Great thing of the Cybertruck's stainless steel is that you cannot scratch the paint with the rivets of your expensive jeans.
I likes the Russ Hanneman character so much that during COVID lockdowns, when I was a bit down, I paid Chris Diamantopoulos (the actor) on Cameo to do a short motivational video for me.
It was too on the nose the first time. When it was airing I was raising VC funds, and it was basically a documentary. I would laugh every time someone offered me a Fiji water at a VC office.
The writers had to throw away a great real-life anecdote because it'd be "too hacky" for the show!
[Astro Teller] ended the meeting by standing up in a huff, but his attempt at a dramatic exit was marred by the fact that he was wearing Rollerblades. He wobbled to the door in silence. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” [writer Carrie] Kemper said. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh. Even while it was happening, I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Can we use this?” In the end, the joke was deemed “too hacky to use on the show.”
it's amazing how well it holds up. most of the jokes they're making would work perfectly fine if you swapped in whatever the overhyped tech fad of the day is.
I think the big difference is we are seeing a closing of the window on the VC days. We're no longer in the low inflation, low interest-rate environment that was the primordial soup for startups.
So while I think the show has held up amazingly well (didn't love the way it ended), I think in 10-15 years we are going to look back at the period it represents pretty nostalgically.
It's all very subjective. I love them. I hope there is a version 2 at some point (I am not a Tesla/Musk fan boy, I just want to see what might be next).
I honestly think Musk kicked the designers out of the room and said "how hard can this be?", Then took up a pencil and ruler and drew exactly what you see, and told everybody "This is what we're building because it fucking rocks". It doesn't. It's a 12 year old boy's shitty drawing of dream car, and I guarantee you that his drawing included lots of stupid specs and measurements in a box to the side of it. And his name and age, bottom right.
Last I looked it was more of a design company than an actual car manufacturer. They seem to have a prototype, but I have doubts it'll ever arrive. Hope to be wrong.
In my younger days I thought it would be neat to build an electromagnetic grapple to latch onto semi trucks. Add even more drag with the alternator to power the magnet. Perhaps even some control loop to maintain a close distance without actually touching. With an electric vehicle it seems even better because you could add even more drag and recharge.
How come the "Cyberbeast" model has the same 11k lbs Towing Capacity as the "All Wheel Drive" version ($30k cheaper)? The Cyberbeast has significantly more Torque at 10,296 lb-ft vs. "All Wheel Drive" at 7,435
Towing capacity is not a function of torque alone. You need to be able to brake your load, keep it stable behind the car and have enough juice on board to actually get it somewhere.
11kish is usually ther upper limit of most half ton pickups. Probably a function of what the frame can handle.
But Towing 11k on that thing is already going to tank your range to ~100 miles. I couldn’t imagine towing our camper with this thing (and the design is stupid enough that you probably can’t tow a fifth wheel right the cybertruck anyway)
Towing capacity is generally limited by things like the frame, braking capacity, and cooling capacity.
If you hook any automatic transmission truck up to a really heavy trailer (100,000 pounds) you can probably move it around, but if you try to actually tow it anywhere the truck will either overheat or crash into something when you can't stop it going down a hill.
Torque really only determines how fast you can accelerate the load, not how much you can tow on the road.
Also, EV "torque" specs are not comparable to traditional car torque specs because they're measured differently (ICE measured at the engine before the transmission multiplies torque to the wheels, EV measured directly at the wheels)
I apologize for adding to a load of already good answers, but towing capacity is often limited by tongue weight limits (how much weight is sitting on the tow hitch, and thus supported by the suspension), which should be 10-15% of the total payload. While it seems like they could just balance the trailer and reduce tongue weight, if it is below 10% the payload becomes extremely dynamically unmanageable.
The other limits come into play too -- torque, brakes, etc -- but tongue weight on suspension is often why there is a mismatch like this.
Every full size pick-up truck defaults to a 6-6.5' foot bed size (in modern times). Some offer 8' beds but it's relatively rare in practice (as in, most people opt for a quad/crew cab without the long bed). All of them can handle 8' plywood with the bed down, just like this 6' bed on the Cybertruck. Even the Ford Maverick can handle an 8' sheet of plywood by using an adjusted-height tailgate and the wheel wells.
> The standard bed of a pickup truck is typically 6'5" long
(So... yup.)
I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds. Sure there are people that buy regular cab, 8' beds, and even some serious professionals that get an HD crew cab with the 8' bed (which is a monstrously long truck!) But in general that is not what I see. Thus... "rare."
"Standard" does not mean "the average". That's a marketing term of art. You won't see "Standard" beds on jobsites. You'll see long beds, because you can fit a sheet goods in them.
> I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds
Sure. And I would agree that the trucks you see on job sites are, by necessity, more "practical" truck buyers than what is typical. That doesn't mean it's what most truck buyers buy though. (Since way more people buy trucks than those driving them to job sites.)
Trucks are meant to haul. Anything with less than an 8' bed are truck-shaped cars for all practical purposes and should be taxed accordingly because they're a waste of resources and contribute to the decline of the environment. Crew cabs are just an excuse to drive around in something truck-shaped. The term is carpool not truckpool. If you're driving to and from a job site with others in the vehicle, it's either part of the fleet or you're not getting paid enough.
WTF? Doesn't your truck have a Hayman-Reese hitch, anti swaybars, various carry racks; don't you have several different trailers - single and double axle, light weight and heavy tonnage, caravans and animal floats?
I'm starting to wonder if, in fact, you've got any kind of working vehicle setup at all.
Crew cabs are so you can haul a fire pump trailer out to spot blazes with four people, tools, along with bulk water tank pumps, etc.
Typically W.Australian setups haul trailers and often use vans, private and fleet.
The advantage of towing is you can have multiple preset ready to go "job type" trailers | floats | caravans that can be detached at work area, leaving vehicle free to travel elsewhere.
I'm just pushing back at the GP insistance on the "one true" working vehicle setup and dislike for crew cabs - getting people to unpaved sites across fields and scrambling is pretty much the reason for getting any kind of high clearance vehicle, be it 2WD or 4WD.
Used to have an old crew cab with 8’ bed, but it was too long for our driveway. I loved that truck, crew cab and all. But that was years ago. I live in an area prone to wildfires, so I can understand the need for 4WD, etc. We have two SUVs in the driveway, but I don’t call them trucks.
I grew up in the Kimberley in the 1960s|70s, our work vehicles included bull buggies (stripped down | rebuilt for purpose vehicles, often 2WD) and Robinson R22's (light helicopters), horses, prime movers, regular cars and trailers, scrub bikes, etc.
1. A bed for hauling.
2. The ability to tow.
3. Off-road capability.
If you value 2 & 3 more than 1, a short bed can be very reasonable. Hell, if you're hauling things that aren't dimensional lumber -- for instance, dirt and gravel -- you're only going to get that 8 foot bed about half full before you exceed the weight capacity of the bed.
Meanwhile, if you have kids, not having a second row to throw car seats into is a bigger limitation than having to leave the tailgate down to pick up plywood.
I’d say around 1% of new pickup trucks have an 8’ bed, if that. You ever seen a super duty (1-ton) crew cab truck with an 8’ bed? They’re like 22-23’ long, it’s ridiculous.
Not being able to carry sheet goods in the bed is something it shares virtually every other truck on the road. On a short-bed regular truck, you can get a roof rack along with posts that go in the back corners of the bed to create a rack capable of holding sheet goods, pipe, lumber, ladders, etc.
Regardless, why would you schlep around sheet goods in a pickup bed when you can have the supply house deliver them? The contractors I work with don’t waste time running to Home Depot to buy material, it’s delivered to the site by a supply house, courier, or company truck.
You can't get a Toyota Tacoma with an 8 ft bed, which IMO is the most practical truck model. An 8ft bed truck that can only carry 3 passengers is not very practical.
I regularly purchase 8'x4' sheet goods in my Tacoma with no issue.
That’s why I rent the Home Depot truck with the 10’ bed for $25. Manufacturers found people want a second row instead of a longer bed at some point, must have been some convincing A/B testing in the 90s.
So the $40K CyberTruck is actually $61,000 and works on the assumption of tax credits being available at the end of 2025, 2 years from now... oh, and we've gone back to the bullshit of "subtracting gas costs from the "probable price"."
Another Elon lie. Four, nearly five years after initial claims - meant to be available in 2021, and 52% more expensive.
The brake lights might be tied with the Mini for the worst/least intuitive brake lights in history (the Mini has the left light with the left half of the Union Jack, i.e. looks like a right arrow, and the right light with the right half, looking like a left arrow, while the Cyber Truck actually turns OFF lights on the light bar to signify braking is happening, and turns them ON when no braking is happening).
The tax credit timeframe is already written into law, though? Of course Congress can't constrain itself so it could always cancel (or double!) those credits, but it seems pretty reasonable to rely on what the law currently says.
Fixed that. Thanks. Love those dark patterns. I'd gone with Purchase Price + Federal Tax. Of course Tesla has also thrown in $3,600+ on "probable gas savings".
Probable gas savings is odd, because they also base some of their comparisons on an arbitrary 20mpg for ICE. "We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck"
Odd, because let's see: the Honda Ridgeline starts at 21mpg, and getting better from there, Tacoma, Tundra, Ranger, Gladiator, Ram 1500 (now we're at 25mpg), F-150, Silverado, Sierra 1500. So you're comparing against 7 or 8 of the best selling pickups, and yet using an MPG that is lower than ... all of them ... for comparative purposes. Not misleading at all.
I have a recent year F-150 and I basically never get more than 20 MPG. Actually I almost always get nearly exactly 20 MPG, it's not a bad estimate in my subjective experience.
Wouldn't the first truck's range be significantly reduced by the additional weight? The second truck will have to tow a third fully charged truck to get us to 500 miles.
Right, but remember you can also subtract the combined length of all these cybertrucks from the 500 mile target. So there's a sweet spot in there somewhere around the 400 car mark.
That's the kind of math you use Tsiolkovsky rocket equation for.
Best would be to do the EV equivalent of asparagus staging - you have all trucks providing acceleration, but trucks 1 and 2 are also being recharged by truck 3. You then jettison it once its battery runs dry, leaving you with trucks 1 and 2, the latter also charging the former. Again, drop truck 2 as it runs out of juice. This lets you get rid of excess mass as early as possible, maximizing the benefit of extra batteries and thrust.
Falcon Heavy was supposed to, in early designs, but they abandoned this idea due to the complexity involved - fuel would need to be pumped, which means complex flow dynamics + extra hardware that could fail (and catastrophically so).
Outside of KSP and some rocketry books, I haven't seen it.
I think they do it for the intentional Streisand effect.
In other words it generates a new thread on social media once in a while, with people talking about whether or not there are cost of ownership savings, with the truth generally coming down in Tesla's favor. And still regardless of how you interpret the cost equation, the controversy brings attention.
And more in line with Occam's razor it just spurs awareness in the user reading the web page. You could say "no, it deceives the user." I think it doesn't; more deceptive is having a published MSRP when dealers add thousands to that published price and lie about EVs while they sell legacy cars.
