35
votes
Is the Cybertruck really that bad?
These past few days I went through the rabbit hole of people complaining about the Cybertruck, main the subreddit /r/cyberstuck. From my standpoint it really seems like this car has no redeeming qualities and is basically that car Homer Simpson designed once. That said, internet forums are not known for their restraint. This is just a curiosity, I couldn't buy this car even if I wanted to. Objectively speaking, is the Cybertruck a complete failure?
You may be interested in this: Cybertruck's Recall Rate Worse Than 91% of 2024 Vehicles. Even granting that it's a brand new design, the quality of execution objectively leaves much to be desired.
There will always be people who think it looks cool or have consumer identification with the brand to the point they cease caring about whether it's a practical or safe car. That's why we have laws...
I really wanna know what 9% of cars are worse than Cybertruck.... haha
Probably Jeeps. They're usually the top few spots on Consumer Reports least reliable vehicles...
How many of these are real recalls and how many are Tesla "fine, we'll push an update" recalls?
Even if it's just a software update, there was something wrong enough for NHTSA to take a safety interest.
I did a little digging, and the Cybertruck recalls aren't "stop driving immediately" or "park outside so your residence doesn't burn down" serious (which do apply to the 2024 #1 recall accumulator, the Porsche Taycan). Even so, most cars only accumulate 3 or so recalls over the course of a lifecycle of ownership. 6 recalls in the first year of release really doesn't bode well for the Cybertruck.
The recalls are not (always) because the NHTSA takes interest. For example, one of the other recalls was because of trim that could come loose and fall off the trunk. The truck is a POS that I would never support, but there's a reason that cars that are easy to update OTA have so many recalls (it seems only one Cybertruck recall was OTA though and that was due to an issue that could cause it to not comply with NHTSA standards).
I've seen some videos by extreme cybertruck fans encountering pretty serious performance issues, even if they try their best to put a brave face on it. That to me is a good sign that the criticism isn't undeserved. Breakdowns seem to be the most common complaint, either very soon after buying or very long lasting. There was also that guy who cut himself on the door so severely he needed to get stitches... and insisted to his wife that it was his fault for mishandling the door, not the car's.
The other day a cybertruck owner's dog ran under the truck's door and got a gnarly gash in his back for it. It seems like some of the design is legitimately dangerous just to be around, let alone ride or drive in. I don't know that other vehicles can't cause similar injuries, though, it's possible that they just aren't reported.
I can only say that I've never heard of the edge of a car door cutting someone in my life. Injuries yes, but those are from accidentally closing the door on someone. Not from sharp metal panels.
I haven't heard of anything like it either. I've had cats crawl up inside my s10's engine and emerge dirty but unharmed, so I find it difficult to imagine a vehicle that cuts flesh from the outside, but that's only my experience. I will say in that regard the cybertruck is definitely worse than any vehicle that I've ever owned (an '88 Chevy s10, a 2002 Nissan Sentra and a 2006 Acura TL, all purchased used), and the vehicles that I've owned were much older and cheaper than the cybertruck. Maybe I got lucky and it's common for cars to be externally sharp, but I've never heard anything about it.
I have given myself nasty scrapes on door panels before because of me not paying attention, but we're talking 'press butter knife across skin real hard' not 'press kitchen knife against skin real hard'.
Nothing like what I've seen here.
Anecdotally it seems to have sold quite well - I see them all the time. The design is definitely visually interesting, although polarizing. Fully electric steering is neat.
I don’t think it’s a very good truck for trucking things but that isn’t why most people buy trucks anyway. By all accounts it drives like a Tesla, which seems to be a thing people like
I’m ngl I think it looks cool in person. I’m a sucker for low poly and it straight up looks like a car isn’t rendering in real life, which is wonderfully surreal.
I think "steer by wire" would be neat if it offered any feedback, but Tesla's implementation does not. As it stands, the "yoke" simply issues a command to the steering system and the wheels turn to meet it. You have no way to feel how the steering system is actually responding to the command. Probably not a big deal for a truck? But if they were to put the same thing into the Model S or any remotely sporty car, I'd be extremely skeptical.
