-... ("dual electric motors, one for each axle"). They were so busy 'materializing' their specs pages they forgot to mention this feature anywhere afaict - I had to search on their site to find the above page.
Thank you. 4x4 is also a "preference" checkbox on the quote tool, which makes me think it is not standard, and it calls out RWD drive all on the models on the main page (but in a vague way where it's not even clear that 4x4 is available).
I've got an R1T and am considering an S as well - feeling really good about the purchase after these numbers dropped. Wonderful truck, with the exception of occasionally unreliable infrastructure :shrug:
I don’t think the perspective of selling product X should be judged in a vacuum because it can do things like subsidize battery costs.
For video cards they got to the point where average consumers could buy them and then that started the road to accelerator cards. Saying that people shouldn’t buy something is naive and disingenuous. People will buy things regardless of anything else.
The writers had to throw away a great real-life anecdote because it'd be "too hacky" for the show!
[Astro Teller] ended the meeting by standing up in a huff, but his attempt at a dramatic exit was marred by the fact that he was wearing Rollerblades. He wobbled to the door in silence. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” [writer Carrie] Kemper said. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh. Even while it was happening, I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Can we use this?” In the end, the joke was deemed “too hacky to use on the show.”
It was too on the nose the first time. When it was airing I was raising VC funds, and it was basically a documentary. I would laugh every time someone offered me a Fiji water at a VC office.
it's amazing how well it holds up. most of the jokes they're making would work perfectly fine if you swapped in whatever the overhyped tech fad of the day is.
I think the big difference is we are seeing a closing of the window on the VC days. We're no longer in the low inflation, low interest-rate environment that was the primordial soup for startups.
So while I think the show has held up amazingly well (didn't love the way it ended), I think in 10-15 years we are going to look back at the period it represents pretty nostalgically.
Great thing of the Cybertruck's stainless steel is that you cannot scratch the paint with the rivets of your expensive jeans.
I likes the Russ Hanneman character so much that during COVID lockdowns, when I was a bit down, I paid Chris Diamantopoulos (the actor) on Cameo to do a short motivational video for me.
One of the issues it'll face in Europe is weight. One source I found for the "cyberbeast" model claims a 6843-pound curb weight. That's 3.1 metric tons. While there are discussions for special allowances for electric cars, the current limit of what you're allowed to drive with a normal driving license in the EU is 3.5 tons of gross vehicle weight rating.
In other words, in order to allow most people to drive the Cyberbeast, it would have to be rated so that (regardless of your license) you can't add more than 400 kg to it (this includes driver and passengers!). Hope the six people it's supposed to fit are light and have absolutely zero luggage.
This weight limit is a good thing. You don't want amateurs driving such heavy vehicles around and killing people because they don't know how to handle it.
You can still drive one but you got to get another license.
When the Cybertruck was announced, it was speculated that it wouldn't be street legal at all in the EU. Obviously, that was many years before any actually rolled out of the production line and before any objective information was available.
Not really. The Cybertruck would also be impractical due to its size, of course, but I'd imagine some people would want one due to its look (some hate it, some love it).
No, and especially not the ones in the size class of the Cybertruck. Usually if I've seen a pickup truck, it's been maybe a Ford Ranger or a Toyota Hilux, a mid-size pickup truck, and definitely not an F150, a full-size pickup truck. Sometimes it might also just be a Volkswagen Transporter with a flatbed, so basically a van like most all utility vehicles.
I watched the whole launch event, my takeaway is that the Cybertruck is is going to really take off. I say this as someone who really disliked the initial aesthetic. Here are 3 facts:
1. It outpulls an F350 Diesel (and an F150 lightning and Rivian R1T)
2. It outurns any vehicle due to rear-wheel steering
3. It is faster than ANY truck AND most sports cars (it beat a Porsche 911 while pulling a 911 on a trailer)
4. It is bulletproof. They showed footage of two different gun types shooting the car. I imagine you are going to have certain celbreties get one of these simply to "flex" as the cool kids say these days. Some people will also get it because they are in cities where drive by shootings DO happen frequently and you can at least duck inside your Cybertruck.
Now, believe it or not, but there are people who do work with trucks that really need to pull a lot of weight, and being able to pull a little more than the F350 is going to result in less trips, so functionally some people will get it just for that reason. Also, moving a truck on certain job sites is a PITA sometimes, and the all wheel turning is going to be like magic in some situations.
I would like to know the range when towing 11,000 lbs. In the full size market, I can only think of the Nissan Titan as having less than 12,000 lb tow rating. A base Ford F150 has a 14,000 rating. When you move up to diesels, you can easily tow 20,000+ lbs and even at 10,000 lbs you take very little hit on range if your load is somewhat aerodynamic. Pulling a full-size Airstream you can still get 20+mpg even in a small diesel like in the Chevy Colorado.
Other folks mentioned the frame or brakes as the reason for the low tow rating.
I imagine the cybertruck has a strong frame, Tesla has never gone cheap when it came to that sort of thing, and I'm sure the braking is fine for small loads. Most big loads require the trailer to have its own braking anyway, so that's almost a moot point, even in the biggest truck, I'm not pulling over 10,000 lbs without a proper brake controller. I'm guessing they set the rating at 11,000 lbs because anything over that and you probably end up with a very expensive 30 mile battery range. I would initially compare the cybertruck to something like a Tacoma which has more like a 7,000 lb towing capacity, but then you look at the weight of a cybertruck at 6800 lbs, the damn thing is nearly 2000 lbs heavier than a base F150. The curb weight of the biggest F150 you can get is only 5800 lbs, still 1,000 lbs lighter than the cybertruck.
The 11,000 may be limited by the suspension system.
So in terms of comparisons I don't think you're wrong, but it might be better to compare it to the F-150 Lightning for more of an apples to apples comparison. The F-150 Lightning Platinum vs Cybetruck AWD is probably the most fair comparison in terms of specs, but the CT is ~$20,000 cheaper
If we compare the F-150 Lightning Lariat with XR Battery to the Cybertruck AWD, because of price:
F-150:
Range: 320mi
Towing: 7,700lbs
Curb Weight: 6,361lbs
---
CT:
Range: 340mi
Towing: 11,000lbs
Curb Weight: 6,603lbs
---
F-150 Lighting Platinum to CT Cyberbeast, because of price:
I considered the Lightning and I really wanted to like it, but for a truck, I’d still rather have a diesel. I have a 36 gal tank, I can tow 20k+lbs, and I can beat the hell out of it and get it fixed anywhere.
I would love a PHEV truck though. Give me a 30 mile range for just driving it around unloaded and I’ll happily go into diesel mode whenever I have to do real work.
A different comparison would be the following (from the manufacturers sites)
----
Ford Lightning Pro: $50K
240 Mile EPA-Est. Range – Standard-Range Battery and RWD171
0-60 MPH in 4.1 seconds - Standard Range Battery\*
Wireless Integration with Apple CarPlay® and Android Auto™
12-inch Touchscreen
Mega Power Frunk
CT Rear-Wheel Drive: $61k
Available in 2025
250 MI. Range (EST.)
6.5 sec. 0-60 mph
very similar ranges and specs, but and CT is 10k more. Also, ships in 2 years.
Interior of a F-150 Platinum is way nicer than anything Tesla has ever made and that's where nearly all the $20,000 goes to (along with Ford's nice margin for a luxury truck).
Trim-to-trim equivalency hard to get since Tesla interiors are so spartan and each company is putting their money in difference places, but it's probably Lariat. Lariat big battery comes to about 76K compared to the true purchase price of 100K for cyberbeast.
Range hit from towing in an EV largely a factor of air resistance. Maxing out the weight with a small trailer is often less of a range hit than having a large but mostly empty trailer. Adding a lot of weight will cause some impact from rolling resistance but most of the extra energy use towing is aero drag.
For reference there's almost no range hit for maxing out the bed payload on a Lightning.
Yeah, reading my post, I didn't do a great job making the point I set out to. I was considering the size of the Cybertruck, wondering if Tesla were trying more for the Tacoma & Ranger sized truck market. I started to make that point and then looked up the weight of the Cybertruck and attempted (poorly) to use it as a metric for the size. I should've just used overall length, which would've been more clear and wouldn't have had the weight of the battery involved. Either way, at 223" inches, it is certainly in the full-sized market.
I like how it looks and I find it weird people seem to believe that their opinion is absolute truth and that anybody who doesn't hate it is wrong.
What I found the most surprising is that implies people don't actually believe cars on the road right now are ugly. Do people really look at SUVs and think "wow, is that thing pretty?"
> Do people really look at SUVs and think "wow, is that thing pretty?"
Nope. Current cars are pretty ugly.
But holy moly the Cybertruck is a whole new level of even uglier.
The rounded, bulbuous shape of modern cars finally made sense to me when I understood it was all about occupant safety in collisions and fuel efficiency. Modern cars have the shapes they do mostly for engineering reasons, not aesthetic reasons.
But the Cybertruck seems like what a solo road warrior cruising through a dystopian hellscape would drive while pirates try to take him out with machine guns. Fun in a movie, but not the vibe I want to put out in real life.
