While the Cybertruck is still a conceptual vehicle, we thought we’d up the stakes and imagine what a Tesla Cyberbike would look like!
Looking sort of like the Tesla Cyberquad’s meaner older sibling, the Cyberbike comes with the same edgy, angular metal fairing that houses Tesla’s game-changing electric powertrain underneath. However, this isn’t an official Tesla concept, heck it isn’t even a fan-made one. These conceptual images (there are a bunch of them below) were designed primarily using Midjourney’s Text-to-Image AI. I simply described the Tesla Cyberbike to the AI bot and was greeted by some rather phenomenal-looking images of an edgy, low-poly e-bike with a broad, aggressive body made primarily of sheet metal. The AI experimented with other aspects of the e-bike too – no two headlights look the same, and some of the tires seem rather angular as well, but the results make two things abundantly clear… that A. Artificial Intelligence is an incredibly powerful creative tool, and B. Someone should really build these out because they look absolutely BONKERS.
Designer: Midjourney (Prompts by Sarang Sheth)
These images are courtesy Midjourney’s latest V4 upgrade, which now allows users to use images in their text prompts. I simply selected a few minimalist bike designs and told the AI to expand on it by creating an ‘electric motorcycle inspired by the Tesla Cybertruck’. For the most part, the AI did a pretty remarkable job of understanding how angular the Cybertruck’s design is and superimposing that on the ‘Cyberbike’, but the one thing the AI currently lacks is consistency. Each image is of a ‘new’ bike that doesn’t look quite like the other concept. If anything, this article is more of a moodboard for what a Tesla Cyberbike should look like. If Franz von Holzhausen (Tesla’s lead designer) is reading this, here you go! You’re welcome!
The bike concepts have a few things in common, they’re all rather broad, with an imposing silhouette that makes them feel more like a superbike than your average e-bike. Those thicc-AF tires reinforce that idea too, although some concepts make the tires just as edgy and sharp as the Cyberbike’s fairing itself. Giving the AI a cyberpunk theme resulted in a few interesting variants with some beautiful headlights (all LED strips) and some concepts like the one below even put lights in the tires, making the e-bike look like something out of Tron.
The AI obviously doesn’t grasp technicalities, which is why a lot of the concepts may not seem entirely feasible but are more of a general visual direction. Some concepts forget to render footrests, some of them play rather loosely with internal components – almost none of the concepts have an exhaust pipe, but there are a few that look like they’ve got a fuel-powered engine. I like that they’ve all skipped the rear view mirrors too, almost like an internal joke about how the Cybertruck didn’t have rear view mirrors during its debut! There are no cracked glass panels on these concepts, thankfully.
This Tesla Cyberbike exploration eventually turned into a headlamp exploration, with the AI going all in on new headlight styles. They’re all undoubtedly sporty, and LED-strip lighting seems to be a recurring theme, but unlike the Cybertruck that just has a single strip running from left to right, these concepts experiment with new shapes and a split-headlight design that gives the motorbike MUCH more character.
The glowing shock absorbers are a nice touch, no?! The image below even goes as far as adding strips to the base and rear for a rather interesting overall aesthetic.
Even with close-ups, the AI did a phenomenal job of rendering out the details of the Cyberbike’s headlight, the glass cover, and even cutouts for air intakes around it, and doing so while keeping things bilaterally symmetrical. Peep in further and you can see what looks like additional lights with reflectors and textured glass, but then again, these images are to be taken strictly at face value.
My final experiments were to also design a dashboard for the motorcycle, and it seems like the AI preferred something more traditional and circular, although a massive touchscreen display seems to be more of a standard in Tesla cars. This dashboard is entirely digital too, although the numbers and letters are gibberish because the AI isn’t capable of generating meaningful text yet (it’s something Nvidia seems to have cracked with their latest AI tool eDiff-I, although that isn’t open for public use yet).
Earlier this year we also covered what an AI-designed Apple Car would look like, created by another AI art bot by the name of DALL·E 2. AI art is definitely making waves this year, and while a lot of talented artists (rightfully so) are afraid this may be the end of human-made art, the tool should also be viewed for what it is, and incredible ideation software that designers and artists can use to create rapid concepts that take mere minutes instead of hours or days.
