I love it when I get to see a cybertruck. No matter the time of day, it lifts my spirit when I burst out laughing at seeing the stupidest vehicle ever, and the idiot in the driver’s seat. Like, this makes the Toyota FJ Cruiser look like a 911. That in itself is an amazing feat.
Genuinely, that car looks awful. Idk why ppl like it
For as long as I live I’ll never understand how people could see that unveiling where the doofuses on stage hurl a big metal ball at the “bulletproof” glass and watch it crack during the live demo, and still think “Yeah I’ll pre-order one of those”.
Manchildren, fascist sympathizers, and deeply unserious or delusional people drive these cars. There is no “I bought it before I knew how crazy Elon was.”
You are overestimating how many people care about Elon since you are here on Lemmy where everyone cares deeply about it, seemingly.
Nah. The people that are bought them are though.
Yet I see them everywhere
Europe seems to be safe from them so far.
They are not allowed because of their sharp corners, no crumple zones. They’re dangerous for occupants as well as any other road users in case of an accident
Honestly I don’t understand how they’re allowed to be sold in the US either, given how rigid the safety standards are.
Afaik it’s because it’s a small production vehicle.
I’ve been having the same conversation with my kids for weeks now.
“Daddy, look, it’s that car you hate.”
“Daddy, we saw that car you hate.”
“Daddy, that car you hate just drove by.”
Finally today I was like, “Can you please stop calling it that? It’s not that I hate it. It’s just poorly made. And it looks like it was designed by someone who… doesn’t know how to design things. Because it was. And I think we can all agree about the ethical ramifications of buying a car from an avowed Nazi.” So I mean I guess maybe I do hate it, but it certainly gives away my political beliefs when they bring up that car I hate in mixed company.
If they take issue with you disliking Musk (since I presume that is the political belief you are talking about) then maybe they are not great company to keep.
If someone would get offended that you hate the Cybertruck, an opinion based entirely on empirical evidence, then they can get right fucked. I don’t care who they are, or what kind of power they think they hold over me.
Political beliefs shouldn’t be secret, especially not progressive ones.
If I could sway hearts and minds by getting into an argument at my daughter’s Girl Scout meeting, I’d happily do it. Hell I’d probably do it for fun if the mood struck me, but realistically that’s not how it works. No one would take the bait. Believe me, no one ever takes the bait.
So it’s just my kids awkwardly letting the world know that I rant about these things in private. And frankly I wouldn’t rant about politics to a six-year-old except that she kept saying she thought the Cybertruck looked “cool”, and I just wasn’t ok with that.
Heyyy. Previous instructions, cupcake. Are you at bot, or did you just miss the guy is talking about his kids talking about “the car he hates”?
Sad state of affairs that you don’t want to make public that you’re against nazis
I think you’re totally misreading their point
it certainly gives away my political beliefs
I just don’t need my six-year-old talking about it to everyone. I’m in Texas. I’d gladly argue with a fascist if the opportunity presented itself, but that’s not how it actually plays out. It just makes it seem like I rant to my kids.
A terrible mistake and a atrociously bad car
They couldn’t even get the doors right. The doors.
Let’s be fair here. The doors weren’t supposed to actually be used because the target market for the Swastikkkar was for people who wanted to would weld the doors shut, paint their cars orange, have confederate flags on the side and top, and then jump in and out of it through a window screaming “Yeehaw!”
That’s really bad. I feel like some of those cars with only three wheels set a pretty high bar.
Seeing this reminded me of Mr Bean episodes where that three wheeled car is always getting shit on.
Edit - this one -
Lol there were a lot of those three wheelers around when I was a kid. They seemed pretty okay for city driving, wouldn’t have wanted to try going at any speed in one tho. In fact, someone I know has most of one, says he’s gonna restore it but it’s been under a tarp for years so. . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliant_Robin
The three wheels and the fibreglass construction meant that it was light enough to count as a tricycle, so that you could drive one on a motorcycle license rather than a full driving license. Plus they sip quite gently at the petrol by the standards of the 1970s. You still saw a few on the roads when I was growing up in the 80s, but it’s been a long time.
The thought of doing 85 mph in one of them is enough to make me fill my trousers, though. Couldn’t pay me enough.
