“Your truck is ugly!” an unhoused man yelled while standing on an LA street corner holding up a cardboard sign (a sad, far-too-common sight in a city that is failing many of its citizens). Gripping a strangely-shaped steering wheel not connected to my vehicle’s front tires, I looked over at the man, then over at my passenger, baffled that someone who clearly has bigger fish to fry would care that much about the looks of the truck I was driving. But that’s the Tesla Cybertruck in a nutshell. It’s an unignorable, brutalist bunker-on-wheels that the world cannot resist talking about, and it ended up this way because Tesla made massive compromises that make the truck worse in so many ways, and yet, as a package, so much better. Here, allow me to explain.
Death By A Thousand Cuts
“Death by a thousand cuts” was an expression that a Vehicle Integration long-timer often said as he did his best to protect the integrity of the Jeep Wrangler JL, whose engineering team I was a part of in my early professional days. What do I mean by “protect the integrity of?” Well, at the start of any vehicle program, there is a “vision” put forth of what the vehicle has to be, on a macro scale.
For the Wrangler, the vision was to take the winning formula of the Jeep Wrangler JK, which was selling in unbelievable, never-before-seen numbers (thanks to the addition of the four-door), and fix its pain points, of which there were many. That rear bench was too upright; we had to fix that. The fuel tank skidplate was flat sheet metal that lacked stiffness, and it would therefore bend up into the tank, reducing its fuel capacity. We had to fix that. That grille looked rectangular and terrible. Designers felt we had to fix that. The shifter vibrated too much; someone felt we had to fix that. The sole engine option didn’t offer good enough fuel economy; we had to fix that.
You get the idea. The vision for the JL was to tweak the JK, a dual solid-axle-off-roader that could out-offroad any vehicle on the planet. But as engineers began developing the JL, that vision was jeopardized as individuals and teams sought to reduce the compromises a customer would have to deal with. In doing so, these engineers set out on a course to build something that was decent at everything, but great at nothing, much like many of the crossover SUVs on the market today.
One example from the JL program stands out in my mind: I was sitting in the chassis “chunk team meeting” sometime around early 2014 when a dynamics engineer presented his simulation results. “Our simulations show that the JL, as currently designed, does not meet our corporate ride and handling goals, falling short in the following metrics,” the engineer presented, pointing out areas where the JL’s handling fell short of other vehicles in the company’s fleet. “As such,” he continued, “I recommend changing the solid front axle to an independent suspension design.” I remember my heart pounding when I heard this. The solid front axle was the Wrangler’s trump card; it was what made it far and away the best off-road vehicle for sale in America, especially on rocky courses like the Rubicon Trail and Moab’s “Hell’s Revenge.”
The aforementioned Vehicle Integration long-timer quietly but quickly spoke up. “That’s not the right direction for this vehicle.” That was the end of it. The Wrangler’s solid front axle would live on for at least another generation, solidifying the vehicle as the ultimate rock-crawler for another decade at least.
This long-timer, named Jim, worked together with the JL’s product planner, my friend Tony, to act as a united force against compromise-reducers who threatened to water down the vehicle’s overall “vision” in order to meet their individual or team goals. And these threats were frequent. When someone proposed that the front axle shafts would get hard-to-repair constant-velocity joints instead of bone-simple universal joints, my friends made sure that didn’t happen. When management suggested making skid plates optional for the first time in Jeep Wrangler history, my friends shut that down.
In the end, the JL Wrangler became one of the greatest Jeeps of all time. Pretty much all initial reviews were glowing. This was the old Wrangler, but tweaked in just the right ways to offer a better ride, better fuel economy, a nicer interior, better tech, and on and on, while out-off-roading even its unstoppable predecessor. The result was a triumph. And why? Because the diehards with the vision — my friends Jim and Tony — refused to let the Wrangler succumb to “death by a thousand cuts.”
That was the expression that Jim used pretty much daily. He would always say: “Death by a thousand cuts. You make all these engineering compromises in order to reduce the compromises a customer has to deal with, and at the end of the day, what you have is not a Jeep Wrangler anymore.” The cuts were the engineering compromises, and death was the dilution of the Jeep Wrangler’s soul.
The Cybertruck Kept Its Soul, And That’s Worth Celebrating. Even If It Means Loads Of Compromises
A similar, but arguably even greater triumph happened with the Cybertruck. In 2019, Elon Musk first showed the world the concept version of his company’s first pickup truck on stage in Los Angeles, shortly before designer Franz Von Holzhausen shattered the two driver’s side windows during a demonstration. The responses were brutal. Was this truck a joke? It looks like a sci-fi prop. Is it even legal to build?
Most people thought it was just a concept that would look nothing like the production model. Here was Wired‘s take on it (bold emphasis mine):
Here’s another reason the Cybertruck may seem strange: It doesn’t look like it has all of the necessary elements to make it road-ready. The model shown onstage on Thursday night didn’t have side mirrors, which are required in the US (though the federal government is considering changing the rule). Its headlights, a strip of illumination, wouldn’t be street legal. Automotive engineering experts say they’re also worried about the lack of a visible “crumple zone,” built to collapse and absorb the brunt of the force in a forward collision. Tesla did not respond to questions about whether the truck’s design would change before it goes into production in 2021.
For these reasons, the Cybertruck feels more like a concept car, says Walton, and “a really interesting one.” Other carmakers produce “concepts all the time, but then they don’t list them on their website with a ‘buy now’ button.” Yes, you can reserve your Cybertruck right now for $100.
Here’s what Jalopnik had to say:
Despite what Musk said, the truck we saw last night doesn’t really look like something that can be mass-produced as-is. There are barely any taillights or rear turn signals. The “headlights” are a sort of thin horizontal bar across the front. It doesn’t have side mirrors at all.
Plus, if you think its Knight Rider-style yoke steering wheel is easy to use, try driving KITT sometime. It actually sucks. And how about pedestrian safety standards?
If you don’t believe me, an idiot on the internet, ask our friend and contributor Bozi Tatarevic, a smart person on the internet:
I’m still trying to believe all of this but looking at the front end and some of the angles on the side I wonder if Tesla has considered pedestrian and cyclist safety at all? pic.twitter.com/vNggM4Z95o
— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) November 22, 2019
And that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg here, as far as regulations go. So while Musk may be reluctant to admit it, the Cybertruck is going to need plenty of changes before it goes to market—just like any concept car.