I'd also like to point out that steer by wire, and most of the other technological advancements that Tesla highlights as selling points of the Cybertruck have one purpose: cutting cost. Steer by wire saves the weight and money of a steering column. The centralized Etherloop network saves on wiring vs having different systems on their own buses, and is the reason why when one little thing goes wrong the entire truck starts freaking out. The 48V power system means you can use smaller gauge wiring. The "minimalist interior" saves tons of money on hardware by replacing stalks with steering wheel buttons, eliminating all other buttons and displays and cramming every single interface into the center touchscreen. They put a completely worthless tiny rear view mirror in to satisfy regulations and put the rear view camera feed in the center console rather than spending the money on a rear-view camera display in place of the mirror like Polestar and fucking Kia are doing these days. They're hyping all this stuff as technological innovation, but it's all just cost-cutting. Great if you were trying to make the first $20k EV, but not a $100k+ premium truck.
If it were the size of an s10, a quarter of the cost, and had any reliability whatsoever I might be mildly interested (in some weird "i have too much money so i guess i'll get another car" scenario) as I also think it's cool. It's also funny you mentioned that it looks like it hasn't finished rendering because that's the exact complaint my friend lodges against it.
It is, obviously, a shit truck, and for it's price/reliability, a shit vehicle. It also, obviously, doesn't matter.
People have been buying trucks as more of a status symbol than anything else for a loooooong time now, and this is marketed at those people. It is the uh...i dunno...Genesis(seems unfair to that brand)?...of trucks. The fact that Tesla is the first company to make the "luxury sport truck" that basically does none of those 3 things isn't surprising.
The only question is if the production line and possible legal issues of this monstrosity works out financially. That's a little less clear in my eyes. The issues have only just begun, and it's VEEERY much like many other Muskian products in that its value is 100% tied up in the perception of Musk/people not wanting to admit they were wrong. I think when people try to sell these things in 2-4 years we'll see the real buyers remorse, but by then they'll have some new toy to wave in front of them.
The Escalade walked so the Cybertruck could
runshit all over the entire concept of luxury sports truck.I think you answered your own question there; you see them all the time because they are so different from all the other cars on the road. You may, in fact, be noticing the same one or two repeatedly.
My wife and I bought a Mazda CX-5 during the pandemic. We had to put down a deposit and wait a month or so to pick it up. In that month, I noticed so many CX-5s on the road (I swear, they make up 50% of the vehicle traffic around here) only because I was looking for them; prior to that they blended in and I paid them no attention whatsoever.
I can tell your favorite Pokémon is Porygon.
Porygon2 is pretty cool
Oh wow imagine getting a Quake Shambler wrap for one of those things
Do you mean this Quake Shambler? I am trying to understand how this could be a wrap for the Cybertruck (or anything) and feeling seriously out of the loop.
Sorry, yes, and I was picturing just the head. Like the whole truck is just the head. It was just an off-the-wall thought kicked off by the low-poly comment. Totally meaningless but made me laugh at the time.
Haha, that would be wild. Not sure how recognizable it would be, but it would definitely get peoples' attention.
You don't have to escape the parenthesis:
[Quake Shambler](https://quake.fandom.com/wiki/Shambler_(Q1))works fine.Quake Shambler
Ha, the second time this has come up tonight. This is a Three Cheers for Tildes artifact.
I think it looks kinda cool. Definitely a car that movies like Demolition Man promised for the future. Having said that, it seems to be very polarizing. I either see people who love it or hate it. There does not seem to be any middle ground.
This completely discounts the fact that Elon Musk is effectively an oligarch and anything associated with him deserves to fall to ruin.
Even if I thought the Cybertruck was the most glorious vehicle on the road, I would not purchase one due to this affiliation.
As someone who thinks it looks cool, I'm pretty upset it's allowed on our roads for bike and pedestrian safety. It's like the poster child for dangerous design for everyone but those inside the car. It's kind of wild we live in a world where sedans are regulated for safety but SUVs, trucks, and vans are not. It makes sense when they are used for exclusively commercial purposes, but not for hauling groceries.
The 5 year old in me loves it. The 35 year old hates it. It's even polarizing internally.
I do think it's wild how many of the people who are posting their frustrations about long repair wait times or their truck bricking again...still really love the truck. That is just wild to me.
I personally got deep in this rabbithole with Some More New's Cyber-sucks video. My personal favorite was how the Cybertruck's frunk was specifically designed to crush fingers.
But the more you learn, the worse it gets. The latest discovery being a design flaw that causes snow to accumulate on the lights. This is like amatuer-hour car problems that most respectable manufacturers solved a long time ago.
This lead me down the rabbithole again, where I discovered from a pre-meme article that Elon was so bad at designing a car, that his answer was to demand that every part be built to a 10-micron tolerance. That means that every part must be manufactured with no more than 0.009mm deviation from the design. In contrast, a typical car door panel has a tolerance of about 1mm. This is part of why the thing looks so wonky.
