Elon promised a lot but delivered almost nothing when it comes to the Cybertruck.

19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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brookst 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

A “truck” that’s can’t haul, tow, or offroad is a very interesting product decision. Right up there with a two-person taxi.

It’s like they completely forgot the “what do people need” phase of product management.

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pjc50 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Two-person taxi is actually reasonable for the modal journey, but absolutely doesn't cover all use cases or accessibility.

The cybertruck was an early example of what someone on bsky called the "everyone is twelve now" theory: it looks like it was drawn by a small boy's idea of "cool", with zero further thought.

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HeyLaughingBoy 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There's a comparison that's been making the rounds on social media for a while.

In once panel, there's the Cybertruck whose owner bragged about it carrying a large round hay bale (weighs around 1,500lbs) with the suspension looking like it was about to die. Next to it is a shot of a circa-1980 Ford F250 carrying three of the same bales and sitting perfectly level. TBF, the F250 probably had air bags in the rear suspension, but still...

That thing is only a "truck" because they decided to call it that.

	▲	hylaride 18 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Even modern trucks have turned into giant "luxury" vehicles that can't haul much more than the smaller trucks of 30 years ago. For most trucks bought by families, the heaviest thing they lug around is cat litter. Most people should just buy a sedan. :-/

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llm_nerd 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Somehow everything turns into a misdirection with Elon, where failing to innovate yields ridiculous distractions. When the Cyberjunk was clearly a poor product, they pivoting to "doubling as a boat" and being bullet "proof". And also you can play shitty ports of video games, awkwardly, on your in-car screen.

At some point this gimmick misdirection nonsense has to stop working.

Oh look, if you have a transport-truck sized massive compressor in your garage and use 100kWh to spend a day filling a tank, your ComingSoonNow(TM wink) Roadster can do some silly stuff if you dedicate much of the interior to a giant explosion hazard.

	▲	actionfromafar 18 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		I think they wanted to make SpaceX and Tesla somehow look "related".
	▲	rchaud 17 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Another prediction from the Simpsons comes true. The 1991 episode "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" where Homer designs a car with zero input from anybody besides himself. The result is an overpriced behemoth with random features nobody needs and nothing customers want (fuel efficiency, affordablility). https://youtube.com/watch?v=gRBDLE06qNY Today, we'd called "founder mode".

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Zigurd 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There's a pattern here: when an Elon Project is successful, he jumps in with Elon innovations, like cyber truck. The next example that will follow this pattern is building a rocket that's too big for orbital payloads, but takes 22 refueling flights to get beyond orbit.

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brandonagr2 18 hours ago | parent [-]

What do you mean too big for orbital payloads? Mass to low earth orbit is what matters, which starship is well optimized for. You could always put a tiny third stage on there to go places, but that is back to the apollo style yeeting a tiny amount of mass somewhere else and would not help with getting serious tonnage to the moon and mars

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kibwen 18 hours ago | parent [-]

> Mass to low earth orbit is what matters

For a company, matching products and services to demand is what matters. Being able to get more mass into orbit only matters if enough people are willing to pay to get stuff there. The analogy is that jumbo jets exist, but almost no passenger flights bother with jumbo jets because it's not economical. Unlike with civilian aviation we have yet to observe a natural experiment which would allow us to place an economically practical ceiling on rocket payload size, but it very much still remains plausible that something Falcon 9-sized is actually the sweet spot, especially given that Starlink is the only commercial offering that's pushing the existing Falcon 9 capacity. And yes, this completely ignores any mention of going to the moon or Mars, because although there may be incentives to do so (e.g. scientific incentives, political incentives, philosophical incentives), there is no economic incentive other than getting some government contracts which will be just as short-lived as Apollo was once the public loses interest.

	▲	staminade 17 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Starlink is SpaceX's biggest revenue stream by far, and they are retiring Falcon 9 and quitting the contract / launch market, so they are matching very well with their own product, which is what they actually care about?