“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?
Fantastic article and especially liked the Jeep backstory. I’ll just say this: I’m glad the Cybertruck exists… so I have something to make fun of. Likewise for Can Am trikes and Vanilla Ice.
Great article – very refreshing to read objective information about a vehicle that seems to generate nothing but either pure hate or pure love. Thinking about the cars that were around when I was younger (1970’s) – they were all basically crap. EVERY car had panel gaps, pinch points and sharp edges; at least every domestic car. I remember washing my mom’s Cadillac and slicing my hand on the fender skirt bad enough that I needed stiches. Today virtually every car is amazingly good by standards of even a few years ago that when one with (lots of) flaws shows up it seems really out of place. While I would never buy one, I’m glad Tesla built it – at least it is not a cookie-cutter appliance.
This is possibly the most back-handed compliment I’ve ever seen. Yes, they accomplished what they set out to do, but what they set out to do was create an unusably bad truck.
Which is a shame because by all accounts the engineering under the stupid sheet metal is actually quite good. Stick a Rivian-like body on this and I’d be a huge fan. As is? Hard pass.
I will not defend the turn signals, the screen shifter, or the door handles — those are stupid.
However, Tesla’s oft-criticized center screen really works. The speedo is up high and about 15 degrees to the right; while a rear-view mirror is about 30 degrees to the right. Checking it soon becomes effortless and second nature.
The navigation map display is huge. Unlike other car navs that show only the next turn, the Tesla nav shows context. You actually get the big picture of where you are, where you are going, what’s around you. So much better than the gun-slot view in most other cars.
The glove box access via the screen is no big deal. As you pointed out, there are tons of cubbies everywhere, a great phone charging tray, large storage between the seats — really, the glovebox is only for locking up documents.
Oft used controls are physical controls. Audio volume and cruise control speed are thumbwheels, so instead of click-click-click as on other cars, you can just swipe your thumb up or down and make a large adjustment with a single motion. Audio forward, rewind, voice command, cruise control follow distance are all physcial button clicks.
Climate controls, heated seats controls, defroster, etc are always present while driving, and never change location No digging through menus.
Finally, there is something about not having gauges in front of you that makes you more attentive to what is going on outside the vehicle. Driving feels more like skiing or riding a bicycle — you just look ahead and feel more immersed in the world.
While I appreciate the Jeep comparison, I don’t think it is quite apt. The Wrangler’s soul is a trickledown effect of its history. Your team leaders were attempting to KEEP a soul that already existed. That heritage is an intrinsic part of its soul.
Purposefully designing something new, with all the compromises of the Wrangler, and none of the soul of the Wrangler, would be foolish. The CT gives me the impression of that same level of foolishness. It exists to do only one thing well, be a statement. And I am underwhelmed by that premise as a seemingly sole basis for car design. That is great as a premise for a statue or a painting, but not car design.
So it’s poorly put together, cumbersome to drive (to the point where you hit another car and nearly ran over pedestrians), needlessly complicates even the most basic functions (like opening the door or glovebox), actively injures you while using it, is expensive, not good at truck stuff, and you can’t see out of it…but we’re supposed to praise it because it adheres to Musk’s original vision (all without without getting into the numerous ways in which he is a total shitbag)? Nah, this ain’t it.
Like I get the “no compromises” comparison to the Wrangler. Does the Wrangler ride like shit? Yes. Is it hard to get in and out of? Indeed. Does it get terrible gas mileage, have wind noise like a screaming banshee as you go down the interstate, cost way more than it should, and have the build quality you would expect from a second-tier American car company run by Italians? All of the above. But it is an exceptional off-roader whose performance is only potentially matched by the Bronco. So the question remains, given all of its compromises, what is the Cybertruck actually good at?
What is the Cybertruck actually good at? Exactly what it was intended for: Cosplaying the thuggish upper hand of a Blade Runner like dystopian fantasy:
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-cybertruck-inspiration-syd-mead-tribute-elon-musk/
https://vic.bg/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%BE%D0%B2%D0%B5/blade-runner-1982-vs-cyber-truck-2019/media
Mission accomplished.
(Just consider it a $82k pair of less than shiny underoos.)
