I would say the aesthetics of those tents are actually quite good. It very much looks like you just plopped a tent on top of the vehicle, but putting that aside it doesn’t look half bad. It’s clean, symmetrical, and has an obvious separation. In contrast it looks like someone just threw a blanket with some frames on top of the cyber truck
While $3000 sounds like a lot, quickly googling for "F150 rooftop tent" returned many results for over $3K.
That a first-party product on a high-end vehicle with a tiny market share costs around the same as aftermarket products for the most popular truck on the market makes the price seem less ridiculous than headlines make it appear.
However, I'm not deeply enmeshed in truck culture. I'm sure many folks can weigh in with (hopefully) nuanced takes on the price/value equation.
The original poster specifically compares it to a roof tent. Obviously since the Cybertruck has no normal roof, the definition is strained here.
However, from what I've seen "bed tents" have you sleeping on the bed. This product has a raised frame that performs similarly to a roof tent (given the CT's angled design); allowing you to store equipment in the bed when the tent is up or down. See image here: https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/03/IMG_6...
As I said in my OP, I'm not well versed in this market - so I don't know what it's worth. But people keep replying with factually inaccurate information and that's frustrating.
Do I personally think it's worth $2,975? No. But I'm not in the market for one.
Honestly almost everything in the automotive aftermarket seems like a rip off to me, so it's hard to be objective. Your example of $1,400 for an "elevated to roof level" rack sounds like a rip off. Yeah, if 8 pieces of welded aluminum cost $1,400 then maybe $1,600 for custom-sized low volume tent is about right. Ford sells folding tonneau covers for $1,100. A tow hitch for a Lexus GX is $330. This is all extortionate. But millions in this market continue to pay the costs and find the value is worth it.
Can you find something cheaper on Amazon? Of course. But in the first-party world of $300 tow hitches and $1,100 pieces of hinged plastic, is $3K a lot? I don't know. The original reviewer says, "I think that much of the thoughtful and unique design elements might warrant the cost: it’s fairly lightweight + easy to install/remove the stowed tent from the truck, stays out of the way (unless you want to transport multiple bikes in the bed), doesn’t reduce range due to decreased aerodynamics, and has intuitive pieces that make setup + takedown a breeze." Of course this was omitted from Elektrek's copy/paste of the original review.
But I don't think the discussion is really about the appropriate cost for the Basecamp, which is what I'm really interested in. I'm reading a lot more emotion in this comment section than seems warranted for a tent.
> But people keep replying with factually inaccurate information and that's frustrating.
What did I say that's factually inaccurate?
> I'm reading a lot more emotion in this comment section than seems warranted for a tent.
I'm sorry, what? I simply stated how much an elevated platform costs and you are reading a lot of emotion into that?
Look at how much you just wrote that could have been summed up as
> Do I personally think it's worth $2,975? No.
Ok, so then why are you spending so much time and effort trying to sell this and justify the price tag?
I agree, the market is irrational and the ultimate proof of this product's worth is if people will buy it. That, however, isn't a question you are I can answer at this time. The best we can do is come up with our best equivalent examples and subjective opinions "is this worth it". Which you and I both agree "no".
> But I don't think the discussion is really about the appropriate cost for the Basecamp, which is what I'm really interested in.
Does not seem like you care much about cost. Instead, I see a bunch of accusations in your response about the motives of people responding to you.
Apologies for the misunderstanding, I thought I was clear but apparently not. Most of my comment was a reaction to the overall comment thread and not to you specifically.
> "people keep replying with factually inaccurate information"
If I was referring to you, I would have said so and quoted you directly.
> "this comment section"
Again, that's significantly broader than "your comment" - the comment section to this article looks a lot more like a Reddit thread than an HN thread, and that's not a compliment. Nor is it a direct commentary on your post.
I'm not trying to "sell this and justify the price tag." I'm really trying to understand the pricing dynamics and whether -- outside of emotion -- if reactions to the price are really justified.
Let me make a tech example. Someone says "I just got quoted $1m for an Oracle DB, is that fair?" and everyone replies, "that's BS, Postgres is free!"
