Although the delivery date has been postponed from the previous two days to 2022, to tell this groundbreaking story, we have to start from November 21, 2019.
Against the backdrop of not-so-environmentally-friendly flames and blue lasers showcasing the cyberpunk characteristics, a car emerged from the billowing smoke in front of everyone.
It was designed with sharp edges, breaking the established value system of pickup truck designs in the hearts of the audience:
From the font of the car name, it can be seen that although it is not yet on the market, branding has already begun. It is a thorough heretic.
Similarly, Cybertruck’s pyramid-like shape further divided the people who had not yet recovered from the visual impact into three groups:
- Completely convinced by its futuristic design;
- Those who do not understand it but still feel that there is something to it and dare not say it is not good;
- Those who think it is industrial garbage.
In fact, on that day, I gradually cooled down but was unwilling to be cold-shouldered by the electric car enthusiasts around me due to different perceptions. I experienced the psychological conditions of the first and second groups one after another.
However, what finally broke the last straw of my good impression was when the designer Franz von Holzhause easily smashed the “high-protection” glass. Well, I mean, those two moments. So, naturally, I entered the third group.
That is why I wrote this article almost two years after the vehicle was released. After all, there is a need for emotional sedimentation.
Reverse Design
Whether it’s good-looking or not, this appearance is definitely impressive.
Inheritance or Innovation?
Just as you can think that the design of this car is very bold and epoch-making, I can also think that the design of Cybertruck only requires a mentally healthy elementary school student to draw it arbitrarily in 3 minutes with a pencil and ruler on a tissue paper after wiping his nose. Because I didn’t find any curved elements except for the tires and bumpers.
Some people think that Cybertruck is the spiritual successor of the DMC DeLorean in the movie “Back to the Future” because both cars are made of stainless steel. However, despite its design resembling a rear-wheel drive Santana, the DeLorean is not particularly known for its elegant styling in sports cars, but instead is visually balanced with a focus towards the rear and no sense of dissonance caused by its triangular roof.
Ugliness does not matter if it is unique enough. If you think that the triangular roof is a revolutionary design, then obviously you are wrong. Because Cybertruck and Citroën Karin, which was released 40 years ago, have the exact same pyramid-shaped dome. Once you discover the resonance across time and space in the design languages of these two cars, you will no longer be amazed by the Cybertruck.
Therefore, is it about inheritance or innovation? It seems to be neither.
Subversion or Rebellion?
Gran Turismo, the most popular racing game series on the Sony PlayStation platform, has been around for 24 years. When the first game was released in 1997, it subverted our cognition through precise depictions of the cars.
During these 24 years, iterations in technology have made it difficult to imagine how poor the game graphics used to be. The authenticity of the game environments has been a major development trend in electronic games. Not only are the details of the cars refined, but the details of the environments are also improving.
This year also happens to be the first year when the concept of the metaverse has become widely known and developed in the capital market. The metaverse is a concept where everything in the real world is moved into the digital world, forming a digital twin of the entire real society, and constructing a brand new social space.
Tech giants such as Facebook have also announced their entrance into this industry, aiming to elevate the dimension of internet social interaction from 2D to immersive 3D experience. We can also see that the increasingly developed technology is getting closer and closer to nature and creation. If you have not already experienced this change, it is recommended to watch the movie “Ready Player One” from 2018.# Efficient and free car design due to digital empowerment
Thanks to digital empowerment, the efficiency and freedom of designing a car are increasing. The approach of a car design close to nature lies in its shape. Gaudí, one of the greatest architects in history, once said:
The straight line belongs to men, the curved line belongs to God.
Whether God exists or not is not within the scope of this discussion. However, the Cybertruck, which consists only of straight lines, obviously clashes with nature.
Tesla clearly represents Musk’s values of the future, but the exterior of the Cybertruck feels like a regression, departing from nature. Moreover, its unconventional design logic creates a disconnect from all existing Tesla car models and even mass-produced car designs worldwide.
It is focused on the present and pursuing the future, but without reflecting on the past. This is not a revolution, nor is it rebellion; it is stubbornness.
Against Tradition
Its choice of technological development seems to be a challenge to traditional pickups, electric cars, and even all cars.