In the end, it's kind of like if Porche released the Pinto instead of Ford.
Given my history and proclivities, I really should love everything about the aesthetics of the cybertruck. I don't. I'm assuming my distaste for Elon is shading my opinion of the truck (but I am at least able to recognize/admit it).
How do you feel about the design of other Tesla vehicles? That might tell you how much of it is Musk and how much of it is your genuine aesthetic response.
I personally find the Cybertruck very ugly, but I strongly suspect it's the aesthetic that is turning me off, for two reasons:
• I don't mind the looks of any other Tesla that I've seen, even though I would never buy one for Musk-related reasons. Some of them are even gorgeous.
• The Cybertruck is not the ugliest car I've ever seen; for example, I do find the early Honda Fit just as ugly (and I like Honda Fits and have even owned one), and I find assorted Lambourghinis even uglier. I just plain don't like cars that look like shapeless lumps; my favorite cars (aesthetically speaking) strike a much more buxom figure.
I think your problem might be that you seem to be talking about the British version of the Lamborghini because I think Lambos look great.
Note that the linked image is of a vehicle which may well never see the light of day, at least that was the status quo when I last tried to keep up with Musk/Tesla. But the 2017-announced Roadster 2 still isn’t out, right? Otherwise I feel like I would’ve heard of it by now…
I like the looks of the model S quite a bit. I'm meh on the 3. The one with the gull wing doors is somewhere between cool and meh depending on my mood.
I enjoy appreciating large trucks a lot, the bigger the tires the better. But it's the sort of thing where if I ever owned one, it'd be perma parked in the 3rd spot in the garage (that I don't have) and you'd just find me from time to time sitting in a lawn chair in front of it appreciating the artistry. Ok, maybe I'd have 2 - 1 dripping chrome and the other murdered out. Ok, maybe 3, the 3rd being a resto-mod of an International Travelette. 0 interest in driving any of the above on a paved road. Ever.
I'm a huge fan of sci-fi and the cybertruck really should have managed to tick several boxes for me... It's got that low budget 70s scifi feel to it that was pure magic to me as a child in the 70s. Seems like you could park it next to the Venus Death Probe the 6 million dollar man fought in episodes 71 and 72 and they would complement each other perfectly. Maybe those episodes scarred me as a child?
As far as I am concerned it is bad as the entire exterior is a "fuck you" to anyone else in any accident. Big trucks aren't great to begin with in that regard as they limit visibility and don't have the best shape when hitting pedestrians/cyclists. The cybertruck manages to one up that by using sharp corners and a material that doesn't give way in the slightest.
I do focus on pedestrians and cyclists, but I can't imagine smaller cars fare that much better when encountering a cyber truck head on....
It is just baffling to me that the thing is allowed on the road to begin with. Usual disclaimer, my perspective is that from outside the US.
I saw one that someone polished to a mirror shine and it should be illegal.
This was my feeling as well though through that you can kind of tell we're at least from similar cultures - in the Netherlands we've had a movement for road safety for bikers and pedestrians for pretty damn long. Whereas in America well, moreso for cars.
Given how I've seen signs of people wanting to change that across the Atlantic I wouldn't be surprised if insane cars like the Cybertruck contribute to this change though. Regardless of whether you like it's design, it is piss poor engineering. The outer layers rust unless you pay way more for the protective layers that are normally present on cars, it's edges are bound to cause accidents with the owners, the size combined with electric driving means lower distances, and more. And thats just inconvenience for the driver/owner, not for everyone else on the road.
Cybertruck is a great example of why wanting something that looks impressive will get you just that, but not in the way you wished it to be.
Same culture ;) And yeah, we have had a push for focus on cyclists and pedestrians since the 70s. It is stuff I have commented on before in much more detail.
Hopefully that is the outcome, that would at least give it one positive note.
As someone who owns a truck and actually uses it for truck things, I'm not a fan. I don't like the look, the capabilities, the quality issues, the cost or the man behind the company producing it. I'm in the market to replace my truck with another in the next year or two, and the Cybertruck isn't in my top 5 choices.
Preach! I know it's called a truck, but I think of it as a "luxury" vehicle, closer to a Delorean than a Tundra. I can't imagine anyone buying one to actually use it as a truck.
I think it's going to be pretty much impossible for most of us to figure that out. unless we own one, or know someone who does. The media (including Social Media) has learned to just lead with the clickbait of Musk's name, which renders the coverage of anything associated with him full of hyperbole, accusations, assumptions, and gross exaggerations.