That's not a nuanced discussion and may not be helpful. So if you really want to understand, you have to "push back" and ask questions. "What do other closed-source vendors charge, to get a direct comparison?" "Is Postgres really functionally equivalent?" "You define equivalency this way, but Oracle says it has these other differentiators. So are they really equivalent?" etc.
So when you compared it to a "bed tent" and I saw what looked like a fundamental difference between this and a bed tent, I pushed back. And my comment about 1st party costs goes back to my original question's premise, which is: is "rip off" justified in the context of 1st party aftermarket products like this?
Your comment wasn't necessarily emotionally charged (and again, I never said it was, I was talking about the dumpster fire of Elon hate the entire comment section turned into), but it didn't really answer the question in the context I was looking for either. Comparing the cost of a component off of Amazon to a custom fully-integrated product from the manufacturer shortly after product launch really doesn't seem like apples-to-apples.
No need to reply to this. I'm not looking for an argument, just trying to better explain the discussion I was looking for. I've already mostly satisfied my curiosity through various searches and a bit of further education.
I do remain a bit frustrated though that the OP didn't link the far better original source review instead of blogspam. I think it might have been a much better discussion. That's not frustration out of some loyalty to Tesla, it's because HN has some of the highest signal:noise ratios of the forums I read, and it's disappointing when it's manipulated into an emotional response. To be clear, that's in no way your fault and also not a reflection on your comment - just me explaining my "response about the motives of people responding to you."
As someone in the market for a truck tent/camper, the $3k options typically provide (1) a hard shell case (2) quick, easy setup and tear down - packing into the hard shell easily (3) are able to remain mounted during travel.
This looks like a tent that you have to entirely pull off to travel.
‘[...] 6 brackets that attach to the vault’s side rails and have specific spacing [...] and aligning the two T25 bolts that secure Basecamp’s frame to the truck. [...] Once you remove those two T25 bolts, you can take the zipped up Basecamp with frame out of the truck and store it at home. This is welcome news because it definitely cuts into the length of your bed/vault (a bit more than 1/3 closest to the cab of the truck) [...]’
According to the far better original review (found here [1]), this appears to have (1) a soft shell case; (2) easy setup (inflatable no-pole upper, hard bottom frame, fold-out design), but fussy tear down; and (3) can remain mounted during travel[2]
There’s a lot prepper chic overpriced identity accessories flying off the shelves and on to urban assault vehicles. It’s just like Barbie toys for jabronis.
I'm certainly the least edgy person in the world. If you were a calm cool nerd, you'd just think less of me and move on. But something made you stop to defend a random stereotype. I can only assume you are one of the people I referred to, or you feel a need to defend them for some strange reason? It's not like they are an oppressed minority if they can afford $100,000 in offroad theater.
Reminds me of the tent that came in the Pontiac Aztek's Camping Package. It ran $195 (~$340 in 2024) and came with a similar tent that fit on the back plus an air mattress.[^1]
Does anyone else see the cringe in all this? The Cyberturck as an exploration vehicle, the tent thing, etc. It's no different than someone driving a Jeep around with huge mudders that never leaves a paved road. My impression of the whole cybertruck thing is for people who wanted to pretend to be pickup guys or cool, sort of like a 72 year old Corvette owner who can finally afford the car he never had as an 18 year old.
I would have more respect for the guy in a 2007 Toyota Camry pulling a popup trailer. Such a waste of time building this junk when he could have made a commuter car for the masses.
Not “ageist,” just fact. I have never seen a young man driving a ‘70s Stingray or similar classic. Only old men going through their second midlife crisis. Good for them — I chose motorcycles when I got old and had the money for BMWs I couldn’t afford decades before.
Elon, at some point in the past, would have been embarrassed to sell this product at this price. That it shipped feels indicative of how bent he’s gotten.
Or he was just lying all along in order to get the SV elite behind him, get the mighty tech dollars for cheap, raise to lofty valuations based on hype ('Mars', 'Hyperloop', 'Tunnels') and broken promises ('FSD next year') and become a multi billionaire.
Now that he has achieved ridiculous richness he is showing his real face more openly.
The reusable rockets are real. The cool EVs are real, though Tesla is obviously losing its edge more than SpaceX.