Exoskeleton
Why can insects support themselves bouncing and falling hundreds of times their own body height? A big reason is their extremely strong and flexible exoskeleton. Musk also used the term “exoskeleton” to describe the body structure of the Cybertruck during its release event:
We moved the weight outwards. We created an exoskeleton. The typical pickup design is the cab, the bed, and a separate ladder chassis. The cab and the bed don’t help with the function of the vehicle, they’re carried along like cargo or a potato. Bi-wing aircraft, they’re basically a design that has two rails of light. The core of a single-wing airplane is the stressed-skin shell. As soon as you move the stress skin to the outside of the vehicle, you can do things that we could not do with a conventional truck frame.
Actually, the exoskeleton is essentially a unibody structure, but its outermost part bears more stress. American salvage expert Sandy Munro also speculates that Cybertruck will be lighter than traditional pickups and have a more rigid body structure than ordinary unibody structures. In combination with the cast aluminum lower body and the small number of reinforcement ribs inside the frame, the Cybertruck will have a strong and solid body.
Finally, the 4680 battery cells, which are in the form of Cell to Pack without modules, will be directly glued to the lower body as part of the load-bearing structure in the same way as the exoskeleton, giving a single component multiple functions.
SpaceX Starship-inspired skin
The exoskeleton, of course, requires a thicker skin. In terms of material selection, Tesla found a treasure trove in sister company SpaceX’s inventory. Musk wanted to use the 30X series stainless steel to make the skin of the Starship prototype because it is much cheaper than other high-tech materials. However, using 3mm thick 30X stainless steel on a pickup truck is obviously a very extravagant behavior.
However, the stainless steel, which requires no surface spraying treatment, brings a unique texture to the vehicle. The 3mm cold-rolled stainless steel plate has a protective ability against external impacts that ordinary steel plates of less than 1mm in other vehicles cannot match.
No chassis, no problem for off-roading
In fact, Cybertruck’s 3,500-pound payload capacity and 14,000-pound towing capacity already exceed the top-of-the-line Ford F-150. Who says you need a chassis for off-roading?
In terms of off-road performance, electric vehicles have unique advantages, especially in terms of power. Due to the power characteristics of the electric motor, the maximum torque can be exerted at startup. It can provide excellent power output for getting out of trouble and towing, and the response speed and accuracy at low speeds are not comparable to ordinary fuel vehicles.
Compared with traditional off-road vehicles using beams, a one-piece body electric vehicle with the added weight of the battery has a low center of gravity and lower risk of rolling over. Due to higher energy efficiency, electric vehicles have less cooling pressure at extremely low speeds, and there is no semi-linkage of the clutch under extreme working conditions.
The dual-motor model of the Cybertruck can be independently driven front and rear, which is equivalent to a standard configuration of an electronic differential lock and differential lock that can be locked at any time and can achieve seamless power distribution between the front and rear. The three-motor model is equivalent to having “two locks” and can meet extreme get-out-of-trouble working conditions. This configuration is comparable to the Hummer EV, but inferior to the four-motor Rivian R1T. The latter is equivalent to having “three locks”.
Counterintuitive Design
Familiar Stranger
Interior
The design language of the interior is obviously consistent with the angular exterior. The wide pickup body brings additional horizontal space, so it is natural for the front row to have a third seat, which is a common feature in products of the same size.
Looking from the outside, the extremely unreasonable pyramid top is actually a thoughtful design to provide headroom for the front row occupants. The light bar on the roof longitudinal beam and the streaming media rear-view mirror on the windshield still follow the principle of functionality first, ignoring the aesthetics of the Cyberpunk style.
The marble dashboard may be the only design with a humanistic feel in the entire vehicle, but it is actually made of environmentally friendly materials and not real marble.There is some reasoning behind the Yoke steering wheel on the Model S Plaid which has a dashboard, but it seems less considerate to transplant it onto the Cybertruck which doesn’t have a dashboard like the Model 3. The operational logic of the Yoke steering wheel theoretically requires the same hand throughout like a racing steering wheel, but we have also found on the Model S Plaid that there are many scenarios where hand-swapping is necessary, indicating that the number of steering wheel turns is not oriented towards sports driving.
On this point, we hope that the rear-wheel steering confirmed by Musk last month can reduce the frequency of steering wheel hand-swapping, providing a more positive user experience than the Yoke on the Model S Plaid.
Hidden Hints in Patent Application Drawings
It is not yet known how much will actually be displayed on the 17-inch central control screen. The reference value given in the live video at the launch event was also limited. However, many UI illustrations in the patent application documents filed in May of this year suggest unique features of the Cybertruck.
From the left half of the vehicle information UI for off-road conditions, we can see that the current mode is “ROCK”, which is the rock mode. In the rendered road on the right side, in addition to the pitch and roll angle information of the vehicle, the corresponding rock terrain is also displayed. This may be a real-scene scan, or simply a design factor in different modes.