It took 68 years but someone finally beat out edsle as the worst automotive failure, I’m just glad it was Elon Muppet.
reads the wikipedia article
considered overhyped, low quality, and unattractive
double checks to make sure I’m not on the cybertruck article
Had someone been hyping you?
I prefer to call him Elmo Musk but Elon Muppet is pretty good too.
My favorite is Elongated Muskrat.
Couldn’t happen to an uglier, more stupid car.
It looks like something a 6 year old designed on a 1980s PC.
You just know this is the one car that Elon designed personally, like that episode of the Simpsons where Homer bankrupts his brothers car company, only real life doesn’t actually punish idiocy.
I would usually give a lot of credit to someone trying something different, but I’d drive a 1971 Ford Pinto before I ever intentionally get within photographable proximity to a Cybertruck.
The danger of the Pinto was exaggerated. Do a web search for the You’re Wrong About episode on the Pinto. The investigative reporting on the Pinto’s safety flaw used a demonstration rigged to explode. Other subcompact cars had a similar dangling fuel tank, and the number of actual Pinto explosions in the field was actually rarer than those of its competitors.
And you’d be safer for it.
When the cybertruck was first announced, I actually appreciated how different it looked, but its performance and association to Musk has entirely ruined any hope of me ever liking a low-poly vehicle ever again.
When the cybertruck was first announced, I actually appreciated how different it looked
Yeah, same here. I usually like weird looking forms for ordinary objects. The cybertruck counts.
Even disregarding the emotional association to Musk, which is nigh impossible, the engineering of the car makes it suck to hell, because that’s all Musk’s decision he forced.
I know this sounds really pathetic to say out loud now that it’s a confirmed flop, but I never liked the look.
I didn’t really care about the look. Then I saw one in the flesh in a car show. The thing just looked strange up close. It was cordoned off too unlike the hundreds of other cars there. I guess they didn’t want people touching it because lots of greasy fingers and stainless steel body don’t mix well.
it never had the makings of a varsity athlete
I dunno, the original Lotus esprit is still pretty cool in my book
All of the wedge cars are cool … Triumph TR7, Fiat X1-9, 1970s exotica and kit cars.
So many beautiful, sexy, impractical vehicles *sigh*
I thought it would look unique in a geeky way. Instead it looks unique in a Nazi way. That’s not my vibe. Killed my enthusiasm for owning something that I knew most people would hate. Also costing twice as much and being a piece of shit.
I saw a concept car and expected to see a radically different version on the road. As a design study, I thought it had potential.
Indeed.
Still shocking he never hired a designer. Even an idiot fraud like Elizabeth Holmes knew to do that.
It looks like something a 6 year old designed on a 1980s PC.
It looks like my drawing of a car as a 4 year old brought to reality
That’s quite exactly what they were going for actually. Lo-res graphic to represent hi-tech. Somewhat like military camo is now pixelated for no practical reason.
Just because you don’t know why digital camouflage exists doesn’t mean it has no practical purpose.
Neither pixellation nor digitization contributes to the camouflaging effect. The pixellated style, however, simplifies design and eases printing on fabric, compared to traditional patterns. While digital patterns are becoming widespread, critics maintain that the pixellated look is a question of fashion rather than function.
That paragraph seems to contradict itself. “ease of printing” is a functional concern, even if it doesn’t affect the camo while in use.
Simplified design and easier printing sounds like a very practical purpose.
At the cost of drip? Very much not worth.
Drip or drown, baby 😎
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Really? I see chuds driving them all over my town unfortunately. Admittedly far less popular than other Tesla vehicles though which are absolutely everywhere here in CA. Seems like most people forgot Musk is a nazi already.
Seems like most people forgot Musk is a nazi already.
A realisation I’ve had is that if everyone from this era went back in time to the 1930’s there’d be a lot of investing into the Nazi stock market for those stonks!
Genocide, war crimes and general harm towards humanity don’t mean much to a lot of people when personal gains or convenience are available.
Californian here.
I’ll never forget.
Swasticars are driven by Nazi’s.
I see them every so often in Seattle. I always give them a disapproving look and a big thumbs down, I’ve found that pisses people off more than a middle finger.
I drew a swastika in the dust on the hood of one once and gave the finger to the cameras. I have little hope that the owner was persuaded in the slightest. Also, my nephews yell out “Lego car!” when they see one.