Right now, on Reddit, there's a thread about the Space Launch System probably being canceled by Trump. And the thread is full of people pissed, solely because "it would help Musk." That's their whole reason.
Most of, probably all of, those same people before this year would have been cheering the cancellation of SLS because it's very obviously a pork barrel boondoggle that's wildly expensive for far too little actual benefit to the goal of launching materials or personnel to orbit. By every objective measurement, SLS is a failure even before you compare it to SpaceX's Falcon 9 or Starship.
But that doesn't matter, because "Musk Bad."
People are unable to separate the companies, the physical goods and services, from "Musk Bad." I'm not a car guy, so the only real opinion I have on Tesla and any of its products is that electric ground vehicles are the way to go forward into the future. Oh, and Tesla vehicles have luxury price points; I would prefer commodity price points for the electric vehicles of the future.
Are Tesla vehicles good, bad, overpriced, well or poorly constructed? I don't know and really don't care. I'd have to become a full on car guy and get into serious research mode to figure it out because the media has just decided "Musk Bad" and that's that. They get tons of rage clicks when they use that angle, so they keep doing it. Money talks. Clicks pay them, so they make sure those clicks keep coming.
I do, however, know a decent bit, on a casual level, about SpaceX. I'm no engineer, but I like space and have read up on, followed, the company for a while. Both of Eric Berger's SpaceX books are pretty good, for example. And the reality is SpaceX has fundamentally changed everything about space launch.
Most of what they've changed were things that prevailing space industry 'wisdom' and common practice preached were inviolate. Impossible to improve or alter. Of course, there was no need to change those things, not when the government was handing out blank checks. SLS is an example.
The reason SLS costs 2.5 billion dollars (and climbing) for a single use, the reason it's at over twenty-six billion dollars in total cost, is because if it was cheaper that'd be less profitable for the companies involved. And because the politicians who were doing service for wealthy constituents in their states would be doing less for those wealthy benefactors if they allowed SLS to be small and cheap rather than big and endless.
Moving fast and breaking things, has worked for SpaceX. They could spend a year testing, or they could just build the engine or the component and see what happens. That's how you learn. That's not at all the philosophy any other space industry participant follows. But it's allowed SpaceX to learn a ton at a fraction of the cost.
Reusability; people openly mocked and denigrated that notion. Recovering (landing) a rocket; flat impossible. Which many, many engineers and physics people were eager to proclaim. And did.
SpaceX launches to orbit for pennies on the dollar. They've shattered the economics of space. A large part of that is due to Musk. Of course I know people who hate him are going to argue with whether or not he has any engineering skill. That's not my point and I'm not interested in arguing it.
With SpaceX, he always wanted a resuable, recoverable launch system. From day one he kept SpaceX on track to do that. He constantly demanded reasons when someone said something was impossible. He pushed for non-bespoke components, cheaper and more available materials, better computers, engineering and systems that could be refurbished rather than one-off throw-aways. On and on and on. Falcon 9 was built from the ground up to be a reusable, recoverable rocket rather than a boondoggle. Because he was convinced it was going to blow open the door to space.
Turns out, he was 100% correct. Hate him or not, you cannot say he was wrong. And it was his money that got there. SpaceX nearly went under, bankrupt. Most space companies without endless government largess to lean upon do bankrupt themselves, because space is expensive. A hundred million dollars (the initial investment that nearly ran out leaving them in bankruptcy) sounds like a lot of money until you start fabricating rockets and trying to launch them. Then it goes quick.
Should Musk shut his mouth more in public and not have hard right political views? I think so. He should definitely shut up and just run his companies. But he doesn't, and that's complicated everything.
Henry Ford had a lot of problems. A lot. Very problematic guy, to put it mildly. He was still an industrial revolutionary, hate him or not. He also didn't have to deal with social media and a world trained to turn every single anything into a circus. Does that excuse Musk? No. Absolutely not.
But it does provide at least a small amount of context for the fishbowl spotlight Musk lives in. He could give a baby a lollypop and still be eviscerated for it, people are so beholden to irrationally hating his very existence.
Many of Musk's problems are entirely of his own making. But his companies aren't those problems. They're just convenient additional targets for people who've already decided they hate Musk to shit on.
It's not enough to hate him, they have to destroy everything he touches. That's what happens in the modern era. Cancellation. Musk Bad, therefore SpaceX, Tesla, all of them are bad too. That's the logic of the mob.
