Musk on Cybertruck: If They Don't Like It, We'll Go Boring
Tesla CEO Elon Musk was on top of his game during an interview with Automotive News last week. By that, we mean his ego and various personality quirks came through like a shaft of sunlight parting a fog bank.
Musk announced during the talk that his company performed no customer research before designing and revealing the polarizing and still-not-clearly-legal Cybertruck to would-be buyers, laughing at the idea. If folks don’t like it, he said, there’s a plan.
“We just made a car we thought was awesome and looks super weird. I just wanted to make a futuristic battle tank — something that looks like it could come out of Blade Runner or Aliens or something like that but was also highly functional,” Musk said, adding, “I wasn’t super worried about that because if it turns out nobody wants to buy a weird-looking truck, we’ll build a normal truck, no problem.”
Surely there’s a detailed design of this backup-plan truck ready to go, but something tells us there most definitely is not.
Cybertruck, scheduled to commence production at a new Austin, Texas assembly plant late next year, is aimed at North American consumers, Musk said, apparently confirming its non-global role in the automaker’s lineup. Some 200,000 would-be owners have made a deposit, the CEO added, hinting that the model’s appearance and stated abilities have endowed it with apocalypse appeal — something not many people were thinking about in 2019. (Note: This writer is always thinking about the apocalypse.)
After tooting his horn on the truck front and boasting of the company’s sky-high valuation, Musk then addressed the ongoing concerns over his company’s oft-maligned Autopilot driver-assist system. Calling criticism of the name and concerns about driver misuse “idiotic,” Musk said the name hails from aircraft terminology. And if people misuse it, that’s on them, as Tesla tells them to pay attention to the road.
Once upon a time, the company, or at least Musk, was much more cavalier about the system’s abilities. In the years since the system’s introduction, several high-profile fatal collisions have occurred, with numerous investigations ongoing by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
“The people who misuse Autopilot, it’s not because they’re new to it and don’t understand it. The people who first use Autopilot are extremely paranoid about it,” Musk said. “It’s not like, ‘If you just introduced a different name, I would have really treated it differently.’ If something goes wrong with Autopilot, it’s because someone is misusing it and using it directly contrary to how we’ve said it should be used.”
He continued.
“It’s not like some newbie who just got the car and, based on the name, thought they’d instantly trust the car to drive itself. That’s the idiotic premise of being upset with the Autopilot name. Idiotic.”
[Image: Tesla, IIHS]
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Must does amazing things, but he is kind of an idiot-savante. Always good to have some Muskepticism. Look at the electrically actuated, power door handles. The freeze shut in winter, break frequently and cost $1200 to fix. For what? An extra 30 ft of range and cool-factor? Looking at this truck: 1. The windshield is huge and way too sloped. In Phoenix at noon in July you'll need a 2-ton HVAC, and you'll be blinded by the sun. 2. That huge windshield is never perfectly clean. It will impair vision more than regular windshield. Can you imagine cleaning the inner windshield? 3. The "exoskeleton" is really just unibody. Some advantages but how to hook winch, snowplow, campber, hitch, or steel rack for hauling stuff? 4. this thing is incredibly heavy. this means more expensive tires and EV's already burn through donuts super fast. 5. It is hard to garage. 6. This thing weight much more than model2, and has similar power and range so likely a lot more battery. If it charges at same energy/time it will take longer to recharge. Do you have spend longer at supercharger on long trips? 7. Peripheral vision impaired by giant sail panels. 8. People are calling Musk a genius for using stainless and saving money on paint shop, OK paint shops aint cheap. But neither is stainless, rough calc says 700 bucks extra material cost for stainless which is pricey. 9. Is this thing practically repairably post crash?
Weird-looking cars and novelty cars have a shelf life of about two years before nearly everyone who wants one has one; after that its sales plunge. AMC Pacer a good example, as well as certain oddball SUVs and crossovers.