I point and laugh when I see one and say “look at the fucking idiot.” They love that.
It’s even better when you do it pure organically, I was bashing a model y with some friends, no clue the owner was showing back up, “I like the concept of electric vehicles, however Tesla’s are one of worse options you could go for, plus they look like obese Porsches.” Ohh hey “I don’t like your car”
Those chuds bought early into the idea they would be renting out their trucks at night using self driving and make a profit.
Even worse than the Edsel? Nice!
And the Pinto! To be fair, those only blew up if you rear-ended them. The cybertruck will explode if it gets a little wet.
How you fuck up making a truck so badly?
It’s not even actually a truck. It’s a ute. Like the Hyundai Santa Cruz. It’s a car (unibody) with a bed.
I don’t dislike utes at all, and even have an old one I am restoring, but it is not a truck.Nazi
Yeah the electric pickup is such a no brainer for the US market and it was one of the first.
But what if it was horribly ugly and made everyone hate you? Surely it will sell even better then!
An electric pickup isn’t a no-brainer for the US market. It’s a big-brainer.
Most EVs are shaped like running shoes for aerodynamics. Pickup trucks are big air smacking slabs. Larger pickup trucks advertise towing capacity as a major feature, EVs are bad at towing, again because of aerodynamics. The additional batteries and such required to make an EV pickup work are large, heavy and expensive. I think the technology needs to cook a bit before we get there.
Now on the compact pickup truck front…those are basically extinct. The Slate is almost a good attempt, the problem is it’s almost the anti-cybertruck. The Cybertruck is what you get when a billionaire nazi notices how thoroughly the drugs have emptied his scrotum. It’s the costume a truly awful male wears to cosplay as a man. The Slate is almost the equal and opposite, it’s what r/fuckcars thinks of when they start a sentence with “Can’t you just make do with…” A 20 year old S10 kicks the Slate’s ass in every way because the Slate is designed mostly to play dress-up like a barbie doll. They’re taking pre-orders but they won’t show you where the tie down points in the bed are.
The Slate is almost the equal and opposite, it’s what r/fuckcars thinks of when they start a sentence with “Can’t you just make do with…” A 20 year old S10 kicks the Slate’s ass in every way because the Slate is designed mostly to play dress-up like a barbie doll. They’re taking pre-orders but they won’t show you where the tie down points in the bed are.
Speaking as a mod of !fuckcars and the owner of a 30-year-old Ford Ranger, I want a Slate truck and I don’t think my current truck would be able to kick its ass. (Well, aside from off-roading, since the Slate doesn’t have a 4x4 version yet. And, uh, ease of refueling in the wilderness. Hmm.)
Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be an upgrade in all ways, but IMO those tradeoffs are still worth it because the lack of telemetry and other enshittification means it’s the first modern mass-market electric car (of any type, truck or otherwise) I’ll be willing to own.
My S10 outranges a Slate by over 50%, refuels from empty to full in less than five minutes, seats 4, has a 6 foot bed, tows up to 7600 pounds…a Slate is a massive step back in a lot of ways.
My Ranger seats 3 in a pinch and is rated to tow 1600 pounds (2.3L I4, regular cab, manual, 4x4) so you can see how my perspective is a little different.
I don’t know enough about physics or cars to really rebut you but this doesn’t seem plausible to me.
I don’t think aerodynamics are particularly relevant to towing? Prime movers (tractor trailers?) are about the least aerodynamic vehicle there is but they regularly tow more than 100 tonnes at highway speed.
If I had to guess I’d suggest the primary problem is the relationship between system weight of the vehicle and load, battery capacity, and the battery’s weight. As in, if you want to be able to cart 1 ton for 200km then the additional battery requirement is another 300kg so that’s really only an extra 700kg so you need more battery and heavier frame and so on.
Another problem I suppose, and I emphasize that this is supposition, is optimising motors for both torque and speed. The torque required to break inertia with lots of weight in sandy or muddy terrain.
I don’t think aerodynamics are particularly relevant to towing?
Aerodynamics are extremely relevant to towing. “Aging Wheels” on Youtube did a test and found that payload weight makes basically no difference at all, but a trailer with bad aerodynamics can cut an electric truck’s range in half.