Funny because I think it’s weird that Tesla perma bull analysts automatically assume this car will be popular and sell millions without a single person actually receiving one or knowing the prices.
A reservation is $100 (refundable) or 1/10th of 1% of the purchase price. That's not a reservation, it's a thinly veiled attempt to pump the perceived success of this launch and share price. They know it, you know it, I know it, and the market knows it.
Talk to me when they require a 20% down payment and I'll believe the hype.
I've come to accept it for political stuff (abortion and gun rights), but I guess it didn't sink in for stuff that's clearly subjective like your favorite color or pizza topping.
Current SUV’s are crossover monstrosities. The 1996 Ford Explorer in forest green was absolutely beautiful. Nobody makes vehicles in forest green anymore. It’s sad.
* Except no manufacturer sells the base model. Plus they'll add their own add-ons like anti-rust that has no scientific basis. Also doesn't include the shipping cost. Also AC tax isn't included despite literally all cars having AC
The only manufacturer website I've seen that isn't super shady and actually includes shipping costs by default is Subaru for some reason.
If you shop around, I have always found a base model. 4 of the last 5 new cars I bought were base models. The exception was probably a mistake on my part. (It had a dealer installed sun roof that popped out on the highway at 6 years.)
I think they do it for the intentional Streisand effect.
In other words it generates a new thread on social media once in a while, with people talking about whether or not there are cost of ownership savings, with the truth generally coming down in Tesla's favor. And still regardless of how you interpret the cost equation, the controversy brings attention.
And more in line with Occam's razor it just spurs awareness in the user reading the web page. You could say "no, it deceives the user." I think it doesn't; more deceptive is having a published MSRP when dealers add thousands to that published price and lie about EVs while they sell legacy cars.
It wasn’t a direct quote but did you edit your comment? Pretty sure it was originally framed that MSRP was somehow evidence Tesla’s behavior is not simply misleading the customer. Apologies if you didn't edit and I just misread it the first go-around.
Anyway, it’s kind of silly to say MSRP is “more misleading” when MSRP literally stands for “manufacturer suggested retail price.” It says right there in the name the retail price may be higher or lower.
I don’t think this is some clever Streisand effect marketing ploy. It’s just slimy pricing practices.
If anything I’ve saved more on maintenance than is reflected in Tesla’s claims so really the savings they show don’t go far enough. Not to mention the savings from accidents averted by the automated active accident avoidance systems. It’s insane really how much better value for money there is.
Indeed... Pretty annoying that they assume your alternative to be an ICE and not bike/train/ev.
Perhaps they should provide an option for a hypothetical price comparison with train/bike? Not sure the marketing team would like how that comparison turns out through...
Except that, if you own the Tesla long enough, the savings per month will eat up the difference in cost between the Tesla and significantly cheaper cars.
Appliances with better energy efficiency don’t get to advertise a price different from what’ll ring up at the register just because they’ll cost less in electricity over time.
Cost of ownership is real but advertising a sticker price and including the difference in maintenance as part of that sticker price is just bad math.
Should cheaper ICE cars subtract from their sticker price the potential investment earnings of the money that you save versus buying a Tesla? Obviously not.
They don’t actually advertise that as the sticker price, for one thing: the page clearly states what the price is and gives you the option to switch to sticker price.
Secondly, I think the selling point of EVs is the TCO, even with today’s relatively expensive EVs, significantly less expensive all-gas cars end up being cheaper (and the Tesla is more appealing to me than hybrids, which frequently feel bad as someone who really likes to drive). But, it makes sense to me for the landing page to instruct the users about this (like Energy Star appliances do): the UX design might not be the best here, but it’s pretty hard to get all the way through the Tesla sales flow without being told clearly what the actual cost is.
Yes, but you are still paying $x. It's not savings and they should not mislead people in this way. You can have the _actual_ cost posted _and_ your "potential savings" but they should be separate.
FWIW: I've owned a Tesla for 6 years now and I'm pretty sure I still spent more than I would have buying like a Prius or Volt or one of the other hybrid vehicles I was looking at at the time.
Without actual miles driven it's impossible to make a meaningful comparison. My wife spends less on her minivan than my EV - but she's not driving to work every day (and she prefers to drive the EV when she can).
Call me crazy but I suspect you and your brother drive a different amount. $100/mo in a Tesla I ballpark at driving 1900 miles per month, so you're probably driving less than him, unless you get more than 150mpg in your hybrid.
Stainless steel exterior with sharp edges. Not looking forwarding to seeing pedestrians get gored when these things run into them. Not holding my breath on good crash compatibility with cars, either.
If you care about humans, you won't get one of these.
> According to EU auto standards expert Stefan Teller the Cybertruck would have to undergo “major modifications to the basic structure” because the Cybertruck “contradicts the European security philosophy.”
> ANCAP chief executive James Goodwin says the angular shape and stainless steel construction of the all-electric Cybertruck would likely pose risks to pedestrians and cyclists, which are among the most vulnerable road users and account for almost one in five fatalities.
Cybertruck won’t be sold much anywhere outside the USA and Canada.
There is a small but growing market in Australia for full-size American pickups, which are (expensively) converted to right-hand-drive in Australia by factory-backed conversion operators.
They’re essentially marketed as penis extenders to cashed-up older men.
Be interesting to see whether Tesla tries something similar; I suspect the customers for full-size pickups here in Oz want their vehicles to go brrrm.
I'll wait to see some credible pedestrian safety ratings rather than random eyeballing. American trucks are already designed to easily kill pedestrians; a lower shape where a pedestrian goes over rather than being knocked flat could well be less bad.
So height and angle are what matters, and it looks like this Tesla does better on height and no worse on angle than a typical US truck. Why exactly did you think it was particularly high risk for pedestrians again?
It is far worse than the trucks. It’s high, and has a negative rake. It’s like they tried to make the least safe shape possible for pedestrians. Guess they could fit a claymore on the front.
A low sharp front is what you want if you get hit by a vehicle at speed. A high blunt front might be less likely to break your legs but more likely to kill you.
"Sharp" as in "low to the ground", not a literal sharp angle. A car with a low, rounded front won't maim as badly as the Cybertruck's sharp angle aimed at your torso.
What the article calls "blunt" (the thing that kills peds the most) is pretty much what the Cybertruck maximized.
The people who would consider buying an F150 or a sprinter van are not the people who would buy a Cybertruck. Smaller bed, can't tow nearly as much, lower range. The dominant market for this truck is going to be people who may as well buy a Model 3.
I was thinking Model X. Tesla has all but forgotten they make a Model X. It is incredibly dated, incredibly flawed, and has a reputation for being an awful SUV from a maintenance and gremlins perspective.
But this decision makes sense if you consider the CT to be the replacement. Perfect for soccer moms and weekend warriors. Comfortable enough for day to day use and taking the family on a weekend trip, while still fitting your entire Costco haul.
Interesting that the marketing image on that page is clearly meant to suggest driving around on Mars. I think it is clear from the design and marketing that this truck is meant as a fashion statement not a work vehicle. It will be interesting to see if it catches on. I like some of the ideas used in the vehicle's construction, though I do not like how dangerous it appears to be for pedestrians.
If I made a prediction, it would be that lessons learned from the cybertruck will influence a new generation of vehicle designs. It seems to be a design that takes a lot of risks and tries new things, and I would expect some of that to stick. Tesla certainly has experience making vehicles and a desire to simplify and innovate, so I would expect at least something of this design to inspire new vehicle designs.
A lot of people are saying its ugly. I feel that way too though I am unsure if it will grow on me. But as much as people say that, I think it will catch on anyway. It's a very flashy fashion statement and I think that will appeal to people with money and those aspiring to look like they have more money than they do.
A quote I've seen attributed to Carl Sagan comes to mind, "But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
The Cybertruck is definitely different and attention grabbing. But there's good and bad versions of that and I really feel like this is the latter. Previous Tesla vehicles were also different and bucked certain traditional vehicle design trends but did so in a way that made them look like they were moving beyond current cars and legitimately belonged in the future.
The Cybertruck also looks like the future, but as envisioned by a SyFy movie of the week that stars Lorenzo Lamas and that ran out of money and built their future vehicle out of spray painted plywood sheets. There's quirky bad, it grows on you bad, and then just bad bad. I also find it reminiscent of the Pontiac Aztek and some quick Googling tells me I'm not the only one. This is perhaps not the comparison you want to evoke. I've never seen an in-developed product gets such a huge amount of derision of its visual design and then come out essentially unchanged. Maybe Elon and Tesla have vision far beyond everyone else on this point, but it's difficult to imagine the appeal of this outside of an extremely niche market...perhaps of people who were sad their Pontiac Aztek died and that it didn't cost them more money.
I actually saw an Aztek on the road yesterday, I was shocked
> The Cybertruck also looks like the future, but as envisioned by a SyFy movie of the week that stars Lorenzo Lamas and that ran out of money and built their future vehicle out of spray painted plywood sheets.
I'd argue not. Many trucks are driven by folks in the trades. If I were to guess, I'd put my money on SUVs having the largest fraction of users who rarely if ever push the vehicle to its limits. That or sports cars.