Here’s what Matt Farah said:
“I’m not entirely sure it’s real…My initial reaction to that was ‘that’s not a real thing.’ And my second reaction is ‘I’m pretty sure they couldn’t build and sell that in America’…because I just don’t think that that will pass the tests that it needs to pass… crash tests, pedestrian safety — stuff like that.”
Farah says he spoke with some designers who convinced him that “it could be possible to build and sell a vehicle shaped sort-of like that, although not exactly like that.”
Scores of journalists and analysts said the Tesla Cybertruck, as shown on that fateful day in November, would never actually make it to production. It wasn’t possible. By the time a production version came out, they said emphatically, it would be a significantly different truck than what was shown back in 2019 (which you can see above). The concept truck, many believed, posed too many compromises — it wouldn’t be safe enough for pedestrians, it wouldn’t be useful enough, you wouldn’t be able to see out the back of it; it would have to change significantly. Like what my friend Jim feared about the JL Wrangler, its soul would succumb to “a thousand cuts.”
But that didn’t happen. Tesla accomplished a miracle.
Sure, the Cybertruck came out years later than promised, plus it was more expensive than expected, its payload and towing figures were lower, it had to have mirrors unlike the concept truck, plus its overall size changed a bit. But none of that detracts from the irrefutable fact that Tesla actually pulled it off.
The production Cybertruck delivered the soul promised by the concept truck; a shape that seemed like a joke to so many — and impossible to build — is now driving our roads. The production truck looks almost exactly like the concept, and that’s just a miracle worth celebrating.
And it happened because Tesla refused to water down its vision to get rid of all the compromises that the bold design would impart upon owners. And my God are there compromises.
Compromise 1: Build Quality
I don’t want to spend too much time talking about build quality, because that’s been beaten to death. But just look at the photo above. That’s where the roofline just above the rear passenger’s side door meets the bed’s “sail pillar” (rear quarter panel). The fit is way, way off. And the hood gap where it meets the fender is also huge and uneven:
“This would not be acceptable on any production car that we sell,” my copresenter (and Autopian cofounder) Beau Boeckmann points out in the video at the top of this article. I could go on and on, but again, it’s been beaten to death: The Cybertruck’s fit and finish isn’t great.
Compromise 2: It’s Big And Hard To Maneuver
One thing that’s impossible to ignore is the fact that the Cybertruck is big. And while its four-wheel steer-by-wire allows for a surprisingly tight turning radius with minimal steering effort from the driver, the Cybertruck can still be a bit tricky to maneuver.
I actually hit a car with the Cybertruck. I turned the wheel to back into a parking space, only to see my rear tire turn and smash right into a Kia EV6. D’oh!
But beyond just the size and the trickiness of getting used to four-wheel steering, the truck’s corners, especially the rear ones, are just so far out there that it’s hard to have a great understanding of just where in space they are.
It helps that the Cybertruck has absolutely fantastic, crisp cameras, but they’re not quite enough to make maneuvering the F-150-sized truck easy in Los Angeles.
Compromise 3: It Has The Worst User Interface Of Any Vehicle I’ve Ever Driven
When it comes to the main user interface associated with actually using the vehicle for its primary function — driving — the Tesla Cybertruck gets a D minus. Even getting into the vehicle is a compromise that — instead of just requiring pulling a handle that’s presented to you, as is the case with other cars — requires multiple steps. First, if you don’t have the app on your phone, you have to put a key card up against the B-pillar:
Then you press the button at the base of the B-pillar (the strip with the white horizontal rectangle at the center — see image below):
Once you’ve pressed that, the door pops out, and you can slide your hand into the door jamb and grip the stainless steel door. Yes, you’re grabbing raw stainless steel; there’s no rubber pad on the backside for your hand to grip — it’s just steel, some of which is rather sharp:
It’s worth noting that, right after driving this Cybertruck, Beau and I hopped into the new Lotus Eletre, and it simply presented its door handles upon noticing that someone with a key fob was approaching. I grabbed the handle and opened the door; it was faster than the Cybertruck, and way, way more elegant.
Once you’re inside, you sit down and place your key card on the wireless charging pad.
That then activates the shifter on the screen. Yes, you read that right: the shifter on the screen.
We could list off the worst shifters of all time — maybe you hate the rotary dial shifter in the Chrysler Pacifica or Chrysler 200. Maybe you don’t like the monostable shifter in the early WK2-generation Jeep Grand Cherokee. Maybe you don’t like the tiny Toyota Prius shifter. Or the weird Nissan leaf ball-shaped shifter.
None of these are as bad as the Cybertruck’s “shifter,” because at least these are three-dimensional shifters. They can be used without requiring you to take your eyes off the road, and they offer a positive engagement that makes it easy to know which gear they’re in. The Cybertruck requires you to look at the screen, press your finger on the little cybertruck icon in that small vertical shifter “column,” and then slide it up to go into drive or downward to go into reverse.
The shifter works, and it isn’t confusing like some shifters can be, but I still struggle to find a worse transmission shifter in the automotive industry. There’s a reason why the Ford F-150 has stayed with its T-handle PRNDL shifter despite the fact that it takes up a bunch of space and doesn’t actually mechanically connect to the transmission: That’s what Ford’s customers want. They want a physical, substantial shifter. Ram went to a rotary dial, and that received a bunch of criticism, though I think most folks are used to that now. But this “shifter” in the Cybertruck? One with minimal feedback to tell you what’s going on and one that you cannot use without looking — it may work, but that doesn’t mean it’s not the worst of the bunch.
While we’re on the topic of things Tesla should have kept on a steering column stalk, let’s talk about the turn signals. They’re on the steering wheel.
The Cybertruck isn’t the first car with steering wheel-mounted turn signal buttons; I drove a Ford GT earlier this year, and it had wheel-mounted turn signal buttons. They sucked on the GT, and they suck just as bad on the Cybertruck. Turn signal switches should not move; you should know where they are at all times; the stalk that the rest of the industry uses is so common for a reason: It is the best version of that switch. It does its job perfectly; this is an example of Tesla fixing what isn’t broken.
