I’ve been waiting for a while now to see an actual Cybertruck in person, and today it finally happened! I wanted to share with you my spontaneous, initial reactions; because when you see something this radically new for the first time, you will never see it the same way again!
I have been “car spotting” for decades now, and this is easily the most radical looking new vehicle I’ve ever seen! As we all know, seeing a car in person is quite a different experience from seeing a picture.
First of all, even though this mass of metal has four wheels, it really doesn’t look like a “car” or a “truck”. And it’s BIG–223.7″ long! (ED: it’s 10″ shorter than a Ford F150 crew cab with 6.5′ bed) That’s just shy of the biggest land yachts of the late ’50s. The sharp angles and flat surfaces of stainless steel make it look like a piece of industrial equipment–kind of like a smoothed-over Hummer. It has no face–just a panel of what looks like gold anodized aluminum. The flat windshield is steeply raked, and the huge single windshield wiper rests at the A pillar, not at the cowl. There are no door handles–I wouldn’t even know how to get in! I once called the 1962 Dodge Dart a “complex modern art masterpiece” and so is the Cybertruck–but in a different way. The Dart is Salvador Dalí and bebop jazz; the Cybertruck is brutalist, minimalist Cubism.
Rear view: Not much personality. Looks like someone’s hauling an office filing cabinet turned sideways. This vehicle is so new it still has a temporary New Jersey license tag.
And yet, the stainless steel finish is already stained! According to what I’ve read, this is a common problem. I also see some warping where the bed cover rubber seal meets the body.
Remember those 1970s dish soap commercials? “Look! I can see myself!” Well, sort of . . .
I tried to take an interior shot, but there was too much reflection. The small squarish-oblong steering wheel looks like it was lifted from one of those toy pedal fire trucks. (Or maybe a ’61 Plymouth Fury?)
Here’s an interior photo from the internet. There are no traditional gauges in front of you; the 4-wheel steering is “drive by wire” with no mechanical connection to the wheels. The whole atmosphere gives off a Star Trek vibe. I would probably need driving lessons before taking a Cybertruck out on the road. At least I can recognize the gas and brake pedals. (I should say “accelerator pedal”–the Cybertruck runs on electricity, not gasoline.) It probably cruises down the road in eerie silence, like the starship Enterprise hurtling through outer space.
After checking out the Cybertruck, I walked back to my 1959 Chevrolet. Chevy’s far-out Jet Age design really wowed people when it was introduced in October of 1958. Mechanix Illustrated’s Tom McCahill described it as “styling as wild as you’ve ever seen . . . pure Louis Armstrong: ‘Gone, man–gone!’ . . . Spaceship 1989!” Could it be that people’s first reactions to the ’59 Chevy were like my reactions to the Cybertruck? Is this the future? It turned out that the radical Chevy design only lasted two years–after that, conformity and rationality became the new standard.
View of a Cybertruck through the windshield of a 1959 Chevrolet (how unlikely is that?) Two clashing visions of the future.
The stainless steel body of the Cybertruck glistens in the mid-afternoon sun. MAD magazine’s 1958 auto prophecy has come true: “Eventually we will have chrome cars–then they’ll introduce paint trim!”
Notice how the styling of the Cybertruck seems to relate to the architecture of the office building in the background?
When I was a kid, Matchbox and Hot Wheels put out fantasy vehicles that looked way out and strange. That’s what the Cybertruck reminds me of. So to me it makes sense that kids who have now grown up would want a car (truck) that looks like the cool toys they remember. It seems that the Cybertruck’s appeal is not really based on functionality (how many owners actually plan to haul stuff with one?) It’s more about “image” and looking hip and cool. And automotive history is full of cars that were successful just for that reason. (ED: the Cybertruck is currently the best selling EV pickup and the #5 best selling EV overall).
More CC reading:
Tesla’s Cybertruck: Did I Just Dream That? (Styling Analysis by PN)
What’s This Tesla Cybertruck Doing At The Gas Pumps?
Same steering wheel as the one that got slagged in the Austin Allegro all those tears ago.
Though less Quartic than Rectic (which sounds most unfortunate).