It wasn’t a direct quote but did you edit your comment? Pretty sure it was originally framed that MSRP was somehow evidence Tesla’s behavior is not simply misleading the customer. Apologies if you didn't edit and I just misread it the first go-around.
Anyway, it’s kind of silly to say MSRP is “more misleading” when MSRP literally stands for “manufacturer suggested retail price.” It says right there in the name the retail price may be higher or lower.
I don’t think this is some clever Streisand effect marketing ploy. It’s just slimy pricing practices.
If anything I’ve saved more on maintenance than is reflected in Tesla’s claims so really the savings they show don’t go far enough. Not to mention the savings from accidents averted by the automated active accident avoidance systems. It’s insane really how much better value for money there is.
Without actual miles driven it's impossible to make a meaningful comparison. My wife spends less on her minivan than my EV - but she's not driving to work every day (and she prefers to drive the EV when she can).
Call me crazy but I suspect you and your brother drive a different amount. $100/mo in a Tesla I ballpark at driving 1900 miles per month, so you're probably driving less than him, unless you get more than 150mpg in your hybrid.
Except that, if you own the Tesla long enough, the savings per month will eat up the difference in cost between the Tesla and significantly cheaper cars.
Yes, but you are still paying $x. It's not savings and they should not mislead people in this way. You can have the _actual_ cost posted _and_ your "potential savings" but they should be separate.
FWIW: I've owned a Tesla for 6 years now and I'm pretty sure I still spent more than I would have buying like a Prius or Volt or one of the other hybrid vehicles I was looking at at the time.
Appliances with better energy efficiency don’t get to advertise a price different from what’ll ring up at the register just because they’ll cost less in electricity over time.
Cost of ownership is real but advertising a sticker price and including the difference in maintenance as part of that sticker price is just bad math.
Should cheaper ICE cars subtract from their sticker price the potential investment earnings of the money that you save versus buying a Tesla? Obviously not.
They don’t actually advertise that as the sticker price, for one thing: the page clearly states what the price is and gives you the option to switch to sticker price.
Secondly, I think the selling point of EVs is the TCO, even with today’s relatively expensive EVs, significantly less expensive all-gas cars end up being cheaper (and the Tesla is more appealing to me than hybrids, which frequently feel bad as someone who really likes to drive). But, it makes sense to me for the landing page to instruct the users about this (like Energy Star appliances do): the UX design might not be the best here, but it’s pretty hard to get all the way through the Tesla sales flow without being told clearly what the actual cost is.
* Except no manufacturer sells the base model. Plus they'll add their own add-ons like anti-rust that has no scientific basis. Also doesn't include the shipping cost. Also AC tax isn't included despite literally all cars having AC
The only manufacturer website I've seen that isn't super shady and actually includes shipping costs by default is Subaru for some reason.
If you shop around, I have always found a base model. 4 of the last 5 new cars I bought were base models. The exception was probably a mistake on my part. (It had a dealer installed sun roof that popped out on the highway at 6 years.)
Indeed... Pretty annoying that they assume your alternative to be an ICE and not bike/train/ev.
Perhaps they should provide an option for a hypothetical price comparison with train/bike? Not sure the marketing team would like how that comparison turns out through...
That’s the estimated price for delivery in 2025. Things could change by then.
Also, we’re talking about a new industry here because of which a lot of costs are also likely facing downwards pressure (so, for example, batteries are almost certainly cheaper today than they were 4-5 years ago).
Edit: This has caught me by surprise but EV battery prices seem to have started going up in constant dollars. It’s still lower than in 2019, so the nominal dollars are probably slightly lower than 2019, but I haven’t been following this for a few years and assumed battery prices were still going down in constant dollars.
Yeah, but service takes weeks to months, body panels may or may not align, and I'm 173% positive that hardware that was paid for, will be put behind a subscription wall, just like the rest of the Tesla fleet.
While I'm not a fan of this truck, Tesla remains the issue.
> Prices assume IRA Federal Tax Credits up to $7,500 for Rear-Wheel Drive and All-Wheel Drive and est. gas savings of $3,600 over 3 years.
This seems like a new low in scammy marketing. I can't wait for everything to have wildly undermarked prices with small asterisks saying it's when you subtract all the ways it will save you money in the long term.
Totally missed that subtle dark gray on black design element! You have to begin scrolling immediately to see the three trim levels, and by then, the tabs are lost forever. Quite literally fits the phrase "dark pattern", ha!
They also do this thing at the top of their product page [0] where they say 11,000 lbs towing capacity, 340 mi. range (estimated), 2.6 sec 0-60 mph (with leadout). But they aren't selling a truck with those exact specs. The AWD has a 340 mi. range (est.) and a 4.1 0-60 and the Cyberbeast has a 320 mi. range (est.) and a 2.6 0-60 mph (with leadout). They pick the best attribute from each to highlight on the top of their product page. Note that they also advertise one model's 0-60 with leadout and one without so the difference between them looks more substantial than it is.
Some people get credit on your taxes, some people don't, yet Tesla is advertising it as a universal tax credit. So they aren't stating what is "enshrined into law" but rather the best case scenario.
In most (32) states there are extra fees added to yearly EV registration to compensate for the lack of gas tax revenue, but Tesla never includes them in their calculations. Insurance costs and tire wear are usually much higher for Teslas, too. Neither does Tesla include the costs of the charger or the electrician's installation fees (~$1,000). Supercharging fees on road trips are completely ignored. It's also highly unlikely that anyone considering the purchase of these cars meets federal tax credit income thresholds ($7,500). Borderline fraudulent.
I'm looking at insurance plans and it is the same story, they show price as if you get the maximum govt assistance, even if I put in $1M for annual income.
I see this style of price hiding more prevalent everywhere. Too much psychology and dark patterns have invaded everything we do. I cannot count how many times I click a cool new open source project link on HN, see a pricing page, and find a "monthly" price with an astrix and toggle to see the real monthly price
This doesn't seem very different than advertising a price after a rebate.
Saving $1,200 a year on gas seems reasonable if you pay $4/gal and fill up a 14gal tank twice a month. I'm not sure about the tax credit -- I assume those are guaranteed to whoever purchases the vehicle, but maybe that's not the case.
Oh, come on. Tesla is not hiding this. It's the first thing you see in the pricing section, and it's the last thing you see at the bottom. Maybe it's illegal somehow, but this is certainly not immoral.
Tesla is making the case for the efficiency gains of their vehicle based on what most people drive today. This is certainly becoming less relevant/useful as electric/hybrid vehicles become more popular, but it is still quite helpful for anyone trying to compare the cost of a Tesla vs a ICE automobile. Even better, this expected total cost of ownership would be included somewhere like it is with home appliances [0].
> It also assumes you’re not already driving an EV so your current gas cost is $0.
In that case, you can simply select the "Purchase Price".
> Savings over time is a whole other dimension, you have to wait for it. And it makes huge assumptions about usage and input (gas) prices.
That's fair. Tesla very clearly details their assumptions under the "see details" link, which to my eyes looks quite generous:
-----
Gasoline Savings
Electric vehicles are less expensive to fuel than gasoline powered vehicles. The average person drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles and spends between $1,700 and $2,500 on gasoline per year.
We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck. We've also assumed the national average of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity (assumed for 100% of charging) and $3.30 per gallon for gasoline over the next three years. Tesla efficiency values are based on Cybertruck All-Wheel Drive.
Comparison gasoline vehicles are selected based on vehicle class, seating capacity and standard features. We use the EPA estimated range standard to compare efficiency data between our vehicles and a comparable gasoline alternative using each vehicle's combined city/highway MPG and MPGe ratings. Actual range may vary based on factors such as speed, weather conditions and elevation change.
> Maybe it's illegal somehow, but this is certainly not immoral.
It is absolutely immoral, and I have no idea how you can say otherwise with a straight face. Tesla is deliberately listing the price as lower than it actually is, in order to try to psychologically trick people into buying their vehicles. It's (probably) legal because they state in smaller print what the actual price is, but it's hella fucking immoral.
> We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck.
This is absolutely misleading. F-150, Tundra, RAM 1500, Sierra, every single one of these pickups has a better fuel economy than this. It's not really a comparable economy if you pick "a number worse than every alternative" as your baseline.
How would you feel if a Prius was advertised thousands of dollars under the actual number of dollars you pay for the car because of “fuel savings compared to a Camero over 5 years”? Or is it only OK when Tesla does it?
There's no reason to assume I'm biased towards Tesla here.
If any carmaker wanted to say "our car is X% more efficient, and the average person could reasonably expect to save $Y", and then discount that from the sticker price, I would be okay with that.
I don't think it's deceptive at all as long as the estimate is reasonable, and as long as there is clear communication about the sticker price vs the price after savings.
Then where do you draw the line? I, and almost the entire developed world, draws the line at price = number of currency units required to leave the store with the item for sale. Every car could otherwise claim a deduction because it’s more fuel efficient than a sports car or a Rolls Royce or an F-350. And some cars don’t need as expensive of tires, should they claim that deduction? What about cars that are 2 wheel drive, there’s lots of savings there over 4 wheel drive…
I mentioned this in another comment: something like EnergyGuide [0] would be great for this case, that way manufacturers like Tesla could more easily and consistently communicate how their vehicles have a lower cost of ownership.
I also want to say, if Tesla was doing this in some shady way, e.g. not offering an easy way to view the true purchase price, or making unfair comparisons, I would be totally against what they're doing.
You can't just combine capex with notional opex savings and then post that as if that's the effective price.
If I'm trying to sell you a $6,000 server, I can't take a notional AWS bill of $2,000 a year and say 'since this server will save you $2,000 in cloud costs over three years, it's basically free'
Because it's not free, it's $6000. It's fine to mention the two things together but rolling them into one figure is nonsense - expected operational savings don't have any impact on purchase price. In the context of the Tesla, the 'gas savings' are 1) an estimate based on a specific scenario and therefore not guaranteed, and 2) not materialised at the point of purchase; this is the difference between 'price' and 'cost'.
Try walking into a Tesla dealership, telling them you expect the car to save you $10,000 over its lifetime, and that you should therefore pay $10,000 less than the ticket price, and see what they say.
What they’re trying to do is give you a number that they think compares more directly with the sticker price on an ICE truck.
They’re trying to say:
Okay, this truck costs $CYBER. and that looks like more than $RAM. But the ownership cost of $RAM is really $RAM + $GAS, and the cost of $CYBER is $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND. And $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND might be less than $RAM + $GAS. And Tesla would like you to notice that.
And Tesla’s mathemarketing geniuses said: ah, but if $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND is less than $RAM + $GAS, then $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND would also be less than $RAM.
And since Dodge advertises the price of their truck as $RAM, Tesla thinks it’s only fair for them to advertise the ‘fair comparison’ price of their truck as $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND.
Which by some weird twisted logic makes sense, and the absolute difference in prices is somewhat meaningful, but it gives a misleading impression of the amount you’ll spend and the relative amount you’ll save.