You know what else isn’t broken? Gauge clusters situated just ahead of the driver. As you can see in the image above, there are no gauges in front of the driver; even the speed is off to the right in the center stack. This probably saves Tesla money over having a secondary screen ahead of the driver, but that doesn’t make this setup any better for the driver.
You know what also probably saves Tesla money? Foregoing buttons. Obviously, there are some buttons in the Cybertruck (I just mentioned the turn signal buttons), but the main vehicle functions are all controlled via a touchscreen. Heated seat switch? It’s on the touchscreen. Shifter (as I mentioned before)? Touchscreen. Radio? Touchscreen. Climate control? That’s on the touch screen. Even if you want to adjust your HVAC air vents, you have to use the touchscreen; it’s maddening. But nothing is more maddening than the fact that, in order to open the glovebox you have to use a button on the touchscreen.
Again, Tesla isn’t the first company to require opening the glovebox via a button on a touchscreen, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worse than a simple latch that the world has been using for many decades.
The truth is that the world wants buttons. In fact, when we wrote the article “Europe Is Requiring Physical Buttons For Cars To Get Top Safety Marks, And We Should, Too,” the comments were filled with supporters of the idea that America follow suit. We’re tired of having to use a touchscreen for everything; give us back our physical buttons!
In a world where people just want their physical buttons back, the Tesla Cybertruck is the worst culprit. It pushes everything onto that big center screen, and it doesn’t make the vehicle better at all.
Compromise 4: Visibility Isn’t Good
Because the Tesla Cybertruck’s tonneau cover slides down its sail pillars, when the cover is down, rear visibility out the rearview mirror is zero.
You see only the glare off the rear glass:
Even when the tonneau cover has been retracted, the rear visibility from that rearview mirror isn’t amazing:
For some reason, Tesla decided to put a rear camera on the center screen instead of integrating one into the rearview mirror. So if you want to see which cars are behind you when you have the tonneau cover down, you have to look over to the right at the little image below the speedometer reading:
Forward visibility is OK, though the split A-pillars can cause some issues. I once totally missed some pedestrians crossing the street until my partner yelled at me.
Again, the Cybertruck’s surround-view cameras are great, but they’re no replacement for actually being able to see out of the vehicle.
Compromise 5: Smears Will Show Up Everywhere
Because the Cybertruck is made of unpainted stainless steel, handprints and dirt show up and stick out prominently.
Compromise 6: That Windshield Is Hard To Clean
If you look at where the windshield meets the front of the truck, you see that the Cybertruck is actually almost a cab-forward design. On an old vehicle, that would mean the driver is sitting at the very front of the machine. But because legs acting as crumple zones is no longer considered acceptable to the government, to insurance companies, or to the general population, the Cybertruck (and the new VW bus, for that matter) have the driver’s seat pushed way, way back relative to the base of the windshield.
The result is a humongous dashboard and a windscreen that feels like it’s a quarter mile from the driver. As a result, wiping off grime or fog is borderline impossible while seated.
Compromise 7: Reaching Over The Bedsides Can Be Tricky
The photo above shows me trying to reach over the Cybertruck’s bedsides as I load a dresser into the bed; a red arrow points out the charge port door, which opened as a result of me simply loading the vehicle.
This is obviously not ideal, even if overall I found the Cybertruck’s bed to be totally usable, and certainly more practical than many four-door pickup truck beds today.
Compromise 8: You Can Cut Yourself
As useful as the Cybertruck’s bed is, I was not thrilled when, while reaching over the driver’s side bedside and adjusting a fig tree that I had loaded into the bed, I actually cut myself:
Cut myself on the Tesla Cybertruck loading a fig tree. This edge on the bedside, which you reach over to grab things, is really suboptimal. pic.twitter.com/SqDUpo18EE
— David Tracy (@davidntracy) May 11, 2024
It’s a tiny scratch, really, but it wasn’t pleasant, and it was all because of this poorly-placed sharp edge:
Compromise 9: It’s Expensive And Heavy And Its Range Is Only So-So
The Tesla Cybertruck ain’t cheap. A base, 350-ish horsepower rear-wheel drive model costs about $60 grand, and if you want four-wheel drive and 600 ponies, that’ll cost you closer to 80 grand. What’s more, range for the base truck (which probably weighs about 6,000 pounds; the dual-motor weighs 6,600) is an estimated 250 miles, while the dual-motor four-wheel drive brings that up to 340. Sure, 340 isn’t a bad figure, but I’ve read reports about worse real-world range.
The fact is: It’s a big truck, its shape isn’t exactly the most aerodynamic, and that means it’s going to require heavy, expensive batteries to offer competitive range.
It’s All Of These Compromises That Make The Cybertruck Cool
The Cybertruck wouldn’t be a Cybertruck if not for these compromises. They are what make up the vehicle’s soul.
I realize that sounds absurd; am I really saying a vehicle’s flaws are what make it good? Am I really going to excuse these very obvious compromises — the terrible rear visibility that requires you to look at a camera image on the center stack to see what’s directly behind you, the poor speedometer position, the worst-in-the-industry shifter, the sharp edges that can cut you, the hard-to-clean windshield, the fingerprint-magnet body panels, the dumb steering wheel-mounted turn signals, the poor fit-and-finish, and the only so-so range coupled with a high price? Am I really going to say that these issues make the Cybertruck better?
Yes, I am. Sort of.
You see, there are some cars that make users deal with compromises that have no clear benefit. Take the VW ID.4’s cheap window switch design, which basically uses the same window up-down buttons for the front and rear, ostensibly to save money. This is just a bad compromise in a vehicle with a confused identity.
Then there are vehicles that make customers deal with compromises that actually bear fruit — ones that help give the vehicle soul. The Jeep Wrangler JL I mentioned earlier in this article comes to mind. Its overall shape doesn’t help with wind noise or fuel economy, but it still looks like a Jeep. That solid front axle doesn’t help the vehicle ride or handle very well, but it sure helps the vehicle off-road over seemingly-impossible terrain, and it makes lifting the Jeep significantly easier than an independent front suspension would. The Jeep look and that solid front axle help give the vehicle soul.
The Cybertruck falls into the Jeep’s camp. It set out to be something five years ago, and in order to be that thing — a low-polygon, brutalist machine that changes the way people perceive truck design, whether you (or the unhoused man) like it or not — it knew it would have to make compromises.