Pure bullshitters don’t do that.
No he didn’t personally build all that stuff, but there is far too much of a trail of success here for the guy to have been a fool. He was at least clearly quite good at selling a vision and knowing who to hire and promote to make it happen. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
I’ve followed him since before he was famous and I remember hearing early interviews of his. I think he was genuinely a genius.
Was.
Today he seems totally fried. I suspect drug abuse is a major factor. I also strongly suspect he’s bipolar, and that can worsen with age especially if you are not rigorous about treating it and taking care of yourself.
I think people want to recon him into a fool because the fall is actually pretty damn depressing. It’s easier to say he was always like this than to realize that drugs and social media (hard to say which was worse) took a great mind.
I think he aged out of optimism, and now feels a sense of social responsibility appropriate for his age, and is applying the same tactics he used to become so successful in rocketry and automotion.
I mean, unless you're one of the 75 million people who died in the massacres, the concentration camps, the firebombing, the disease, the starvation. Maybe we could find a way to have a great era without that, they might suggest.
Being bombed to death, losing tens of millions in death camps and trench warfare, and then being divided in half between the USA and Russia for 70 years? Really?
In Silicon Valley there's lots of ways to get money to smart people. And for Tesla, he wasn't even a founder, he just kind of took over.
With every success there's some amount of luck, and some amount of accrued power, and some amount of grit and novel creation. It's increasingly looking like the less that Musk has his hands on things, the better "his" companies do. He may have lots of leftover power from his early luck, but others need to rein him in for any sort of success to happen. Now that his ego is too big, we get whatever has been happening for the past few years.
> In Silicon Valley there's lots of ways to get money to smart people.
The site we're on is a testament to that. Even if Elon is just a successful VC investor and not an engineer, why denigrate that? I'm not saying this out of any love for Elon, but to recognize that getting the right people together in the right time and place and funding them is, in and of itself, and accomplishment. eg Al Gore and creating the Internet.
There's a lot of rationalizing going on in this thread.
Musk didn't invent Paypal, he didn't found Tesla, he didn't design a single rocket for SpaceX (he bought a bunch of ship designs from NASA which they then reused). He puts his name on these companies and pretends to be the only thing holding these companies together. He was always like this.
This is a bad argument. "He didn't actually do the work". Well duh. Lots of things are done as a team.
He was on the team at three monumental companies. You seem to believe he just got lucky. But if it happens 3 times, it's not an exception, it's a pattern.
I've "been on the team" at more than a dozen monumental companies.
Doesn't mean I get to take credit for the stuff they've done...
And objectively speaking, the fact that everything Musk micromanages is an abysmal failure is proof that Musk was not behind the rockets, or the EVs. SpaceX was going nowhere until Shotwell took over. Tesla was going nowhere until Musk brought in qualified executives from other carkmakers. Boring's a failure to launch. Neuralink is touting "accomplishments" that were already accomplished decades ago. X is worse now after 1.5 years of Musk ownership.
There is no alternate history timeline where Elon and his army of insecure, raging manchildren didn't suck up all the oxygen in the room so I guess we'll never know how much better things could have been.
His brain didn't do the rocket science or the EV engineering.
He's an investor who knows a bit of science, and is able to inspire people - which translates to money.
Inspiring people is a great skill and it could have been great for everyone to have that central push. But the many years of grifting has been exposed now, so maybe he feels like he's got nothing to loose.
There was pre-Covid Elon, and then there’s this Elon. I imagine this is how Scrooge started if it were set in modern day. Only there’s no ghosts and he just becomes a bitter old man.
Nah, it started before. The comments on the 'pedo guy' who saved a dozen children and refused Elon's 'submarine' idea was what made me realize his ego became a hindrance to himself.
Might be too much drugs (but imho it doesn't track), but in this thread someone said 'not enough sleep' and this would be a much better explanation. Or he is in a long burnout for a decade, and no one told him to calm down.
Elon always had a smarter-than-thou attitude, it's just that when he was only using it to sell cool sci-fi projects, it didn't stick out as much. But when he started branching out into other projects, where his lack of knowledge was more apparent to most people, it became increasingly clear just how petulant he was when he found it he wasn't the smartest person in the room.