Because it implies you’ll only end up spending $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND on your Tesla compared to $RAM on your Dodge. It feels like you’re saving $SAVINGS/$RAM.
But you’re actually going to spend $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND (which is a bigger number than they are showing) compared to $RAM + $GAS on the Dodge (admittedly also not a number Dodge is advertising anywhere). And you’re actually only going to save $SAVINGS/($RAM + $GAS), which is a smaller proportional saving (remember we don’t know how big Tesla assumes $GAS is, only that they say $GAS - $ELECTRIC is $3000).
But it also assumes that what you’re going to do is follow their logic and take their ‘potential savings’ comparable price, and compare it to the sticker price on an ICE truck. Rather than look at that number and compare it to another truck and then apply your own estimated TCO differential to figure out the all in cost. In which case you’ll double count the TCO difference to Tesla’s benefit.
The tax credit is guaranteed as long as you made less than 300k this year or last year (150k if not married), and it is now given directly at time of purchase instead of later when you file. Seems OK to include. The gas savings is much more speculative.
I'm American. Most of my friends/family don't even pretend to budget. Looking at reports of the debt loads of Americans, it's pretty clear that we overspend. So if we do budget, we don't follow it.
your comment was about "Americans" generally. Not about Americans you know.
pointlessly divisive, stereotyping nationality, and without merit. exactly the type of comment we need less of on HN. I replied because it prevents you from deleting the comment.
EDIT:
ah, I see that they are now replying with a random article found after hastily searching for sources to confirm their bias with commentary from * squints * a "financial therapist." A CNBC article that is a submarine (as coined by PG[1]), meant to advertise OppLoans.
don't believe me? see all the articles written by CNBC for OppLoans:
lol, I didn’t realize suggesting Americans don’t budget would even be controversial, let alone considered an attack. Attacking people with the rules isn’t constructive. If you think my comment isn’t appropriate, just flag it.
My point is Cybertruck starts at $60, not $100k, and likely a majority of sales will happen closer to $60k than $100k. But I'd venture to guess that a majority of people buying even the $100k variant do qualify for the credit.
absolutely, and people making less than 50k buy 50k cars. Plus, there are also a lot of people in low cost of living areas that hapily drop cash on cars.
I was visiting my hometown where houses are 200k and lots of households make 100k-200k/yr. All the driveways were full of new trucks, SUVs, and boats.
Should they? Probably not in most cases. Do they? Absolutely.
The real killer here though is the limit. If you're making $160k, that $7000 is still a real incentive. Can you afford it without, sure, but if we're trying to incentivize EVs then everyone should get the incentive... sometimes wealthy people are wealthy because they save money whenever possible, so the incentive will still move the needle on EV adoption.
Like all incentives, it should be on a sliding scale. Frankly, fall benefit would start to fall off after 100k income and/or some vehicle value cutoff, maybe 50k. Beyond either value, you'd then decay to upper limits linearly (easier for the consumer to understand) with upper income level 160-180k range ish, and upper vehicle value maybe 100k.
You can't claim it if you make more than "$300,000 for a household, $150,000 for an individual or $225,000 for a head of household" [1]. That describes a decent fraction of the Cybertruck's target market.
Yes but the new method transfers the tax credit to the dealer, who then gives you a discount off the purchase price. Seems possible that the purchaser income limit wouldn't apply when it's the dealer taking the credit. All the articles I've seen say we're still waiting for complete IRS guidance though.
> possible that the purchaser income limit wouldn't apply when it's the dealer taking the credit
The credit changes when you get the cash, not its eligibility [1]. If the dealer mistakenly gives you the credit, it will be added back--with interest and penalties--when you file. (The dealer reports it, so if someone forgets to include it in their filing it will accrue penalties and interest until the IRS gets around to collecting.)
If you switch the site to Australia[0] you'll notice they don't do this - it's because by consumer law they're not allowed to, and you have to quote the "drive away price"
You can't even deduct the various gov rebates or tax exemptions; only mention that you _may_ qualify.
They have a smaller and lower contrast "after cost savings" at the bottom of the page - but the price on the site is the price, as it damn well should be.
> With the ability to pull near infinite mass and a towing capability of over 14,000 pounds, Cybertruck can perform in almost any extreme situation with ease.
This is direct quote from the Tesla site from 3 weeks ago.
It’s now 11,000lbs on the linked page. More Musk bullshittery.
parent ignored "pulling infinite mass", I believe, and was pointing out the significant reduction in towing capacity. 14,000lbs sounded like a promised specification.
What surprised me is the "order with card" choice. I haven't bought a new car in a while, but is it normal to be defaulted to putting a $100,000 purchase on a credit card?
Edit: Nevermind, it's a $250 deposit on a later $100,000 purchase.
For the people that can afford one? Sure. AMEX has no limit and plenty of other cards for high net worth individuals are similar. Plus weirdly, people like that usually really like to collect the credit card points.
My father-in-law has done it. He was in a strong negotiating position; I'm not sure why he didn't just use that position to lower the price an extra 3% instead...
My most recent new car purchase (2024 Mini), the dealership allowed me to charge $10k to my card for the points. The rest was debit from my checking + tradein.
It’s worth having the choice. Have a friend who was flying private to his college campus when he realized his tuition was due and got flustered. Pulled out the Amex and a couple minutes and 50K later it was no longer an issue. The convenience is appreciated at times like that.
Moreover, a substantial amount of remote European contractors who use US LLCs put their personal expenditures on company CCs to evade CRS.
There's an estimate they have 1.9M reservations. Even at 1k deliveries a day, that will take another 5 years. I doubt they'll hit that delivery rate soon.
I ordered mine for resale the second it was available.
The more of a Clusterfuck this is the more valuable they will be to the current breed of nihilist capitalists.
Knowing you can’t resale for a year again, just ensures demand for Gen 1 Cybertruck will just be delayed but increases the scarcity fears of people who actually care for some reason.
Reselling cult members their own merch is old magic
It’s huge, weighs three tons, has the acceleration of a supersport, has only sharp edges. Like your usual US truck, but somehow even more asocial. If this was construction equipment or any other kind of machinery, you’d need so much training and insurance to just be allowed to touch it.
Have you seen the massive flat surface on the front of pretty much every pickup? It seems like if anything the hood angle would make it better than those.
I am a car enthusiast (although not one who could afford either a 911 nor a Cybertruck) but respectfully, who cares about quarter mile times? Most car people I know want a car with some poke, but care much more about how it handles twisties (and how much fun it is doing so). And I'd bet my bottom dollar the 911 would beat the refrigerator-looking truck all day long.
I think you missed the point? Tesla brag about fast quarter mile speeds which don’t really amount to much, whereas a really nice driving experience via good suspension and weight distribution is truly wonderful.
They do, or try to. But then there's this awkward moment when you ask about lap 2 or 3 where the Porsche or Audi or whatever is still blazing around the track while your Plaid is pulled over in Thermal Shutdown mode.
True for sure, but there is a limit.
I actually feel like I’d prefer to have an electronic limiter in “normal” mode that would keep it at a certain level of power. Sport or track mode, go nuts.
Elon said a long time ago they wanted their vehicles to be a smackdown for Internal Combustion Engines, and I think they're getting there. This is the kind of marketing that make regular people go "Wait, what? How is that possible?".
More than about 10 years ago that was simply unheard of, and I'm certain people would have said it was impossible.
Useful or not, it's a very impressive thing to do. 99% of automakers would be happy if they could build a sports scar faster than a 911, let alone a pickup with 11,000lbs towing capacity.
Eh, it's not really interesting if you can't corner. Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it, all you need is a ton of torque, tires that can take it, and enough weight and length to keep the front end down. Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose, but 1/4 mile numbers are a mostly meaningless pissing contest unless you are actually building drag cars.
Now if Tesla built anything that handled up near Porsche territory, that would be interesting. I guess they sort of did with the 1st one, but that was Lotus's chassis.
> * Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose*
Ahh, no.
The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat with 707 horsepower runs a 11.4 [1]
That is the very definition of a car built to go fast in a straight line. Massive engine, supercharger, massive rear tires, and it's slower than the Cybertruck.
> Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it
Please show me a truck that gets even remotely close to a sub 11 quarter mile. Heck, show me a production sports car (that isn't a super car as expensive as a house) that does.
The comparison is with the 0-60 of a 911, remember? And even then I didn't say the truck would win, just that they are not bad at it (it being, 0-60) out-of-the box. Current F-150s are in the high 3s/low 4s on 0-60. So are some 911's. The 911s will have most of second on them in a 1/4 i guess, but the fords are still pulling 12s which isn't slow. The point was only that truck form factor lends itself to ok 1/4 mile times. Not that anyone should care :)
NB: I didn't say any of these would beat a big electric. Electric motors have real advantages here, nobody claims otherwise.
And yes point remains for any automaker trying to set up a car to compete with a 911. Getting a similar 1/4 mile time would be about the easiest part...
Hellcats are built to go fast in a straight line with the limitations of a 20+ year old platform. Beating a vehicle Dodge spent about $20 developing in a shed with a giant pushrod engine and hand-me-down parts they got from 90s Mercedes Benz isn't that big an accomplishment.
Going fast in a straight line is easy for electric motors, so it's just not that impressive. It's like a native speaker enrolling in language 101. The A doesn't really mean anything. EVs have been up against the limits of tire adhesion for years now.
EVs with impressive sustained track times are far more interesting since that's actually hard to achieve. Batteries are heavy and that's killer for a real race car.
That 911 will pound hot lap after hot lap until the fuel tank is empty like it's nothing if the owner ticked the ceramic brake option. I suspect the Cybertruck will run out of cooling long before it drains the battery and I guarantee it will cook the brakes hauling itself down from 130 mph.
Edit: plus F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s.
I have seen many videos of folks simply loosing a US V8 muscle car at street races when the road becomes a corner or a quick correction needs to be made.
Gobs of RWD power and seemingly a lack of any sort of dynamic active safety systems for inexperienced drivers to help with this kind of fishtailing or oversteer.
To be fair the the 911 can do 9.9 Seconds. Tesla just chose a slower model/config due to obvious reasons (of course 911 Turbo S is more than 2x as expensive as the top-end Cybertruck).
> You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.
You're assuming that maximizing acceleration in a straight is the main priority for most sportscar manufacturers and they are willing to throw everything else to maximize it.
> Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.
Well a Moto GP bike will easily beat an F1 car in 1/4 mile drag race yet would have zero chances on an actual race track. I'd bet the Cybertruck would do relatively considerably worse even against the base config 911. So it really depends on how you define "absurdly fast".
There is something quite shocking (pardon the pun) to older car enthusiasts about just how fast off the line dual-motor EVs are.
The super coupes of one’s youth are utterly obliterated on the dragstrip, not by EV coupes, but by family SUVs and pickup trucks.
That said, just because they can go fast in a straight line doesn’t make them in any way equivalent to a 911. Give me a mountain pass or a racetrack, (and no kids or stuff to carry) and I’ll take the 911 every single time.