The shape couldn’t be the most aerodynamic, so range/weight/cost would suffer. The stainless steel panels would gather fingerprints and be tricky to manufacture; as a result, fit and finish would suffer. The sharp corners that gave the vehicle such a bold look could cut customers, the wacky tonneau cover would harm visibility, that windshield would be hard to reach, and on and on.
As for the interior functions, which weren’t really prominently shown in the concept car in 2019, they had to be bold and, in some ways, they had to continue Tesla’s trend of “doing things for the sake of doing them, even if they make the car, arguably, worse” (see Tesla Model X Falcon Doors). The lack of door handles, the hard-to-use turn signal switches, the glove box switch, and especially that wacky shifter — they’re less about ensuring the truck maintains the soul of the concept that debuted in 2019, and more about making sure it maintains the soul of a Tesla. They’re about ensuring brand continuity. Wacky stuff with door handles and a “control everything through the screen” attitude is The Tesla Way.
The truth is, if Tesla rounded those sharp edges so they wouldn’t cut me when I reached into the bed; adjusted the shape to offer better range at a lower cost; installed a regular shifter; built the truck out of something less likely to see fingerprints and that could be assembled more easily with good fit and finish; removed the tonneau cover that blocks rear visibility — if Tesla did all of these, then the Cybertruck would not be the Cybertruck.
It is what it is because it refused to die by a thousand cuts.
The Tesla Cybertruck Doesn’t Deserve Hate From Enthusiasts, Even If It Does Deserve Some Criticism
Everyone wants to hate the Tesla Cybertruck to the point where I’ve seen experienced, veteran car journalists unable to remain objective about it. And I get it; the vehicle cannot be detached from highly controversial Tesla boss Elon Musk and his sometimes-rabid fans. It’s extremely difficult to talk about the Cybertruck without thinking about Musk and a bunch of wackjobs who would defend Tesla to the death, probably by insulting you on Twitter.
But the Cybertruck is a miracle. It is a vehicle with a clearly-defined soul, and that, especially to car enthusiasts, is worth admiring. It did not succumb to the dreaded “death by a thousand cuts,” even if it will leave your forearm with a couple. It stands proudly with all of its flaws so that it can be what it set out to be: a Cybertruck.
And overall, it really is a compelling machine. I know I just spent this entire article talking about compromises (and I didn’t mention them all; the visor mirrors are hilariously tiny/useless, the automatic emergency braking is too aggressive, etc), but there are so many positive attributes worth mentioning, too. Obviously, there’s the ~600 horsepower that rockets the 6,600-pound vehicle from zero to 60 mph in about four seconds; the thing is quick.
But more surprising than that is the ride quality, which is simply phenomenal for a truck on 35-inch tires. The truck is quiet and rides like a magic carpet even over speed bumps; honestly, I can’t think of a vehicle that dispatches speed bumps as well as the Tesla Cybertruck — it’s remarkable.
The interior is nice enough; it’s a little spartan design-wise, but the material quality is good enough, and with the quiet cabin, excellent ride, and top-notch sound system that lets you really bang tunes, it’s just a great place to be. And that applies to passengers up front or in the rear, as the space throughout the cabin is plentiful:
Plus, storage space is good, too, with smart use of the flat floor space between the driver’s and passenger’s floorboards (this space is often poorly utilized; Tesla’s done a great job with it), along with big door cubbies, a deep center console, a short but still usable frunk, and of course that highly-useful six-foot bed.
The biggest criticism that the Cybertruck deserves isn’t that it contains flaws, it’s that some of those flaws could have been fairly easily remedied without harming the vehicle’s soul. The shape and stainless steel construction — and the compromises that come with those — couldn’t really have easily been changed, but there are little things that could have been improved while still keeping the truck what it is. For example, a little plastic or rubber pad in the door jamb to receive your hand when you open your door (like that in the Ford Mustang Mach-E) wouldn’t be hard to include.
A camera in the rearview mirror instead of the center screen would have been easy enough. And while I think a lot of the UI complaints I have (the door opening-procedure, the center-mounted speedometer, etc) are just part of the “Tesla formula,” I do think the company could have gotten away with a column shifter and a column-mounted turn signal like that in some of its other cars. I think these two would have vastly improved the driving experience without detracting much from the Cybertruckishness.
It’s a slippery slope, though. “Death by a thousand cuts” is a dangerous thing. If you try to reduce too many of the customer’s compromises, you get to the point where you no longer have a Cybertruck. I’m glad Tesla didn’t go down that road, that it somehow managed to build a truck that so many considered impossible, and that it delivered something that — while not exactly what was promised — certainly has the same soul.
The Cybertruck is flawed, but at least it has an identity. It’s weird. Wacky. “Out there.” But as a diehard car enthusiast who appreciates “strange” stuff like Pontiac Azteks and AMC Gremlins and the pug-nosed, suicide door-having, carbon-fiber BMW i3 — I (and my co-presenter, Beau) have to appreciate that. Even if Elon and his fans sometimes annoy the heck out of me.
Update: “The Tesla Cybertruck Is A Miracle And Its Flaws Are What Make It Cool” was the headline I started out with, and while I stand by that (I do think it’s a miracle that Tesla pulled it off, and I do think the flaws are what enabled it to be so cool), let’s try the original headline I came up with for size, shall we?
This vehicle shouldn’t be legal to sell.
The cybertruck is not cool. You confuse wannabe, lame cool for actual cool. As for your arguments, the article is a clear stretch, and all for clicks – pretty disappointing to see that here. The logic of the argument and the way it’s built is pure clickbait: first offer the JL story that we can all agree with, establishing common ground and rules, then take those rules, twist them until they look completely different and now offer them as skewed arguments to support your subjective opinion. Ugh.
The 9 flaws you correctly point out are terminal and if the JL let some 9 major flaws through it would have been an Aztek. The CT is a half baked attempt to make a fundamentally dumb idea look cool. As you said yourself, execution counts.
I feel like you’re missing a critical compromise. What about pedestrian safety? The angles and corners make me think we’ll start seeing horror stories about peds and cyclists being torn apart as these trucks increase in numbers. The surfaces are also incredibly unforgiving, which will make blunt force trauma even more severe. Other large trucks have similar concerns, but not to the degree of these tanks.