Frankly it's really tiresome. No I don't agree with Musk politically. Even if he was a quiet CEO/Billionaire who never gave interviews or talked to anyone publicly ever, I'd still not 'like' him. Because he's a billionaire. I'm predisposed to not like him for that reason alone.
But he's done some really important things. Stuff everyone else was utterly certain would never happen and was folly, he's just made it happen. Made it reality. People can, have, and will continue to fill books with bad shit Musk has done, real or imagined. But there are some objective, concrete things he's done that are historical, valuable, good, worthy, and have changed the future of humanity.
If only he'd just shut up, that would be the story. And everyone loves a good story. Since they have a nice juicy one in "Musk Bad", that's what they keep writing sequels to.
I'm not arguing with most of what you're saying, but Space X from the beginning was running under federal funding from the get go:
So while the idea to build modular rockets was great, the financing behind it was largely provided by you and I. They blew through lots of federal funding before approaching bankruptcy.
Also, Telsa wasn't founded by Musk.
So while I agree, we should take the cyber truck at its own merits and faults. A 22 paragraph comment on the achievements of Musk feels like it isn't adding much either.
I agree with a lot of what you say about some contributions he may make to some companies, and how the companies do some good things. They also probably have a lot of good people working for Tesla and SpaceX.
But don't dismiss criticism of him with an eyeroll and "Musk Bad". He really is bad. Really, really bad. Bad enough to buy twitter and turn it into a disinformation circus and welcome actual nazis. Bad enough to do everything he can to promote Putin and Trump. These aren't "whoopsies". They are calculated evil acts to enrich himself at the expense of democracy, and not just in the United States. And now he has political power to fuck up the world in even more ways.
I would never ever buy any Tesla unless the board fires him.
Three things can be true at the same time:
Musk has accomplished some impressive things.
Musk has done some bad things.
Most social media chatter about him is noise and can be safely ignored. Both fans and critics. Heck, most of what he tweets himself can be ignored.
Less true when he's a) promoting white supremacy and other horrible things and b) being put in a position of actual government power.
"Safely" is a perspective born of privilege.
I don't think anyone other than reporters needs to subscribe to Musk's tweets, privileged or not. If it's important it will probably be reported on.
(Similarly, I don't think anyone needs to subscribe to Trump's tweets.)
Sure, that isn't the same as ignoring them "safely." Else why read the articles the reporters wrote?
He is directly supporting racism, shares harmful conspiracy theories, and promotes antisemitism. And he has Trump's ear, and an unregulated bureaucratic position in the new administration. And his company has such power over our space exploration that short of nationalizing it, we have a huge vulnerability to his whims even before now.
He's dangerous. And I don't care about his ugly ass-truck that breaks when it gets wet. If he wasn't doing all the other things, no one would care if he made a stupid "truck." But please don't move the goalposts further.
It is not safe to ignore him, or Trump, for many people. Because when Trump says "those people are doing bad things, terrible things" then "those people" will get death threats and harassment.
Being able to blissfully ignore any of them is a function of privilege.
Well, I agree that Musk is dangerous. But it doesn't follow that reading social media sites or news sites is necessarily a good use of anyone's time.
You claim that ignoring politics is a privilege, but I wonder if paying attention to politics is a privilege? It seems like privileged people might be more likely to have the spare time to do it?
I don't know what's going to happen, who is going to suffer from what in the next four years, but I suspect that many people who end up suffering aren't reading newspapers or social media to track Musk's or Trump's every move. And it probably wouldn't help, since it's rarely news they could use.
You're conflating paying attention to the things they say with "tracking their every move" or "following them on Twitter." Being aware of what the people in power say about your community doesn't require obsessing about politics or reading newspapers, a thing very few people do anymore.
Paying attention isn't the same as any of that. I'm not moving the frame of your original post - being able to ignore the words of hateful demagogues like Musk and elected officials like Trump is a privilege. The idea that those words won't impact you at all is a privilege.
I'm not interested in "but what about" in different directions. I believe your original words are wrong, I'm not interested in litigating different ones in post after post, just those original ones.
I originally was talking about Musk’s tweets. Apparently, I’ve done a bad job of figuring out what you’re talking about and probably shouldn’t have tried to respond to bad guesses about what you meant.
I don’t have a very clear idea about which “not privileged” people you mean or what “paying attention” to Musk looks like for them. Who are they, what do they have to pay attention to, and why? What are some examples of day-to-day activities?
I'm also talking about his tweets. As someone with the power to act on his words and who inspires and instigates the actions of others - death threats and harassment and the like - through his words, his tweets can cause both immediate harm and preface future governement harm.