Also a 911 looks like a cool sports car, while the cybertruck looks like it's being rendered by a Super Nintendo. A lot of the attraction of sports cars is the cool aesthetic, which your average family SUV or pickup truck really doesn't have, and the cybertruck has a negative amount of.
If the “Lindy effect” holds true for the 911, it might be quite a long time before the 911 and its variants go out of style.
The same cannot be said for the cyber truck, and all of the other short lived prototype cars that have very harsh angular lines.
The 911 has the highest average resale value, relative to the original price, of any car on Earth. It depreciates less than any other vehicle. I don't think you're going to be correct.
I don’t think that’s how the end of ICE vehicles will happen.
It’ll be death by a thousand cuts. New ICE vehicles will be increasingly rare in showrooms. There will be bans in city centres. Gas stations will start to disappear. Those that remain will be required to sell blends with increasing amounts of non-fossil derived gasoline, which will be considerably more expensive than current prices, and far more expensive to run.
Eventually, driving ICE vehicles will be like horse riding today - a niche, expensive, smelly hobby that is conducted well outside city limits.
I drove a rented SUV a few weeks ago (GMC Acadia Denali) that had quite shocking acceleration -- 310 horsepower or so -- and the handling of a dead fish. It was kind of scary, and overall a really unpleasant experience. I don't understand why the manufacturer would choose that combination other than being able to market the HP. And this was gas, not EV.
This seems like a fairly common point as well in car reviews. Super fast cars of any type are only fun in a very limited set of circumstances, most of them not on a normal road. In contrast, even your daily commute can be made more fun with a car that's lightweight or has good handling or an engaging manual shifter or whatever. It's basically the entire premise of the Mazda Miata.
It's an unfortunate trend with EVs too (thanks in large part to Tesla IMO). You can get a ton of acceleration with big electric motors and batteries, but the car will otherwise drive like ass because it's so heavy and so little attention has been paid to anything besides speed.
Most BEVs also have low center of gravity and even mass distribution, so they’re not as bad as a heavy ICE car.
On public roads, 0-30mph acceleration is probably most fun you can have within realm of legal and sensible driving. Handling is not an issue at speed limits of public roads.
Limiting EV torque off the line is probably one of the lowest-hanging emissions reduction fruits out there, given that (by estimates I've seen) tire wear for current EVs is in aggregate 20-50% faster than ICE vehicles.
The tire thing you've heard has been started by one article that misleadingly bundled tire and breakpad particles with all other emissions summed up by weight.
This was extremely misleading breakdown, because it discounted all of the ICE gases that are toxic, but weigh almost nothing, and lighter combustion particles that stay in the air, versus tire particles that are typically heavier and stay on the ground.
Of course worn tires aren't environmentally neutral, but that framing was used as a regressive "gotcha" in EVs vs ICE, without daring to mention any real solutions like reversing heavy macho-pickup-truck and SUV fashion created by a workaround for emissions regulation, or moving freight from trucks to rail.
Is it or is it not true that EVs shed tire rubber particles at a significantly higher rate than like-for-like ICE vehicles?
I said it was low-hanging fruit because it's my understanding that it is: since EVs (again, correct me if I'm wrong) generate more tire rubber particles because of their comparatively high torque output, it's literally a software fix (limiting torque) to cut those emissions to ICE levels or, potentially, even lower. The only reason not to do it is that many people view their personal vehicles as large, expensive toys, and they will be less fun toys if their acceleration performance is curtailed.
I don't see this as a "gotcha" for EV technology, because it has such a trivial solution, and it was not my intent to suggest that ICE cars are less (or more, for that matter) damaging to the environment. I'm honestly not sure why you would read my comment that way.
---
As for the harm done by microplastics like tire rubber particles, it's my understanding that they don't simply stay on the ground, but rather that drainage carries them into the ground, waterways, and ultimately oceans, where they remain intact for some indefinite period and cause largely unquantified disruptions to local organisms and ecologies. It's not obvious to me that they won't ultimately be more of a problem than airborne pollutants, since they may be much more persistent and difficult to remove.
There's the perfect solution in an ideal world, and there's what actually works given people's actual behavior. For the latter, you have to consider that if you make EVs less compelling, more people might just stick with their ICE vehicles, which are worse overall when you take all pollutants into account.
After the EV transition is complete, though, that'd be a good time to start limiting torque. Unless most people are just riding self-driving taxis by then, which probably won't be doing fast acceleration anyway.
Alternatively: the time to limit torque is now, while consumers are still getting to know EVs and the other substantial benefits they present. Those other benefits ought to be enough to drive adoption, and the longer we indulge the most harmful excesses, the harder it will be to reverse them in the future when the trap has sprung.
I don't really think either of these arguments is obviously correct, so I lean toward the option that immediately limits harm. But I'm also under no illusion that anything other than short to medium term profits are driving automakers' decisions, so in practice we will surely get the worst of both worlds.
Handling is nice for freeway merges but it’s definitely not at high speed. Where I used to live in San Diego there were a couple of ramps where I’d see the SUV drivers wallowing around the curves, tires squealing, visibly struggling to stay in the lane, and it was just like “you do this every day, why?”
This. Who cares about top end speed when I can reliably pull ahead of any other vehicle on the road in my Model Y? I use that capability regularly. I'd literally never go 100+mph - that's a novelty.
What are you even talking about? Maybe if you're driving around the grid of a city. Most driving enthusiasts know where to find roads that are fun at legal speeds.
I keep saying this to people and they literally don't believe me - my 86bhp volkswagen e-Up is more fun to drive than my 400bhp Mercedes-AMG ever was.
Seriously, I haven't been hit in the head.
The AMG was fun for a total of 4 seconds, which is exactly how long it took you to get to the legal speed limit, then you just sort of pootled along, unable to push hard and enjoy it. Yes it had grip, yes it had the noise, but I'd say out of the 4 years I owned it, I had "fun" in maybe a total 5% of those 4 years.
In the e-Up? I can push it hard all the time. You can get on some countryside roads, keep the pedal flat, and chuck it around, and it takes ages to get to any kinds of illegal speeds. And it's electric so the torque is always there, there's no waiting for the dual clutch gearbox to finally decide what it wants to do, you press the throttle and you go, it's absolutely beautiful how you can thread this car out of a corner. My enjoyment of hard driving this car is probably 10x that of the AMG, partially because you can actually do it for longer, and partially because I'm far less likely to kill myself or land in jail doing so. And it's only 1200kg so it's not like an oil tanker in turns, despite having wheels from a lawnmower.
Yeah kinda surprisingly I think the enjoyability of accessible cars peaked with the 90s/2000s enthusiast tuning scene ie "ricers." A 2500lb civic si or corolla xrs with a cold air intake was more fun than anything made since and they were like $22k.
> The result is terrifying. Both terrifying to drive, and terrifying to realize that these things are out on the road, in the hands of a public I don't trust enough to handle this sort of power. Up on Angeles Crest, the Plaid is incredibly quick, but it doesn't have the chassis, steering, or brakes to deal with the horsepower. Especially irritating is the damping, which is never settled in the Plaid's multiple drive modes. And that yoke steering wheel is just so incredibly stupid.
It is scary. Consumer automobile trends are chasing more and bigger in every dimension and our regulators are either asleep at the wheel or on the payroll. Pedestrian deaths are trending up, we have hard data showing that pickup trucks are 2.5x more likely to kill the occupants of other vehicles in a crash, and there is no sign that anyone gives a single flying fuck about any of these lives that have been needlessly snuffed out—a pile of corpses as a monument to the pigheaded vanity of adult children. It is fucking disgusting.
> pigheaded vanity of adult children. It is fucking disgusting.
Presumably you suggest we also banish unhealthy food, cigarettes, weed, and alcohol, right? They are all responsible for significant deaths (especially when combined with any kind of driving) and are only for fun
Addiction and substance abuse are complicated topics, but ideally somebody partaking of tobacco, drugs, or alcohol is aware of the risk to their own person of doing so, and has freely chosen to partake regardless. Unfortunately, though I'm well aware of the mortal danger excessively large and powerful personal vehicles pose to me and my family on the road, the only ways I can opt out of that danger are to a) not drive (edit: or walk, or cycle, or...) on public roads, or b) drive a very large and heavy vehicle myself, thus putting yet more people in mortal danger. Neither is acceptable.
In short, yours is not a good analogy because the danger posed by the use of harmful addictive substances is to the self, while the danger posed by driving an F-450 XLT Cummings Power Stroke 8.0 Liter Ranch King Harley Davidson Edition is to others.
> In short, yours is not a good analogy because the danger posed by the use of harmful addictive substances is to the self,
You didn’t read what I wrote. I specifically called out being under the influence. A drunk behind the wheel of the Corolla is far more dangerous to pedestrians than a teetotaling truck driver. Similar to anyone at a high risk of heart attack or stroke that gets behind the wheel.
I assumed that wasn't what you meant since it's an obvious non sequitur. Driving drunk is already illegal, and the fatality rate is down over 60% since its high point in the early 80s when we really started taking it seriously as a nation. That's the sort of impact taking a public health hazard seriously can have on human lives that might otherwise be snuffed out by it.
It's a strange world. Small personal EVs (ebikes, scooters, and so on) are all heavily regulated, often with very limited speed limits - while 3 ton cars that are infinitely more likely to kill someone other than the driver are given a free pass.
It's a world built for cars, and we're only barely clawing it back.
Try to cram 7 or 8 people and some luggage into one of those and that 310hp won't feel so powerful anymore. But the handling will be even more terrifying!
I hate getting one of these as a rental instead of a van.
Insurance executives are also shocked and worried. But it’s really just an extension of what’s been happening with massive pickup trucks given ridiculous Hp.
There is a reason all supercar makers came out with electric supercars as when it comes to acceleration you can't beat it. And as more cars are build from the ground up to run electric I think electric would be a better drive.
This also makes an EV the best tool for convincing "EVs are not manly enough" kind of types, which I expect to be an actually meaningful hurdle in the highly polarized US. I don't think many people will forget the first time they were in any not entirely underpowered EV when the driver floored it.
That's likely one of the reasons for Tesla's success - EVs sell EVs, and Teslas sell Teslas. Tesla can skimp on marketing, the customers do it for them by showing the cars off and the cars sell themselves.
And the best part: you will still enjoy it even when you are going slow or sitting idle because both cars SOUND amazing.
Maybe I’m a purist but as a 41 year old adult I still sprint off my couch to look out the window every time I hear an interesting car pass by my house.
To each their own I guess. I'm in my 50s but ever since I test-drove a Tesla, and the car pressed me back in my seat with just a quiet swoosh, all that noise has just seemed superfluous and old-fashioned.
They made $1.4 billion in revenue on their Starlink internet service last year. Satellite internet was already a successful product before SpaceX entered the market, and they're providing much faster service at a lower price.
If you look at the space industry as a whole, over 60% of all rockets launched last year were by SpaceX, and their cost per kg launched is a fraction of their competitors.
It's strange to refer to this as "buzz" when they're objectively providing successful services that many people and organizations are paying for.
Consumers don't ever benefit from militaries so the only other option to extract quality of life from space is comms.