As ridiculous image cars go, Cybertruck is way cheaper and more practical than a Lamborghini. Which is a win for the truck. Only one downside: you can’t noisily rev the CT’s engine in highly visible urban settings until it catches fire.
Great article David. The Wrangler refused to compromise on its core tenents. The difference is that Elon’s core tenents are: We need to be different at all costs, even if it sucks and breaks. I like people pushing boundaries to get past staid norms, but if there is not a net benefit, try something else instead of doubling down to prove a point.
So… America now finally has its Lada Niva….
I guess you could say the cyber truck really pushes your buttons except…….
I listen to Matt Farah’s podcast. What he didn’t know back then but has since learned is that there aren’t any pedestrian safety regulations for vehicles in the US. An internet search suggests that’s true. ( It’s time to rethink what counts as a “safe car” – Vox , Feds Propose New Vehicle Pedestrian Safety Standards (autoweek.com) )
There are NCAP rules for pedestrian safety that vehicles in the EU have to comply with, but there aren’t any in the US, though the US is considering a watered down version of NCAP (see the autoweek article above). That’s probably why the Cybertruck won’t be sold in Europe.
A pedestrian collision scenario I can picture is the front sword edges of the front fenders combined with the low-visibility, pedestrian hiding A-pillar area (as you experienced) will have someone cut in half.
By reading some of the comments I don’t know who’s worse, Elon fans or Elon haters.
The fans. There are such things as universal truths.
it’s like, who’s worse, the anti-semites or the anti-antisemites? Probably no way to know…
Who’s who in your analogy?
https://x.com/JGreenblattADL/status/1725179100061380906
So the Musk fans are anti-childrenkillers and Musk haters are pro-childrenkillers? With analogy like this the choice is much easier. Thank you.
It will never be cool. Not even in an ironic way. So it opens up hope that more wacky vehicles could be made? By whom? The EV companies that are going under? The Chinese companies? More wacky vehicles that are objectively bad in important ways? No, that hope does not make it cool either.
It’s lame, wannabe cool in a bully way.
Eh, give it 20 years, and it will have some following (assuming any of them have functional batteries by then). The Aztek and the H2 were both treated similarly when new, and now there’s a certain subculture trying to make them cool
No I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time, and I don’t think it is unreasonable to expect the well-paid decision-makers at these companies to be able to do the same. I can applaud Tesla for being uncompromising in manifesting their vision of what that vehicle should be but also hold firm in my opinion that their vision of that vehicle is shallow, dangerous, inhumane, and ill-informed.
You got cut by this hideous beast. It must have activated your rust receptors that you are praising it for maiming you.
You shouldn’t need a surgical stapler in your vehicle first aid kit just to access the bed.
This is such an odd approach to an article. I haven’t read the multitude of comments yet, but it just seems to be arguing that sticking to the “soul” of a bad idea is a worthwhile goal.
If I tell you that I’m going to eat Chipotle and Taco Bell until I unleash the world’s most impressive explosive diarrhea in your master bedroom’s en suite, I would expect to be told that’s a horrible idea. I would not expect to have some critiques made about changing from tacos to burritos partway through the mission, but still being very impressed that I so completely coated the areas the flush won’t clear with splatter. “Sure, it’s easier to install a new toilet than rectify this disaster, but boy did you maintain the soul of this goal.”
Best metaphor ever for the article ????
Goddamn. Bravo. +100, planning to get the green apple splatters doesn’t make it praiseworthy when you follow through.
This is as compelling an article as I’ve ever read on his website. Bravo, DT: you actually changed my mind about this one weird truck.
We should applaud automakers when they do something strange and different, even if it’s kind of a failure in many respects. Because that’s the only way we end up eventually getting something great.
❤️
Woof. 160+ comments, that’s how you know an article is S P I C Y. Anyways I’d daily it after mounting some proper door handles on it. You can just drill and tap that thickness of stainless steel, no need for rivnuts or anything!
It’s really not that spicy. It’s a fairly level-headed take, But it’s a controversial truck.
It’s not spicy. Just a twisted argument that offers flawed logic. Congrats on the clix you can taste. So so disappointing.
You’re disappointed that I find a truck that you hate to be cool. Let’s just call it what it is.
Absolutely not the cause of my disappointment! I quietly disagreed with you many times over the years as I’ve been reading your stuff ever since you joined Jalopnik, but that made it objectively cool and interesting to read because you were being true to yourself (I wouldn’t sleep in a car and bathe in the sea before meeting people, etc).
I disagree with stretching of definitions I deeply care for. Like cool cars, integrity in design decisions and what a miracle is. This kind of semantic fundamental disagreement is what I am disappointed about. Like “depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is”. (Identify the quote?) There is a commenter here who owns one and made it seem easy to defend the CT without imparting on us what a cool miracle it is.
At the end of the day, it’s just the internets and we react strongly because we care about this little community we’re a part of and about y’all and want to keep it cool. Truly cool.
I cannot possibly be more true to myself than to voice what I think about a vehicle knowing that the masses are going to disagree.
I drove the truck, I thought it was flawed, but I thought it was cool. It’s almost something I have little control over; that’s just what I came away with — it is what it is!
And to be clear, I didn’t say it was a great machine. I said it’s cool. That’s a totally subjective opinion.
You are right. The “ct is cool” part is your take and you are fully entitled to your opinions – and we subscribe to hear them. I read the take again and I think the association with the JL is what put me over the edge because that is a gold standard in design thoughtfulness, successfully navigating corporate politics and technical execution. Pretty much the exact opposite of the CT. Even having these cars in the same sentence is a stretch. So yes, the take is fine, it’s your personal angle, but the way the argument was constructed in the article is flawed.
I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it. Obviously, I don’t think there’s anything flawed at all; it’s simply using my experience as an engineer to point out how easily an initial polarizing and flawed vision (and let’s be clear: The Wrangler is flawed; its design makes for a loud, inefficient machine filled with compromises — and not all of them for functional reasons. Many for styling) can start to be threatened by “death by a thousand cuts.”
As an engineer who has seen it, I find that the Cybertruck avoiding this fate — especially given how hard everyone knew it would be to build that concept truck — is simply amazing.
