So. The Cybertruck was released last night. It's um..... I don't even know what to say. Sounds great on paper. But holy bucket of fugly. I watched the reveal live and I kept waiting for them to bring out the real truck. It never happened. Also, if you can find it, watch the reveal. There's a segment where they're showing how strong the glass is. It was a miserable failure.
https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck

Spectacular marketing. Once again, Elon proves that he's a master of the media and public opinion.

My guess: That'll get built, in very limited quantity, and become an instant collectible.

What's underneath is the ACTUAL underpinnings of something to come in a couple years, that changes the truck game permanently, and will be much more attractively styled.

Look how much free press Tesla has gotten in the last 24h. Gotta love the mouthbreathing video game-playing nitwits with their learner's permit posting disparaging comments from their parents' basement about a guy who's a billionaire and putting sh*t in space. OK Kyle, take a seat.

Simply brilliant. I'm a fan.

As a Tesla owner now, I am not enamored of the looks of this truck, but as AZ mentioned, the underlying technology is incredible!

There are things I absolutely love about my Model 3. For example, the ability for the firmware to be regularly updated over-the-air with new features and software fixes is awesome.

Including a power increase of 5% recently! In the 18 months I have owned it, it has become faster and snappier in its performance ... have you ever seen an internal combustion engine car do that?

Yeah, while there are some things that Tesla is not doing right, and some owners are worse than BMW folks (in the Tesla forums), the overall direction is what we need for the entire car industry to evolve to.

For example, 18 months and 29k miles later, I have taken my car into the service center just once ... for something quite minor. For some other Tesla owners, fixes (yes, they do need done sometimes - not perfect) and things like tire rotations (if you want) are done by "mobile rangers" ... the techs come to your house or office and do the work!

Z

This truck is an object lesson in wrongs that OTHER BRANDS ALREADY LEARNED. Why is Tesla making other people's mistakes after the lesson was already proven? There are two answers: either they're idiots, or--far more likely--THOSE THINGS DON'T MATTER if you're not trying to sell an F150.

This thing is basically an electric, RWD Ridgeline. Let's run it down, shall we?
NOT body-on-frame (stated as a structural exoskeleton, whatever that means)
NO separate bed
Stupidly high bedsides for the sake of looking different.
Obsession with being different from "same old same old trucks"
Sacrificing bed space for cab space
Horrible interior, by any metric

Yep. It's a Ridgeline. A half-ton Ridgeline.

So that leads me to two conclusions:

1: For all the bluster and benchmarking against the F150, this truck is NOT directed at TRUCK buyers. It's directed at pickup, or ute buyers. It's aimed at people who buy Ridgelines, or would have bought a Baja, or an Escalade EXT, or will be watching the upcoming Hyundai crossover ute with great interest. It might have payload and towing specs to brag about, but they're superficial. This thing is intended to do one thing and one thing only: haul the family to the grocery store with the option of picking up a tree or a bike on the way home once a year.

Or, more concisely: it's designed to be exactly what Crossovers are to gasoline sedans: the optimization of packaging on a larger footprint to allow more people space, more cargo space, and more fuel space while offering better all-weather manners.

The Model X might be Tesla's first crossover, but THIS THING is the culmination of their tech. THIS is where the triple-motor tech comes home. THIS is where the battery packaging engineering lessons reach fruition. This thing is THE Tesla. It's built for a market where a go everywhere, do anything, comfy family hauler with no emissions and no range anxiety is king. It's more affordable than even the model 3, especially on a vehicle-for-dollar level. It's more practical. It's more versatile.

2: Tesla has no eye on any commercial market segments. No job site will ever purchase such an impractical truck, regardless of what the towing or payload specs are. Ask anyone who uses a truck for work and they'll tell you bedsides they can't reach over are a dealbreaker. Why do you think you never see brodozers at job sites? They're completely useless status symbols, not workhorses. There's also a reason you never see short bed trucks on work sites. And why a 4.3 V6 is the best-loved engine. And why 2wd is pretty much all you need. Work trucks are used for three things: Hauling smelly, dirty workers with no regard for upholstery, hauling dirty, heavy s*** with no regard for bodywork, and serving as mobile workbenches. This thing does none of those. It's designed for the opposite of all of those. It's designed to be a Ridgeline.
This thing isn't a workhorse. It's heavy-duty, sure, but only by nature of its more modern construction and powertrain. It doesn't NEED to be. But they're gonna brag about it. But remember Mitsubishi bragged about the dents in the Eclipse's door being strength and crash safety bonuses. The fact that it's there doesn't mean it's significant.