But given that 90% of the population lives in urban areas comms are much more efficiently done using 5g cell towers and the good old cable fiber.
The way I see it, SpaceX is like the SR71 or the Saturn Rocket, monodimensional individuals will always fall in love with such toys and will try to reason their way backwards starting from their love for the toys to find and convince enough fools to finance them playing with such toys and not only that also singing their praise, it seems like it's exactly what is happening.
> But given that 90% of the population lives in urban areas comms are much more efficiently done using 5g cell towers and the good old cable fiber.
Don’t be daft, 10% of the population doesn’t by your own numbers. People in rural areas all over (Alaskan native schools, schools on the Amazon River, etc) are getting online for the first time because of starlink.
Your post comes across as “I don’t care about projects to eliminate hunger worldwide because most people have access to food”.
That's a cool video, but very strange decision to have audio of Elon at some press conference or something instead of the actual race. You're expecting engines and tire screeches and instead it's like 5 or 10 mildly excited people that aren't there.
I don't know what's going on with that video. If we take Tesla's numbers at face value, which I definitely don't given their history, the 911 Turbo S is dramatically faster on the straights. Is Tesla claiming that the Cybertruck gets faster with a 911 in tow? If so, why isn't there an option for a 911 trailer?
It's going to be pretty hard to heat soak a 911 to get it down on power. They're proper sports cars designed to hit the track.
The shenanigans was simply in choosing that car at all. A base 911 only claims a 0-60 of 4s and doesn't even break 400hp. It's never been a straight line car, that's not what it's trying to do or why enthusiasts love it.
It’s also not meant to be a direct comparison of any sort, but for some reason the people on HN manage to completely overlook that. The highly analytical mind truly is a blessing and a curse, especially when coupled with blind contempt for something.
I’m like 90% sure it’s a Carerra T. Satin black Carrera S wheels and no red calipers. It’s definitely not a Turbo or Turbo S cause there’s no side intakes.
Also definitely looks like the car dips briefly meaning it’s likely a manual, and the Carerra T only comes in manual.
For the longest time, a section of the car enthusiast community has said that 'slow car fast is better than fast car fast'. Now a days, it is taken to mean that a light car that is fast enough is always more fun than a heavier car, no matter how fast.
The Tesla Cybertruck might be the best example of this phenomenon. At 7000 lbs and a high ground clearance, there is no amount of power that can make this car feel nimble.
I have admittedly not test driven it, but there's certain fundamental physical realities that are pretty hard to overcome. Ride height and vehicle weight universally negatively impact handling on the road because they increase your momentum, center of gravity, suspension travel, etc. Weight in particular is hard to counteract because going around a corner relies on being able to redirect that mass using only the friction generated by the contact patch of the tires. Unless Tesla has found unobtanium tires or figured out how to negate the laws of physics, cornering at any kind of speed in a cybertruck is going to suck compared to a lighter vehicle.
Motorsports enthusiasts look at Nürburgring lap times. The Porsche 911 is at the highest level of performance on any track where you actually have to use the brakes and steering wheel. If the Cybertruck can do a good lap on the Nürburgring then its "FAST", but it probably isn't, due to weight.
The 911 is not built for drag racing, it's built for a track with corners where you have to use the brakes and steering wheel.
In terms of pure drag racing the Cybertruck is a loser. Top Fuel dragsters can do 0 to 60 in ~0.8 seconds and can do a quarter mile in less than 5 seconds. There's no comparison here.
But the Cybertruck has an insane amount of torque, 10x beyond the equivalent ICE vehicle. It can tow, that's for sure.
By "loser" I only meant by comparison with the best ICE in that category of pure drag racing. It's definitely not a loser, but it is a "loser" versus ICE.
I'm not saying the Cybertruck is shit. It's a torque monster and I want one. But it will struggle with cornering because of its 6800 pound kerb weight which is double the 911 kerb weight. Too heavy, can't compete.
What's most impressive to me is they figured out how to make flat body panels on the Cybertruck without warping (which would ruin the aesthetics). It would look cheap if they didn't get that right.
Try it with the most illegal electric vehicle. Won't compete with Top Fuel dragsters. Fundamental physical limitations of batteries versus combustion.
But the Cybertruck has 10x the torque of the equivalent ICE vehicle, so it can beat the 911 in a drag race, while towing a 911. Incredible. This is where it completely destroys ICE.
Any Cybertruck that could make it to the Nürburgring on its own would lose to pretty much any car. It can't ever go faster than 60mph if street legal in Europe.
Not for vehicles with MaM over 3500kg. They have to be fitted with a limiter that stops them from going faster than 60mph. Can't be overridden by the driver. If you remove the limiter, the car is no longer legal.
Furthermore, you can't drive it with a regular driver's license. Requires you to get a C1 license.
So it may have fast acceleration from 0-60mph, but that's as fast as it will ever go.
You can have the MaM adjusted to 3500 kg. That's what they used to do with H2's. Limit them to 3500 kg so you're breaking the law if you actually use the cargo capacity of your 3 ton tank.
> Being able to tow big heavy stuff isn't necessarily a great idea, because big heavy stuff needs to stop as well as start.
is a solved problem in the caravanning | rural | Australian world.
Hayman-Reese hitches with anti sway bars provide strong transfer of pulling force for starting, load control under braking - and heavy load trailers can be dual axle with slaved electric brakes to add to the stopping power of the lead vehicle.
It has the same bed as a Ford F150 and that's the most sold "car" in the US.
Reality is, no one needs a truck, but everyone buys a truck. And as long as people are buying trucks for vanity purposes, this pure vanity vehicle is going to be top of their pile.
Can electric vehicles (let alone this absurdly ridiculous example) reliably make it around the 'ring more than once without having to recharge? It seems like EV range drops off a cliff in all but the most idyllic driving conditions--flat road, minimal acceleration (cruise control), room temperature, no precipitation, aerodynamically clean, unladen. Add load, off-nominal temp, snow, drag, weight, etc. and range drops precipitously. One example I know of is a Model 3 doing a cross-country road trip in winter with two adults and their luggage couldn't do more than 75mi range per charge in Montana due to strong crosswinds. It would be great to see some actual data on off-nominal performance, which is what actually matters for a utility vehicle as opposed to a road toy.
Was driving an EV in freezing / snowy conditions the other day, up a mountain, with a blinking battery light. I couldn't believe how much running the heater and AC (required for demisting), the cold and going up a hill sucked the battery.
In the same car only a week before in much better weather, I did a similar trip, twice.
> Weight in particular is hard to counteract because going around a corner relies on being able to redirect that mass using only the friction generated by the contact patch of the tires.
Are you sure about that? Tyre friction force is at least to first approximation proportional to vehicle weight, and so is the force needed to turn at a particular radius and speed, so they balance independently of weight. I'd say weight doesn't necessarily make a difference to turning ability. CoM height yes, though.
It seems they just picked a slower config to make it look better. To be fair the Turbo S which does 9.9s is 2.5x more expensive than the base config/Cybertruck.
The base 911 is not intended to be fast in a straight line. It's actually about as fast as a Model 3 Dual Motor Long range. Base 911 is about experience, feel, and handling.
I say this because the mid-range 911 Turbo S would blow the doors off an unladen Cybertruck Tri-motor with it's 2.2s 0-60.
What sort of comparison are you looking to make here? The Roadster will be competing with 911, not Cybertruck. You’re getting up in arms against a marketing gimmick.
Chris Harris did it back in 2013 with two ICE vehicles (G63 AMG pulling a Fiesta ST) when the modern EV era was just getting started and none were officially rated to tow: https://youtu.be/5Ea7k3VAdi8
1,065 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 179 ms ] threadmakes hand motions
I likes the Russ Hanneman character so much that during COVID lockdowns, when I was a bit down, I paid Chris Diamantopoulos (the actor) on Cameo to do a short motivational video for me.
But there are other examples here:
https://www.cameo.com/chrisdiamantopoulos
Although it definitely feels like there's a Silicon Valley II thread brewing with AI startups.
"What if I told you, there was an app..."
[Astro Teller] ended the meeting by standing up in a huff, but his attempt at a dramatic exit was marred by the fact that he was wearing Rollerblades. He wobbled to the door in silence. “Then there was this awkward moment of him fumbling with his I.D. badge, trying to get the door to open,” [writer Carrie] Kemper said. “It felt like it lasted an hour. We were all trying not to laugh. Even while it was happening, I knew we were all thinking the same thing: Can we use this?” In the end, the joke was deemed “too hacky to use on the show.”
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/how-silicon-v...
So while I think the show has held up amazingly well (didn't love the way it ended), I think in 10-15 years we are going to look back at the period it represents pretty nostalgically.
Impossible. He has 3 nannies suing him, one of them for no reason.
Humor's fine, the trouble is that most people overestimate how funny they are. scott_s said it best many years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289
Please don't do personal attacks: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
In my younger days I thought it would be neat to build an electromagnetic grapple to latch onto semi trucks. Add even more drag with the alternator to power the magnet. Perhaps even some control loop to maintain a close distance without actually touching. With an electric vehicle it seems even better because you could add even more drag and recharge.
https://twitter.com/baglino/status/1730337374058463305?t=Pb5...
But Towing 11k on that thing is already going to tank your range to ~100 miles. I couldn’t imagine towing our camper with this thing (and the design is stupid enough that you probably can’t tow a fifth wheel right the cybertruck anyway)
If you hook any automatic transmission truck up to a really heavy trailer (100,000 pounds) you can probably move it around, but if you try to actually tow it anywhere the truck will either overheat or crash into something when you can't stop it going down a hill.
Torque really only determines how fast you can accelerate the load, not how much you can tow on the road.
Also, EV "torque" specs are not comparable to traditional car torque specs because they're measured differently (ICE measured at the engine before the transmission multiplies torque to the wheels, EV measured directly at the wheels)
The other limits come into play too -- torque, brakes, etc -- but tongue weight on suspension is often why there is a mismatch like this.
CYBERBEAST
DELIVERY IN 2024
320 MI. RANGE (EST.)
2.6 SEC. 0-60 MPH†
130 MPH TOP SPEED
845 HORSEPOWER
10,296 LB-FT TORQUE
11,000 LBS. TOWING CAPACITY
You’d assume 96” would be a default parameter in any generative model focused on “optimum truck.” Am I missing something? Enlighten me.
https://www.ford.com/trucks/f150/models/f150-xl/ (Note they offer 5.5', 6.5' and 8' beds. If you go to build, and just click through the defaults, you will not get an 8' bed.)
https://www.mavericktruckclub.com/forum/threads/hauling-plyw...
Nothing wrong with insisting on it if it fits your needs, but you do not need an 8' bed to haul plywood.
Nope
> Some offer 8' beds but it's relatively rare in practice.
Also nope
> The standard bed of a pickup truck is typically 6'5" long
(So... yup.)
I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds. Sure there are people that buy regular cab, 8' beds, and even some serious professionals that get an HD crew cab with the 8' bed (which is a monstrously long truck!) But in general that is not what I see. Thus... "rare."