I doubt all these new trucks are for trades people. Honestly most tradespeople I see drive older trucks because they are beating them up anyway. There's a LOT of people driving trucks who are not trades people.
I’ve noticed large regional differences in truck prevalence (vs. more jeeps and even more SUVs, it seemed to my eye, in the relatively-low-truck regions) so that may be account for difference in perception.
In my part of the Midwest, the vast majority of trucks aren’t seeing truck-like use more than a countable-on-fingers number of days per year. A relatively small proportion are owned by tradespeople, who are at least as likely to drive a van-body vehicle as a normal truck, from what I’ve seen. Most are owned as status symbols, in-group signaling consumption, and (no joke, many owners will tell you this) so they’re more likely to “win” in a crash and/or so they feel bigger on the road (again, not mean-spirited speculation, I’ve repeatedly heard that cited as a reason to favor trucks, from truck owners)
Some of these folks will say they really need them for that handful of times a year they tow or haul, but the price and gas consumption difference vs a sedan would likely cover years and years of delivery fees, paid towing, lake slip fees, et c, so that’s not really what’s getting them to sign on the dotted line for these things.
It's a little hard to believe that's the primary market given the design trends in trucks that seemingly make them less attractive and useful to tradespeople while being more appealing to folks in the fashion accessory market.
For example, the trend of trucks getting more and more expensive with luxury features and interiors or the increasing popularity of short beds with giant cabins or the higher ride height that makes it more of a pain if you actually lift things in and out of the bed. Or even the enormous tall fronts that make it a lot more likely you're going to run over stuff you can't see. I'm not sure why anyone with an actual job related need for a truck would be driving those trends.
The ride height is useful for road visibility; you can actually see over the top of smaller vehicles. There are also unintended consequences from how a lot of car regulations are written.
I’d have agreed around the turn of the century but it’s really hard to believe that’s driving the current sales boom. I see new trucks all the time - as part of the morning commute, loaded with frills which wouldn’t hold up in a work environment, and in pristine condition. The actual tradesmen are driving vans and older trucks because those cost half as much. There’s a huge construction sight near me, and the actual workers are arriving on bike, bus, or carpool in a sedan – except for two fancy trucks parked near the foreman’s office, which are pristine (not even mud) and always parked in the same spot morning, lunch, or afternoon.
Now, I live in a city so I’d discount that except that we’ve spent a lot of time driving through rural areas (my son loves railroads) and the same trend holds there, although less intense. You see the pretty rancher cosplay trucks in the rich exurbs, and then when you cross into actual farm or mining country you see a lot fewer of the $70+k new ones and more beat up old trucks which are clearly heavily used, and almost 90s levels of smaller cars because they’re so much cheaper.
I feel like it already has limited social value except as a sort of MAGA hat for Elon. I predict it’ll have some rabid adherents but also develop a reputation as a vehicle for assholes - already in a lot of circles the Tesla brand has a negative association due to Elon behaving like a nepo bully.
This is the tragedy of Musk’s poor self control: there’s a fair chance a Jeep exec is nutty about something, but they’re smart enough to keep their mouths shut and not turn away customers. If he just stuck with the standard Republican mainstream, it’d be fine - everyone assumes rich dudes are voting for the people giving them tax cuts - but he just can’t stop publicly supporting wildly repulsive things which force people to ask whether they can stomach giving him money. The bar is so low and yet he can’t stop tripping over it…
Unfortunately now that Musk is ruler of one of the world's largest communication platforms it's becoming extremely difficult to ignore his increasingly polarized views. And even if you avoid them, other people will not.
I've seen these stickers too, and if you ever see one on a Model 3 or Y the owner is full of shit. Elon was in full-on crazy mode at the latest by 2017, well before either of these models even shipped to customers.
I wish I was just an allowed to like things, without people coming up with some BS, especially political, about why I shouldn't. I suspect the bigger problem will be people like you, being judgmental assholes, rather than the "assholes" just buying something they think is neat.
I'm mostly looking forward to cars/trucks maybe not looking the same as they have for the last 50 years.
> Which for most people includes making judgements about who you are based on the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the style of haircut etc.
But, it's important to understand that the people with some hairstyle aren't the assholes. That would be entirely on the people saying they're assholes for their choice of hair shaft placement.
> And buying a Cybertruck does imply that you either (a) agree with or (b) are ambivalent about Musk's behaviour.
I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
Cybertruck isn't even released yet, all the dates here are 2024.
Meanwhile, Ford 150 Lightning and Rivian actually exist (and have existed for literally years). You can't even properly call the Cybertruck a competitor until its truly available.
And the low-price model has a "might be released in 2025, we don't have the specs either" right there front and center. That's not competition, that's vaporware.
> Cybertruck isn't even released yet, all the dates here are 2024.
I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that only the purchase of a Cybertruck is related to this "behavior", but not a Model 3/Y/X/S, when you said:
> And buying a Cybertruck does imply that you either (a) agree with or (b) are ambivalent about Musk's behaviour.
Is there some Cybertruck related behavior I'm not aware of? Maybe you could state the behavior that Cybertruck and/or Tesla owners are supposedly agreeing with/ambivalent about?
EDIT: Anyone who is seriously considering a vehicle in this form factor is looking at F150 Lightning and/or Rivian right now. The $61k Cybertruck has a "maybe by 2025" date stamped right there, and the $80k Cybertruck says "2024" at the earliest, with no actual month specified.
I think we're all assuming that's "January 2024", but... none of us actually know that. If GM Silverado's EV comes into widespread production/release before Cybertruck its just going to be that much more hilarious.
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The _ONLY_ reason to consider Cybertruck is because you're into Elon's reality distortion field IMO. Anyone who needed a truck this year or last year already got one. And anyone thinking of one this month, or next month (barely: December 2023) ain't looking at Cybertruck either.
Being a Cybertruck fan right now is about trusting Elon and saying "Yeah, I think he's still got this", despite all the other crap he's been doing this year. At least Model X / Model 3 / etc. etc. fans can say they bought the car before Elon went full tilt crazy with Twitter/X.
> At least Model X / Model 3 / etc. etc. fans can say they bought the car before Elon went full tilt crazy with Twitter/X.
The model 3 and Y sold incredibly well throughout the entire year long after the Twitter/X stuff.
You’ll find out that most people don’t associate the cars with an endorsement for Elon outside of a small circle of internet outrage junkies.
The ones that do tend to be quite hypocritically buying services and goods from companies that make use of outsourced poor working condition manufacturing (Apple/Samsung/Google). It’s only an “endorsement” when it’s someone else buying from a bad man and when you don’t want to buy.
Presumably you’re also petitioning your representatives to cancel support for any SpaceX government contracts because you don’t want your tax dollars to fund SpaceX through NASA/NRO launch contracts?
Whatever specs and price you thought the Cybertruck was was completely wrong.
This is $20,000+ over the initially advertised price with -20% payload/towing capacity and we haven't even gotten to to 3rd party tests yet.
There is no $40,000 truck with 500 mile range here. The specs have come in grossly under what was hyped, while being years too late.
Why would anyone still be considering Cybertruck now? The vaporware even continues for a couple more months since we still don't have a published start of sales date.
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If we get rid of specs and the promises/hype made, what is left is just politics and/or trust in Elon. And you have to get rid of specs to be pro-Cybertruck now because F150 Lightning is available, cheaper and well reviewed.
> Why would anyone still be considering Cybertruck now?
Because of its design and access to super charger network. The F150 lightning is absolute trash and if the Cybertruck turns out to have similar performance, most interested people will just be skipping electric trucks and going for gas.
My local Ford lots are packed with both used and new lightnings because it turns out people don’t like an effective 120 mile range in cold/hot weather without even brining the joke towing range into account.
You can be incredulous at the price, which is fine. But if you can’t possibly imagine why anyone would want to buy this, you’re not trying very hard.
> The vaporware even continues for a couple more months since we still don't have a published start of sales date.
Some customers have them now. That’s not vaporware anymore. Put down the axe you need to grind and be happy companies are trying to disrupt the gas truck market, because as of right now the options aren’t moving the needle.
This aged very poorly. Did you not realize that the opening event we were commenting on delivered trucks to customers?
> Ford Maverick is doing wonders actually, and as a 40MPG Hybrid, it's probably got more environmental friendliness than most people realize.
This isn’t a truck in the category we are talking about. The people who buy f-150,250,350s are not getting Mavericks, electric or not.
I think your confusion might be around thinking that trucks are just cars with an open trunk area. If you don’t tow things, none of this will make sense to you and you should stop commenting.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
We are quite aware and there is plenty of competition now. A lot of us are canceling orders after being burned by Tesla policies, poor customer service, poor vehicle quality, unmet commitments, fantasy autopilot capabilities, etc.
It's just a heuristic I'm not gonna judge someone solely based on it but yeah seeing someone drive up in their Cybertruck won't give me the best of first impressions.
> I don't believe most Tesla owners are aware of this. Most that I know see an obvious choice in a product with no real competition.
Model 3 is a weaker heuristic because there was less competition at the time and less people knew about who Elon really was, but if you are driving a cybertruck I can't help but assume you're a sucker or it's some kind of political statement
Sure but the person judging the clothes you wear, the car you drive, the style of haircut etc. certainly is silly to try to make themselves the non-asshole in this story.