YES YOU CAN!!!!
I use this one all the time on stuff at work. I would find a way to incorporate it into your solution.
https://www.mcmaster.com/2471N3/
I’d want it to tickle the actual latch as well, so it’ll probably be some OEM door pull device I inverse-engineer¹ in. My 80s Ford truck door pulls are pretty solid.
¹ Inverse engineer: To undo someone else’s hard work and implement your solution in the same place, which may be shittier, more uncouth, or more expensive. Reverse engineering is finding out how someone else did it, inverse engineering is throwing it away after you grab the dimensions and signals to replicate.
All in all a great write-up, DT! Well-thought-out and stays true to your subjective viewpoint. That’s not always easy to do. Kudos.
Also, since I am having a nice weekend, there isn’t a chance in hell I’m reading the rest of the comments, lol. God speed, Sir.
My day got a bit worse thanks those twitter folks trying to ruin my professional reputation, which I take very seriously. Resist responding, DT. Resist.
Just direct them here.
Yeah, let it go. Everybody across the industry knows your integrity can’t be impugned. Don’t engage with the smooth brains. Think of that old saw about the pointlessness of fighting pigs in mud.
Hey man. I disagree like hell with you, but I’m grateful for you saying the crazy shit you do. I know it comes from a good place. You’re a optimist in a cynical world.
The CT is hot steel trash, but the DT is solid gold.
Man, “hot steel trash.” That’s good.
Kinda wish I hated it so I could have used that in the headline. “The Tesla Cybertruck Is Hot Steel Trash.”
Dang, I can TASTE the clix
Don’t go to the dark side David!
Hey, DT, just wanted to say I agree 100% on the shortcomings of the CT, and disagree 100% on the conclusions of the article, but I enjoyed reading it like all of your other articles. (See my other comment in this section.) X is always trash, and you should never take anything said on X seriously anymore.
Some meta food for thought: X is the way it is, and the terminally online people, bots and trolls populating X right now are the way they are, because of vision. X being X is not an accident, or happenstance. That enthusiastic vitriol married to online PTSD is exactly what X wants to be, and it has been shockingly good at devolving to its purpose in service of that vision, compromises and all.
What’s the vision? Someone who personifies a divorced dad meme with unlimited resources got big mad that folks on Twitter were dunking on him. He rustled up some bored like-minded vulture capitalist buddies and anti-free speech Saudi money, and then set about with laser-like clarity using his purchase as a big revenge fantasy on all his perceived online enemies inside and outside of Twitter. That’s the whole bag. X is the platform purpose-built for trolls to enact their revenge on their perceived enemies.
Every real journalist bemoaning the sad state of X nowadays is a fine wine to the owner of that vision. Every normal person who gets cyber-bullied by the frothing hordes is just another ego boost to how well that vision is working. Everything is working as intended.
I really shouldn’t even respond to this, but I’m gonna anyway.
For all you vented in those four paragraphs, please consider the possibility that how you interpret the truth is not how other people interpret it on a given subject. Projecting individual truth in absolutes as the only truth tends to not be very effective, and often invalidates any cogent points within, which defeats the purpose of expressing oneself in the first place.
Just sayin’. Otherwise, have a nice day/night. 🙂
Some other meta food for though: Twitter has always been a cesspit full of the terminally online, trolls, and bullies. You just didn’t notice because the ideological bent the admins allowed to flourish agreed with your own- this is painfully obvious to anyone sitting in the center of the contemporary politically spectrum.
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
-Marcus Aurelius
In other words, don’t let “just anyone” who happens to have a computer/internet bother you. They don’t have any power to affect your reputation. So, don’t trick yourself into thinking they do.
If someone you respect, or admire, or try to emulate, has something to say, then would be the appropriate time to pay attention to the critique. If it’s some random? Fuck ’em. They haven’t earned it. 😉
Well, you’re certainly getting the engagement now. But my goodness could I not disagree more with your opinion re “soul” and “cool” with this thing. I don’t generally expect, at any rate, to necessarily agree with the soul judgment of a fella who has so publically waxed rhapsodic about the purported soul of various Jeep Grand Cherokees. I’d sooner try to defend the palate of Chef Boyardee. But man, I can’t just sit here while you defend the preservation of objectively bad ideas as some kind of integrity worth applauding. That way lies the approval of orange-skinned short-fingered vulgarian felons as presidential material because, hey, at least he’s true to his orange, vulgar, felonious nature. Is it not better to learn from mistakes rather than double down on them? That first shattered window should have been the last, not immediately followed by the second. THAT was what was absolutely true to the Tesla Way Under Musk, and while it’s definitely useful to remember that (so we can have our laffs and remember not to be like that ourselves), it’s downright destructive to celebrate it and call it “cool” and uncompromising and true to a particular vision.
I couldn’t disagree more. A concept car, as you well know and recognize, is a concept. The Ford Mustang I concept, unveiled in 1962, bears no resemblance whatsoever to what you and I think of as a Ford Mustang. The Mustang II concept from 1963 is a whole lot closer to the “original” 1964 1/2 model, but that’s because it was built off a preproduction Mustang; most of the production Mustang choices had been made by then. But that Mustang II is soooo cool (no relation, of course, to the ’74-’78 Mustang II), though would we say that “you no longer have a Mustang” because its final production form differed so wildly from those concepts? Of course not… they were Concepts; the actual Mustang you could buy in April 1964 was the Mustang.
The point is that Tesla could have solved most of the issues critics pointed out in the concept without betraying the fundamental vision… but they chose not to. They dug in their heels on overpromising and underdelivering, they kept the dangerous elements, they knew they extent to which they could exploit the edgelord contrarian marketplace without “compromising” by making the vehicle safer, easier to drive, simpler to maintain… I mean, nobody celebrates the Honda CVCC cars of the late ’70s for their propensity to rust, even though that has turned out to be a defining characteristic for most younger gearheads who never got to enjoy their brilliance while they were still structurally sound. It’s intellectually perverse to celebrate the things that make ownership of a particular vehicle objectively worse than it needs to be.
