The Tesla truck is the most polarizing vehicle of all time. People love CYBRTRK for all the right reasons and they hate it for all the wrong reasons. The Tesla truck isn’t winning any beauty contests and it doesn’t need to. The impact of the CyberTruck on TESLA is getting more media coverage than the LA auto show. I think the CyberTruck is a stroke of genius from the greatest innovator of the decade. Read on to find out why I would happily drive the CyberTruck through a hurricane.
Over the last week, all you probably know about the CyberTruck is that the glass shattered on stage and that Elon Musk allegedly lost $768 billion. After a ride in it, Carscoops stated, “CyberTruck has enjoyed more media coverage than the entire LA auto show. I’m sure that you didn’t see any headlines about Tesla selling almost 200,000 CyberTrucks in less than 72 hours which brought in almost $2,000,000,000 in revenue. The media hasn’t been fair to Tesla (more on this in the future) but having said that, this Truck will be the death blow to the oil industry. Why? Because Americans love Trucks which is why nearly 3 million of them are sold in the U.S. every year. When you hear all about the CyberTruck but next no nothing about the LA auto show, it tells you something – the Electric vehicle is no longer a statement, it’s a mainstream vehicle and its putting ICE vehicles on the back burner. In this case, a picture really does tell a thousand words, and I think you’ll see plenty of Tesla/Ford tug of wars in the future, but I think you’ll see a lot more Tesla/Chevy tug of wars in the future because Chevy drivers seem to have anger issues… even more so after they find out that their 6.2L V8 cant fight a DC motor.
The biggest vehicle launches of 2019 are the Mustang Mach-E and the CyberTruck. The Mustang is a symbol almost synonymous with America itself, and Ford’s bold move to convert it to electric told the country that the age of the ICE engine is over in case you didn’t already know. If you haven’t see Ford vs Ferrari yet, you’re missing out, but I think they wanted to highlight the new electric era with Ford’s history as an innovator. Ford proved it was an innovator with the model T, and again in 1967 with the Ford GT40 and today with Mustang Mach-E. Musk highlighted the power of the CyberTruck by showing a video of it dragging an F150 and following that by denting a standard Truck door and then failing to dent the CyberTruck door. Of course this video went unnoticed and so did the image above.
The top reason people don’t like the truck is because of its appearance. A truck doesn’t need to look pretty, it needs to be tough and utilitarian. People see this and think the glass is fragile, but in an age of headlines and instant information, they didn’t see the video of this test before the launch where the steel ball bounced right off the window. The truck is angular and “Ugly as sin” as Forbes put it. An author from Japolink said, “The CyberTruck gives me the impression that this is a truck designed, like so many others, to project an image of mindless, needless intimidation.” He’s right except that it isn’t needless. You may not know, but there is a history of Tesla owners being harassed, intimidated, coal rolled and even having their cars vandalized by Neanderthals from the “Bro” club. There is a very good reason why this truck not only looks intimidating but is intimidating, no sane person will try to brake check a CyberTruck
There are many good reasons why the truck is so angular. The biggest reason is cost followed by strength. The strongest, easiest shape to produce is a triangle, so they made a steel triangle and welded it to an exoskeleton. They couldn’t use stamped steel because the 3mm thick cold rolled steel would destroy the machine stamping it. A standard truck is made of 20 guage (0.8 mm) stamped steel or in Ford’s case military grade aluminum. The steel on the CyberTruck is 301 stainless steel which is very hard, so hard that it has to be perforated before it can be folded and welded to a skeleton. Tesla saved money on manufacturing and spent it where it counts – on the body and interior. Tesla calls it 30x ultra-hard cold rolled steel. After some research I found out that its 301 stainless steel which is a corrosion proof ultra-hard steel.
There aren’t many reasons not to like the Truck, but there are plenty of reasons to love it. The ArmorGlass, the 14,000lb towing capacity, the 12+ inches of suspension travel, the loading ramp, the massive 78 inch truck bed, the 16 inches of ground clearance, the spacious interior with seating for 6, the 2.9 second 0-60, and of course the 3,500lb payload capacity which is almost double the capacity of the F150. Motor trend visited the CyberTruck Tesla factory and they were blown away with the engineering, especially the double wishbone independent suspension providing almost 14 inches of travel. It’s a Truck that excels in every department. My favorite thing I’ve seen on the Tesla truck isn’t the hilarious memes, but a statement by a reporter from vice who said, “I think a lot of people would like to have sex and possibly get pregnant… in the back of a Tesla CyberTruck.” He went on to say, “I don’t think anyone except for Elon Musk and his paranoid, bunker building friends will want to own one of these.” Maybe this was before the author read about the 200,000 preorders that have already been placed.
Another reason some people are still skeptical is because of the fact that if you don’t live in a metropolitan area, level 3 chargers will be hard to find and the range of the vehicle will be limited to around 300,000 miles. This was before Elon Musk tweeted that there will be a solar roof option which will add 15 miles a day to the range. He added to that by saying that the Tesla ATV will be another option for truck buyers and it will be able to charge directly from the truck battery.
I think the CyberTruck is signaling the beginning of a paradigm shift not only in the Automotive and Engineering world, but the entire world. I think it’s a signal that society needs to understand that were at a tipping point where we’ve reached runaway climate change, and the question is no longer how do we stop climate change but rather how to we adapt to it? I think this is the first serious answer to that question. I also think this leaves plenty of room for discussion, not just about Tesla, but about climate change and income inequality which are closely related.