All raised vehicles are a danger to other road users. Most have bumpers significantly higher than other vehicles on the road, resulting in trunks and hoods on closer to the ground vehicles (Honda Odysseys, Toyota Camrys, etc) getting severely damaged in low speed impacts.
For pedestrians and cyclists, high stanced vehicles ensure they end up underneath the car rather than on the hood of the vehicle (where survival rates are much higher). A person can get hit at 20mph by a Honda Accord and walk away nearly every time, but try that with a Cybertruck and they are much more likely to die: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain...
I was in Maroochydore, Australia this morning (I don't normally go near the shops there) and the number of big American trucks in the carpark surprised me. In just the section of parking I as in there was a Dodge Ram and two F250s, all hanging a couple of feet into the road being too long for your standard car park. A 4x4 Pajaro next to one of the Fords looked small.
I'm surprised a similar point hasn't been made about those models.
Ford Rangers are really popular too. This is a recent thing with Toyota, Ford, Mitsubishi and Holden (GM) all shutting down locally in the last 10 or so years, therefore all current trucks are US/foreign designed.
Me too, it's disturbing to see an apparent 'genius' pay so little attention to the design from a pedestrian perspective, then you give it nuts acceleration that makes almost no difference to journey time, I guess the only place safe to drive it, will be Mars. It's not the future, it's silly.
most people walk from somewhere to their truck at least, which kind of makes them a pedestrian for at least a bit, unless there is some kind of mini electric golf cart to go from door to door, I mean, I suppose, who knows...
I think this car will seriously hurt the car insurance industry. Just imagine a car that cannot get scratches and/or mailbox dents which cost thousands of dollars in repair by simply... not colouring the car and making the surface more scratch-resistant. Awesome!
As a fellow bike-communter myself I had exactly the same thoughts regarding pedestrian safety though.
Just imagine a car that cannot get scratches and/or mailbox dents which cost thousands of dollars in repair by simply...
Consider that the reason that the windows shattered in the demo was that the dent proof doors transmitted sufficient force to the base of the window to weaken it. I'm sure the insurance industry will price coverage appropriately.
> Consider that the reason that the windows shattered in the demo was that the dent proof doors transmitted sufficient force to the base of the window to weaken it.
I don't believe that for a second, considering the rear window shattered as well and was not hit by the sledge hammer.
I'm aware of what he said to save face. However, if you believe the window broke because a completely different door was hit than I have a bridge to sell you.
I don't often get hit by a steel ball, but I do see many jeeps with cracked windscreens because replacing them after every little flying stone is too much of a hassle.
People try very hard to avoid using their insurance for small things, everyone is terrified of their rates going up.
Cybertruck might not need comprehensive or uninsured motorist coverage but it looks like it would annihilate anything it hits. You’ll want plenty of bodily injury, collision, property damage and PIP.
The DeLorean had a bare stainless body. People discovered that unpainted stainless is really hard to keep looking nice. Owners of stainless kitchen appliances know this too. There was a fairly decent aftermarket for getting your DeLorean painted.
More likely vinyl wrap. There are already companies announcing various options for this. And because Cybertruck isn't curved, the wrap is much easier to apply.
Right. I was in the Air Force back in the late 80's and had a '64 Chevy pickup I painted flat black, and then stenciled in red lettering all over it. Had "Danger, Air Intake" on the front bumper, "No Step" above each wheel well, "Fuel Port" by the gas cap. Put an American Flag bumper sticker up on the rear corner of both sides of the bed.
I’ve seen plenty bikers blow stop signs, not signal turns, cross three lanes, run into stationary objects, and other assorted fuckery. Accidents are usually not completely one-sided and as a proud car and bike driver, I’ve never collided with either regardless of the mode in which I am traveling. I’m a bit tired of the “I am on a bike, therefore better than you” theme that seems to exist. Just learn to co-exist and be aware of your surroundings. How? Trust nobody and assume the other driver of bike/car/moped/scooter/Rollerblades will do the dumbest possible thing in front of you. Then you’ll be prepared and not be surprised.