Maybe it just hasn’t been long enough since you’ve had to pull rusty axles in a snowbound junkyard and just considered that a necessary part of the shadetree mechanic’s life. Maybe eventually the temptation to romanticize crappy qualities as “soul” will be outgrown. I’ve been reading your stuff for many years now, and this is the first time I’ve been moved to consider any of that content even a little bit intellectually dishonest.
No need to get personal. You don’t like the truck, I think it’s cool. That’s fine!
It’s not about liking or disliking the truck, it’s the very premise that flaws (which can be described as failures to achieve what the designers intended, unless Tesla wanted to cut their customers on sharp corners, obstruct their vision, and have their expensive vehicle corrode before our very eyes) are, to quote your own headline, what make the Cybertruck cool. That’s not even what your supporting points prove. Whatever one makes of the aesthetic, Tesla had a vision and tried hard to stick to it and arguably succeeded. Yes. That point you do support. But no, it’s not the flaws themselves that make the truck cool. If it is indeed to be considered cool, it’s in spite of those flaws, not because of them. And I know and appreciate how much you care about language, but that distinction makes your hed clickbaity and hackle-raising and argument-starting… because of its dishonest premise. And you don’t need to take it as a personal affront, but dammit, you and this site are both better than that.
That last thing makes me wonder if we’ll get a Tale From The Slack about this post and its topshot. Might be spicy, might be tame, might be nonexistent.
The Tesla Cybertruck Makes Big Compromises To Be Cool, And It Pulls It Off
Was the original headline. Perhaps you’d have preferred that. The flaws, which represent (and are a result of) Tesla’s focus on maintaining the concept truck’s soul, allow the truck to be cool.
Maybe I could have tweaked it a bit. Headlines are tricky, and I’m fallible.
Still, I stand by the piece.
Also, you can lay off the “dishonest/clickbait” terms. We keep it 100% around here.
I understand what you were saying in the article and I do apologize for impugning your professional integrity. But I do think the revised hed goes a long way toward rectifying what got me so wound up in the first place. And again, it wasn’t so much about loving or hating the Cybertruck itself, but rather the statement that “the flaws themselves are what make it cool” compared to “the degree to which the production truck adhered so closely to the original concept despite countless temptations to dilute that vision by making compromises to address perceived flaws… is very cool and downright miraculous.” Obviously the latter is entirely too unwieldy to work as a hed than the former, but they’re also saying two very different things. Also obviously, the Cybertruck is the most polarizing and controversial production vehicle in recent memory, so any article lauding it or denigrating it is going to get lots of pushback from partisans one way or another. It just really seemed to me that calling the flaws themselves cool felt like a deliberate kick of a hornet’s nest, rather than a celebration of design integrity. So I apologize if reactions like mine (opposing the language used, not actually opposing your appreciation for what Tesla achieved) came as an unpleasant surprise.
It’s all good. I don’t think me saying “the flaws are what make it cool” is really that big of a step from “the flaws are what *allow it to be cool*” especially since I explain that thoroughly in the piece, but it’s a polarizing machine and people will just read the headline. It’s 2024 after all. Plus, I don’t mind the original hed, so why not pop that back up there; I have no ego about stuff like that.
And trust me, I wasn’t trying to kick any hornets nest. Just trying to build a short and snappy headline; we don’t always nail it on the first try, so sometimes you’ll see us tweak heds after they go up.
> lies the approval of orange-skinned short-fingered vulgarian felons as presidential material
We get it. You hate Elon Musk. You could have just stopped right here and saved us the pedantic diatribe like almost every other sanctimonious 6-pager essay writer here. You notice that almost all of the hater comments just can’t get away from Musk this, Musk that and barely even talk about the truck itself, or if it does, it’s “Well MUSK wanted it to be sharp and edgy to HURT PEOPLE because HE HURTS PEOPLE and HE LIKES PEOPLE THAT HURTS PEOPLE”
Seriously, that’s what y’all sound like.
Hey, for whatever it’s worth, I’ve never said anything negative that I can remember about any other Tesla. My distaste for the man doesn’t really enter into my distaste for the truck, except that he’s rich enough and egotistical enough to make it be what he himself wants it to be, whether that’s a good thing or not. I gather Henry Ford was an asshole too, but that never stopped me from owning and enjoying half a dozen cars with his name on them. Compromised though they certainly were.
“The Tesla Cybertruck Doesn’t Deserve Hate From Enthusiasts, Even If It Does Deserve Some Criticism”
Perhaps not. But I have difficulty seeing how it’s worthy of praise.
Stubbornly making sure your vision is realized isn’t “genius” if it’s a bad vision.
Respectfully, I fundamentally disagree with both the headline and your main assertion that the truck, despite being nothing but a bundle of flaws, is great because it somehow maintains the “soul” of a concept car that no one, neither automotive writers nor consumers *ever drove*. So it’s great because it manages to look like the concept car, unlike other cars? That’s uh, a “miracle”?
“Miracle” is a bold, bold word, and I struggle to find constructive ways to refer to this semantic choice. What is miraculous about this vehicle other than its resemblance to the original concept car? I mean, the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile exists. You can build a vehicle to look like anything you want, as long as you realize you’ll have to deal with the effed up bullsh*t that your design choices have saddled you with.
Then, you list nine “compromises” that is *major flaws* , any one of which is a deal breaker for me in cars. (Plus, you left off #10, lack of any instrument cluster and the center mount iPad screen, which is not only stupid, it’s dangerous.). The person who put the shifter in the tablet screen UI should be covered in honey and buried up to his neck next to an ant hill.
I get that each person will have a different level of appreciation for the wacky, and if this truck floats your wacky boat, more power to you. But this thing is just a rolling aggregation of all the trends in automobile manufacturing that annoy the living eff out of me. And it’s catastrophically ugly. (Also, “death by a thousand cuts” is exactly what you’ll get owning this thing, because every time you make a Home Depot run, you’ll need a tetanus shot.)
My headline would have been closer to “Tesla matches concept in production cybertruck; car overwhelmingly compromised by design.”
It’s fine if you disagree! I’m just telling you what I thought of it after driving it.
Yes, I think Tesla producing a truck that most folks thought wasn’t manufacturable, and remaining true to that concept truck, is a miracle in some ways. I remain deeply impressed that it exists, despite its flaws. And in some ways, because of them.