I'm going to use an example of Donald Trump, because it's recent, and doesn't involve him being a government official at the time. I'm also going to reference Vance and Truth Social. This is illustrative of the concept, so carry things like this over to the things Musk has said.
"They're eating the dogs" had major impact to the Haitian migrant community in Ohio, as well as broader immigrant and migrant worker communities. From death threats and town council uproars, to harassment on the street and people who came to town just to try to record instances of this happening. Before Trump ever posted this on Truth Social, it was on Stormfront first, then Twitter. And was spread by folks like Vance before and after the famous debate quote.
Some folks thought that moment was silly in the debate, when it was just shy of blood libel level accusations and led to real safety concerns for the immigrant community as well as the local Ohio community. It was not safe to ignore those tweeting about those things. And not having to give a damn about the "silly" lies is a privilege. When Trump or Musk amplify conspiracy theories he actively causes harm.
Trump is easily influenced, Musk is one of his influencers, only amplifying his impact which as the owner and active manipulator of the platform he posts on, and as a billionaire, is already huge.
Just because Person A doesn't read Twitter or intentionally follow "politics" on a news site doesn't mean that they're ignoring what the guy tweets. That information is shared via videos and word of mouth as much as by reporters and on Twitter itself. I never read Trump's tweets, and yet every morning was a litany of his 4am rants on the news or in workplace conversations. Musk having more access to power and soon direct governmental power himself puts him in the same bucket.
Okay, I agree with all that. It's an example that came to mind for me, too, though I didn't want to guess. I agree about how it works. It's certainly true that bigoted rumors can have large, negative, and unignorable effects, and we certainly hear a lot about Musk and Trump without trying.
But I'm not not sure what ordinary people should do about it. Certainly, by the time it became national news it was unignorable by its targets. But trolls are sharing hateful memes all the time, and it was months before this blew up.
Who should be paying attention to Trumpist social media in advance, and how would it help? It seems like it would be bad for your mental health. It doesn't seem likely that a Haitian immigrant who was paying attention to right-wing social media on an ongoing basis would be any better off than someone who didn't use social media at all and didn't find out until it became national news.
The people who really can't ignore it are the moderators who are paid to look at it.
When people like Musk and Trump and now Vance share these lies, theyre amplified out of the "Blood Tribe" racist subculture into the mainstream. And the people who listen to them - who immediately send death threats, who call the Springfield Ohio city council, who spread the lies even further, are activated by them. Musk activates others and does not care about truth. He activates Trump. White supremacists (and all the other shared ideologies) in power are dangerous. Powerful people willing to be petty and hurt others because of perceived slights against them are also dangerous. Musk's anti-trans rhetoric is at least in part related to having a trans kid who hates him.
If Musk just owned Tesla it wouldn't matter so much. He's rich but he's not that powerful.in that case. Instead he controls the Twitter algorithm, is embedded in our space program and national security, influences the incoming President, and has a following of "fans" who will attack whatever he points them at.
Trust me that the Haitian migrants knew about the slander, because they'd already felt the effects. Also there's functionally no moderation on Musk on Twitter or Trump on TS. Musk got pissy when Biden's Super Bowl tweet did better than his and gave himself special priority, he got annoyed about links taking people off site and deprioritized links so engagement tanks if you link to a source.
All of this to say, that it's necessary to pay attention when you're targeted by this bullshit. Because the harassment can be life threatening. A family whose child was killed by a migrant was being destroyed not just by his death but by the symbol for white supremacy his death became. Nazi marches are dangerous. Charlottesville demonstrated this. And those marches are what followed the bullseye painted on Springfield and many other places.
This was far too much work to get to an example you already thought of.
This is btw why I will continue to object to posts from other white supremacists and people with similar ideologies. They perpetuate this hate, and spread the toxic shit that Musk and his peers shovel out for him. Starve people who perpetuate such things of their oxygen. It's far too easy to get so surrounded by the miasma and assume it's the norm in the face of silence.
But also things like flagrantly violating labor laws, property rights, and environmental regulations. One such example
It turns out 'go slow to not destroy everything' also has value.
This is his attitude toward everything. The ends justify the means, damn anybody standing in the way of his off-planet colony fantasies. He's a dangerous man to be holding the ear of the next (already dangerous) president.
Almost certainly is one of the driving factors for gutting all of the three letter agencies that slow things down to avoid letting people like Musk trample everybody else.