Here’s what happened to me recently. I’m cycling home on a dark wet Friday evening. My commute was 18km then and I was halfway home. I’m in a cycle lane doing maybe 20 km/h and traffic is all held up. I was doored before so I’m watching the cars carefully. Suddenly a car about 20 metres up ahead of me veers into the cycle lane and mounts the footpath with his car straddling the cycle lane. I slow down and let the idiot complete his crazy left turn (we drive on the left here in Ireland). As I get to the junction (it’s wide with an island between lanes) there’s a car looking to pull out into the stagnant traffic. I make eye contact and since he has to cross my lane to enter the main road I have right of way so I proceed. He, while staring right at me starts to pull out and I’ve no time to react. I go over his bonnet (hood) and land hard in my back in the middle of the main road. I’m still clipped into my bike and it comes crashing on my face. As I’m lying there in shock another car that was coming the opposite direction to me decides this is his chance and takes the exit and proceeds to drive over my bike with me under it and disappear. Fortunately I want hurt any further.
I’m dressed up in high-viz clothing. I have award winning front and rear lights that is approved by various EU road safely groups yet here we have two motorists that just didn’t bother their holes to look and a third that didn’t care if they murdered me.
I had to pick myself up, fix my bike and limp the rest of the way home. While the driver that pulled out under me was apologetic (his wife less so) nobody else stopped to help. Nobody cared that the third car nearly killed me.
The fact that the body is undentable and glass is unbreakable makes it sound worse for occupants, too. If it doesn’t crumple, you’re going to be in for a bad time in a car accident.
They may be, but are they prioritizing the safety of their customers above those of other road users? Saftey for the occupants at the expense of other can be used as a marketing factor - get a Tesla truck to reduce your risk of getting killed by a Tesla truck/other truck driver.
Tesla cars don't have engine compartments, so pretty much everything forward of the driver is one giant crumple zone. I'd assume this to be true for the truck as well.
No, it is quite reasonable to assume the car is designed not to crumple (or to resist crumpling) based on Elon sayng that it was designed not to be dented.
GM had an entire brand of vehicles designed not to be dented for about a decade during the 90s: Saturn. All of those vehicles performed normally in crash tests.
Exterior bodywork work is irrelevant to occupant crash safety performance on unibodies (or space frames, like the Saturn S series), because they’re non structural elements. They’re decorative. Soft metal is chosen because it’s cheap to produce, not because it’s a crumple zone.
Crumple zones on unibody cars today are made of much stronger steel than the body is, and the channels are in the unibody frame which are slightly inboard from the sides of the car.
If you hit the crumple zones of a regular car on the road today with a sledgehammer, they wouldn’t dent. You’d need to hit them with something imparting many thousands of times as much force, like a car.
The only safety benefit to soft body panels is pedestrian safety.
I was under the impression that dents affect bodywork, and crumpling affects (/is provided by) the vehicles internal structure. I would think that makes them distinct concepts in this context.
Depends on the design of the vehicle. It would be silly to assume Tesla, which has historically created some of the safest cars it their class, would completely ignore driver safety.
It'll still crumple. There's a difference between a guy hitting the door with a sledgehammer and a vehicle driving full force into the side of the truck.
Seriously though, crumple zones in cars and trucks aren't the sheet metal on the body.
I'm sure Tesla thought about safety ratings. My guess is the "cyber truck"'s sheet metal will crumple in an accident. A car wreck has a lot more force than some guy swinging a sledgehammer at medium force.
Which makes no sense considering the crash test ratings on Tesla's cars are the best in the industry. Tesla has an extremely good history of designing safe cars.
There's a big difference to "stands up to parking lot car doors and shopping carts" and assuming that it doesn't crumple in a collision with another vehicle.
US safety tests aren't very good in comparison to the rest of the world. In particular, US car safety tests don't emphasize the safety of pedestrians and cyclists to the same extent as the European and Australian test programs do:
"But the once groundbreaking program is now out of date and has not kept pace with safety innovations and advances, and other countries, including Japan and many in Europe, have far surpassed the U.S., motor vehicle safety experts say"
Cool, however, it seems it's more complicated than the article lets on. This article[0] shows that cars that meet US safety standards perform better in rollover situations while EU vehicles perform better in frontal collisions.