You know that's a good point. I know everyone in my circles will feel that way. You can get away driving a normal Tesla but this one is really going to say something in particular. That you also have this sort of immature brash attitude that has led to Musk's negative public opinion. So you are right that might tank the product.
The folks who buy EVs as a fashion statement and those who buy flashy trucks as a fashion statement seem to have very little overlap. I suppose the plan is to bridge that gap and expand their market. I'm skeptical that it will be a success, but Elon is world class as getting money from people so I won't be surprised if it works out for Tesla.
Everyone with a brain knows this is a vanity project by a very rich person who can do whatever he wants. The success doesn't matter. I don't think that's a good or bad thing, it's just a thing. If anything it demonstrates what a bored rich nerd can do for fun. I guess I might do something like that if I had billions to throw around, maybe I'd just make one for myself though, and not an entire product line that would put my main source of wealth at risk. Or maybe I wouldn't. Hard to say how warped billions would make my mind.
I'm no defender of Musk, but he (and the people working for him) seem pretty serious about making Tesla and SpaceX enduring companies. And honestly, if I had billions to throw around I might want to build rockets and replace ICE cars too.
Having said that, I simply cannot contort myself enough to pretend he is not deliberately tanking Twitter.
I don't disagree with you at all. He has hired very brilliant people and it is easy to list a dozen things that would have taken decades or more to happen if he hadn't gone full nerd-billionaire and thrown gobs of money at his passions. Whether or not Musk himself is smart is besides the point: he took his childhood dreams and spent big money to make them happen. Who wouldn't do that?
That being said I think he's an evil POS, and I think the biggest struggle popular culture is having is that of simple naratives: people are all-or-nothing, black-or-white. It's possible someone can be a crapoid earthling and still cause beneficial things to happen in spite of who they are. That's a hard pill to swallow from either direction, and I have a very tough time with it! I personally don't think the ends justify the means here, but that's because of where I set my bar. Other bars may vary.
Are there issues with EVs on dirt or gravel roads? I've lived in a rural area where driving on both was neccesary and we never gave any thought to what car we were driving.
Funny that the cheaper model's 0-60 time is listed as "4.1 SEC. 0-60 MPH", but the more expensive model is listed as "2.6 SEC. 0-60 MPH With rollout subtracted."
The whole rollout for 0-60 thing is a big fuss in the car magazine subculture - instead of counting zero to 60 from a standstill, they now count zero to 60 in a drag race style, where you have to trip the starting light by going forward a foot or two.
What that most likely means is that the fastest model doesn't have enough grip to keep the tires from spinning off the line, so they are basically spinning the tires for a fraction of a second (or longer) and then once they start to move forward, they start counting the 0-60 time. I imagine if you did the same for the cheaper model, it's 0-60 time would look better as well.
Rollout is a part of many standard tests, even if it makes little sense when it basically means a 0-60 is more like a 5-60 or 10-60. But what makes it sketchy is that Tesla selectively excludes it in the specs for the top end models of cars to make it seem like there is an even greater performance gap.
This whole thing stinks of misleading and misdirection, once again. Don't take 5-to-60 times and mislead / misdirect people into thinking it was a 0-to-60 time.
The wheels aren't spinning without traction, that results in a terrible 0-60 time.
Rollout originated from the practical reality of measuring with a starting beam - the tire doesn't stop breaking the beam until after it's started moving. With modern GPS data loggers and other corrections the use of rollout is just to lie about the 0-60 time to make it seem better than it is. Like the Model S Plaid wouldn't get to claim a 0-60 of under 2 seconds without that cheat code.
Think of it like a microbenchmark. Acceleration for the first second or so is dominated by tire/road traction. Acceleration at non-trivial speed is governed by drive train power.
Which measurement you take depends on what subsystem you want to measure. Drag nuts like tuning engines (which can be done in their shops with a high school education) and not choosing tire compositions (which requires a tire factory, and likely some polymer chemistry expertise).
Car enthusiasts benchmark both 0-to-60 and 5-to-60 because that rollout can change the behavior of various cars.
What we have here is Tesla taking the 5-to-60 time and pretending its a 0-to-60 time. Rollout is fine and all, just ya know, be honest about it. Call it a 5-to-60 time.
> Rollout is fine and all, just ya know, be honest about it. Call it a 5-to-60 time
Are they not honest? It says so right in the spec quote. Why is "5-to-60" honest but "with rollout subtracted" dishonest? One is jargon and the other English, but I think you have to stretch really hard to read in an attempt to deceive here.
Because everyone who knows something about cars knows that 5-to-60 times are easier to do than 0-to-60 times.
Taking the "easier" test and trying to call it the harder 0-to-60 test is just misleading fundamentally. Especially to car culture who has had these standard terms for the last 50 years (or longer).
0 means "Dead stop". Its difficult, it depends on extremely good tires to grip and other parts of the car that are hard to get right. It also rarely comes up in a race, so the 5-to-60 time is actually more useful in a lot of racing scenarios. So yeah, 5-to-60 is a good test. But just don't call it the 0-to-60 time (or torture the language / invent new words as if we're dumbasses and can't see the marketing bullshit going on).
From engineering explained the difference in the rollout for some fast cars is about 0.2-0.3 seconds on top of the actual number. Here’s the video https://youtu.be/9LTq45o0ttQ
Couldn't software gradually increase power to match the grip of the tires and prevent spinning? Or would that slow it down because a spinout 0-60 (not counting rollout) is faster that a "perfect throttle" 0-60?
> Couldn't software gradually increase power to match the grip of the tires and prevent spinning?
Traction prediction is dependent on surface characteristics [1]. You need the vehicle to not only identify the surface, but also predict the vehicle-surface interface and adjust its assumptions as tyre meets road.
It's worth doing. But it's noisy enough that it wouldn't be meaningful for a quoted statistic. (Disclaimer: I've only done this for aircraft on runways, and then only academically.)
Not for take off (or not only for take off), but Audi does this on some of its high end cars (RS 7, etc.) - the vehicle is actively sensing the road, and adjusting for grip, surface, camber and problems (it can actively avoid potholes, for example).
That works, it's called launch control. It's just not as important as it is with ICE engines if you can supply enough power to the motors. Subtracting rollout will always give a lower number though, and it's easier.
It can. Modern traction control will reduce power when it detects wheel slip. The problem is they choose a slightly conservative threshold, so you end up losing power.
High performance almost always wants this stuff off so humans can use skill/judgment to push it to the limit.
Elon did his usual "escape forward" trick but in the end this iteration does not deliver what was promised.
I reserved a $40k truck in 2019 that was supposed to be much easier to manufacture than regular cars - hence the relatively good price. No expensive paint shop, much easier line to make body panels of cold rolled steel bent into shape. Exaskeleton from a single. Industrial design, no side mirrors, no wipers. 6 passengers.
We should ask ourselvelves are the original promises still possible under a different package? And please make it road legal for Europeans with a regular driving licence.
I hadn't heard the term "escape forward" before. It's a great way to describe what I previously didn't have the words to, thanks!
> from the French: fuite en avant. It means: “an escape forward.” The idea is basically this: you escape a disaster by moving on quickly. Alas, most of the time, you're moving quickly to the next disaster.
I see from the photos it will have side mirrors now, so no side cameras after all. Still haven't heard anything about crash testing, which I'm curious about since thick stainless steel isn't what one would usually associate with crumple zones. To be sure, I wouldn't want to be hit by one if I were a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
Crash tests are shown in the release videos. It'll probably end up with a pretty decent rating. 3mm stainless steel will crumple when confronted with several tons of weight behind it.
It's my understanding good front end crash tests are a bit simpler for ev's because you aren't worried about a 300 lb chunk of cast iron coming through to the front of cabin.
> Pedestrians be dammed apparently. This is merica.
With that shape and with steel panels there is absolutely zero change of survival for pedestrians with this. You are hit, you are dead.
I thought the SUV mega monster trend was a huge setback in Vehicle Design but somehow Tesla found a way to surpass that.
We have set ourselves so far back. It will be decades into the future before we are able to reverse this reptilian brain meme of vehicle arm's race purchases'.
Side mirrors are required by law, but they were supposed to be easily removable after delivery (which is legal). We'll see if that made it into the final version.
> I wouldn't want to be hit by one if I were a pedestrian in a crosswalk
That, and I would also not want to be hit by one of these in my little hatchback. I'm already terrified by F150 and up, this will be the same but heavier and more likely to let me deal with all their kinetic energy. Put that with the irresponsible power that they've put in, and the kind of driver this kind of car is attracting, this is bad news.
As with everything (including knowledge about a particular subject), there's a spectrum. So it's not like cars don't kill pedestrians, but some do it better than others [0]. The cybertruck looks like the kind of car that's more efficient at killing pedestrians than say a Prius.
> *Prices assume IRA Federal Tax Credits up to $7,500 for Rear-Wheel Drive and All-Wheel Drive and est. gas savings of $3,600 over 3 years.See Details
Now, that’s amusing. So they exhibit not the real price of the car? But a hypothetical “price after savings” assuming the tax credits will still exist at the time, and that the buyer is going to stop using their gas car and use the cybertruck the exact same miles?