However, a careful reading of the patent filing reveals that the official also mentions the ability to generate terrain rendering through real-scene scanning, and even through SLAM using drones.Although the Cybertruck’s ground clearance is displayed as 16 inches on the official website, the information on the left-hand side of the image shows a suspension height of 20 inches, which may indicate that the air suspension supports additional clearance height or that the Cybertruck is capable of optional larger size MT tires.
There is a clear indication of tire steering, which could mean that it supports a turning method similar to that of tanks, especially for the 3-motor version where the left and right sides of the rear axle can be reversely driven.
The trailer displayed in the official image from earlier appears in this trailer information interface with Tesla’s factory area clearly visible in the background. Although it is still a traditional Tesla three-angle reverse view, the word “TRAILER DETECTED” appears on the right side of the interface, indicating that Tesla’s pickup has the ability to detect the distance of the accompanying trailer.
The “ATTACH” button takes the imagination space to automatic docking functionality. Since the vehicle body is of the same type as SpaceX, it should not be difficult for Musk, the “Vertically Integrated Little Prince,” to transfer the docking capabilities of space stations to ground transportation. Moreover, Ford’s F-150 Lightning electric pickup already has a similar feature.
Anti-Tool
Means playing.
Based on my experience living in the United States, pickups have roughly three uses:
- A mobile toolbox for individual proprietorship;
- An outdoor toy for suburban middle class;
- The daily carriage of large farmers.
Compared to the F-150’s pricing of $29,290 to $73,105, the Cybertruck has a starting price that is $10,000 higher. Looking at its positioning, option 1 can be eliminated because cost-effectiveness, reliability, and equipment adaptability are more critical factors for a tool vehicle. Furthermore, the unique shape and unknown reliability and maintenance costs of the Cybertruck may not necessarily motivate individual proprietors with strong path dependence to buy it based solely on the operational cost advantages brought by energy switching.Option 2:
For commuters who occasionally engage with nature, the Cybertruck offers a significantly better user experience compared to traditional beam pickup trucks without the rough and non-smart driving experience. It is suitable for dragging other means of transportation or camping equipment for recreation and provides air conditioning and cooking ability on the campsite. Its mechanical performance exceeds that of SUVs at the same price point.
For rural farmers, the low maintenance and decentralized power supply of the electric pickup truck are also attractive features. Furthermore, the Cybertruck’s production site will be in Texas, which is one of the most cowboy and pickup truck-consuming areas in North America.
Currently, other mainstream electric pickup trucks such as Hummer, Rivian and Ford have adopted the front and rear independent suspension setting instead of the front independent-rear solid axle setting commonly seen in traditional pickup trucks at the same level. One reason is for convenient motor layout, and another is to provide a better highway driving experience.
The Rivian R1T is equipped with four motors, while the Hummer EV has a huge double-layered 200 kWh battery pack, both of which, like the Cybertruck, have insane power and a high starting price, with the top-spec models being even more expensive. The F-150 Lighting also emphasizes the advantage of providing electricity to a residence in its advertising.
Therefore, the target user profile of the electric pickup truck is those who are not price-sensitive and/or those who are very interested in technology, thus bringing the lighthouse effect and guiding the purchasing decisions of traditional pickup truck users.
Unconventional
During the moment when the hammer thrown by Franz von Holzhause shattered the Cybertruck’s window, he couldn’t help but swear in surprise:
Oh my f（beep）ing God!!
In response to this sudden situation, Musk awkwardly rescued the situation and said, “Um…that was a little too hard for it. At least it didn’t go through, that’s a plus, haha.”
Perhaps from an aesthetic perspective, the Cybertruck is a failed product. However, looking at it from the opposite angle, its lack of harmonization with the environment precisely expresses the emotional color of cyberpunk, a dystopian subgenre. Rather than seeing this truck as a vehicle for Tesla’s vision, it is more similar to a reflection of Musk’s rebellious side.Is the delivered vehicle still in this design? I don’t know.
Will the external rearview mirrors be added later? I don’t know either.
Will the delivery be delayed? This is what I know the least about.
Currently, I have not found any information on the delivery of the 8,000-ton IDRA die-casting machine, which apparently was ordered for the Cybertruck, nor do I know the production progress of the 4680 battery. I only know that Musk said it would cost a million dollars to manufacture Cybertruck in small quantities, literally.
The outstanding engineering innovation and the various stories behind it are also the charm of Tesla.
Anyway:
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.