It’s a very well done piece, DT – refreshingly nuanced in a world of hot takes. Personally, I don’t like the Cybertruck for a variety of reasons that I’m sure are shared with many others. I would never buy one. But at the same time, I’m glad the Cybertruck exists for the sheer absurdity and audaciousness of it all. At a time when our roads have been overtaken with shapeless, boring CUVs, seeing something as bonkers as the Cybertruck is a reminder that individuality still exists, for better or worse.
I’m also a weirdo that likes and drives wagons, stick shifts and other weird cars like the i3. One thing most ‘weird’ cars have in common is they do at least one thing better than any other car. Jeep Wranglers are better off road vehicles than any other commonly sold car in America. Period. And for that reason their on-road handling characteristics are compromised more than other off-road capable vehicles. 4Runners, Land Rovers, Land Cruisers, and every other SUV sacrifice off-road capability for on-road civility. But not the Wrangler. That is it’s defining quality.
Corvettes, Mustangs, any convertible, Miatas, all give up practicality, storage and other qualities in order to be fun cars to drive. The Cybertruck doesn’t do anything better than it’s competitors. Not one single thing. It doesn’t haul better or tow better than other trucks. Arguably it’s worse at these tasks. It doesn’t drive better, There are some critics that have expressed concern of the lag in the drive-by-wire system. Engineering Explained even had a breakdown of this comparing it a prototype Lexus system. The visibility is TERRIBLE. (there should be federal standards for minimum amounts of visibility in each car class.)This shouldn’t be overlooked as much as it is. The first crash prevention system in any car is the driver and what they can and can’t see. It certainly isn’t better built. Build quality matters and will be a factor in the long term ownership experience. I feel like at this point Tesla only built the thing out of spite for those that said it couldn’t be built. And to make up for all the other broken promises they’ve made over that last several years.
I predict Tesla won’t be making these for very long. Not without major design changes.
For the record, I think the HUMMER EV is nearly as dumb as car.
This was a great article top to bottom (I haven’t watched the video yet). The part about Jeep Wrangler really put everything in perspective for me.
As a Jeep owner I do except so many compromises that I wouldn’t come close to accepting in any other car, but you can tell a Wrangler from a mile away. My kids tell me it’s ugly, and my youngest who just got her license refuses to be caught dead driving it. (Some of her friends think it is cool though!) They never have anything to say about my wife’s Subaru. It’s a car. The Jeep is a Jeep.
I still really dislike the Cybertruck as a truck, but after this article I started thinking about this: I really HATED it because I really hate Elon Musk. If this truck came from somewhere else (especially if it was done Rivian style start up), there would be some respect on the attempt at something new even if it wasn’t a good truck.
Thank you for making me think deeper into how I view the CT. It isn’t truck. It’s a Cybertruck.
That’s how I defend Metallica’s black album: if it were anybody else, it’d be the greatest thing ever.
I love the black album, and I’m not afraid to admit it!
Oh, me too, but it’s because at the time I was able to judge it on its merits, not as a Metallica record. In 1991, there were a ton of people deriding it because it wasn’t “Metallica” enough. Like the Cybertruck being a bad truck.
David, you keep being you! I liked the write and you made strong points. Yeah, I don’t like the truck, but they made it. Is this like the 2nd stainless steel clad vehicle to go into production? They wanted something different and they did it. Cool for them and the people that like it.
This is a well-balanced, write and up the best one I’ve read yet. It actually talks about the cyber truck instead of just being mad at it. But there’s something that just doesn’t fit right to me about the central argument.
If someone takes a shit, they’ve done a lot of work to form that turd. That turd is the original idea of the cyber truck. Now say this person, holds on to that turd, finds a way to preserve it, so it doesn’t just rot. Maybe they even put in a nice case and are able to explain why the turd is awesome with great clarity and precision.
So when they present you with this very nice turd, do you call it a piece of shit or a piece of art? I think the cyber truck is a very nice turd.
See, I think what you are experiencing is somewhere on the scale between trauma bonding and Stockholm syndrome. People can become acquainted with and familiar with flaws and they can become endearing, but they are still flaws. A kidnapper is still a kidnapper, even if you find yourself in love with your captor through the ordeal.