The door is not a crumple zone. Crumple zones should be outside of the passenger compartment. Regardless, the sledgehammer demonstration is demonstrating the result of an impact at least several orders of magnitude smaller than a vehicle accident where crumple zones are effective.
It's bad news for pedestrians, but I expect it to fare very well in crash tests.
Side-impact tests in particular will benefit from the stronger door skin. There's not much space for crumpling in that direction, and your average mild-steel door doesn't do particularly well. They generally throw reinforcement beams inside the door in an effort to help.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out since the Cybertruck is combining unibody+skateboard+pickup+stainless steel. The frunk is a huge crumple zone with no ICE and transmission to get in the way. I don't see the stainless steel "exoskeleton" preventing the frunk from crumpling in a real crash. It might prevent getting dents from stupid people in parking lots and utility work though.
The partial overlap frontal collision has been an especially bad one for pickups historically IIRC. This vehicle might completely change that. Would love to hear from anyone more knowledgeable in this field.
Most vehicles are "exoskeleton" design, normally called "body on frame". It's really just pickup trucks that are stuck on the old chassis design.
Trucks and old cars are body on frame, modern cars and some small trucks (e.g. Ridgeline, Baja, Brat, El Camino, Ranchero, most utes) are unibody. Some like the original Jeep Cherokee are hybrids.
I don't know why you got downvoted. It the exact same thought I had when I saw the comparison about how one door dented and the other didn't. A car that crumples will cushion the sudden stop in case of a crash.
Because they have to pass crash test ratings, and they'll probably want those ratings to be good. It's kind of silly to assume that a random Hacker News commenter has thought about this more than the company actually designing and making the vehicle
Tesla has a proven track record of making safe cars (from a crash test perspective). They have shipped actual working products. Explain to me how this is like Theranos at all.
I think we can use the track record of them shipping safe cars to assume they will do so with the truck. However, the truck that gets shipped is still years out, and Tesla has a history of hyping up bare prototypes for marketing / pr purposes. Personally, seeing this one not close to road legal with potential safety issues just means the usual skepticism on their launch timing is warranted.
On average people on HN are contrarians that think they are smarter than everybody else. Thus we get people in this thread saying with a straight face that Franz von Holzhausen has no idea what he is doing.
Alright, here's an authority on the matter that also has doubts about the exterior[1]:
> [safety standards] may be something the Tesla Cybertruck needs to put more focus on, according to the head of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, which is Australia's equivalent of the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
> Cybertruck's "exoskeleton" body material caused some alarm as well. ANCAP looks for vehicles to absorb some of the energy in an impact because, if it doesn't, passengers will bear the brunt of the force.
> While this material may be perfect to keep out dents ... it could put passengers at risk.
By the way,
> Having a soft exterior that gives-in is not all there is to car safety...
I totally agree[1]:
> Obviously, the Cybertruck cannot enter production in its current form. It's missing windshield wipers, traditional mirrors that are, right now, required for the US market and the pickup also lacks turn signals. The challenge will be turning this trapezoidal design into something approved for sale in markets around the world
> The fact that the body is undentable and glass is unbreakable makes it sound worse for occupants, too. If it doesn’t crumple, you’re going to be in for a bad time in a car accident.
I think this crumple b.s. is made-up non-sense by car manufacturers (it might have minimal marginal impact and would like to be proven wrong). By making my car front bumper a weak piece of plastic that gets scratched and damaged very easily, they can sell it later for $1.000 a piece.
Yeah, this is why semi-trucks have the Mansfield bar that runs level with the bumper of a normal passenger car. (Named after Jayne Mansfield, who died in a car crash with a semi truck.)
In cities lifted trucks and motorcycles and cars without sufficient muffling should be illegal. Engineers have spent so much time and money trying to solve problems around noise, pollution and safety so that we can operate internal combustion engine vehicles in crowded cities without ruining each others lives. Then someone can just lift their truck and take the muffler off for vanity reasons? Seems insane
Not disagreeing with your point, but a what is the more important work they’re supposedly working on? In SF cops aren’t enforcing traffic laws, drug laws, or really even patrolling so what are cops actually spending their time on?
I think the only solution for this is to phase out ICE vehicles entirely. No matter how quiet they are when they leave the factory, there is always some idiot who's gonna modify the exhaust because he thinks that making extra loud noises makes him cool.
