Tesla Cybertruck reveal just happened.It is, in a nutshell, a Delorean truck, as it's made out of stainless steel. A byproduct other than the angular 80s look is it doesn't look like it will be painted.
This will go down as the weirdest production vehicle probably SINCE the Delorean. People are going to either love or hate it.
Now, if you were to ask me back in the 80s when I was a teenager what a truck would look like in the 21st century, this is it. It has stereotypical sci-fi movie look to it, but then again, so did the Delorean. The only thing it's missing is no gull-wing doors. But there is a motorized cover on the bed that retracts in a very neat way.
The glass breakage will be ALL OVER the news tomorrow and I can't really tell how the press will take this. I suspect at the very least a 50/50 split of some saying it's a brave idea and the rest saying it will sink Tesla. But there's no way to react to this in anything other than an extreme way, pro or con.
I think if you aren't GenX it would be hard to accept the looks of this. The folded paper look is the epitome of the 80s. People have gotten so used to smooth aerodynamic shapes that this will be perceived as RETRO futuristic.
Now, if you get beyond the look, the specs for the money are insane, and many will probably predict that Musk will not be able to make the math work on it. What kind of battery capacity will it need to hold in order to push that wedge down the road 300 miles on a charge? 100kwh? More? Whatever it is, it's going to be hard to build it at a profit at the pricepoints provided.
The other thing that was curious was the really low cost to reserve, only $100. Why did they do this? After so many people canceled their Model 3 reservations, why make the reservation fee so much cheaper?
Anyway, for sh*ts and giggles I put in a reservation. A couple years from now I'll see whether it was of any value to have reserved or whether it was a waste of time, but I don't mine tying up that little amount of money.
At the end of the day, I'm STILL a doomer and if they fix the glass and the vehicle lives up to specs this might make an ideal doomstead vehicle to make it through the inevitable Malthusian bottleneck.
But how much of this design could possibly make it all the way to production is anyone's guess. For instance, it doesn't look like it even has real bumpers. And if it's so strong, how well would it crash-test without a true crumple-zone? And no rearview mirrors are probably key to helping it achieve the range figures, but will regulations allow it? What kind of rear visibility is there, and where is the backup camera??
This really could be a case of Musk wanting to make a rolling movie-prop without really passing it through a reality-filter.