What have we come to?
Marketing engineering has gone bonkers! Don’t the US have any regulations that state that car price should be well “what it costs any customer to buy in cash at the time of purchase”?
You're looking at the second tab, "probable savings." Switch to the first tab, "purchase price," and the footnote changes from the one you quoted to this:
> All prices are shown without incentives or est. 3-year gas savings.
Probably the same reason that grocery store shelves and circulars show the price with a loyalty card more prominently than the price without a loyalty card: since most people will end up paying that, it's a better number to use when comparison shopping against stores that don't have a loyalty card. Granted, it only works well for comparison shopping if other loyalty card retailers follow suit (highlighting the discounted price that has minor strings attached) but they all do; therefore so long as other EV makers also do this same thing, it works.
This comparison is only half valid because in Teslas case they not only reduced the showed price by "IRA Federal Tax Credits" but also "est. gas savings of $3,600 over 3 years".
What Tesla did is like Apple showing probalbe savings prices when buying a MacBook because they use less power than "avarage windows laptops".
A lot of the specs have changed since their initial reveal of the Cybertruck, but it still looks as ugly as they promised it would. So, at least in that respect, Tesla has lived up to their promises, and it's only right to salute them for that.
It is extremely misleading to include gas savings as a reduction in purchase price. If anything that should be used as a comparison of overall operating costs and cost more than the purchase price but not as much more as the gas competitor.
No, they didn't. From the details page: "We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck. We've also assumed the national average of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity (assumed for 100% of charging) and $3.30 per gallon for gasoline over the next three years."
I've been filling up with e85 gasoline for $2.99 a gallon in California. not sure how common vehicles are that can run on e85, but mine is a 2007 model.
And in Georgia you can get EV charging at home for as low as 1.7 cents per KWH. Unless they're going to let you enter your zip code and use a national power company rate database along with local gasoline prices, using the national averages seems reasonable.
For home electricity? Maybe during the peak of '22, certainly not now: I pay around 0.25€/kWh on average per month via Tibber in Germany. Most new contracts are closer to 0.28€/kWh according to the Zeit Energymonitor at the moment.
So the $40K CyberTruck is actually $61,000 and works on the assumption of tax credits being available at the end of 2025, 2 years from now... oh, and we've gone back to the bullshit of "subtracting gas costs from the "probable price"."
Another Elon lie. Four, nearly five years after initial claims - meant to be available in 2021, and 52% more expensive.
The brake lights might be tied with the Mini for the worst/least intuitive brake lights in history (the Mini has the left light with the left half of the Union Jack, i.e. looks like a right arrow, and the right light with the right half, looking like a left arrow, while the Cyber Truck actually turns OFF lights on the light bar to signify braking is happening, and turns them ON when no braking is happening).
The tax credit timeframe is already written into law, though? Of course Congress can't constrain itself so it could always cancel (or double!) those credits, but it seems pretty reasonable to rely on what the law currently says.
Fixed that. Thanks. Love those dark patterns. I'd gone with Purchase Price + Federal Tax. Of course Tesla has also thrown in $3,600+ on "probable gas savings".
Probable gas savings is odd, because they also base some of their comparisons on an arbitrary 20mpg for ICE. "We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck"
Odd, because let's see: the Honda Ridgeline starts at 21mpg, and getting better from there, Tacoma, Tundra, Ranger, Gladiator, Ram 1500 (now we're at 25mpg), F-150, Silverado, Sierra 1500. So you're comparing against 7 or 8 of the best selling pickups, and yet using an MPG that is lower than ... all of them ... for comparative purposes. Not misleading at all.
I have a recent year F-150 and I basically never get more than 20 MPG. Actually I almost always get nearly exactly 20 MPG, it's not a bad estimate in my subjective experience.
Wouldn't the first truck's range be significantly reduced by the additional weight? The second truck will have to tow a third fully charged truck to get us to 500 miles.
That's the kind of math you use Tsiolkovsky rocket equation for.
Best would be to do the EV equivalent of asparagus staging - you have all trucks providing acceleration, but trucks 1 and 2 are also being recharged by truck 3. You then jettison it once its battery runs dry, leaving you with trucks 1 and 2, the latter also charging the former. Again, drop truck 2 as it runs out of juice. This lets you get rid of excess mass as early as possible, maximizing the benefit of extra batteries and thrust.
Falcon Heavy was supposed to, in early designs, but they abandoned this idea due to the complexity involved - fuel would need to be pumped, which means complex flow dynamics + extra hardware that could fail (and catastrophically so).
Outside of KSP and some rocketry books, I haven't seen it.
Right, but remember you can also subtract the combined length of all these cybertrucks from the 500 mile target. So there's a sweet spot in there somewhere around the 400 car mark.
> With the ability to pull near infinite mass and a towing capability of over 14,000 pounds, Cybertruck can perform in almost any extreme situation with ease.
This is direct quote from the Tesla site from 3 weeks ago.
It’s now 11,000lbs on the linked page. More Musk bullshittery.
parent ignored "pulling infinite mass", I believe, and was pointing out the significant reduction in towing capacity. 14,000lbs sounded like a promised specification.
Wow this article is pretty severely ratiod. 247 points and 768 comments as of now.
A couple years ago Tesla could do no wrong on HN. Considering this introspectively, it’s a good reminder of how susceptible we are to boom/bust hype cycles.
I look at this thing and can't help thinking "where will someone set down their coffee mug when their hands are full and they need to open the door?" There isn't a flat surface on it.
It’s huge, weighs three tons, has the acceleration of a supersport, has only sharp edges. Like your usual US truck, but somehow even more asocial. If this was construction equipment or any other kind of machinery, you’d need so much training and insurance to just be allowed to touch it.
Have you seen the massive flat surface on the front of pretty much every pickup? It seems like if anything the hood angle would make it better than those.
Last I looked it was more of a design company than an actual car manufacturer. They seem to have a prototype, but I have doubts it'll ever arrive. Hope to be wrong.
That’s the estimated price for delivery in 2025. Things could change by then.
Also, we’re talking about a new industry here because of which a lot of costs are also likely facing downwards pressure (so, for example, batteries are almost certainly cheaper today than they were 4-5 years ago).
Edit: This has caught me by surprise but EV battery prices seem to have started going up in constant dollars. It’s still lower than in 2019, so the nominal dollars are probably slightly lower than 2019, but I haven’t been following this for a few years and assumed battery prices were still going down in constant dollars.
Yeah, but service takes weeks to months, body panels may or may not align, and I'm 173% positive that hardware that was paid for, will be put behind a subscription wall, just like the rest of the Tesla fleet.
While I'm not a fan of this truck, Tesla remains the issue.
God I am so disgusted by trucks as virtue/status signaling. This is just that turned up to 11. I really wish we just recognized cars as transportation and built them for that purpose, while providing alternatives. Such a misallocation of resources.
I'm a person who needs transportation, is building a house, has a family, and likes to go camping. 1 truck serves all my needs, particularly for the building a house thing. I can carry a full bed of tools, or haul plywood + drywall. I can also fit my big kayaks and camping gear.
A truck gives you so much freedom and flexibility to do real work, it is very empowering. I understand that many people buy a truck and don't actually utilize all its capabilities, but there are those of us that do.
For a person like me, what is the alternative world you envision? As an end user, what am I supposed to do to build my own house? Should I be forced to pay professionals to haul things and do work for me? Should professional trades people be the only ones allowed to own these types of vehicles?
> God I am so disgusted by trucks as virtue/status signaling
If you own a truck for its utility then my statement doesn't apply to you. They are utility vehicles. I can safely say thought that a majority of people who own them live in the suburbs and don't use them for their intended purpose. They are just used to signal status.
Yes I do agree that a lot of people don’t utilize their utility and just drive them because they are large and comfy. It’s silly. It’s hard to differentiate these people though, sometimes I drive my truck with the bed empty, and just by looking at me you wouldn’t know I was the type of person who uses it for its intended purpose most of the time.
It’s difficult to judge unless you actually know people that own these type of cars.
Anyway, I was just curious what you thought the solution to the problem was, since I agree that it’s silly many people own these things but don’t need them, but also they are a very empowering tool for others. It kind of seems like a tradeoff we make.
> It’s difficult to judge unless you actually know people that own these type of cars.
Sure this is true, but living in Texas I can tell you most people do not need them, and pay for them as status symbols. There are more trucks today than there have ever been, and fewer people working jobs that need them. The explosion in growth comes from marketing.
As for just truck-centric solutions, I'd say there needs to be a minimum bed size limit and some sort of ratio for bed size to cab/engine size. There is no reason that 2/3rds of the truck is not bed. Trucks should be at least 50% bed. If a truck is a utility vehicle it doesn't need to look sexy, it can look like a Kei truck.
Trucks should also have height limits and be tested for visibility. If you cant see a child or a coupe next to your truck, it is too high. Not to mention that high beds suck for utility compared to low beds.
I think trucks should be designed so that the only reason you would ever own a truck is if you needed to move things. If you want something "manly" trucks should be so utilitarian that they don't even factor into consideration.