NHTSA recently updated the rules for vehicle pedestrian warning sounds, and now allows user-selectable sounds. Previously these were prohibited, so vehicles could only have one fixed sound.
I'm not sure that "coconut noises" would be allowed, however, as the rules require continuous tones (modulated according to speed and acceleration) that must be recognisable as an engine noise.
Perhaps the coconut noise will be a manually-activated alert/horn feature rather than the mandatory pedestrian warning sound.
My 2018 Honda Clarity makes a really cheesy synthetic new-age sounding "hum" noise at low speed. I wish Honda would put out a software update to make the noise user-selectable.
The intro to "The Final Countdown" in a continuous loop would be swell.
"Because the cold-rolled steel is undentable it does not allow for crumple zones that reduce the impact of the force of an accident for occupants."
I'm not sure how one thing logically follows from the other. The physics of an impact from a hang-swung sledgehammer versus a car impacting another car or a large stationary barrier are basically incomparable.
This is true of a lot of small cars, like the Smart Car and the Fiat 500. They have pretty rigid structures but no crumple zones. The car survives, but everyone suffers massive internal bleeding. If any part of the car itself touches your head or chest in an accident, you basically die instantly.
NCAP crash testing works by placing sensors on test dummies and measuring the impact forces on their "bodies" under various crash scenarios.
In Euro NCAP testing, the Fiat 500 has a 3 star rating[1], and the Smart fortwo has a 4 star rating[2]. So while not among the safest cars on the market, they are certainly not the deathtraps you suggest. The Smart in particular offers very respectable occupant protection for its size.
I drove a 500 for years and had a couple of crashes. They absolutely are not as deadly as you describe. I had a motorcycle rear-end me at 55mph and I did not suffer any injuries and the motorcyclist walked away from the crash with mild injuries. I hit a deer at 55 and while it totaled the car, again I suffered no injuries. The 500 very much DOES have crumple zones.
“Basically die instantly” does anyone actually believe that?
Neither of those is remotely comparable to a head on collision with 500+ lb car at 500-100mph relative.
If an opposing car pushes a part of your car into your body, that's like you being hit by a car while standing in front of a wall. Once the pressure wave hits your body, where is it going to go? You can't be "thrown clear" through the back of your own car.
If you honestly believe that, I recommend reading the crash test results linked in other comments or finding them on your own. This isn't a hypothetical, it's actually been tested and this "you will die instantly" is complete nonsense.
I wonder... some people claim the "negative press" of the glass shattering was by design because it creates a larger narrative, that if they handle properly, keeps the truck in the public's ears and eyes everyday (which is has) and if they "fix it" makes them look like they care about their customer bases voice.
If I agreed/believed that, this could be a part 2 to that plan. I bet a discussion will come up how government regulations don't allow the public to have bullet-RESISTANT vehicles (no such thing as "bulletproof", especially if you don't get 3rd party standardized testing to back up your claim). Along with trying to rewrite vehicle laws/standards to benefit Tesla.
Personally, don't care either way. But I always get this uneasy feeling whenever Musk does anything.
In the U.S. it's completely legal in most states to purchase armored vehicles. Most people can't afford them since even used decade old vehicles are $300k+ . This is very similar to why it's 100% legal to purchase soft body armor even level 4 (resistant to armor piercing rifle rounds) plates. Personally, banning items like this seems backwards, since politicians and rich people can afford to hire dozens of people with assault weapons and body armor while common folk can't.
Also, claiming something is "resistant to 9mm" doesn't really mean "bullet proof". A lot of things are inherently impervious to pistol rounds, I can just about grantee 7.62x39 or 5.56x45 would sail right through the cybertruck.
> claiming something is "resistant to 9mm" doesn't really mean "bullet proof".
This sounds like the same argument about Autopilot (both the aircraft and Tesla version of it).
Pilots know you have to monitor the aircraft constantly while the various autopilot systems are active, however the general public have this "Oh, you just press a button and it flies itself" thing (and apply that assumption to the Tesla Autopilot system).
There are often conspiracies like this around high-profile mistakes. There's a similar one that says New Coke was a PR stunt to increase sales of the original Coca-Cola. “The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.” Occam's Razor is your friend.