Fair enough. We all have differing appreciation of vehicles for a variety of reasons, in all directions. Even leaving Tesla’s majority shareholder out of the assessment, I just find the Cybertruck a deeply silly vehicle, it’s ugly, there are much better trucks out there, there are better EVs out there, it’s too big/heavy, it’s made out of a silly material for cars, the flat panels are an empirically poor choice for the construction of the vehicle, it’s poorly constructed, it’s charmless. I just fail to find what its value proposition is at any level, other than you’ll get plenty of attention driving it around.
Side note, my initial comment did seem tonally to be more negative towards you than was in any way my intent. I read your whole article on the Cybertruck and enjoyed it, even if I disagreed with most of it. But we can agree to disagree, all of us, I hope, in our passion for various cars.
Totally, and I thoroughly appreciate your comment!
Weird works best when combined with small and cheap. Put those together and you have something people will buy for the latter two attributes and come to appreciate the first.
Weird on its’ own, while especially big and expensive, is a risk for any automaker who either never had a charismatic, iconoclastic leader with a cult of personality or theirs died 80-odd years ago. For those that have one alive now, the risk is transferred to those cult members who buy one whose resale value in the near-to-medium future is clouded by how unfashionable these things become in automotive middle age.
It has the soul of a demented cave troll. Preserving it was the wrong choice.
In a sea of boring grey CUV’s that are all the same I can appreciate that the Cybertruck looks different.
I would never buy something with those doors or interior though, I hate technology.
Doesn’t it run off 48v accessory, does it have 12v power ports?
None at all. It does have 120VAC outlets available for the front and rear seats, as well as in the bed. There’s also 65w USB-C PD plugs. So you can do a USB to 12v converter, or any garden variety 12v DC power supply will work fine.
As a few others mentioned, not a single one of those compromises make it cool. All of those compromises just make it a worse vehicle.
Why? Because all of those compromises were purely made in the name of vanity rather than functionality. Making X,Y and Z aspects of the vehicle objectively worse because the boss wanted it to look exactly like the Apple ADB mouse on his first computer is not cool thing.
Compromises made in the name of functionality on the other hand, are cool. A Jeep riding rough because they committed to keeping solid axles for off-road performance? That’s a cool compromise.
An FJ Land Cruiser having poor turning radius because they use old-school closed-knuckle axles to keep the CV/u-joints free of contaminants? That’s a cool compromise.
A car that can literally only fit the person it was sold to, because the seat and driver’s compartment are custom fit for each purchaser in the name of performance? That’s cool.
A car that has horrific visibility, poor UX/UI, hard body panel edges that literally cut you – all in the name of design? That’s just lame.
The FJ has terrible blind spots all for the sake of style. Some people think it’s hideous and not worth that compromise, just as some people think the Cybertruck is hideous and not worth its compromises. They’re just opinions.
When I say “FJ Land Cruiser”, I’m talking about an FJ40,55,60 or 80 series Land Cruisers. Those vehicles were the epitome of “cool”, making all sorts of compromises in the name of outright durability and off-road performance. Not the “FJ Cruiser”.
The “FJ Cruiser” made major compromises in usability and functionality in the name of style. The vehicle was much maligned, and ultimately a sales failure – despite the J-Series Land Cruisers (of all generations) being universally loved.
The argument also wasn’t whether a vehicle can still be “worth it” despite the compromises. It was if those compromises make a vehicle “cool”.
A compromise that makes a vehicle better at a certain function at the expense of something else (comfort, livability, fuel economy, whatever) can be cool. A compromise that hurts the functionality of a vehicle purely in the name of vanity is not cool.
You might counter with a point about art/show cars, that are all about vanity. Cars like low-riders, rat-rods, stanced, etc… that are undoubtedly cool, but are 100% about style over functionality. Those cars are one-off creations, not meant to be daily drivers, not meant to be practical or functional. I look at them as more like rolling art installations than anything.
The Cybertruck on the other hand is a production vehicle, meant to be everything-to-everyone. Seriously – it has been pitched by Tesla/Musk as being the perfect grocery getter, family hauler, camping rig, trailer tower, ATV hauler, and even at one point – a boat. Except it has a ton of ridiculous compromises that make simple every day things (like cleaning the windshield) an ordeal – all in the name of style.
I quite like the FJ Cruiser…
The first Cybertruck in my neighborhood appeared about a week ago, and has been parked in front of my house. Based on the press, I had expected the fit problems with the body panels, and possible rust problems. There are two problems with the body panels that I did not expect.
• First, the panels appear to be different colors – brightnesses essentially – which unless they are actually varying the steel (which is unlikely), seems like it would be due to variations in surface treatment. Typically would be caused by not maintaining enough uniformity of the abrasive medium producing the brushed finish.
• Second, when standing ahead of or behind the truck and looking at the sides, you see ripples. Lots of ripples. And I’m not just talking about looking at a low, glancing angle, I mean it to 20 degrees at least, maybe more. Anyone who designs metal surfaces for aesthetics knows that you do not make them simultaneously large, reflective, and flat. I have personal experience with this in trying to get an item (designed before I entered a company) to sufficient quality to be accepted by the customer. The designer should have been shot, or at least had someone above him with the materials experience to realize “this just won’t work.”
As far as gettin arm cuts on the body panel edges: what is the thickness of the panels? I would think that a 1 mm x 45 degree chamfer on the edges of the panels at the bed sides would prevent cuts, would not affect strength or function, would not cripple the crisp design of the vehicle and its “soul.” Sharp edges are cheaper, but the cost would not be unreasonable. Uniformity of the chamfer would of course be important for appearance, and would add another quality check point, but the straightness of those edges actually makes the job relatively easy.
I understand the idea of the CT being interesting simply because it was an audacious(…ly bad) design that was actually brought to production largely unchanged. Even though I dislike it I did find it kind of fascinating to see one actually driving around in the real world. HOWEVER, at the end of the day it’s really not that interesting or revolutionary. Sure, it looks weird, but it’s just a continuation and a natural endpoint of the worst trends we’ve seen in car design for the last 15+ years. Hostile to anyone who has the misfortune to be outside of it, terrifyingly fast for no real reason, designed specifically to appeal to people who think every cyclist on the road deserves the death penalty. The “soul” that they maintained throughout the design process is incredibly grim!