For me, not that I ever gave much thought to Elon since space wasn't really my thing, it was the idiocy of the Loop proposal that turned me off of him. For other people, it might have been hyperloop, or it might have been the rejection of his submarine idea (see sibling comment for more details there). If you didn't notice it until after he was chafing at all the covid restrictions, you weren't paying enough attention.
It's fairly well known that Elon has been using ketamine for years. And probably quite a few other things. There've been reports from insiders about having to dry him out for important meetings.
The problem with being an intelligent drug (ab)user is that some things about drugs are only learned through irreversible experience. At least in my irreversible experience.
I would bet it's more he cares way less about tesla now that the hard stuff is done and the huge factories are designed and spitting out vehicles. He's moved on to spacex and that brain implant place, where there's still plenty of really hard engineering going on. I don't think it's fair to say any era of Elon would be ashamed of taking money from people either. he's always like money and has had no problem shipping crap as the v1 of something, to be improved later.
most importantly, self driving is not done and in Elons own words its what makes the company worth billions or next to nothing. Just because Elon says hes an engineer doesnt mean its true.
I'd agree with this take. Elon through 3/Y was relative market/product aligned. Cybertruck, FSD failures, and yoke/no-stalks are perversions of the "thinking freely" product patterns he had before.
Depends on what part of the world, sometimes it's good to get clear of the ground, snakes, scorpions, frost in the ground, etc.
With a fully enclosed tent, as many are these days, the point about creepy crawlis is moot - but if you're comparing against a sleeping bag, ground sheet + fly sheet it's nice to get elevation.
I don't know, it just feels appropriate for people buying Cybertruck. Maybe Musk can sponsor a TV show Truck Dynasty about adventure of a family with their Cybertruck.
A (truck bed) tent like this on a regular truck costs about $200 to $300.
Spending as much as $3,000 for a regular truck would get you a fully fiberglass or aluminum camper shell or a collapsible roof-top tent (sits entirely above your truck) with hard shell pieces.
Depending on the material used for the rigid 90 lbs bottom base mentioned in the article, it probably cost more than $300 if it were priced correctly. Maybe $500 - $1000.
119 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 158 ms ] thread1. https://archive.ph/x3WTo
2. https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/rust-spot...
I think the second pic is the outer layer, while the first pic is the underlying layers?
The outer layer is for rain/downpours. The underlying layer often has windows and lots of airflow for non-wet time.
Anyhow, that is how my camping tent works. E.g. https://novaprosports.com.au/blogs/news/why-do-tents-have-tw...
That a first-party product on a high-end vehicle with a tiny market share costs around the same as aftermarket products for the most popular truck on the market makes the price seem less ridiculous than headlines make it appear.
However, I'm not deeply enmeshed in truck culture. I'm sure many folks can weigh in with (hopefully) nuanced takes on the price/value equation.
However, from what I've seen "bed tents" have you sleeping on the bed. This product has a raised frame that performs similarly to a roof tent (given the CT's angled design); allowing you to store equipment in the bed when the tent is up or down. See image here: https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2024/03/IMG_6...
The only reason this is compared to a roof tent is because that's the most expensive vehicle tent on the market.
However, at the end of the day we are talking about an aluminum frame and some uninsulated canvas.
A quick Google shows you can get an "elevated to roof level" rack for $1400. So this is a $1600 tent?
No matter how you slice this, it's a rip off.
Do I personally think it's worth $2,975? No. But I'm not in the market for one.
Honestly almost everything in the automotive aftermarket seems like a rip off to me, so it's hard to be objective. Your example of $1,400 for an "elevated to roof level" rack sounds like a rip off. Yeah, if 8 pieces of welded aluminum cost $1,400 then maybe $1,600 for custom-sized low volume tent is about right. Ford sells folding tonneau covers for $1,100. A tow hitch for a Lexus GX is $330. This is all extortionate. But millions in this market continue to pay the costs and find the value is worth it.