I did say "if I agreed/believed it". But if it were true, that's where I believe the discourse would end up.
But to be fair, PR stunt dynamics are better understood these past two decades compared to the 80s. The last decade alone, you can see the reaction of the public to news instantly, react to it and see the public reaction-reaction instantly, with well formatted analytics. That's the only reason I don't immediately dismiss the idea like it was a flat-earther conspiracy theory. There's plenty of analytics to try making a solid plan to do something like that. At the same time, I have zero proof that it's ever been done intentionally.
There's a book called Weapons of Math-destruction. In it the author talks about Facebook's potential ability of swaying public discourse and increasing the chances of certain votes using their analytics knowledge. While the author said it's a scary thought, it could never happen and there's no evidence it has been done or would be done. This book came out 2016 (books are typically published about 6-12 months after manuscript is accepted, so written roughly 2015). So... yea.
I have a water resistant watch and I understand I can’t go diving with it, but I feel like maybe this glass is more than resistant enough to qualify as “proof”?
Bulletproof is a reason that we will see black pr about this truck because many places like Australia/Canada have tried to outlaw these mods due to well known gangsters using them the police are too incompetent to arrest. For example it's illegal to sell bulletproof vests here. Everytime I read some critic of this truck it's from a place that has these laws in place, Musk needs to counter this onslaught of blackPR from 'unfree' countries such as my own who can't arrest known felons so resort to punishing everybody else trying to ban or make illegal these features.
Criminals shooting at each other, the politicians here and their PR firms routinely try to reduce the culture of impunity these criminals have flaunting in public their status from the safety of modded bulletproof vehicles and seize them as illegal because they can't ever for some reason just jail the criminal. It's a reached for conspiracy but they have done blackPR like this in the past.
Members of the public certainly do not want 'incompetent' police using anti vehicle RPGs against cars because of this stainless steel opression vehicle.
Multiple impacts do degrade the performance but the calibre of bullet is also a factor. The video was using a .223 (5.56mm) which is pretty standard for AR15 derived assault rifles. A slightly larger 7.62mm round will have more force and might be able to penetrate the glass. Bigger rounds like .338 lapua or a .50 cal would have even more energy and be more likely to penetrate the glass, especially if it was weakened by previous impacts.
Maybe he wants to make this be the first colony grade vehicle. It might not be legal here, but the steel thing fits a mould with the stainless steel Starship. We’re further off with that than the truck, probably, but they seem sort of pieced together.
Whenever I hear someone say that they feel so much safer driving SUVs and how they can see traffic better, I always think: yeah, and it comes at my expense.
To my ears, it is like someone exclaiming how it is so much better to stand up in the movie theater because the view is better that way.
In an idealized economy, the owner of a dangerous-to-others truck would be paying enough for liability insurance to cover their negative safety externalities.
In most of America, the minimum liability insurance is far too low. For example, California only requires $15k per person in liability insurance. If someone is killed or seriously injured, there's easily millions in damages.
This effectively is a subsidy to car driving (and bad drivers). But politically, it seems impossible to fix this. Red states want less government intervention, and blue states don't want to "penalize" poor people.
You know most "Red States" have higher minimums that CA right?
Further the insurance minimums does not limit a person liability just the amount the insurance company will pay, if you are stupid and dont have enough insurance then your other assets (like your home) can be seized and your wages garnished to recover the liability
This is also why one should have good Uninsured and Under insured coverage
However saying all of that, one of the reasons for the Low Minimums on Liability in some states as they have gone to a "No Fault" system so your insurance would pay your costs so it is up to you to buy the amount you want to be covered for, it does not matter what the "other guy" has
What's really worrying is that the cost of uninsured motorist coverage is fairly close to the cost of liability insurance. This would indicate that most everyone in this corner of the state does not carry sufficient insurance to cover the damage that he causes, so people pay extra to shield themselves from that kind of externality.