Both of which tell us that this truck is for average families who spend way too much on pickups that are frankly horribly suited to the use case, mechanically, but perfectly suited to the use case design-wise. This one lacks the former, and unlike gasoline unibody crossovers, it doesn't trade utility for engineering compromise. Instead of a repurposed Camry with a cramped engine bay and a s***, weak, lightweight AWD system with diff housings that could fit in one of my Corvair's tiny cylinders, you have a purpose-built utility pickup (NOT a truck. It's not a truck.) that is able to, thanks to the electric powertrain, exist as a design study rather than a design compromise. The truck is ALL about the packaging. So much so that styling was sacrificed, which probably led to early design studies that looked crudely like what we saw on stage, at which point Musk decided they should capitalize on that to set themselves apart, because that's absolutely necessary in the half-ton pickup segment.

Except that they're not gunning for the half-ton pickup segment at all. They're gunning for grandma's minivan, your uncle's Escalade EXT, and your neighbor's Ridgeline. AND they're gunning for Model X buyers, Model S buyers, AND model 3 buyers. AND they're gunning for everyone with a Traverse or an Acadia or a Pilot.

It's the only car Tesla needs to make, if they get it right. And their own benchmark of choice proves it: if Ford stopped selling EVERYTHING ELSE, the F150 would still carry them. And a lot of people wouldn't even notice.
Now what's interesting is you CANNOT say that about Toyota, or Nissan. Because they are playing in the half-ton market as newcomers.
Now Honda again proves the point through lessons learned: you have NO ground to gain by fighting the F150. Claiming to be a half-ton, or claiming tow ratings, or claiming to be a big, bad, scary big-boy truck like the others only sets you up to be proven wrong. But playing in your own field? Capitalizing on the appeal of engineering and packaging without the expectations of a Real Truck, and without the handicaps of internal combustion packaging? THAT is an unwritten book. It's free game for anyone with the resources to play.
Honda could absolutely NOT survive on Ridgeline sales alone. Why? Because Honda's game is not trucks, or pickups, or utes. Hell, it's not really even Crossovers. So they can't stand tall enough in any of those categories. But the Civic? That's unchallenged.

This is Tesla's Civic, but it's also Tesla's F150 and Tesla's Ridgeline and Tesla's Escalade and--Hell--it's even Tesla's GTR. Seating for parents and kids. Storage for stuff. Cheap to commute in. Practical when you need it. Able to haul the trailer. Fancy enough to impress. Fast as s***. AND it's cheaper than a goddamn Acura RLX, which does virtually none of that s***.

I'm not sure what to make of the styling, other than it was clearly guided by a combination of unchecked eccentricity and platform optimization. But I am sure that if it works, it's Tesla's mainstay, and while the media talks about them competing with other upcoming electric pickups, Tesla knows none of them matter, because they'll be too busy fighting the F150 to even notice the CyberTruck's buyers.

Reading WAY too much into it.

This doesn't require analysis. It's not competing with anything except impeachment hearings and Kanye's mental illness.

Like I said, I'll bet it's simply an exercise in "let's see if we could..."

Remember, this is the guy who put a roadster in space. WHY? Because f*** 'em, that's why.

I'm a Tesla fan. I'd like to own one day. That being said, I was only slightly hopeful this would be a useful work truck. I would REALLY like to replace my 410K mile Chevy with an electric truck/van. One with a Tesla badge would be even better. That being said, as soon as I saw it, I knew what was up.I think MoD is right in that it's aimed at a particular segment of truck buyers. The buyers that has driven truck prices to over $100K for top end models. The marketing is brilliant and this vehicle is aimed squarely at a very profitable segment of the truck market. But I think the underpinnings of this truck have potential to be a great work truck. I like the cab-forward design. Match it with a regular cab and an 8 or even 10 foot bed and I'd buy one. Even better, put a van body on it. If I could get a van built on this platform, I couldn't give them my money fast enough. But Elon is NOT stupid. I think he's going to do with this truck the same thing he's done with his other vehicles. He's going to put out the more profitable version first. Let the folks with disposable income pay for the development of the entry level/basic models. Then sell them en-mass. I just hope my ole' Chevy can hold on that long...