Can you find something cheaper on Amazon? Of course. But in the first-party world of $300 tow hitches and $1,100 pieces of hinged plastic, is $3K a lot? I don't know. The original reviewer says, "I think that much of the thoughtful and unique design elements might warrant the cost: it’s fairly lightweight + easy to install/remove the stowed tent from the truck, stays out of the way (unless you want to transport multiple bikes in the bed), doesn’t reduce range due to decreased aerodynamics, and has intuitive pieces that make setup + takedown a breeze." Of course this was omitted from Elektrek's copy/paste of the original review.
But I don't think the discussion is really about the appropriate cost for the Basecamp, which is what I'm really interested in. I'm reading a lot more emotion in this comment section than seems warranted for a tent.
What did I say that's factually inaccurate?
> I'm reading a lot more emotion in this comment section than seems warranted for a tent.
I'm sorry, what? I simply stated how much an elevated platform costs and you are reading a lot of emotion into that?
Look at how much you just wrote that could have been summed up as
> Do I personally think it's worth $2,975? No.
Ok, so then why are you spending so much time and effort trying to sell this and justify the price tag?
I agree, the market is irrational and the ultimate proof of this product's worth is if people will buy it. That, however, isn't a question you are I can answer at this time. The best we can do is come up with our best equivalent examples and subjective opinions "is this worth it". Which you and I both agree "no".
> But I don't think the discussion is really about the appropriate cost for the Basecamp, which is what I'm really interested in.
Does not seem like you care much about cost. Instead, I see a bunch of accusations in your response about the motives of people responding to you.
Perhaps some self reflection is in order.
> "people keep replying with factually inaccurate information"
If I was referring to you, I would have said so and quoted you directly.
> "this comment section"
Again, that's significantly broader than "your comment" - the comment section to this article looks a lot more like a Reddit thread than an HN thread, and that's not a compliment. Nor is it a direct commentary on your post.
I'm not trying to "sell this and justify the price tag." I'm really trying to understand the pricing dynamics and whether -- outside of emotion -- if reactions to the price are really justified.
Let me make a tech example. Someone says "I just got quoted $1m for an Oracle DB, is that fair?" and everyone replies, "that's BS, Postgres is free!"
That's not a nuanced discussion and may not be helpful. So if you really want to understand, you have to "push back" and ask questions. "What do other closed-source vendors charge, to get a direct comparison?" "Is Postgres really functionally equivalent?" "You define equivalency this way, but Oracle says it has these other differentiators. So are they really equivalent?" etc.
So when you compared it to a "bed tent" and I saw what looked like a fundamental difference between this and a bed tent, I pushed back. And my comment about 1st party costs goes back to my original question's premise, which is: is "rip off" justified in the context of 1st party aftermarket products like this?
Your comment wasn't necessarily emotionally charged (and again, I never said it was, I was talking about the dumpster fire of Elon hate the entire comment section turned into), but it didn't really answer the question in the context I was looking for either. Comparing the cost of a component off of Amazon to a custom fully-integrated product from the manufacturer shortly after product launch really doesn't seem like apples-to-apples.
No need to reply to this. I'm not looking for an argument, just trying to better explain the discussion I was looking for. I've already mostly satisfied my curiosity through various searches and a bit of further education.
I do remain a bit frustrated though that the OP didn't link the far better original source review instead of blogspam. I think it might have been a much better discussion. That's not frustration out of some loyalty to Tesla, it's because HN has some of the highest signal:noise ratios of the forums I read, and it's disappointing when it's manipulated into an emotional response. To be clear, that's in no way your fault and also not a reflection on your comment - just me explaining my "response about the motives of people responding to you."
"how it was sold" is becoming a Musk signature bullshit refrain.
anyone taking his sales pitches as anything other than hype and confabulation is willingly drinking capitalist koolaid
This looks like a tent that you have to entirely pull off to travel.
[1] https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/basecamp-... [2] https://digitalassets-shop.tesla.com/image/upload/f_auto,q_a...
Different strokes...
I'm the biggest computer nerd out there, but I'm glad others have hobbies not like mine.
The CEO camped out in one https://www.motor1.com/news/673573/porsche-ceo-camped-roof-t...
[1]: https://www.caranddriver.com/reviews/a15139389/pontiac-aztek...