(So... yup.)
> I can't find statistics on sales, but I rarely see trucks with 8' beds
You probably aren't around job sites very much
And then they park in the trailer parking spots, grumble grumble grumble.
Agreed.
> Anything with less than an 8' bed ...
WTF? Doesn't your truck have a Hayman-Reese hitch, anti swaybars, various carry racks; don't you have several different trailers - single and double axle, light weight and heavy tonnage, caravans and animal floats?
I'm starting to wonder if, in fact, you've got any kind of working vehicle setup at all.
Crew cabs are so you can haul a fire pump trailer out to spot blazes with four people, tools, along with bulk water tank pumps, etc.
The dually's at the ranch and has an 8' bed. No stacks. No 5" tips. Beat to shit, brown, with a bad starter.
The advantage of towing is you can have multiple preset ready to go "job type" trailers | floats | caravans that can be detached at work area, leaving vehicle free to travel elsewhere.
I'm just pushing back at the GP insistance on the "one true" working vehicle setup and dislike for crew cabs - getting people to unpaved sites across fields and scrambling is pretty much the reason for getting any kind of high clearance vehicle, be it 2WD or 4WD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20cU69drY3w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8B-zWxDJOZU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0YxZfiX2uE
There's no one true vehicle, it takes a few different kinds and what you can't buy you can always weld.
Meanwhile, if you have kids, not having a second row to throw car seats into is a bigger limitation than having to leave the tailgate down to pick up plywood.
Specifically said it does with the tailgate down, which is the norm for anything that doesn't have an 8' bed.
> You’d assume 96” would be a default parameter in any generative model focused on “optimum truck.” Am I missing something? Enlighten me.
I can only assume they made a tradeoff between cabin space, bed length and overall vehicle length. There is no perfect, only tradeoffs.
Not being able to carry sheet goods in the bed is something it shares virtually every other truck on the road. On a short-bed regular truck, you can get a roof rack along with posts that go in the back corners of the bed to create a rack capable of holding sheet goods, pipe, lumber, ladders, etc.
Regardless, why would you schlep around sheet goods in a pickup bed when you can have the supply house deliver them? The contractors I work with don’t waste time running to Home Depot to buy material, it’s delivered to the site by a supply house, courier, or company truck.
I regularly purchase 8'x4' sheet goods in my Tacoma with no issue.
Another Elon lie. Four, nearly five years after initial claims - meant to be available in 2021, and 52% more expensive.
"Range: 250 - 500 miles". Another lie. Try 250 - 340. 33% less.
No solar roof.
The brake lights might be tied with the Mini for the worst/least intuitive brake lights in history (the Mini has the left light with the left half of the Union Jack, i.e. looks like a right arrow, and the right light with the right half, looking like a left arrow, while the Cyber Truck actually turns OFF lights on the light bar to signify braking is happening, and turns them ON when no braking is happening).
$61k. Click on the tab that says "purchase price".
Probable gas savings is odd, because they also base some of their comparisons on an arbitrary 20mpg for ICE. "We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck"
Odd, because let's see: the Honda Ridgeline starts at 21mpg, and getting better from there, Tacoma, Tundra, Ranger, Gladiator, Ram 1500 (now we're at 25mpg), F-150, Silverado, Sierra 1500. So you're comparing against 7 or 8 of the best selling pickups, and yet using an MPG that is lower than ... all of them ... for comparative purposes. Not misleading at all.
And CyberTruck, 1 min into the video here: https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/best-look...
Best would be to do the EV equivalent of asparagus staging - you have all trucks providing acceleration, but trucks 1 and 2 are also being recharged by truck 3. You then jettison it once its battery runs dry, leaving you with trucks 1 and 2, the latter also charging the former. Again, drop truck 2 as it runs out of juice. This lets you get rid of excess mass as early as possible, maximizing the benefit of extra batteries and thrust.
I vaguely remember hearing it adds too much complexity for a real world launch. Great in KSP though.
I'm not aware of any others. The crossfeed is just too much of a failure risk.
Outside of KSP and some rocketry books, I haven't seen it.
Seems shady
Edit: Other comments say they've been doing that for a while, even with the 3 series. So, I guess it's accepted? Urgh.
In other words it generates a new thread on social media once in a while, with people talking about whether or not there are cost of ownership savings, with the truth generally coming down in Tesla's favor. And still regardless of how you interpret the cost equation, the controversy brings attention.
And more in line with Occam's razor it just spurs awareness in the user reading the web page. You could say "no, it deceives the user." I think it doesn't; more deceptive is having a published MSRP when dealers add thousands to that published price and lie about EVs while they sell legacy cars.
Misquoting is not an argument.
It’s not shady because it’s clearly labeled.
Anyway, it’s kind of silly to say MSRP is “more misleading” when MSRP literally stands for “manufacturer suggested retail price.” It says right there in the name the retail price may be higher or lower.
I don’t think this is some clever Streisand effect marketing ploy. It’s just slimy pricing practices.
All I'm saying is that Tesla claiming you are going to save $100 a month in gas is based on a whole lot of assumptions. It's not money in the bank.
FWIW: I've owned a Tesla for 6 years now and I'm pretty sure I still spent more than I would have buying like a Prius or Volt or one of the other hybrid vehicles I was looking at at the time.
Should cheaper ICE cars subtract from their sticker price the potential investment earnings of the money that you save versus buying a Tesla? Obviously not.
Secondly, I think the selling point of EVs is the TCO, even with today’s relatively expensive EVs, significantly less expensive all-gas cars end up being cheaper (and the Tesla is more appealing to me than hybrids, which frequently feel bad as someone who really likes to drive). But, it makes sense to me for the landing page to instruct the users about this (like Energy Star appliances do): the UX design might not be the best here, but it’s pretty hard to get all the way through the Tesla sales flow without being told clearly what the actual cost is.
"Our car is only 15k!*"
* Except no manufacturer sells the base model. Plus they'll add their own add-ons like anti-rust that has no scientific basis. Also doesn't include the shipping cost. Also AC tax isn't included despite literally all cars having AC
The only manufacturer website I've seen that isn't super shady and actually includes shipping costs by default is Subaru for some reason.
I'm saving $40k in 3 years if I don't buy one of these and I put gas in my car!
Perhaps they should provide an option for a hypothetical price comparison with train/bike? Not sure the marketing team would like how that comparison turns out through...
Also, we’re talking about a new industry here because of which a lot of costs are also likely facing downwards pressure (so, for example, batteries are almost certainly cheaper today than they were 4-5 years ago).
Edit: This has caught me by surprise but EV battery prices seem to have started going up in constant dollars. It’s still lower than in 2019, so the nominal dollars are probably slightly lower than 2019, but I haven’t been following this for a few years and assumed battery prices were still going down in constant dollars.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/883118/global-lithium-io...
While I'm not a fan of this truck, Tesla remains the issue.
This seems like a new low in scammy marketing. I can't wait for everything to have wildly undermarked prices with small asterisks saying it's when you subtract all the ways it will save you money in the long term.
> * Prices assume IRA Federal Tax Credits up to $7,500 for Rear-Wheel Drive and All-Wheel Drive and est. gas savings of $3,600 over 3 years.
[0] https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
I see this style of price hiding more prevalent everywhere. Too much psychology and dark patterns have invaded everything we do. I cannot count how many times I click a cool new open source project link on HN, see a pricing page, and find a "monthly" price with an astrix and toggle to see the real monthly price
Saving $1,200 a year on gas seems reasonable if you pay $4/gal and fill up a 14gal tank twice a month. I'm not sure about the tax credit -- I assume those are guaranteed to whoever purchases the vehicle, but maybe that's not the case.
Savings over time is a whole other dimension, you have to wait for it. And it makes huge assumptions about usage and input (gas) prices.
It also assumes you’re not already driving an EV so your current gas cost is $0. That seems near illegal.
Oh, come on. Tesla is not hiding this. It's the first thing you see in the pricing section, and it's the last thing you see at the bottom. Maybe it's illegal somehow, but this is certainly not immoral.
Tesla is making the case for the efficiency gains of their vehicle based on what most people drive today. This is certainly becoming less relevant/useful as electric/hybrid vehicles become more popular, but it is still quite helpful for anyone trying to compare the cost of a Tesla vs a ICE automobile. Even better, this expected total cost of ownership would be included somewhere like it is with home appliances [0].
> It also assumes you’re not already driving an EV so your current gas cost is $0.
In that case, you can simply select the "Purchase Price".
> Savings over time is a whole other dimension, you have to wait for it. And it makes huge assumptions about usage and input (gas) prices.
That's fair. Tesla very clearly details their assumptions under the "see details" link, which to my eyes looks quite generous:
-----
Gasoline Savings
Electric vehicles are less expensive to fuel than gasoline powered vehicles. The average person drives between 10,000 and 15,000 miles and spends between $1,700 and $2,500 on gasoline per year.
We've assumed a fuel economy of 20.0 miles per gallon for a comparable gasoline powered truck. We've also assumed the national average of $0.16 per kilowatt-hour for residential electricity (assumed for 100% of charging) and $3.30 per gallon for gasoline over the next three years. Tesla efficiency values are based on Cybertruck All-Wheel Drive.
Comparison gasoline vehicles are selected based on vehicle class, seating capacity and standard features. We use the EPA estimated range standard to compare efficiency data between our vehicles and a comparable gasoline alternative using each vehicle's combined city/highway MPG and MPGe ratings. Actual range may vary based on factors such as speed, weather conditions and elevation change.
Cybertruck All-Wheel Drive consumption rating = 42.9 kWh/100mi
Comparison vehicle consumption rating = 20.0 mpg
References:
We used the most recent gasoline and electricity prices that were available to us through third-party resources on November 30, 2023.
-----
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnergyGuide
It is absolutely immoral, and I have no idea how you can say otherwise with a straight face. Tesla is deliberately listing the price as lower than it actually is, in order to try to psychologically trick people into buying their vehicles. It's (probably) legal because they state in smaller print what the actual price is, but it's hella fucking immoral.
This is absolutely misleading. F-150, Tundra, RAM 1500, Sierra, every single one of these pickups has a better fuel economy than this. It's not really a comparable economy if you pick "a number worse than every alternative" as your baseline.
* https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2023_Ford_F150.shtml
* https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2023_Toyota_Tundra.s...
* https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2023_Ram_1500.shtml
* https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/bymodel/2023_GMC_Sierra.shtm...
Starts with Ridgeline and Tacoma at 21mpg, Tundra at 22, Ranger at 23, Gladiator at 24, RAM 1500 and F-150 at 25, Silverado and Sierra at 26.
> 20 seems pretty fair.
How do you get "chooses a number that is 5% less than the worst, and 25% less at best" as a "fair" comparison point?
The average of those vehicles is actually 23.8mpg. To me a comparison should be "somewhere in the middle of the table", not "coming last".
There's no reason to assume I'm biased towards Tesla here.
If any carmaker wanted to say "our car is X% more efficient, and the average person could reasonably expect to save $Y", and then discount that from the sticker price, I would be okay with that.