In my younger days I thought it would be neat to build an electromagnetic grapple to latch onto semi trucks. Add even more drag with the alternator to power the magnet. Perhaps even some control loop to maintain a close distance without actually touching. With an electric vehicle it seems even better because you could add even more drag and recharge.
How come the "Cyberbeast" model has the same 11k lbs Towing Capacity as the "All Wheel Drive" version ($30k cheaper)? The Cyberbeast has significantly more Torque at 10,296 lb-ft vs. "All Wheel Drive" at 7,435
Towing capacity is generally limited by things like the frame, braking capacity, and cooling capacity.
If you hook any automatic transmission truck up to a really heavy trailer (100,000 pounds) you can probably move it around, but if you try to actually tow it anywhere the truck will either overheat or crash into something when you can't stop it going down a hill.
Torque really only determines how fast you can accelerate the load, not how much you can tow on the road.
Also, EV "torque" specs are not comparable to traditional car torque specs because they're measured differently (ICE measured at the engine before the transmission multiplies torque to the wheels, EV measured directly at the wheels)
Towing capacity is not a function of torque alone. You need to be able to brake your load, keep it stable behind the car and have enough juice on board to actually get it somewhere.
I apologize for adding to a load of already good answers, but towing capacity is often limited by tongue weight limits (how much weight is sitting on the tow hitch, and thus supported by the suspension), which should be 10-15% of the total payload. While it seems like they could just balance the trailer and reduce tongue weight, if it is below 10% the payload becomes extremely dynamically unmanageable.
The other limits come into play too -- torque, brakes, etc -- but tongue weight on suspension is often why there is a mismatch like this.
11kish is usually ther upper limit of most half ton pickups. Probably a function of what the frame can handle.
But Towing 11k on that thing is already going to tank your range to ~100 miles. I couldn’t imagine towing our camper with this thing (and the design is stupid enough that you probably can’t tow a fifth wheel right the cybertruck anyway)
The main reason I was considering the CT was the promise of 500 mile range. My biggest issue with ~300 mile range is that I can't go anywhere for actual adventures because there isn't enough charge for a round trip.
Steer by wire sounds like a disastrous idea to me, especially in a car made with attention to detail of Tesla.
I'm not even sure where to start. It's less reliable, surely it must be (at least without significant investment into QA and redundancy). A physical wheel physically connected to bits turning the wheels, well, the power steering can do, but you can still turn the thing.
Then, it's all software driven. And it can't be air-gapped, because surely the various driver assistance programs need to turn the wheel. But so if the crappy OTA-updated software crashes, I can't steer? Or steering reverts, or who knows what.
Finally, I'm not holding my breath on a new membership option including "you can steer your car again".
I'm no Luddite, I'm keen for what technology can do for us, but some places I don't want it.
Usually the critical features are somewhat "air-gapped". For example, I can restart my Model X computer, the screen will turn black 100%, and many key functions still work.
None of the computers that are required to drive the car actually turn off when you reboot the computer that drives the dash/console display.
I lost pneumatic steering during a turn, and it nearly tore my arm off. Not sure most people would be able to drive over a few mph without powered steering.
Hopefully the steer by wire systems are backed by another steer by wire system, so it would be terrible luck if you lost both at the same time.
What car are you driving that has pneumatic steering?
Also, in my experience driving cars with unassisted steering, it's steering at parking speeds that is difficult, steering at speeds above about 10 mph is fairly easy.
The incident happened in the early 2000s and the car was Buick LeSabre from the 80s. I am no expert, so maybe it was some other steering assist technology, but it definitely wasn't easy to finish the turn without it.
Given that my backup camera lags half the time I use it on my Model Y, I'm also not excited about this. But perhaps they'll have solved the whole real time thing in the process.
Not totally. They have two redundant computers in the control loop. But they worked out this was a shitty idea if there was a failure so there are mechanical and electrical backup systems. Whilst "fly by wire" technically speaking they don't involve a computer in the loop.
I'd still rather have a totally mechanical backup.
>Not totally. They have two redundant computers in the control loop. But they worked out this was a shitty idea if there was a failure so there are mechanical and electrical backup systems. Whilst "fly by wire" technically speaking they don't involve a computer in the loop.
What's the basis for that claim? Even in direct-law, there's still a computer in the path. In aircraft with the BCM, that's still a flight control computer, albeit one that's separate from the primary/secondary flight control computers.
Tell me you have zero flight time or aircraft engineering experience without telling me you have zero flight time or aircraft engineering experience. This is no different from Trump claiming he wanted "damn steam" for aircraft carrier catapults despite electromagnetic ones having clear advantages. This isn't 1969 anymore.
I do actually but that's irrelevant. It's an engineering trade-off. In a car, it's a stupid one because its built to a cost profile not a safety profile.
You can't compare a $200m Airbus to a whatever it's going to cost but is being lied about vanity machine kicked out by a vendor with a history of software problems.
Actually the risk profile is probably higher on the damn car.
I don't understand the appeal of a massive electric truck. Why won't someone make a Bugatti model 39, with electric hub motors and 200km of range. I would have that as a daily driver any day.
After reading the Isaacson bio, it smells like a surge by Elon after the whole anti-semitic tweet fiasco. It's a repeating theme, self-inflicted SNAFU - surge - new product/idea etc.
I love the style of the cybertruck. But I will never buy a car that large. It's ridiculous. I hope they will make a car in the same style that isn't totally ridiculous.
Every full size pick-up truck defaults to a 6-6.5' foot bed size (in modern times). Some offer 8' beds but it's relatively rare in practice (as in, most people opt for a quad/crew cab without the long bed). All of them can handle 8' plywood with the bed down, just like this 6' bed on the Cybertruck. Even the Ford Maverick can handle an 8' sheet of plywood by using an adjusted-height tailgate and the wheel wells.
Trucks are meant to haul. Anything with less than an 8' bed are truck-shaped cars for all practical purposes and should be taxed accordingly because they're a waste of resources and contribute to the decline of the environment. Crew cabs are just an excuse to drive around in something truck-shaped. The term is carpool not truckpool. If you're driving to and from a job site with others in the vehicle, it's either part of the fleet or you're not getting paid enough.
WTF? Doesn't your truck have a Hayman-Reese hitch, anti swaybars, various carry racks; don't you have several different trailers - single and double axle, light weight and heavy tonnage, caravans and animal floats?
I'm starting to wonder if, in fact, you've got any kind of working vehicle setup at all.
Crew cabs are so you can haul a fire pump trailer out to spot blazes with four people, tools, along with bulk water tank pumps, etc.
Typically W.Australian setups haul trailers and often use vans, private and fleet.
The advantage of towing is you can have multiple preset ready to go "job type" trailers | floats | caravans that can be detached at work area, leaving vehicle free to travel elsewhere.
I'm just pushing back at the GP insistance on the "one true" working vehicle setup and dislike for crew cabs - getting people to unpaved sites across fields and scrambling is pretty much the reason for getting any kind of high clearance vehicle, be it 2WD or 4WD.
Used to have an old crew cab with 8’ bed, but it was too long for our driveway. I loved that truck, crew cab and all. But that was years ago. I live in an area prone to wildfires, so I can understand the need for 4WD, etc. We have two SUVs in the driveway, but I don’t call them trucks.
I grew up in the Kimberley in the 1960s|70s, our work vehicles included bull buggies (stripped down | rebuilt for purpose vehicles, often 2WD) and Robinson R22's (light helicopters), horses, prime movers, regular cars and trailers, scrub bikes, etc.
1. A bed for hauling.
2. The ability to tow.
3. Off-road capability.
If you value 2 & 3 more than 1, a short bed can be very reasonable. Hell, if you're hauling things that aren't dimensional lumber -- for instance, dirt and gravel -- you're only going to get that 8 foot bed about half full before you exceed the weight capacity of the bed.
Meanwhile, if you have kids, not having a second row to throw car seats into is a bigger limitation than having to leave the tailgate down to pick up plywood.
> The standard bed of a pickup truck is typically 6'5" long
(So... yup.)
I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds. Sure there are people that buy regular cab, 8' beds, and even some serious professionals that get an HD crew cab with the 8' bed (which is a monstrously long truck!) But in general that is not what I see. Thus... "rare."
"Standard" does not mean "the average". That's a marketing term of art. You won't see "Standard" beds on jobsites. You'll see long beds, because you can fit a sheet goods in them.
> I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds
Sure. And I would agree that the trucks you see on job sites are, by necessity, more "practical" truck buyers than what is typical. That doesn't mean it's what most truck buyers buy though. (Since way more people buy trucks than those driving them to job sites.)
I’d say around 1% of new pickup trucks have an 8’ bed, if that. You ever seen a super duty (1-ton) crew cab truck with an 8’ bed? They’re like 22-23’ long, it’s ridiculous.
Not being able to carry sheet goods in the bed is something it shares virtually every other truck on the road. On a short-bed regular truck, you can get a roof rack along with posts that go in the back corners of the bed to create a rack capable of holding sheet goods, pipe, lumber, ladders, etc.
Regardless, why would you schlep around sheet goods in a pickup bed when you can have the supply house deliver them? The contractors I work with don’t waste time running to Home Depot to buy material, it’s delivered to the site by a supply house, courier, or company truck.