I would have more respect for the guy in a 2007 Toyota Camry pulling a popup trailer. Such a waste of time building this junk when he could have made a commuter car for the masses.
Just saying....
Older guy in a brand new Vette or posing on a Harley is a different story. They ruined the brands....
I also chose a bmw motorcycle.
Easily one of the best on road | off road choices available, clearly better than a cybertruck for a desert crossing.
But absolutely no one leaves bed-style tents in their bed to look cool.
Now that he has achieved ridiculous richness he is showing his real face more openly.
Pure bullshitters don’t do that.
No he didn’t personally build all that stuff, but there is far too much of a trail of success here for the guy to have been a fool. He was at least clearly quite good at selling a vision and knowing who to hire and promote to make it happen. That’s not as easy as it sounds.
I’ve followed him since before he was famous and I remember hearing early interviews of his. I think he was genuinely a genius.
Was.
Today he seems totally fried. I suspect drug abuse is a major factor. I also strongly suspect he’s bipolar, and that can worsen with age especially if you are not rigorous about treating it and taking care of yourself.
I think people want to recon him into a fool because the fall is actually pretty damn depressing. It’s easier to say he was always like this than to realize that drugs and social media (hard to say which was worse) took a great mind.
With every success there's some amount of luck, and some amount of accrued power, and some amount of grit and novel creation. It's increasingly looking like the less that Musk has his hands on things, the better "his" companies do. He may have lots of leftover power from his early luck, but others need to rein him in for any sort of success to happen. Now that his ego is too big, we get whatever has been happening for the past few years.
The site we're on is a testament to that. Even if Elon is just a successful VC investor and not an engineer, why denigrate that? I'm not saying this out of any love for Elon, but to recognize that getting the right people together in the right time and place and funding them is, in and of itself, and accomplishment. eg Al Gore and creating the Internet.
Musk didn't invent Paypal, he didn't found Tesla, he didn't design a single rocket for SpaceX (he bought a bunch of ship designs from NASA which they then reused). He puts his name on these companies and pretends to be the only thing holding these companies together. He was always like this.
He was on the team at three monumental companies. You seem to believe he just got lucky. But if it happens 3 times, it's not an exception, it's a pattern.
Doesn't mean I get to take credit for the stuff they've done...
And objectively speaking, the fact that everything Musk micromanages is an abysmal failure is proof that Musk was not behind the rockets, or the EVs. SpaceX was going nowhere until Shotwell took over. Tesla was going nowhere until Musk brought in qualified executives from other carkmakers. Boring's a failure to launch. Neuralink is touting "accomplishments" that were already accomplished decades ago. X is worse now after 1.5 years of Musk ownership.
If you were very early to the team, you get to claim a larger fraction of credit as well
He's an investor who knows a bit of science, and is able to inspire people - which translates to money.
Inspiring people is a great skill and it could have been great for everyone to have that central push. But the many years of grifting has been exposed now, so maybe he feels like he's got nothing to loose.
Might be too much drugs (but imho it doesn't track), but in this thread someone said 'not enough sleep' and this would be a much better explanation. Or he is in a long burnout for a decade, and no one told him to calm down.
For me, not that I ever gave much thought to Elon since space wasn't really my thing, it was the idiocy of the Loop proposal that turned me off of him. For other people, it might have been hyperloop, or it might have been the rejection of his submarine idea (see sibling comment for more details there). If you didn't notice it until after he was chafing at all the covid restrictions, you weren't paying enough attention.
At least, didn't start that way.
He just wasn't sleeping, and I think dominos may have kept falling.
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2024-01-08/elon-musks...
Might as well just have a tent separately...
With a fully enclosed tent, as many are these days, the point about creepy crawlis is moot - but if you're comparing against a sleeping bag, ground sheet + fly sheet it's nice to get elevation.
This production release though doesn't seem like a good idea in those places. :(
Oh for fuck's sake
Spending as much as $3,000 for a regular truck would get you a fully fiberglass or aluminum camper shell or a collapsible roof-top tent (sits entirely above your truck) with hard shell pieces.
https://www.suncoastparts.com/product/skutent.html