What an ugly thing! I’d rather consider an Edsel…
Joe
I didn’t talk about the Cybertruck’s performance: 0-60 in about 4 sec. (some sources say 2.5!!!) Truly “Warp Speed”! Just what the world needs right now–a wicked fast, hard-to-see-out-of, 6600 lb. missile with some yahoo behind the wheel! What will terrorists do with this? Scary.
See one , occasionally rolling round “Mclean VA”. Still have not had the opportunity to see it parked where I could get “somewhere”, near it.
Remember when Teslas first hit the scene and were being lauded for finally not just being a viable EV, but an EV that doesn’t look weird or rudimentary like a Citycar?
My how times change
I would never have made that connection, but now I will never be able to un-see it!
My sightings on these are odd. Living in California they should be common. I hadn’t seen one before vacation in the “Mountain States” this past July. Where I saw a bunch. Then a couple of weeks after return, I dunno, late July/early August, I saw perhaps half a dozen in two days. Of which, one was painted Green, the other actually had something sticking out of it’s bed, like cargo or something. Isn’t the latter contractually prohibited? But I haven’t seen one since.
I’ve had plenty of hate for things I perceived to be bad automotive, but this one is more like just roll my eyes, whatever. Is it worse conspicuous consumption than a Chevy Suburban that is rated as having less load capacity than my BMW station wagon? Maybe? Maybe not, he says rolling his eyes. Just some guy trying to make a bunch of money. And succeeding.
I have seen a couple of these rolling around. The shape reminds me of wood block toy trucks I used to see in toy stores years ago. I have concern that vehicles are getting too big, powerful, fast, and heavy. I fear that someday, one of these 6901 pound Cybertruck behemoths will run over me in my CRX like a speed bump and won’t bother to stop because they never noticed.
A few months ago, I saw a whole bunch of these in a row in a lot where our local Tesla dealer stores its cars. I wish I had snapped a photo, because it was a scene that could have been used in a science fiction movie.
My reactions are not as strong as those of some others here. I don’t care for its looks. But then I don’t care for brutalist architecture, John Coltrane’s jazz of the 1960’s or art by the likes of Dali. But I understand that there are those who do like those things, and I imagine that the Cyber Truck appeals to them.
I have seen quite a few locally, some of which have been wrapped in colors. Color can soften the jarring looks, but it is still not to my taste. I am, however, fascinated by the concept. It is a very rare thing for someone to introduce a new vehicle that is not a copy of anything. They are often not successful, but can move vehicle styling in new directions. I have to salute Tesla for a swing for the fences, and wish them well. But I also hope that this does not usher in a new styling era for mass-market vehicles.
I think that owning a Cyber Truck reveals a deep seated inferiority complex that the owner compensates for by showing off his ability to spend a bunch of money ($130K+) on a toy, i.e. “Look at me, I am rich and I can buy something that you can’t and if you don’t like the way it looks so what”. Given all the date that is available today I say that it is a virtual certainty that Tesla/Musk knows exactly how many people in every Zip Code can afford this thing and how many (and probably who) has the psychological profile to be a likely buyer.
If Tesla gets lucky the CT may become the “Must Have” object needed to be part of a certain crowd.
Until now, I didn’t know this thing had fully electric steering with no mechanical connection. Hard pass on that alone.
I don’t think the styling is all that ground-breaking… it’s nearly a duplicate of my son’s Pinewood Derby car of 30 years ago!
Was in Dallas in August and saw lots of these around Highland Park (the too-much-money section of Dallas), and while I don’t want one, I’m glad they exist. They are ridiculous but make me smile because they’re just so wacky. I like the Autozam and the Daihatsu Midget and the Fiat Multipla. There should always be a market for weird cars.
The first picture I saw of one, I don’t remember what website it was on, made me laugh, I seriously thought it was a 6 year old’s picture of a car and the website posted it for a laugh. My opinion of it then, when I saw one in person, and now, is it’s just pitiful, I can’t really conceive a way to make it any uglier. The stories about how people can’t get into them with a dead battery, etc, do amuse the crap out of me. Ever hear of a door handle?
Ugly. Anti pedestrian and ugly. Lacking in any sense of grace or form. Ugly. As a passenger vehicle, it is probably as good as a really ugly passenger car Tesla. Musk is a bizarre and unfortunate person in our world.
The other day, I heard someone refer to one of these as a “Deplorean”. I like that.