As far as I know, Germany's minimum auto liability is 7.5M EUR. After 15 years of no claims, the liability premium on our 2009 Ford Fiesta is about 400 EUR/yr. It would be higher if we had, say, an Audi Q7, because larger, more powerful vehicles can cause more damage (nevermind that we'd also be more likely to want collision/comprehensive on a vehicle that expensive)
So a Cybertruck owner would probably be up for some spectacular liability premiums, presuming that the vehicle was approved for registration in Germany in the first place.
I ordered one last week. I wonder how many of the specifications advertised will actually be met by the production version. 500 mile range, faster than a vette, 100cu feet of storage, seats 6, sledgehammer proof body, bullet proof glass, etc. It all sounds too good to be true for only $70k.
When it comes to the key specifications of their vehicles, Tesla have never, ever under delivered on their key promises.
I have no doubt it will do all the things you listed, likely exceeding some of them. I won't be at all surprised if it looks a little different - you can google the original Model S prototype compared to the actual, and the Model 3.
They tweak some things, but overall I strongly believe you'll get what you ordered.
I'd be very concerned about that glass. If your car has a collision and the doors jam, a firefighter can get you out of an ordinary vehicle by breaking the glass with a $5 tool. If the glass is shatterproof, they can still get you out but perhaps not before you burn to death.
Firefighters will now be required to carry steel spheres the size of a baseball and be trained to chicken-arm throw it at the window at approximately 3 mph.
Curious if you’ve ever owned a truck before or if this will be your first? I’ve seen a lot of articles saying that Tesla is great at bringing in new customers but that the truck drivers are notoriously resistant to change and much more brand loyal than typical car buyers.
When you go to https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck the advertised figure in "300+MI". I don't know where one finds 500 but that's not the top line figure that appears on front page of the official site...
The value they are delivering with this truck seems uncharacteristic of Tesla who’s product line is largely dominated by “expensive but you’ll love it anyhow” vehicles.
This is just silly. There were not many pictures of it, but the truck has a massive frunk. This frunk will just be designed to crumple and adsorb the impact from a front collision.
The structural frame will not extend all the way to the front but end earlier (about above the front wheel well).
Tesla will want a five star safety rating for this thing, and you can not get that without also taking pedestrian safety into account.
Edit: About the raised front: the front is not any more raised that my current main car, a Volkswagen T5 Bus, which is a very common car in europe. So I don't see why it should have a worse pedestrian safety rating.
Stainless steel is not some magic adamantium that is completely unbreakable. You can choose thinner steel for the part that is designed to crumple, and it will crumple or fold as intended, just like any other material.
I would guess that the bonnet will move backwards and slide over the windshield, and the other part of the front (up to the front wheel wells) will be designed to crumple.
So happy to see everyone not jumping to conclusions over what is just a concept car and will no doubt - like all concept cars - be considerably different to the retail version /s
I have heard from an industry insider that ANCAP has for the last 30 years been pretending to review car's safety records just so that they could short Tesla stock and take down the Cybertruck.
And yes they are indeed part of a global conspiracy to take down Tesla which they see as a threat to the petro world order. Not those other EV makers like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Kia etc who sell more than Tesla in quite a few countries. Only Tesla.
No, just standards and regulations that are enacted to ensure the general safety of the population. They're relatively common in the developed world outside of US.
I think instead of a focus on mpg (which electrics make murky anyway), we should restrict weight. Eventually the goal is lightweight cars with reasonable safety features. People who want to drive 5000lb cars should have their danger to others health baked into their insurance premiums.
Unfortunately trees, concrete pillars, and brick walls are unlikely to comply with safety restrictions on weight. Georgia was ridiculed a few years back for prohibiting trees between the road and the sidewalk under the theory that a car that wanders off the road can recover its intended path of there aren't trees in the way. Lightweight cars would still be lethal to pedestrians but also would make the elimination of trees and street furniture between the road and the sidewalk more desirable.
Wouldn’t hitting a concrete wall, in a lighter car, be safer than a heavier car, assuming no drastic difference in safety systems in the car, since the overall force is still less? The frame of the car has to absorb less force.
Tanks are legal to own in the US IIRC (with a federal permit). Arnold Schwarzenegger has one. They are also street-legal in some jurisdictions if rubberized tracks are installed and the tank is less than 50 tons. Here's a dude buying some fastfood in one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvkLaa9bogU. Here's an APC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5tTSfWMeNo
That's Australia for you. We're the prototypical "big government nanny state" that conservative Americans fear. This could also be motivated by the Australian government's radical opposition to clean tech.