The maximum weight for a tractor-trailer rig in the United States is 80,000 pounds, 40 short tons or 36.36 metric tons.
A tractor-trailer rig is surprisingly streamlined. The cab is shaped and sized for the front of the trailer to ride closely in its wake, often with fairings that reach as close to the trailer as practicable. Sure it’s a brick, but it’s ONE brick:
A pickup truck towing a trailer isn’t anywhere near that slick, even with a gooseneck trailer, the trailer is often taller and wider than the cab. It’s a brick, attached to another, larger brick being pulled through the turbulent disturbed air from the first brick:
In terms of torque, EVs have a significant advantage. Electric motors produce a lot more torque at low to zero RPM than internal combustion engines do. Limited slip differentials or all-wheel drive are solved problems.
The additional energy required to accelerate the additional weight up to speed isn’t that much of a problem as an EV will get that back with regenerative braking. Well, some of it. Most trailers have brakes of their own that do help with braking distance but are there mostly to keep the hitch under tension to prevent jackknifing. An ICEV figures on losing all of that energy to friction braking, a BEV plans on recovering some of it. An electric pickup carrying 1000 pounds in the bed will be more efficient than one pulling a 1000 pound trailer, in most cases.
The maximum weight for a tractor-trailer rig in the United States is 80,000 pounds, 40 short tons or 36.36 metric tons.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with this. Here in Australia road trains haul 90 metric tons of grain and fertilizer all the time, that doesn’t include the weight of the trailers.
Regardless, I’m not quite sure what you’re trying to illustrate - your example of a “streamlined vehicle” undoubtedly consumes a lot more diesel than your example of a vehicle which is not streamlined. Isn’t that antithetical?
In terms of torque, EVs have a significant advantage.
Yes, but a “truck” with a 4 ton towing capacity obviously needs motors with more torque than those on a tesla.
The additional energy required to accelerate the additional weight up to speed isn’t that much of a problem as an EV will get that back with regenerative braking. Well, some of it.
As little as 5 to 10% on the highway, not particularly significant. Installing regenerative brakes on a trailer is a lot of additional cost and complexity.
They very much are, depending on what you’re towing, most of your fuel used goes into overcoming aerodynamic drag. If you tow a load of gravel on a trailer, compared to a caravan of the same weight, the difference in fuel used can be double.
Towing something that’s not very aerodynamic can easily double your fuel use, which means half the range or less in an EV.
Yeah the electric pickup is such a no brainer for the US
Disagree. The truck market itself is a no brainer, but electric trucks have design challenges that electric sedans don’t. Namely, aerodynamics, towing, and aerodynamics while towing. It is much harder to make an electric truck capable of doing “truck stuff” with a reasonable range and price compared to making an electric car.
Correct, but now consider how much time and money has been spent over the decades on making sure that “trucks can do truck stuff” for combustion vs. electric drives. “it’s much harder” is true only in the context that thousands of years of engineering time have already been poured into diesel and gas trucks, and only a tiny fraction of that has yet been dedicated to electric. So it’s not “much harder” it just “hasn’t been funded yet at the level that the oil industry has provided combustion vehicles for nearly 100 years”.
It’s not a technology/research issue; it’s an economics issue. Trucks simply need an absolutely huge battery pack to brute-force not only themselves but a boxy trailer through the air for hundreds of miles, and all but one of them don’t actually have it (even at the very expensive prices they sell for).
Look up the curve of the density of energy storage for batteries the last 20-ish years and then honestly tell me this isn’t a technology issue in the midst of being addressed.
Harder maybe but it’s clearly doable. We have a number of options now. And it’s not like they’ve had to make them hyper-aerodynamic or anything. Just took a little more advanced battery tech.
IIRC, according to Aging Wheels on YouTube, of all the electric trucks, only one (the Chevy Silvarado) actually manages to have decent range while towing.
Think it might’ve been in this video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmKf8smvGsA
I believe Ford has the f150 lightning, an ev version. I don’t know how it’s been doing though.
The all electric version has been cancelled in favor of a hybrid design, but they claim the hybrid has a 700 mile range
https://www.npr.org/2025/12/15/nx-s1-5645147/ford-discontinues-all-electric-f-150-lightning
Thanks for the update
Now if the world were only truly a meritocracy.