I don't think it's deceptive at all as long as the estimate is reasonable, and as long as there is clear communication about the sticker price vs the price after savings.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EnergyGuide
I also want to say, if Tesla was doing this in some shady way, e.g. not offering an easy way to view the true purchase price, or making unfair comparisons, I would be totally against what they're doing.
If I'm trying to sell you a $6,000 server, I can't take a notional AWS bill of $2,000 a year and say 'since this server will save you $2,000 in cloud costs over three years, it's basically free'
Try walking into a Tesla dealership, telling them you expect the car to save you $10,000 over its lifetime, and that you should therefore pay $10,000 less than the ticket price, and see what they say.
They’re trying to say:
Okay, this truck costs $CYBER. and that looks like more than $RAM. But the ownership cost of $RAM is really $RAM + $GAS, and the cost of $CYBER is $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND. And $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND might be less than $RAM + $GAS. And Tesla would like you to notice that.
And Tesla’s mathemarketing geniuses said: ah, but if $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND is less than $RAM + $GAS, then $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND would also be less than $RAM.
And since Dodge advertises the price of their truck as $RAM, Tesla thinks it’s only fair for them to advertise the ‘fair comparison’ price of their truck as $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND.
Which by some weird twisted logic makes sense, and the absolute difference in prices is somewhat meaningful, but it gives a misleading impression of the amount you’ll spend and the relative amount you’ll save.
Because it implies you’ll only end up spending $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $GAS - $REFUND on your Tesla compared to $RAM on your Dodge. It feels like you’re saving $SAVINGS/$RAM.
But you’re actually going to spend $CYBER + $ELECTRIC - $REFUND (which is a bigger number than they are showing) compared to $RAM + $GAS on the Dodge (admittedly also not a number Dodge is advertising anywhere). And you’re actually only going to save $SAVINGS/($RAM + $GAS), which is a smaller proportional saving (remember we don’t know how big Tesla assumes $GAS is, only that they say $GAS - $ELECTRIC is $3000).
But it also assumes that what you’re going to do is follow their logic and take their ‘potential savings’ comparable price, and compare it to the sticker price on an ICE truck. Rather than look at that number and compare it to another truck and then apply your own estimated TCO differential to figure out the all in cost. In which case you’ll double count the TCO difference to Tesla’s benefit.
So yeah, it’s a dishonest bit of math.
Just random drive-by comment hating a particular nationality...
irrelevant
> Most of my friends/family
your comment was about "Americans" generally. Not about Americans you know.
pointlessly divisive, stereotyping nationality, and without merit. exactly the type of comment we need less of on HN. I replied because it prevents you from deleting the comment.
EDIT: ah, I see that they are now replying with a random article found after hastily searching for sources to confirm their bias with commentary from * squints * a "financial therapist." A CNBC article that is a submarine (as coined by PG[1]), meant to advertise OppLoans.
don't believe me? see all the articles written by CNBC for OppLoans:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=site%3Acnbc.com+OppLoans
Well then.... my mistake. Anything to justify your comment. Carry on...
[1] http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/29/its-ok-to-not-follow-a-budge...
73% of American's say they don't budget. My comment is with merit.
I was visiting my hometown where houses are 200k and lots of households make 100k-200k/yr. All the driveways were full of new trucks, SUVs, and boats.
The real killer here though is the limit. If you're making $160k, that $7000 is still a real incentive. Can you afford it without, sure, but if we're trying to incentivize EVs then everyone should get the incentive... sometimes wealthy people are wealthy because they save money whenever possible, so the incentive will still move the needle on EV adoption.
All numbers subject to change!
https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/taxes/ev-tax-credit-elect...
You can't claim it if you make more than "$300,000 for a household, $150,000 for an individual or $225,000 for a head of household" [1]. That describes a decent fraction of the Cybertruck's target market.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2023/01/07/1147209505/electric-car-tax-c...
The credit changes when you get the cash, not its eligibility [1]. If the dealer mistakenly gives you the credit, it will be added back--with interest and penalties--when you file. (The dealer reports it, so if someone forgets to include it in their filing it will accrue penalties and interest until the IRS gets around to collecting.)
[1] https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/credits-for-new-clean...
You can't even deduct the various gov rebates or tax exemptions; only mention that you _may_ qualify.
They have a smaller and lower contrast "after cost savings" at the bottom of the page - but the price on the site is the price, as it damn well should be.
[0] https://www.tesla.com/en_au/model3/design#overview
This is direct quote from the Tesla site from 3 weeks ago.
It’s now 11,000lbs on the linked page. More Musk bullshittery.
R1T - 11k
F150 Lightning (beefiest trim) - 10k
I can pull near infinite mass too!
*in galactic terms
Edit: Nevermind, it's a $250 deposit on a later $100,000 purchase.
I would be surprised if Tesla allows placing the entire order by credit card.
You can raise it, but you have to have strong financials and talk to them.
Moreover, a substantial amount of remote European contractors who use US LLCs put their personal expenditures on company CCs to evade CRS.
https://x.com/Tesla/status/1730326461469331929
The more of a Clusterfuck this is the more valuable they will be to the current breed of nihilist capitalists.
Knowing you can’t resale for a year again, just ensures demand for Gen 1 Cybertruck will just be delayed but increases the scarcity fears of people who actually care for some reason.
Reselling cult members their own merch is old magic
That's incredible marketing.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1730331223992472029
Let’s see Tesla brag about Nurburgring times!
and they BUY a truck that can accelerate (almost) like a porsche.
note truck cannot accelerate like a plaid :)
People buy the hyper inflated metric that sounds good, even if it’s not actually what they want?
A huge one of this is (or was?) megapixels in cameras. When actually, sensor size & quality, and glass quality matters a ton.
They do, or try to. But then there's this awkward moment when you ask about lap 2 or 3 where the Porsche or Audi or whatever is still blazing around the track while your Plaid is pulled over in Thermal Shutdown mode.
It feels much more safe when merging, overtaking, etc, compared to my previous (rather weak and old) car. And I do my best to not drive as a jackass.
More than about 10 years ago that was simply unheard of, and I'm certain people would have said it was impossible.
Useful or not, it's a very impressive thing to do. 99% of automakers would be happy if they could build a sports scar faster than a 911, let alone a pickup with 11,000lbs towing capacity.
Can you provide a list please? You are very much mistaken without getting into supercar territory.
You said "sports cars faster than a 911 are relatively common", so you should be able to pull together a big list easily.
https://www.zeroto60times.com/3-second-cars-0-60-mph-times/?... (scroll down)
Several are EVs, not true sports cars
Eh, it's not really interesting if you can't corner. Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it, all you need is a ton of torque, tires that can take it, and enough weight and length to keep the front end down. Easy enough any automaker can do it if they choose, but 1/4 mile numbers are a mostly meaningless pissing contest unless you are actually building drag cars.
Now if Tesla built anything that handled up near Porsche territory, that would be interesting. I guess they sort of did with the 1st one, but that was Lotus's chassis.
Ahh, no.
The Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat with 707 horsepower runs a 11.4 [1]
That is the very definition of a car built to go fast in a straight line. Massive engine, supercharger, massive rear tires, and it's slower than the Cybertruck.
> Lots of trucks aren't actually bad at it
Please show me a truck that gets even remotely close to a sub 11 quarter mile. Heck, show me a production sports car (that isn't a super car as expensive as a house) that does.
[1] https://fastestlaps.com/models/dodge-charger-srt-hellcat
NB: I didn't say any of these would beat a big electric. Electric motors have real advantages here, nobody claims otherwise.
And yes point remains for any automaker trying to set up a car to compete with a 911. Getting a similar 1/4 mile time would be about the easiest part...
Going fast in a straight line is easy for electric motors, so it's just not that impressive. It's like a native speaker enrolling in language 101. The A doesn't really mean anything. EVs have been up against the limits of tire adhesion for years now.
EVs with impressive sustained track times are far more interesting since that's actually hard to achieve. Batteries are heavy and that's killer for a real race car.
That 911 will pound hot lap after hot lap until the fuel tank is empty like it's nothing if the owner ticked the ceramic brake option. I suspect the Cybertruck will run out of cooling long before it drains the battery and I guarantee it will cook the brakes hauling itself down from 130 mph.
Edit: plus F-150 Raptor R does a 12.1 quarter mile. That's pretty close to running 11s.
There is a very, very large difference between 12.1s and sub 11s.
Gobs of RWD power and seemingly a lack of any sort of dynamic active safety systems for inexperienced drivers to help with this kind of fishtailing or oversteer.
That’s 10% over the ceiling. That’s not close.
You can a Nissan GT-R for half the price which can do sub 11 seconds. A GT-R tuned for drag racing will be faster on a 1/4 than an F1 car.
Or you can get a bike for less than $20k which can do a 1/4 mile in 9.78 seconds. So just achieving that is not necessarily that hard.
Stock GT-R is 11.3. Slower than Cybertruck.
https://fastestlaps.com/models/nissan-gt-r
> Or you can get a bike for less than $20k which can do a 1/4 mile in 9.78 seconds
Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.
You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.
That's a 2008 model. The current (2017+) one with
> You just keep coming up with examples that show it's very hard to make a production vehicle that does a sub 11 in the 1/4.
You're assuming that maximizing acceleration in a straight is the main priority for most sportscar manufacturers and they are willing to throw everything else to maximize it.
> Comparing a vehicle (especially a pickup truck) to a bike shows you how absurdly fast that vehicle is.
Well a Moto GP bike will easily beat an F1 car in 1/4 mile drag race yet would have zero chances on an actual race track. I'd bet the Cybertruck would do relatively considerably worse even against the base config 911. So it really depends on how you define "absurdly fast".
And very clearly we've been talking about 1/4 mile time for this entire discussion.
Tesla showed a Cybertruck beating a 911 in the 1/4 while pulling a 911.
They didn't show it going around a track, they didn't show it outbraking a 911, they didn't show it on a hillclimb.
They very, very clearly defined exactly the context for "absurdly fast", and demonstrated it quite well.
Yes, the slowest 911 you can buy.
> And very clearly we've been talking about 1/4 mile time for this entire discussion.
I'm not even sure what are we arguing about at this point. My entire point is that this is a clearly an apples to oranges comparison.
The super coupes of one’s youth are utterly obliterated on the dragstrip, not by EV coupes, but by family SUVs and pickup trucks.
That said, just because they can go fast in a straight line doesn’t make them in any way equivalent to a 911. Give me a mountain pass or a racetrack, (and no kids or stuff to carry) and I’ll take the 911 every single time.
It’ll be death by a thousand cuts. New ICE vehicles will be increasingly rare in showrooms. There will be bans in city centres. Gas stations will start to disappear. Those that remain will be required to sell blends with increasing amounts of non-fossil derived gasoline, which will be considerably more expensive than current prices, and far more expensive to run.
Eventually, driving ICE vehicles will be like horse riding today - a niche, expensive, smelly hobby that is conducted well outside city limits.
But a Cybertruck is always going to look like it wandered out of StuntRaceFX.