Hey, mob member here 👋 I’m glad SLS is on the chopping block. I can’t tell if you’re a big fan of Elon Musk the person, or a couple of his more technically successful acquisitions? At any rate, here is my take on the person and his companies. Not sure if it’ll help, but I’m not necessarily foaming at the mouth writing this, so I figured I’d say my piece in case that helps explain some of the vitriol elsewhere.
Cards on the table: ime, he seems like an objectively awful person that has fallen ass backwards into a couple of traditional nerd hobbies (cool cars and rocket ships) which has earned him a lot of fans. No one cares about Zip2, the original X.com, the Boring Company, and probably Neuralink (until they come up with a genuinely useful new idea), so I assume if I went off on a rant about how Neuralink’s doing nothing we didn’t try in the 80s, it would be less incensing than providing a hot take on the near-ball bearing proof truck.
Equally, I’m not a fan of the Great Man theory of history. So I’m not likely to throw credence behind the words of a person whose job is convincing people of things, and more inclined to believe it’s people like his COO (Gwynne Shotwell) or a lead engineer (Tom Mueller) that keep his companies functional and solvent.
Anyhow, hopefully that provided some insight into the mind of a person who would really like Elon to take that flight to Mars sooner rather than later, and is sick to death of seeing his vanity projects tear up the news cycle. Genuinely cool stuff, though. I wish Armadillo Aerospace (which used a similar quick iteration methodology to SpaceX) had won out, but I guess a random software dev has shallower pockets than a cofounder of PayPal. Oh well.
While I think some/most of the hatred directed at Musk owned companies is misplaced, be careful about overcorrecting the other way too. There's a lot of hyperbolically positive statements about Musk companies. I'd put commentary like "changed the future of humanity" in that bucket. My life has certainly not changed in any material way from one of Musk's companies and I kind of doubt it ever will.
I think part of the polarization around Musk's companies is that regardless of whether the companies do good in the world, the means by which they arrived there is not how I want society to progress. Stuff like SLS vs Starship is frustrating because I want the way we get to other planets and explore space to be something we collectively endeavor towards, not be the whims of a billionaire. SLS failures feel like a condemnation of our collective capacity to achieve great things. Space X successes feel like marks of approval for disruptive, singularly wealthy led initiatives. That lesson concerns me even if space is now XX% cheaper to get to.
Unfortunately it seems that the ship on the public apparatus taking crewed spaceflight seriously sailed around 50 years ago with the rise of the Shuttle program. Military-industrial complex contractors fell in love with the endless gravy train of taxpayer money it enabled and politicians became enthralled by the ability to buy votes with promises of jobs, which scattered manufacturing across as many states as possible, neither of which are conducive to efficiency, effectiveness, or innovation.
I think the only way to get SpaceX-like results out of NASA is to hand NASA full budget and directional discretion, cutting elected politicians out of the loop entirely. With the agency’s direction changing with each administration and congress treating it as a jobs program, there’s no way for it to be even remotely competitive.
Imo that's the end result of social media making political matters so engaging. The lowest common denominator form of engagement is basically to be an anti-fan of some public figure who generates enough media coverage to keep people engaged. More like High school bullying than political commentary. Musk leans hard into social media and controversy so it makes sense he gets the most intense of this kind of, personal animosity. At the same time, a lot of the criticism is deserved. I always say, social media is the only place that makes me hate people that I completely agree with.
The first time I saw a Cybertruck, I was driving a Dodge Durango. As I looked to my left, over the Cybertruck's roof line, I realized how short it was.
The first time I actually had a chance to talk to a Cybertruck owner I said "You drive the Cybertruck?" and he replied "Heh, well, it drives itself." and that ended that conversation.
I tried not to hate it because of it's looks. I tried not to hate it because of Elon or Tesla Owners. I tried.
End of the day, it is a statement. A statement by Musk. A statement by it's owners. It's too new for it to be anyone's grandma's PT Cruiser hand me down which they decided to meticulously maintain in her honor. It's not "the cheapest thing they had on the lot with no rust." It's not truly better than any competitor and it's all bluster. James May likes it, apart from all that, but that's the only thing it's got going for it in my book.
Past it being a Tesla, as a car guy I'm disappointed. I'm not sure if safety would stop someone from making a pointer car with a low center of gravity nowadays but you can do throwback design and make it look both cool and novel. This ain't it.
Oh man! How had I not seen that Hyundai? That's a piece of art! I'm not sure what's happening over at Hyundai but they seem to be the company releasing the coolest/weirdest looking cars these days.