This kind of charming flawed vehicle is the kind of stuff enthusiast love because of their uniqueness in the marketplace, but most of the time this leads to them also being rare…on account of them being full of bad ideas or execution. The Cybertruck is destined for such a fate. It’s not going to gain mass appeal and as fun as that is for people like us, its not a good thing and shouldn’t be celebrated.
Elon birthed a turd that he forced his people to keep as a turd despite their better judgement.
I think this is as neutral yet nuanced view that I have seen on the Cybertruck. Kudos to David for that, and this is an article that affirms I made the right decision to support this site.
To me the Cybertruck is a thing all its own, and the issues with it make it the wrong answer for many people. But would anyone even cross shop a CT with anything else anyway? You either want one or you don’t. So you either live with the issues or you don’t.
OK, yes…’hate’ is a concept that should be reserved specifically for certain people who deserve it. Elon Musk is someone I hate. His big ugly pile of Emperor’s New Clothes, I criticize.
Saw my first two out in the wild last week. First one was wrapped white, second was wrapped black. I mean, shit, the only good thing about it is the stainless steel.
I ran out of popcorn while reading the comment section.
Completely agree with this outlook (and I appreciate the “positives and negatives” aspect of this article).
As an architect, I look on it this way: “art allows no compromise, engineering requires it”. I look at many buildings designed by “star architects” and think – that’s a great piece of art, and a really awful building. Opinions vary wildly, but for me a truly excellent design finds that perfect blend of function and aesthetic. I assess the Cybertruck in the same way. The utter lack of compromise makes it compelling as a piece of art, and an epic failure as a mass production consumer vehicle.
In contrast – the story you relate about the development of the JL is a pursuit of that perfect blend. Compromise is resisted with the aim of meeting both functional and aesthetic goals. The “perfect blend” as defined by the design goal of building an offroader.
I think you have an excellent take on this. Engineering is about making the right compromises to meet a conflicting set of requirements in the most effective way possible. The Cybertruck is an art car.
I usually have no problems agreeing with you DT, but this one…not at all. Leaving out Elon and all the crap it brings up, this car is absurd, overpriced, ugly, and no amount of “cool engineering” can save it. It’s a vehicle that may have a soul, but I don’t think that’s enough. Bad cars have been around for ages, but even the Aztek was at still useful as a means of transport and useful as a more than people carrier being based on a minivan. The Cybertruck would have been cool if every promise about the vehicle wasn’t changed. Part of that is on Elon giving his engineers a difficult task. However, you’d think that they’d have learned “you never go full DeLorean” by now. Cars that start surface rusting days after purchase, injure their owners, are almost too big to drive on public streets and are plagued with design flaws that impact it’s usefulness (looking at you wiper blade). Add in the price it’s just too much. If you really need a Tesla, the Model S looks better and better even with it’s questionable quality. Plus you get about 50-75% of the storage capacity.
That’s OK. Whether something is “cool” is just an opinion.
David…personally, I would never be caught dead in one of these. However, as a runner/cyclist, there is a better than zero chance that I will be caught dead on the outside of it.
That said, I truly enjoyed this article. As many (MANY) others have said, it’s hard to disassociate Musk from the company, which is part of the equation here. But the thing I love about Autopian (as well as the writing you folks did at the previous gig) is that you are optimists about cars (and dare I say…even humans from time to time) in such a beautiful way. You folks can look at some small, singular feature from a car like an Edsel (or CT) etc…and see the beauty and inspiration of that one singular aspect and then show us the throughline of how important that one thing was or can be. You folks view car culture and everything related to automobiles like art lovers or music lovers view those endeavors of the human soul. Never change.
Truly, David, I enjoyed this piece.
Ultimately it’s good to see some unique cars built by modern manufacturers. I like to see them take risks even if it doesn’t pay off.
Musk is a problematic artist. Some problematic artists are easier to forgive than others. They may be dead or the issues may be subtle or in question. Musk’s social issues are clear and public, impossible to miss. He’s attempting to unperson people I love and he uses his massive platform and wealth to do so and he says so at least weekly, probably daily.
People make choices about how to interact with problematic artists. Everybody has their own line they will not cross. Musk isn’t anywhere my line.