Ever since the reveal, all I can think about is the instance where a Tesla ran into the broad side of a tractor-trailer.
Since the panels of the cybertruck are "scored on the inside and bent", and the body is the "exoskeleton" in place of a frame, the physics of this oragami-like interaction seem predictable...
And in my head, I see a grotesque rendition of the ketschup-packet-under-the-chair prank from middle school.
It’s just plain ass-ugly, to my eyes. I grew up around pickups and owned one until it became a pita in a parking garage.
The VW Tarok concept truck is a far better looking pickup than the Tesla monstrosity. The Neuron T/One looks more futuristic and usable. The Lordstown Endurance looks more standard (and has a bloody expensive sounding name). The Atlis XT looks as conventional as it gets (but still way better than the Tesla).
I think the Tesla is going to be another Humvee, if it goes to market: more about wasted money and contrarian looks than being actually useful. A toy for the uselessly rich.
When I lived in a midrise in the middle of town we had a Hummer driver move into the building. He started parking in the handicap space on the ground level because the Hummer's turning radius was too large to be able to make the corners in the parking deck to his leased parking spot. So much for being able to go anywhere in the Hummer. It never was a very practical vehicle. Other than the low polygon looks, the Cybertruck seems inline with the functionality of trucks in the F150 to F250 range. Probably won't be a problem performing tasks that those trucks already perform.
This was my immediate reaction when I first saw it: how is anything remotely like that design ever going to be road-legal here in the UK, unless it has some innovative ways to do better than standard, possibly even legally-required safety features that don't seem to have been mentioned?
There are certainly reasonable alternatives to things like wing mirrors. For example, it's not hard to imagine a camera-and-screen arrangement in a vehicle from Tesla.
However, giving the vehicle a solid shell pretty much implies that the full force of any impact is transmitted to the occupants on one side and the impactee on the other because physics, which is going to be a concern given the great emphasis on the materials used.
Then there's the angular styling, which appears to have edges practically designed to cause serious injury to anyone vulnerable that might be hit by the vehicle, not to mention the potential to act as a ramp sending the victim of a frontal collision up the front or even over the top of the vehicle.
It definitely looks like a case of form-over-function so far, but it's hard to believe no-one at Tesla has considered these kinds of issues, so surely they must have something up their sleeves to deal with them (unless <conspiracy theory>it's all been a very successful publicity stunt and they never really intended to bring a vehicle like this to market</conspiracy-theory>).
The Ford F-150 is the most popular vehicle in the USA. Despite this, new car sales of the F-150 outside of North America appears to be negligible. This disparity is instructive.
Cybertruck is a product designed squarely for this North American market and isn't going to have mass appeal in any other global markets beyond novelty factor for a small number of people with excessive disposable wealth.
Yes, the Cybertruck looks like a safety nightmare in many respects—especially for pedestrians—but I would dare guess that it'd still be safer across the board compared to its established competitors like the F-150.
Possibly controversial opinion: It isn't going to have mass appeal even in North America. The type of people who drive the Ford F-150 and similar American pickups are not the type of people who will drive a Cybertruck. So who is?
The United States has a traffic related mortality of 12.4 per 100,000 pop compared to the UKs 3.1 and well behind the rest of western Europe [1] Its almost as if there's something wrong with America's road regulations.
US spends more time in the car because of lower population density than Europe. UK is the size of Colorado yet has 10x the population, so of course they will drive less.
Lots of people in Europe do have licences that would allow them to drive heavier vehicles, though. For example, the rules changed here in the UK for drivers passing their test from 1997 onwards, but those who passed before that will usually have a licence for most vehicle categories apart from the really big ones like HGVs and buses. If memory serves, I can technically drive something like a 7.5t box truck with another 4.5t as a trailer without exceeding what my licence legally permits -- though given my lack of specialist training in that type of vehicle, whether it would be a good idea is another question entirely!
Lots of large vans can either be licensed as <3.5t cars or >3.5t trucks, with often only small (or even no, if only a bit above the limit) changes. Of course the speed is pointless for the latter option.