Same. I like the heavy focus on geometry, the Ioniq 5 does retro-future well and has a nice shape, the 6 is weird but in an appropriate EV kinda way, the Santa Fe redesign is ostensibly practi-cool in an XJ Cherokee kinda manner, the N concept is my go-to whenever the Cybertruck comes up in conversation (lol), and the Elantra N is the only new car I'd consider buying with its redesign.
Would be nice if their dealer and QC sides of the house were as good...
So, this is somewhat orthogonal to what you’re asking, and I’ll qualify it with the idea that I’m no Cybertruck fan myself (Have you ever driven directly behind one? From the back it looks like someone toppled over a fridge and put it on wheels). I also have a hard time separating it from Musk, who is someone whose tag I’ve blocked on Tildes and I feel much better for it.
But, in the interest of fairness: judging something by its hate subreddit means you’re getting the most inflammatory information (or misinformation) about it and very little else - whether that’s the Cybertruck or any other thing/person/idea with a profile big enough to have a hate subreddit in the first place.
reddit’s structure validates extremes, and its culture loves takedowns.
This doesn’t mean that whatever’s in the hot seat isn’t necessarily bad — just that hate subreddits are a very narrow and slanted way to evaluate that.
I watched a cybertruck break down in front of me on my way home from my vacation yesterday. It stalled out at a red light and then all the lights went off, leaving the driver stuck inside and unable to get his car to go once his light turned green.
As it stands, I don't like cybertrucks, or the people who went through with the purchase of them once they were available, given what we know about Elon Musk and his "leadership" abilities. The high number of recalls and other safety incidents I've read about, regardless of the brand of car, or who was driving or who owns the company give me pause. The fact the windows are supposed to be bulletproof scares me, since that also means that you can't break them in an effort to escape if necessary.
I would have loved the idea of a "truck" like this from an accessibility standpoint, but there is too much with this specific vehicle I can't condone.
It was money literally set on fire in my opinion for the people who purchased them, and I know their resale is going to be basically nothing, since they really can't even be salvaged for parts if necessary.
Gentle reminder that Tildes offers a filtering system that's easy to turn on or off. If you'd like to not see threads about the cybertruck for a few months, or maybe you don't want to see Elon Musk things, the filer is in the right side panel.
Feel free to PM for step by step screen shots :) cheers
WhistlinDiesel didn't like it.
https://youtu.be/PK_EJ3DyiiA?si=7LPg3ZXzHBqCKJlm
Seems like a shit tier car.
I mean, some of these tests feel like American Ninja for cars, so it is difficult to take this seriously. Who would put their car through that? I also don't think most people will have a load of C4 attached to their vehicle. Cars are not tanks :P
Yes, but he did the same to the Hilux and loved it. Poor thing held together for 900+ door slams supposedly.
...Then got dropped from a helicopter. RIP Hilux :(
The association with Elon kills it for me. If it was made by some bespoke fabricator or something I'd love it.
As it is, it feels like someone called my bluff on the concept cars I said I wanted. And it's way too cheap as evidenced by all it's reliability issues and how frequently I see them. It's like someone took an avant-garde runway gown and started selling it at Banana Republic or something. A vehicle like this is supposed to be rare.
My neighbor has one. When he drops his kids off at the elementary school, the older kids who run the drop off line love helping his kids out of the car. So by that metric, it’s a big success.
My take is the hate is overblown. If you don’t mind having a car with lots of problems (and there are many out there), the cyber truck can be fun.
It's the closest thing you can get to the Marines armored vehicle from Aliens. I can see why kids would get excited by it.
This whole thread just really hits it on the head: you can't find information about the truck itself without wading through a whole bunch of unrelated opinions. No one here so far owns one, or has spoken about knowing someone personally who owns one, or has taken a ride in one. The majority mention not liking Musk and thus wouldn't ever buy one. And a lot of comments about appearances.
It's too bad you came to Tildes to ask about the actual truck and got the same muck you can get anywhere else.
If only owners responded the thread would have been empty. Is that more useful?
I’m leaning towards “yes”, it would have been more useful. It certainly wouldn’t have commanded so much wasted breath repeating what has been said so many times already. Not all voids need to be filled. And perhaps the sentiment expressed in this thread spoils the enthusiasm of an actual owner to talk about it.
It should be possible to ask a genuine question and have it sit quietly, rather than specifically not answering the question. The ship has sailed on this one, but maybe it’ll happen for the next one.
The question was whether, objectively, the Cybertruck is a failure. I'm not sure there's an objective answer to that, but I'd argue that owners are not unbiased "objective" opinions either.