There are some people (myself included) that will not overlook Musk’s active and well funded racism, bigotry, and transphobia, and will not use any of his output because of that.
There are some people (myself included) that consider Musk a large enough problem that they will judge a persons character when that persons uses or praises his work.
That’s just his social issues. He’s also selling a system that isn’t just unlikely to work, but is built in direct opposition to decades of hard won human factors knowledge. FSD sure (hi Jason), but also shit like door handles that aren’t also the emergency open, and no buttons ever.
TLDR; he’s a shit human and I think less of the people around him and supporting him.
I had to digest this one for a while before responding. I get where you’re coming from, and there is something to applaud about that singularity of vision, of “sticking to your guns” and making your vision a reality. It can get tedious after a while – think of all the different “director’s cuts” of Blade Runner, or George Lucas’s tinkering with Star Wars after the fact – but doing what you meant to do regardless of what anyone else thinks is indeed a very cool thing to do.
And I have nothing but praise for Tesla’s engineering prowess, though I think they do too many things because they can, not because they’re a good idea; I don’t see any advantage to steer-by-wire, for example, and putting everything on a touchscren will always be a bad idea. But getting so many EVs on the road in such a short time, and having them be generally considered good reliable cars, is a feat worth celebrating.
However… the Cybertruck will never, ever be cool. I saw two of them at Bethany Beach last week, the first ones I’ve seen up-close and personal, and I was struck by how much space they take up, both physical and psychological. You can’t ignore the damn things, try as you might. And the drivers of these two made sure of it: One parked badly, taking up extra space on the street, and the other kept circling around, just in case you missed the big square silver thing with loud music blaring out of it. This type of trying too hard is always going to be deeply, fundamentally uncool.
There’s nothing you can do to tone down a Cybertruck. It’s never going to fit in, ever, anywhere. It’s never going to look normal – unless, God forbid, every other manufacturer starts aping the design. It’s always going to stick out like a sore thumb.
“Cool” is a hard thing to define. Lots of folks will tell you that it’s doing what you want, no matter what anyone else says, and that’s true. If you buy a Cybertruck because you genuinely like how it looks, and you don’t care whether anyone else hates it or not, then that’s cool. But that is not the behavior I have seen from owners so far. Instead, it’s been the same sort of desperate cries for attention that make most supercars so desperately uncool. It’s not what they are; it’s how they’re used.
Admirable in its dedication to a vision, however flawed that vision may be? Absolutely. But cool? Oh hell no.
Others have said it already I think but while you are correct that it is novel and interesting, those do not equal cool or good. This thing is just novelty for the sake of being novelty, because the fascist conman who runs the company has a juvenile belief that this is what the future should look like since he saw it in Blade Runner.
And even there he’s wrong. The vehicles in Blade Runner are either the curvy police Spinner[1] or Deckard’s angular, but also interesting to look at, coupe[2]
Amusingly, while trying to find these pictures I learned that both of these appear in the first few seconds of the video for Earth, Wind & Fire’s Magnetic
[1] https://airandspace.si.edu/stories/editorial/blade-runner-spinners-shape-things-come
[2] https://www.automoblog.com/blade-runner-flying-cars/
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvBe5Wfsek0
Syd Mead, who helped give us the Oldsmobile Toronado, did production design work on Bladerunner. Dude knew how to make a weird car look slick.
Wow! Finally a really great review of the Cybertruck by someone who isn’t a fanboy or a hater. I hope that you someday write a book about the car design journey for the Jeep. It would make a great look into intelligent design and a resource for for a lot of businesses; much like The Machine That Changed The World by Womack, Jones and Roos which was such an important volume for the development of American business.
“It’s All Of These Compromises That Make The Cybertruck Cool”
Dear lord, please take me from this crazy dumb world.
Compromises 2-6 all come down to one reason: Tesla is beholden to a man that fundamentally doesn’t understand cars and their place in culture. To Elon, you as the driver are the useless meatbag ruining his perfect creation. The compromises in his mind are the fact he actually had to give you a steering wheel and pedals. Once the AI-robot buzzword bullshit is complete, your pathetic human wants for visibility, usability, and ergonomics can be eliminated.