February 28, 2023

Cybertruck: We Can’t Stop Thinking About It No Matter How Hard We Try

The Cybertruck fits firmly into both the cool and dumb camps. Conceptually, it looks cool. And if it ultimately delivers on all of its performance claims, it will be a very cool feat of engineering.

Is it cool or is it silly? We can't decide.

The Cybertruck fits firmly into both the cool and dumb camps. Conceptually, it looks cool. And if it ultimately delivers on all of its performance claims, it will be a very cool feat of engineering.

But also it’s called the Cybertruck, which seems like something a kid would call their imaginary truck/spaceship. And maybe that’s how they came up with the name.

The Cybertruck Is Silly

From the name to all the little unfortunate clips and soundbytes along the way there are so many absolutely silly Cybertruck stories. But our favorite is probably Musk and co. breaking the Cybertruck’s window at a press conference specifically touting the truck’s indestructibility.

The Cybertruck Is Seriously Cool

But on the other hand, the video showing off all the Space Camper (Space Camper?) features is incredible. It’s basically a tiny house that fits in the bed of the truck.

The 14,000-pound towing capacity and 3,500-pound payload capacity are impressive.

And it’s got the solar panel thing on the bed which is super cool and futuristic.

The Cybertruck Is Kind Of Nerdy

And then there’s the fact that the truck looks like a Nighthawk stealth plane crossed with the warthog truck from the HALO video game franchise.

And the interior is a little weird, but also super cool and sci-fi.

This is truly what happens when you give someone who grew up playing video games unlimited money.

And Then It’s Cool Again

We can laugh about building a real life, commercial production version of a video game truck, but then we see a video of the truck in full off-road mode with its suspension lifted four inches and think, “Dang, that’s cool.”

And Then It’s Silly Again

But then we see testers taking it “offroad” and it’s just them carefully hopping a curb in the Tesla parking lot. That’s a lot of hype for one careful curb hop.

And The Cybertruck Is Behind Schedule

Plus, the truck is something like two years behind production schedule, which this NYT article compares to the previous incident in 2018 when “his determination to build a highly automated assembly line for the Model 3 sedan led to “production hell” and nearly killed the company before he opted for more standard manufacturing practices.”

Most experts blame these delays on Musk’s insistence the Cybertruck body be built from stainless steel, which hasn’t been used on a car since the ill-fated (but popular amongst fellow 80s pop-culture fanatics) DeLorean.

DeLorean went bankrupt almost immediately after launch.

Meanwhile, more modest (but still plenty flashy) EVs like the Rivian (US) and Radar RD6 (China) are hitting the market and picking up early EV market share.

We’d Definitely Still Drive a Cybertruck

The fact of the matter is, we’d drive a Cybertruck — especially if it had one of those Space Campers on it.

Tesla is counting on the same sentiment from the rest of the market. Is this Elon Musk-inspired engineering behemoth wild enough to spark Tesla sales once again? We won’t find out until it hits the market.