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points by RobotToaster 1 day ago | 0 comments

As much as I dislike Musk, it was nice to see someone try something that didn't look identical to every other car/truck on the road.

[–] jackb4040 1 day ago

This take is widespread on this venture capital fan forum, but it's both incorrect and a retreat. The Cybertruck was poorly thought out, sold teribly, and is now dead. By example it has discouraged future diversity in automotive design.

Good design that breaks the mold and then succeeds for that reason is what changes the world. Bad design that starts from the desire to be different without understanding the forces that led to the preexisting equilibrium is what we got. If you start out with hundreds of billions of dollars you can fake it for much longer, but if your premise is fundamentally economically incorrect then it will only last as long as you can subsidize it.

[–] steve_avery 1 day ago

It is impossible for someone's statement of preference to be incorrect. You may differ in your opinion, but the gp is not wrong for having their own opinion.

[–] teachrdan 1 day ago

I read their comment as meaning, "If you really care about design that doesn't look like anything else, you should be wary of the Cybertruck, as its commercial failure actually discourages future innovation in automobile design."

[–] jackb4040 1 day ago

I don't know how someone could possibly read my comment in any other way in good faith.

[–] jackb4040 1 day ago

They weren't stating their preference for the form of the vehicle itself. They were stating their preference for designs that break the mold. But if what you desire is cars that break the mold, the Cybertruck has set the world back.

[–] kibwen 1 day ago

> It is impossible for someone's statement of preference to be incorrect.

I prefer to believe that this statement is incorrect.

[–] mercanlIl 14 hours ago

This is exactly how I feel.

Personally I enjoyed its aesthetics, though I wish it was better executed as a vehicle I could drive regularly.

[–] ReptileMan 1 day ago

I am tired of grey painted eggs too. The design language has gone downhill.

[–] Balgair 1 day ago

My understanding is more that economy and safety standards have driven us towards these aerodynamic and impact absorbing shapes. I may be quite wrong though!

The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.

Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.

Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.

Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss

[–] bunderbunder 1 day ago

The US safety ratings are incredibly easy to game. I have a sibling who used to be a crash test engineer, and we used to get bored of them endlessly ranting about it at family gatherings.

In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.

[–] Freedom2 1 day ago

Curious to hear any examples. In my experience, the US has the biggest, most beautiful safety standards of all.

[–] Krasnol 1 day ago

If this thing had good safety ratings, then there is something wrong with those ratings.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/18/tesla-cyb...

> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.

https://www.heise.de/en/news/Cybertruck-remains-banned-in-Ge...

[–] epolanski 1 day ago

The real issue is that every car maker tries to be as global as possible so they default to mostly safe and flat and boring designs.

And that's not just in cars but technology, furniture, lighting choices, clothing, etc, we're just converging to the same styles globally.

[–] Esophagus4 1 day ago

No more flat primer gray cars.

That’s a platform we can all get behind.

[–] UltraSane 1 day ago

Except it is very ugly and the triangle profile created a impractically large windshield and caused the bed cover to completely block the rear window when closed.

[–] mercanlIl 14 hours ago

Ugly is subjective. Most people probably find it ugly, though personally, I never did.

The functional design certainly needed work.

[–] UltraSane 7 hours ago

Ugly is both subjective but also quantifiable. Tesla should have used surveys to see what percentage of people actually liked the way the cybertruck would look. But of course they didn't because it was Musk's design and he arrogantly pushed it to market.

[–] cubefox 1 day ago

Thr angular Cybertruck design was actually not primarily for show. It comes from the fact that its body is made from cold-rolled, full-hard stainless steel that can't be stamped into arbitrary shapes. Ordinary car bodies are made from steel that can be stamped but is not stainless, so they require paint.

[–] throwaway_ab 1 day ago

The original design was that the body would be made from these panels. The exoskeleton structure.

The Cybertruck that was released did not have that, instead the panels are just normal body parts connected to a standard car frame underneath - like any other car.

[–] criddell 1 day ago

Most cars use a unibody design and there's no frame underneath it all. The body is the frame.

Most pick up trucks are body-on-frame style.

The Cybertruck is a hybrid. There is an aluminum frame for the tow hitch and battery pack, but the body panels are also structural (unibody).

[–] lopis 1 day ago

Nice? It's a machine thst kills pedestrians. I rather no one try anything different if that keeps pedestrians safer.

[–] rplnt 1 day ago

They didn't go for looks though. The whole premise was ease of manufacturing. An interesting idea that soon proved to be invalid. But they pushed forwards anyway for some reason (and we all know that reason).

[–] danny_codes 1 day ago

I prefer not to drive next to dangerous art projects.

[–] raziel2701 1 day ago

Instead they ripped off the design of a garbage container.

[–] ainiriand 15 hours ago

L-Shaped phones also don't work, despite the novelty.

[–] Hamuko 1 day ago

Meanwhile all other Tesla models look exactly the same. Doesn't help that people buy them like the other appliances in their lives, meaning that they're almost all white too.