You can't get a Toyota Tacoma with an 8 ft bed, which IMO is the most practical truck model. An 8ft bed truck that can only carry 3 passengers is not very practical.
I regularly purchase 8'x4' sheet goods in my Tacoma with no issue.
That’s why I rent the Home Depot truck with the 10’ bed for $25. Manufacturers found people want a second row instead of a longer bed at some point, must have been some convincing A/B testing in the 90s.
There are a couple of cars: Plymouth Prowler, Chrysler PT Cruiser, Volkswagen new Beetle, and now Tesla Truck
… that after initial splash will look super lame, fad-ey, gaudy, and dorky. Close your eyes and visualize two Plymouth Prowlers next to each other at the red light - it’s going to look just like that.
I hope they follow it up with a stylish but otherwise classy looking variant.
I wonder how is the second-hand market for PT Cruisers…
It's all very subjective. I love them. I hope there is a version 2 at some point (I am not a Tesla/Musk fan boy, I just want to see what might be next).
I honestly think Musk kicked the designers out of the room and said "how hard can this be?", Then took up a pencil and ruler and drew exactly what you see, and told everybody "This is what we're building because it fucking rocks". It doesn't. It's a 12 year old boy's shitty drawing of dream car, and I guarantee you that his drawing included lots of stupid specs and measurements in a box to the side of it. And his name and age, bottom right.
Any resources people could share about the engineering of the cybertruck? I don’t know too much about cars in general but I want to know if there is anything interesting in this one.
Most trucks are body-on-frame, i.e. there's a structural frame with a non-structrual body on top. Tesla claims to use an "exoskeleton" approach, which is either a fancy name for unibody or something that goes beyond the unibody approach.
They're also using unpainted 3mm stainless steel directly on the exterior. Painted thin sheet surfaces are much easier to fix when dented (since you can use filler and hide it with the paint).
One downside is that these two things make any damage to the Cybertruck expensive or impossible to fix.
Their production method (relying on massive die cast presses) isn't specific to the Cybertruck, but the presses that were supposed to be meant for Cybertruck apparently were setting new records.
EuroNCAP has a standardized 'Vulnerable Road User' (VRU) test protocol since at least 2012. [0]
This vehicle will absolutely fail every single specified test.
Anyone buying this should first come to terms with the fact that it is not a rational purchase, rather than trying to post-rationalize reasons to do so.
I ordered mine for resale the second it was available.
The more of a Clusterfuck this is the more valuable they will be to the current breed of nihilist capitalists.
Knowing you can’t resale for a year again, just ensures demand for Gen 1 Cybertruck will just be delayed but increases the scarcity fears of people who actually care for some reason.
Reselling cult members their own merch is old magic
> Prices assume IRA Federal Tax Credits up to $7,500 for Rear-Wheel Drive and All-Wheel Drive and est. gas savings of $3,600 over 3 years.
This seems like a new low in scammy marketing. I can't wait for everything to have wildly undermarked prices with small asterisks saying it's when you subtract all the ways it will save you money in the long term.
They also do this thing at the top of their product page [0] where they say 11,000 lbs towing capacity, 340 mi. range (estimated), 2.6 sec 0-60 mph (with leadout). But they aren't selling a truck with those exact specs. The AWD has a 340 mi. range (est.) and a 4.1 0-60 and the Cyberbeast has a 320 mi. range (est.) and a 2.6 0-60 mph (with leadout). They pick the best attribute from each to highlight on the top of their product page. Note that they also advertise one model's 0-60 with leadout and one without so the difference between them looks more substantial than it is.
If you switch the site to Australia[0] you'll notice they don't do this - it's because by consumer law they're not allowed to, and you have to quote the "drive away price"
You can't even deduct the various gov rebates or tax exemptions; only mention that you _may_ qualify.
They have a smaller and lower contrast "after cost savings" at the bottom of the page - but the price on the site is the price, as it damn well should be.
I'm looking at insurance plans and it is the same story, they show price as if you get the maximum govt assistance, even if I put in $1M for annual income.
I see this style of price hiding more prevalent everywhere. Too much psychology and dark patterns have invaded everything we do. I cannot count how many times I click a cool new open source project link on HN, see a pricing page, and find a "monthly" price with an astrix and toggle to see the real monthly price
In most (32) states there are extra fees added to yearly EV registration to compensate for the lack of gas tax revenue, but Tesla never includes them in their calculations. Insurance costs and tire wear are usually much higher for Teslas, too. Neither does Tesla include the costs of the charger or the electrician's installation fees (~$1,000). Supercharging fees on road trips are completely ignored. It's also highly unlikely that anyone considering the purchase of these cars meets federal tax credit income thresholds ($7,500). Borderline fraudulent.
You can't claim it if you make more than "$300,000 for a household, $150,000 for an individual or $225,000 for a head of household" [1]. That describes a decent fraction of the Cybertruck's target market.
Yes but the new method transfers the tax credit to the dealer, who then gives you a discount off the purchase price. Seems possible that the purchaser income limit wouldn't apply when it's the dealer taking the credit. All the articles I've seen say we're still waiting for complete IRS guidance though.
> possible that the purchaser income limit wouldn't apply when it's the dealer taking the credit
The credit changes when you get the cash, not its eligibility [1]. If the dealer mistakenly gives you the credit, it will be added back--with interest and penalties--when you file. (The dealer reports it, so if someone forgets to include it in their filing it will accrue penalties and interest until the IRS gets around to collecting.)
Some people get credit on your taxes, some people don't, yet Tesla is advertising it as a universal tax credit. So they aren't stating what is "enshrined into law" but rather the best case scenario.
This doesn't seem very different than advertising a price after a rebate.
Saving $1,200 a year on gas seems reasonable if you pay $4/gal and fill up a 14gal tank twice a month. I'm not sure about the tax credit -- I assume those are guaranteed to whoever purchases the vehicle, but maybe that's not the case.
How would you feel if a Prius was advertised thousands of dollars under the actual number of dollars you pay for the car because of “fuel savings compared to a Camero over 5 years”? Or is it only OK when Tesla does it?
There's no reason to assume I'm biased towards Tesla here.
If any carmaker wanted to say "our car is X% more efficient, and the average person could reasonably expect to save $Y", and then discount that from the sticker price, I would be okay with that.
I don't think it's deceptive at all as long as the estimate is reasonable, and as long as there is clear communication about the sticker price vs the price after savings.
Then where do you draw the line? I, and almost the entire developed world, draws the line at price = number of currency units required to leave the store with the item for sale. Every car could otherwise claim a deduction because it’s more fuel efficient than a sports car or a Rolls Royce or an F-350. And some cars don’t need as expensive of tires, should they claim that deduction? What about cars that are 2 wheel drive, there’s lots of savings there over 4 wheel drive…
I mentioned this in another comment: something like EnergyGuide [0] would be great for this case, that way manufacturers like Tesla could more easily and consistently communicate how their vehicles have a lower cost of ownership.
I also want to say, if Tesla was doing this in some shady way, e.g. not offering an easy way to view the true purchase price, or making unfair comparisons, I would be totally against what they're doing.
Oh, come on. Tesla is not hiding this. It's the first thing you see in the pricing section, and it's the last thing you see at the bottom. Maybe it's illegal somehow, but this is certainly not immoral.
Tesla is making the case for the efficiency gains of their vehicle based on what most people drive today. This is certainly becoming less relevant/useful as electric/hybrid vehicles become more popular, but it is still quite helpful for anyone trying to compare the cost of a Tesla vs a ICE automobile. Even better, this expected total cost of ownership would be included somewhere like it is with home appliances [0].
> It also assumes you’re not already driving an EV so your current gas cost is $0.
In that case, you can simply select the "Purchase Price".
> Savings over time is a whole other dimension, you have to wait for it. And it makes huge assumptions about usage and input (gas) prices.
That's fair. Tesla very clearly details their assumptions under the "see details" link, which to my eyes looks quite generous:
-----
Gasoline Savings
Electric vehicles are less expensive to fuel than gasoline powered vehicles. The average person drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles and spends between $1,700 and $2,500 on gasoline per year.
We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck. We've also assumed the national average of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity (assumed for 100% of charging) and $3.30 per gallon for gasoline over the next three years. Tesla efficiency values are based on Cybertruck All-Wheel Drive.
Comparison gasoline vehicles are selected based on vehicle class, seating capacity and standard features. We use the EPA estimated range standard to compare efficiency data between our vehicles and a comparable gasoline alternative using each vehicle's combined city/highway MPG and MPGe ratings. Actual range may vary based on factors such as speed, weather conditions and elevation change.
> Maybe it's illegal somehow, but this is certainly not immoral.
It is absolutely immoral, and I have no idea how you can say otherwise with a straight face. Tesla is deliberately listing the price as lower than it actually is, in order to try to psychologically trick people into buying their vehicles. It's (probably) legal because they state in smaller print what the actual price is, but it's hella fucking immoral.
> We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck.
This is absolutely misleading. F-150, Tundra, RAM 1500, Sierra, every single one of these pickups has a better fuel economy than this. It's not really a comparable economy if you pick "a number worse than every alternative" as your baseline.
