Lasers, holograms of ex-girlfriends, and techno music. That’s what kicked off Tesla’s truck reveal event, and to be honest, I was pretty stoked for the first 3-5 minutes… right before Elon announced and revealed what the Tesla Cybertruck looked like. The truck made its appearance, amidst fog and laser beams, and my heart instantly collapsed. It was a silver Toblerone on wheels.
The Tesla Cybertruck looks like someone accidentally rendered out a low-poly version of what the actual truck was supposed to look like. Now mind you, the Cybertruck is a pretty remarkable vehicle on paper, but I doubt it’ll turn heads for the right reasons. The vehicle is composed ONLY of straight lines, and looks like someone did origami with sheet metal. The truck comes with Tesla’s own proprietary alloy of stainless steel which is strong enough to stop a 9mm bullet and even doesn’t dent. A gentleman with a sledgehammer even tried. In hindsight, maybe this metal alloy presents some styling constraints, or maybe it isn’t easy to fabricate into 3D curves, which is why the Cybertruck looks so literally boxy and un-car-like, but I’m not really a material specialist, so I really can’t tell. All I can say is that in the aesthetics department, the Cybertruck is no Roadster or Tesla Semi. In its desperate attempt to be a unique looking vehicle, it forgets to look like a vehicle. It literally feels like someone rehashed the weird, pyramidical 1980 Citroën Karin concept and electrified it.
Musk then went on to further display the Cybertruck’s strength by talking about its super-strong Armor Glass. The demo, however, went horribly wrong when the glass actually shattered not once, but twice after having a massive metal ball pelted at it. This additionally meant that for the rest of the event, we had to stare at Elon trying to sell us on a car with shattered windows.
Like I mentioned earlier, the Cybertruck still is a pretty good truck on paper. It accelerates faster than a Porsche 911, and has enough towing capacity to completely obliterate a Ford F150 in a tug of war. The electric vehicle boasts of an incredible range of 250 miles on a single charge and is priced starting at $39,000, which is extremely competitive for a pickup truck, not to mention the amount you’ll additionally save not spending on gas and oil changes… If only the Cybertruck looked a little like this though.
Designer: Tesla
