At this moment in time, the Tesla Cybertruck is a machine that is mostly hype. I’m not saying it’ll never actually get produced or anything like that, but I am saying that most of the general concept of what a Cybertruck is about 75% hype at the moment. Sure, there’s some plans and prototypes and massive amounts of pre-orders, but most Cybertrucks do their driving in the fevered imaginations of hardcore Tesla fans. Tesla’s own website for the Cybertruck certainly contributes to this, with plenty of specs and numbers that have yet to be verified, but there’s one claim on there that’s worth pointing out, because it’s so incredibly absurd. You know it’s good because it uses the phrase “near infinite mass.” What? What does this even mean? Let’s dig into this madness, just a bit.
I should also note I’m by no means the only one to raise an eyebrow at this; people on sites like Twitter and Reddit have noted it for years, but it only caught my eye recently. And now I can’t stop thinking about it. Here’s what it says, specifically:
RUGGED STRENGTH
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.
So, the Cybertruck can pull “near infinite mass?” What the fuck does that even mean, “near infinite.” Infinite is, well, infinite! There’s no beginning or end, so how can anything be “near?” Five pounds is just as close to infinite pounds as 500,000 pounds is. If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to test it yourself, and try counting from 5 to infinity and then 500,000 to infinity and tell me which one gets you there quicker. I’m not going to wait up for you, though.
That idiocy aside, what do they mean, exactly, by “pull?” I suppose they’re implying that the Cybertruck can pull really, really massive things, like trains or airplanes or spaceships, but you know what? Lots of trucks can. In fact, those three specific things I mentioned have all been done by other trucks, because this is a well-known PR stunt:
Look, a train:
Look, a plane (a freaking Mini is doing this one):
Look, a spaceship:
Many, many vehicles are capable of pulling extremely heavy things slowly over flat, smooth surfaces. There’s whole classes of quite small vehicles that do just this, as a job, every day, like airport tugs.
Our very own engineer-in-cheese David Tracy even wrote about these sorts of pulling stunts a few years back, where he noted that while many vehicles can do these sorts of performative towing feats, they’re not really a useful, real-world test of anything. There’s a standard for what is, though, and it’s the SAE J2807 test that actually takes into account real-world criteria like overheating and handling and braking performance.
The sort of pull that Tesla seems to be referring to with the Cybertruck’s absurd claim must be what’s known as a drawbar pull, which is the amount of horizontal force available to a vehicle at the drawbar for accelerating or pulling a load. There’s a formula for computing it, even:
Drawbar pull = [motor torque] x [gear reduction] /[radius of drive wheel] – [rolling resistance]
I suppose once we actually know what the Cybertuck’s stats are for all these things, we could compute what its drawbar pull would be. I’m willing to bet good, damp money that it’s not going to be anywhere close to “near infinite mass,” though. So if you were planning to tow, say, Jupiter closer to your backyard because it would look awesome in the sky when you had cookouts, I think you’re out of luck.
None of this, of course, is news, because it’s just physics. What is worth noting is the language Tesla is using here, and how it’s indicative of a larger pattern. Just choosing to use the phrase “near infinite mass,” knowing that it’s inherently meaningless but was chosen because someone at Tesla thought it sounded badass or whatever should be a bit of a warning: This is a vehicle that may turn out to be more focused on perception and image than actual utility.
“Near infinite mass” is a sort of insulting phrase to use, because it treats the potential customer as a rube who gets easily dazzled by science-sounding hyperbolic words, and that’s all that whomever wrote this may care about. It crumbles almost immediately under even the most mild of scrutiny, and while all carmakers (especially for trucks) like to play up their vehicles abilities, sometimes with a bit of deliberate obfuscation, we should have some limits about what is just clearly bullshit.
And “near infinite” being used in any context describing a truck’s capabilities is very much bullshit. Unless they’re talking about the Cybertruck’s near infinite ability to provoke eye-rolling. That I’d believe.
I’m looking forward to the youtube reviewers testing this claim. First to destroy their transaxle wins!
Easy enough to test. Just hook it up to Musk’s ego.
Sadly, I have been described as near-infinite mass. I am working on it for my New Year’s resolution. I am hoping this will keep me safe from marauding cyber trucks that want to test their towing abilities.
That’s nothing. I can spin the entire universe around my body, using nothing but my own feet. My best record so far is 45 rpm before puking.
“Near infinite mass” reminds me of “partial nudity” or “mild violence.” In any case it’s all “a little bit pregnant.” I can see the ads now: Cybertruck. Rhymes with Cluster…k.
This, like all things, sounds like a good excuse to post Cayennes. https://youtu.be/0QO7gXyeJ-k
I know how the stunt works! I read that debunker! But Porsche set a record, man, and that’s silly, harmless fun. Also, I like Cayennes. Pffffft.
It also helps when your SUV, y’know, exists. That, too.
I was going to say that Elon is full of near infinite bullshit, but he’s actually full of infinite bullshit.
Since this thing is theoretical, they probably just ignored air resistance.
The cybertruck has a negative coefficient of drag. Nearly infinitely negative.
Well i am wondering if you hooked the cybertruck up to one of those sleds they use at the truck pulls that get harder to pull as you pull at what point does it stop at?
Here’s a F150 Lightning and a Rivian at a truck pull. https://youtu.be/Llkvg6xCGSI
I’d be curious to see how any electric vehicle actually fares in SAE J2807 testing, which includes a pull up Davis Dam grade, which is around 11 miles of ~6% grade at a *minimum* temperature of 100F, with the AC on full.