You can't just combine capex with notional opex savings and then post that as if that's the effective price.
If I'm trying to sell you a $6,000 server, I can't take a notional AWS bill of $2,000 a year and say 'since this server will save you $2,000 in cloud costs over three years, it's basically free'
What they’re trying to do is give you a number that they think compares more directly with the sticker price on an ICE truck.
They’re trying to say:
Okay, this truck costs $CYBER. and that looks like more than $RAM. But the ownership cost of $RAM is really $RAM + $GAS, and the cost of $CYBER is $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND. And $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND might be less than $RAM + $GAS. And Tesla would like you to notice that.
And Tesla’s mathemarketing geniuses said: ah, but if $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND is less than $RAM + $GAS, then $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND would also be less than $RAM.
And since Dodge advertises the price of their truck as $RAM, Tesla thinks it’s only fair for them to advertise the ‘fair comparison’ price of their truck as $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND.
Which by some weird twisted logic makes sense, and the absolute difference in prices is somewhat meaningful, but it gives a misleading impression of the amount you’ll spend and the relative amount you’ll save.
Because it implies you’ll only end up spending $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND on your Tesla compared to $RAM on your Dodge. It feels like you’re saving $SAVINGS/$RAM.
But you’re actually going to spend $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND (which is a bigger number than they are showing) compared to $RAM + $GAS on the Dodge (admittedly also not a number Dodge is advertising anywhere). And you’re actually only going to save $SAVINGS/($RAM + $GAS), which is a smaller proportional saving (remember we don’t know how big Tesla assumes $GAS is, only that they say $GAS - $ELECTRIC is $3000).
But it also assumes that what you’re going to do is follow their logic and take their ‘potential savings’ comparable price, and compare it to the sticker price on an ICE truck. Rather than look at that number and compare it to another truck and then apply your own estimated TCO differential to figure out the all in cost. In which case you’ll double count the TCO difference to Tesla’s benefit.
Because it's not free, it's $6000. It's fine to mention the two things together but rolling them into one figure is nonsense - expected operational savings don't have any impact on purchase price. In the context of the Tesla, the 'gas savings' are 1) an estimate based on a specific scenario and therefore not guaranteed, and 2) not materialised at the point of purchase; this is the difference between 'price' and 'cost'.
Try walking into a Tesla dealership, telling them you expect the car to save you $10,000 over its lifetime, and that you should therefore pay $10,000 less than the ticket price, and see what they say.
The tax credit is guaranteed as long as you made less than 300k this year or last year (150k if not married), and it is now given directly at time of purchase instead of later when you file. Seems OK to include. The gas savings is much more speculative.
Should they? Probably not in most cases. Do they? Absolutely.
The real killer here though is the limit. If you're making $160k, that $7000 is still a real incentive. Can you afford it without, sure, but if we're trying to incentivize EVs then everyone should get the incentive... sometimes wealthy people are wealthy because they save money whenever possible, so the incentive will still move the needle on EV adoption.
Like all incentives, it should be on a sliding scale. Frankly, fall benefit would start to fall off after 100k income and/or some vehicle value cutoff, maybe 50k. Beyond either value, you'd then decay to upper limits linearly (easier for the consumer to understand) with upper income level 160-180k range ish, and upper vehicle value maybe 100k.
My point is Cybertruck starts at $60, not $100k, and likely a majority of sales will happen closer to $60k than $100k. But I'd venture to guess that a majority of people buying even the $100k variant do qualify for the credit.
absolutely, and people making less than 50k buy 50k cars. Plus, there are also a lot of people in low cost of living areas that hapily drop cash on cars.
I was visiting my hometown where houses are 200k and lots of households make 100k-200k/yr. All the driveways were full of new trucks, SUVs, and boats.
I'm American. Most of my friends/family don't even pretend to budget. Looking at reports of the debt loads of Americans, it's pretty clear that we overspend. So if we do budget, we don't follow it.
your comment was about "Americans" generally. Not about Americans you know.
pointlessly divisive, stereotyping nationality, and without merit. exactly the type of comment we need less of on HN. I replied because it prevents you from deleting the comment.
EDIT:
ah, I see that they are now replying with a random article found after hastily searching for sources to confirm their bias with commentary from * squints * a "financial therapist." A CNBC article that is a submarine (as coined by PG[1]), meant to advertise OppLoans.
don't believe me? see all the articles written by CNBC for OppLoans:
lol, I didn’t realize suggesting Americans don’t budget would even be controversial, let alone considered an attack. Attacking people with the rules isn’t constructive. If you think my comment isn’t appropriate, just flag it.
Totally missed that subtle dark gray on black design element! You have to begin scrolling immediately to see the three trim levels, and by then, the tabs are lost forever. Quite literally fits the phrase "dark pattern", ha!
There's even a "dark pattern" with the quoted 0-60 times. They've subtracted the rollout only on the fastest model to make the gap between it and the mid-spec model appear larger (notice the asterisk only on the top spec car's 0-60 time). Not the first time they've done this either, they've done the same thing with the Plaid Model S specs before.
I don't really care about the debate over whether subtracting rollout is legitimate - it's just very silly the 0-60 measurement methodology isn't consistent across all three models on the page.
They do it on the Model 3 as well. The Model 3 Performance is 1Ft rollout (3.1s) but the Dual Motor Long Range is not. Car and driver tested it to 3.99 when Tesla says ~4.2s
No, its the same direction again. The 3.99 achieved by car and driver is for the dual motor mid range car, which tesla quote at 4.2. Tesla quote the top spec Performance at 3.1 seconds to 60 with roll out subtraction only on the fastest car again.
Car and Driver however also subtract rollout in their tests, so again its not a valid comparison to the 4.2 figure from Tesla with rollout included, making things even more confusing here.
There is a $7.5k tax credit which definitely counts as savings. The gas savings are more speculative, and it's debatable if that's reasonable to count (many people compare lifetime cost of ownership when making a car purchase though).
There's an estimate they have 1.9M reservations. Even at 1k deliveries a day, that will take another 5 years. I doubt they'll hit that delivery rate soon.
It still looks to me as if the cybertruck originally was Teslas secret project for the military but then got rebranded as some kind of Madmax SUV. Ukraine could probably make good use of them.
In reality it'd fall apart on any attempt at either the Black Diamond Drilling Kalgoorlie Desert Race or the Finke Desert Race (classic Australian Mad Max racing events).
The courses are long, rough as guts, and the woops destroy vehicles.
For what? It can't be used anywhere near the battlefields since there would be no infrastructure to recharge and it is far easier to haul fuel to those places than to haul replacement batteries. They'd be almost worthless, use it until its batteries die and then just abandon it.
What surprised me is the "order with card" choice. I haven't bought a new car in a while, but is it normal to be defaulted to putting a $100,000 purchase on a credit card?
Edit: Nevermind, it's a $250 deposit on a later $100,000 purchase.
It’s worth having the choice. Have a friend who was flying private to his college campus when he realized his tuition was due and got flustered. Pulled out the Amex and a couple minutes and 50K later it was no longer an issue. The convenience is appreciated at times like that.
Moreover, a substantial amount of remote European contractors who use US LLCs put their personal expenditures on company CCs to evade CRS.
For the people that can afford one? Sure. AMEX has no limit and plenty of other cards for high net worth individuals are similar. Plus weirdly, people like that usually really like to collect the credit card points.
My father-in-law has done it. He was in a strong negotiating position; I'm not sure why he didn't just use that position to lower the price an extra 3% instead...
My most recent new car purchase (2024 Mini), the dealership allowed me to charge $10k to my card for the points. The rest was debit from my checking + tradein.
I simply can't connect with Cybertruck for some reason. It feels like everything a truck should not be.
Take the wonderful off-road footage they showed. How did they handle charging? Did they tow a bunch of Cybertrucks to the site, get them town to where they just had enough power to get back on the flatbed an then tow them back?
Having driven trucks in the middle of nowhere, well, charging is very important. You can carry a couple of ten or twenty gallon cans in the back and get hundreds of miles of additional range.
There are thousands of products designed to "interface" with standard trucks. Not sure how that ecosystem applies to Cybertruck.
Beyond this, the stainless body is interesting. However, repairs of any kind are going to be massively expensive. My guess is full panels will have to be replaced. In general terms, a quick look at reports of repairs for these types of vehicles can be seriously expensive.
Finally, unlike a conventional truck, if you own one of these you will, at some point in time, experience the decidedly non-trivial cost of having to replace the battery. The terminal cost of conventional trucks approaches an asymptote in the low thousands of dollars. With Cybertruck that number will be in the mid tens of thousands. Today, replacing a batter on a Tesla car can cost as much as $25K.
If the purchase of a Cybertruck is because it looks good, different, unique, etc. Then, sure, why not, it isn't different from buying an expensive Italian sports car. As a practical working truck, not sure.
Opinion: this is the purest physical realisation of the Musk/Tesla world-view. A kind of Conway's law for cars. Deeply depressing, and the tech merely distracts from this a little. Why do we need this thing, again?
[1] https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/11/the-tesla-cybertruck-fi...