It's an unfortunate trend with EVs too (thanks in large part to Tesla IMO). You can get a ton of acceleration with big electric motors and batteries, but the car will otherwise drive like ass because it's so heavy and so little attention has been paid to anything besides speed.
Most BEVs also have low center of gravity and even mass distribution, so they’re not as bad as a heavy ICE car.
On public roads, 0-30mph acceleration is probably most fun you can have within realm of legal and sensible driving. Handling is not an issue at speed limits of public roads.
This was extremely misleading breakdown, because it discounted all of the ICE gases that are toxic, but weigh almost nothing, and lighter combustion particles that stay in the air, versus tire particles that are typically heavier and stay on the ground.
Of course worn tires aren't environmentally neutral, but that framing was used as a regressive "gotcha" in EVs vs ICE, without daring to mention any real solutions like reversing heavy macho-pickup-truck and SUV fashion created by a workaround for emissions regulation, or moving freight from trucks to rail.
I said it was low-hanging fruit because it's my understanding that it is: since EVs (again, correct me if I'm wrong) generate more tire rubber particles because of their comparatively high torque output, it's literally a software fix (limiting torque) to cut those emissions to ICE levels or, potentially, even lower. The only reason not to do it is that many people view their personal vehicles as large, expensive toys, and they will be less fun toys if their acceleration performance is curtailed.
I don't see this as a "gotcha" for EV technology, because it has such a trivial solution, and it was not my intent to suggest that ICE cars are less (or more, for that matter) damaging to the environment. I'm honestly not sure why you would read my comment that way.
---
As for the harm done by microplastics like tire rubber particles, it's my understanding that they don't simply stay on the ground, but rather that drainage carries them into the ground, waterways, and ultimately oceans, where they remain intact for some indefinite period and cause largely unquantified disruptions to local organisms and ecologies. It's not obvious to me that they won't ultimately be more of a problem than airborne pollutants, since they may be much more persistent and difficult to remove.
After the EV transition is complete, though, that'd be a good time to start limiting torque. Unless most people are just riding self-driving taxis by then, which probably won't be doing fast acceleration anyway.
I don't really think either of these arguments is obviously correct, so I lean toward the option that immediately limits harm. But I'm also under no illusion that anything other than short to medium term profits are driving automakers' decisions, so in practice we will surely get the worst of both worlds.
Seriously, I haven't been hit in the head.
The AMG was fun for a total of 4 seconds, which is exactly how long it took you to get to the legal speed limit, then you just sort of pootled along, unable to push hard and enjoy it. Yes it had grip, yes it had the noise, but I'd say out of the 4 years I owned it, I had "fun" in maybe a total 5% of those 4 years.
In the e-Up? I can push it hard all the time. You can get on some countryside roads, keep the pedal flat, and chuck it around, and it takes ages to get to any kinds of illegal speeds. And it's electric so the torque is always there, there's no waiting for the dual clutch gearbox to finally decide what it wants to do, you press the throttle and you go, it's absolutely beautiful how you can thread this car out of a corner. My enjoyment of hard driving this car is probably 10x that of the AMG, partially because you can actually do it for longer, and partially because I'm far less likely to kill myself or land in jail doing so. And it's only 1200kg so it's not like an oil tanker in turns, despite having wheels from a lawnmower.
> The result is terrifying. Both terrifying to drive, and terrifying to realize that these things are out on the road, in the hands of a public I don't trust enough to handle this sort of power. Up on Angeles Crest, the Plaid is incredibly quick, but it doesn't have the chassis, steering, or brakes to deal with the horsepower. Especially irritating is the damping, which is never settled in the Plaid's multiple drive modes. And that yoke steering wheel is just so incredibly stupid.
It is scary. Consumer automobile trends are chasing more and bigger in every dimension and our regulators are either asleep at the wheel or on the payroll. Pedestrian deaths are trending up, we have hard data showing that pickup trucks are 2.5x more likely to kill the occupants of other vehicles in a crash, and there is no sign that anyone gives a single flying fuck about any of these lives that have been needlessly snuffed out—a pile of corpses as a monument to the pigheaded vanity of adult children. It is fucking disgusting.
Presumably you suggest we also banish unhealthy food, cigarettes, weed, and alcohol, right? They are all responsible for significant deaths (especially when combined with any kind of driving) and are only for fun
In short, yours is not a good analogy because the danger posed by the use of harmful addictive substances is to the self, while the danger posed by driving an F-450 XLT Cummings Power Stroke 8.0 Liter Ranch King Harley Davidson Edition is to others.
You didn’t read what I wrote. I specifically called out being under the influence. A drunk behind the wheel of the Corolla is far more dangerous to pedestrians than a teetotaling truck driver. Similar to anyone at a high risk of heart attack or stroke that gets behind the wheel.
It's a world built for cars, and we're only barely clawing it back.
I hate getting one of these as a rental instead of a van.
That's likely one of the reasons for Tesla's success - EVs sell EVs, and Teslas sell Teslas. Tesla can skimp on marketing, the customers do it for them by showing the cars off and the cars sell themselves.
I guarantee no Porsche 911 on the planet keep up with an F1 car like that can.
Personally, while it's not an EV, I'd take one of these at less than one-tenth the price:
[1] https://www.hyperracer.com/x1racer
Also makes mincemeat of Porsche 911s on most circuits, particularly the ones amateurs actually get the chance to drive at regularly.
And the best part: you will still enjoy it even when you are going slow or sitting idle because both cars SOUND amazing.
Maybe I’m a purist but as a 41 year old adult I still sprint off my couch to look out the window every time I hear an interesting car pass by my house.
While I’ll never own one, there is still something about the sound of a Mustang V8 going past.
Still the best statement to describe Musk and his companies.
If you look at the space industry as a whole, over 60% of all rockets launched last year were by SpaceX, and their cost per kg launched is a fraction of their competitors.
It's strange to refer to this as "buzz" when they're objectively providing successful services that many people and organizations are paying for.
You "know" nothing.
Did you mean to question the utility of starlink? Because the utility of the company on the whole is quite obviously apparent.
Consumers don't ever benefit from militaries so the only other option to extract quality of life from space is comms.
But given that 90% of the population lives in urban areas comms are much more efficiently done using 5g cell towers and the good old cable fiber.
The way I see it, SpaceX is like the SR71 or the Saturn Rocket, monodimensional individuals will always fall in love with such toys and will try to reason their way backwards starting from their love for the toys to find and convince enough fools to finance them playing with such toys and not only that also singing their praise, it seems like it's exactly what is happening.
Don’t be daft, 10% of the population doesn’t by your own numbers. People in rural areas all over (Alaskan native schools, schools on the Amazon River, etc) are getting online for the first time because of starlink.
Your post comes across as “I don’t care about projects to eliminate hunger worldwide because most people have access to food”.
If it’s an ice car, different story.
Does that answer your question?
https://www.caranddriver.com/porsche/911-turbo-turbo-s
I don't know what's going on with that video. If we take Tesla's numbers at face value, which I definitely don't given their history, the 911 Turbo S is dramatically faster on the straights. Is Tesla claiming that the Cybertruck gets faster with a 911 in tow? If so, why isn't there an option for a 911 trailer?
Methinks Tesla is up to their old tricks!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tesla-autopilot-staged-engineer...
Also not discounting tesla shenanigans. Would be easy enough to run the 1/4 a few times and get the 911 nice heat soaked and way down on power.
I couldn't tell what model it was, as Twitter video has been broken for me for months.
The shenanigans was simply in choosing that car at all. A base 911 only claims a 0-60 of 4s and doesn't even break 400hp. It's never been a straight line car, that's not what it's trying to do or why enthusiasts love it.
https://extramile.thehartford.com/auto/maintenance/how-to-br...
Also definitely looks like the car dips briefly meaning it’s likely a manual, and the Carerra T only comes in manual.
Porsche rated 4.3s 0-60mph.
"Buy our product because it's better than X,Y,Z..."
The Tesla Cybertruck might be the best example of this phenomenon. At 7000 lbs and a high ground clearance, there is no amount of power that can make this car feel nimble.
Why do you believe that? (I assume you have not test driven it.) From the videos it seems to feel very nimble.
In terms of pure drag racing the Cybertruck is a loser. Top Fuel dragsters can do 0 to 60 in ~0.8 seconds and can do a quarter mile in less than 5 seconds. There's no comparison here.
But the Cybertruck has an insane amount of torque, 10x beyond the equivalent ICE vehicle. It can tow, that's for sure.
But I also don't think that 0 to 60 in 2.6s is 'a loser'. Cars that take twice as much feel already very fast to me.
I'm not saying the Cybertruck is shit. It's a torque monster and I want one. But it will struggle with cornering because of its 6800 pound kerb weight which is double the 911 kerb weight. Too heavy, can't compete.
What's most impressive to me is they figured out how to make flat body panels on the Cybertruck without warping (which would ruin the aesthetics). It would look cheap if they didn't get that right.
But the Cybertruck has 10x the torque of the equivalent ICE vehicle, so it can beat the 911 in a drag race, while towing a 911. Incredible. This is where it completely destroys ICE.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1730331223992472029
Furthermore, you can't drive it with a regular driver's license. Requires you to get a C1 license.
So it may have fast acceleration from 0-60mph, but that's as fast as it will ever go.
Being able to tow big heavy stuff isn't necessarily a great idea, because big heavy stuff needs to stop as well as start.
If you're used to accelerating hard and braking hard, your big heavy stuff is going to have real problems with that.
> Being able to tow big heavy stuff isn't necessarily a great idea, because big heavy stuff needs to stop as well as start.
is a solved problem in the caravanning | rural | Australian world.
Hayman-Reese hitches with anti sway bars provide strong transfer of pulling force for starting, load control under braking - and heavy load trailers can be dual axle with slaved electric brakes to add to the stopping power of the lead vehicle.
eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rM2--wSb5d0
Reality is, no one needs a truck, but everyone buys a truck. And as long as people are buying trucks for vanity purposes, this pure vanity vehicle is going to be top of their pile.
In the same car only a week before in much better weather, I did a similar trip, twice.
Are you sure about that? Tyre friction force is at least to first approximation proportional to vehicle weight, and so is the force needed to turn at a particular radius and speed, so they balance independently of weight. I'd say weight doesn't necessarily make a difference to turning ability. CoM height yes, though.
It has a 1/4 mile time (9.9 seconds) a full second faster than a Cybertruck (10.9 seconds).
Its sort of like saying some kid on the high school track team running all out is faster than Hussain Bolt when he's running a warmup lap.
The base 911 is not intended to be fast in a straight line. It's actually about as fast as a Model 3 Dual Motor Long range. Base 911 is about experience, feel, and handling.
I say this because the mid-range 911 Turbo S would blow the doors off an unladen Cybertruck Tri-motor with it's 2.2s 0-60.
Original full video seems to have been deleted but here's a Vimeo re-upload: https://vimeo.com/253258542 MotorTrend's Instragram promoting a short clip of it: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDHcw67Ixw1/
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/08/32/5f/08325fd8b2a6e882b2a6e9ff8...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j-qy1s1RIM