Or maybe similarly good is The Fast Lane Truck’s Ike Gauntlet up Eisenhower pass. They ran the F150 Lightning and the Hummer EV from Boulder CO up the pass and back (~70 miles) pulling 6k lb. enclosed trailers. Spoiler: the F150 couldn’t make it the whole distance on a full charge.
The Cybertruck can pull a near infinite mass of spherical frictionless cows, within a 1 Km radius of Elon’s reality distortion field.
I suspect that Elon has an issue with recreational Meth use ( ͡~ ͜ʖ ͡°) and because he has a very good dental plan there are no outward physical signs of periodontal damage.
This bit of hyperbole tracks with Elon’s ‘sense of humor’ if you can call it that. But it’s still dumb.
So it can tow what? A black hole?
Actually I like where that is headed…
Slow news day, I guess. Tesla in a headline always gets the clicks.
You’re reading it wrong. When the truck is near an infinite mass it can pull something. Hey, it can probably even pull when not near to an infinite mass. Bonus feature!
Hilarious bullshit? Not according to Newton:
F=G*(M1*M2)/r^2
The ‘catch’ is for this to work the Cybertruck to actually exist in corporeal form.
Was it Socrates who said give me a long enough lever and a place to put it and I can move the world?
It was Oscar Wilde.
Archimedes
Third law of motion says that just picking up a lever moves the world.
I can move the entire universe a near infinitely small amount just by blinking.
Round F down to zero until you’ve overcome static friction. Otherwise your F doesn’t result in any A.
Alternatively, assume the chicken with infinite mass is a sphere in a vacuum.
I think you’re being a little unfair here, Torch. Clearly Tesla is using the same criteria to define “near infinite mass” as they do “full self driving”. It seems their customers have accepted this as a legitimate logical formulation where the meaning of a term has nothing to do with the actual words used in said term, so who are we to judge?
Apparently Elon thought this up while toking on a fat doobie and watching the “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite” scene from 2001: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iWmzp7EPPw
“Yeah Grimes, check this out… sweeeeet…that’s what my Cybertruck will look like when it pulls stuff, man. All colors and stuff, like really cool colors and shapes and things…Maybe it won’t be beyond infinite, but it will be near infinite… yeah.”
Puffery.
I’ve often wondered whether our advertising standards/regulations are better or say something like the Germans’ highly restrictive system. At the end of the day, ours is more fun and interesting. If someone buys a product because they believe something that is obviously hyperbolic, where lies the blame? If you don’t print “DO NOT EAT” on desiccant packs, are you a monster?
“If you don’t print “DO NOT EAT” on desiccant packs, are you a monster?”
Nah.
If you don’t want to get bitten by a vampire you wear some garlic around your neck.
“DO NOT EAT” is like that, but instead of vampires it’s lawyers.
AC electric motors can start huge loads- I’ve seen and heard of one 4000+ HP locomotive pull over 10,000 tons when the other two locomotives failed. But they can do that only because they weight 200+ tons and can put out full torque at barely over 0 RPM. The proudly obese Cybertruck could probably move a train, but the slightest upgrade and it’ll just sit there spinning it’s wheels.
I choose to believe that line is only in there because the man who brought us a company named Space Sex and Tesla models S,3,X,Y just loves putting his finger over the “m” and giggling.
I can pull on anything. Can’t get everything I pull on to move though.
Hey that’s a good point, now I can honestly brag to my friends that I can pull infinite mass.
Tesla are currently saying that the Cybertruck won’t come with airbags because it doesn’t need them. You know, because of it’s advanced construction and stuff.
I’m sure the “innovative materials” in the steering wheel will leave an attractive dent on your forehead when you slam into it though. Hell, it’ll probably turn into a tattoo of loyalty amongst musk-stans.
I’m pretty sure they already have a similar kind of dent on their head somewhere from when they were dropped numerous times as children.
I know you’re not looking for a serious answer here, but my understanding is that the “Cybertruck” (sorry I still have a hard time saying that with a straight face) will weigh so much it will be classed as a medium duty truck and will therefore be exempt from most passenger car safety standards.
I learned of this by following Bollinger, who indicated that’s how they were going to get around those pesky pedestrian impact rules with their boxy trucks. I believe the Hummer EV is also a medium duty truck by law, but GM saw fit to at least put airbags in it.
Will weigh so much it will be classed as a medium duty planet.. fixed it for you
Actually, I was wondering how they could legally not include airbags, so that was useful information, thanks 🙂
(Then I wondered if they’d be able to sell them in the rest of the world, and I’ve just found out that airbags aren’t mandatory in Europe, which surprised me because they’ve been ubiquitous even in cheap cars for years.)
If it ever exists I will be extremely excited to see a crash test of the damn thing. Even moreso now that it apparently doesn’t have basic safety features.
No worries future self driving cars won’t have steering wheels. Problem solved.
It also won’t be legal on roads, because it doesn’t need them! It’s too awesome for roads. Nor does it need mirrors. Or power. Or physical existence itself. The Cybertruck transcends reality as we know it…
Framing cost-cutting as a feature is is pretty funny.
In that magical frictionless world that introductory physics is taught then it may impart nearly infinitely small acceleration to that nearly infinite mass.
This pairs well with the entirely theoretical state of Cybertruck production.