e
Elon Musk Explains the Manufacturing Reason Why the Cybertruck is All Flat Planes
...but I still don't think the designers got it right
All jokes aside, the Tesla Cybertruck has racked up roughly 187,000 orders since its launch last week. (Truth be told, my wife and I are discussing whether we'll add ourselves to the order list, but I'll get into that in another entry.) And now a design detail that we'd have preferred to hear during the launch presentation has come to light. From Musk himself:
That freaking explains a lot, and I wish Musk had stated that up front! It may not matter to consumers, but I have to think the average designer will evaluate an object differently when they learn that its aesthetics are partially a result of its manufacturing process. As initially presented, the all-flat-planes Cybertruck appeared to be the product of whimsy and/or a desire to shock.
However, Musk's explanation does not mean that I think the designers got the Cybertruck right. It doesn't look finished to me. A talented designer can do a lot with straight lines, and I think that having the roof come to a pointy peak is an aesthetic mistake, although I realize that's subjective. To have the rear roofline simply be an angled straight line from that peak to the top of the tailgate doesn't look daring to me, it looks lazy.
And anti-functional. Earlier versions of the Honda Ridgeline and the now-defunct Chevy Avalanche featured really dumb obstructions on the sides of the bed, which prevented users from loading or unloading things from the side. To a non-truck-user, that may not sound like a big deal. But it's a huge deal, if you're using the truck for actual work. And that's independent of the setting.
Earlier-generation Honda Ridgeline
Discontinued Chevy Avalanche
In an urban environment, tight parallel parking spaces mean you may only be able to access the bed from the sidewalk. In a more natural environment like our farm, the location of sheds relative to trees, natural features or angle changes in terrain, again means that you cannot always neatly back up to wherever you're attempting to load and unload from. Being able to climb up into the bed and easily hand or toss things over the side reduces labor.
I'd be shocked if I learned that Tesla conducted in-person interviews with real truck owners, like we see General Motors doing, and if those truck owners all clamored to have obstructive, angled sidewalls. Which tells me one of two things may be true:
1) The Cybertruck is not designed for existing truck owners who use their trucks for actual work. Or,
2) The designers don't give a damn if their aesthetic preferences reduce functionality and increase hassle.
I can at least forgive the first one, at least in America, where people like big things and feel that buying particular objects, independent of function, makes them special. I hate that instinct, but that instinct is what is currently driving our economy. The baseline comfort of our American existences, relative to parts of the world that live with real daily suffering, is based on our economy and this shitty ideal that we all have to treat with.
The second thing I find less forgivable. Designers are supposed to know better, and to be aware of the power of multiplication. A designer who spends dozens or hundreds of hours on a minor detail that, say, makes a tool easier to use, has created thousands or millions of hours of time for the people who buy that tool.
Designers are capable of creating wealth--not just of money, but of time and joy. Every detail you sweat can create thousands of hours of satisfaction and smiles, or frowns of frustration at mindless tasks that have to be repeated to compensate for poor design.
Tesla's a new company yet, so perhaps I'm demanding too much of the upstart. I'm already in awe of what the disruptive Musk has been able to accomplish in such a short time, so perhaps it's unreasonable for me to hope that designing in a bubble would yield 100% positive results.
And yes, you're probably wondering why my wife and I are considering ordering a Cybertruck. I'll have to get into that in a separate entry, and we'll see if my logic makes any sense or not.
-
o1Favorite This
-
Q19Comment
Directory Company Profiles
Core77
Industrial Design
Resources
Industrial Design
Resources
-
Core77 Directory
Find the Best Industrial Design CompaniesGo -
Copenhagen Institute of Interaction DesignCopenhagen Institute of Interaction Design (CIID) is an international hub of creative minds. We shar...
-
Formation Design Group
Formation is a product design + development company focused on human centered design innovation. To ...
-
A2
A2 is a product development consultancy focused on design strategy, market and user research, indust...
-
PDR
PDR is a major award-winning, multidisciplinary international centre for design and research with a ...
-
Hatch Duo, LLC
Founded by an award-winning team with over 20 years of combined product design experience, Hatch Duo...
-
Datum3D Product Development
Datum3D is a one-stop shop product development company located in the Greater Boston Area. Founded i...
-
Spitfire Industry
WHO WE ARE Spitfire is a design studio headquartered in Brooklyn. Our founder, Isis Shiffer, an awa...
K
{Welcome
Create a Core77 Account
Already have an account? Sign In
By creating a Core77 account you confirm that you accept the Terms of Use
K
Reset Password
Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password.
Comments
Rain, you are spot on on so many levels. Glad you have the balls to speak out on this issue. This thing looks very juvenile, like it was designed by an 8 year old. The basic proportions are very weak as well. There is military hardware out there that uses the same manufacturing process that looks better and is more functional than this thing. For example, not everyone lives in California, in the rest of the world it rains a lot...windshield wipers......, how are those gonna work? go side to side? up and down or traditional?
Elon likes to stir things up and create a media frenzy. I seriously doubt the final release will be the same design as debuted last week. The design wont even meet simple safety standards as-is.
I didn't catch this- Thank you for sharing! I don't know if it's completely effective, but it does show at lease some consideration for accessible storage.
I'm a Toyota truck fan, but recently briefly owned an Avalanche, and now the Cadillac version, the EXT - and I just have to say that it is by far, the most useful truck I've ever used. Locking tool storage on the sides is awesome,
That "defunct" Avalanche had the same bedside compartments as what Ram claims as their own "Rambox". The Avalanche unfortunately suffered from only pretty good execution of really good and innovative ideas: bedside storage, bed tie down system, built-in 3 piece waterproof tonneau cover, fold down "mid-gate" with removable back window (but still heated)...all that and it performed like an off-road capable truck. I have owned 12 trucks in my lifetime and owned an Avalanche from 2004 (after the ugly plastic moldings on the sides were optionally removed) through 2011 and I consider it one of the best functional trucks I've ever owned.
I tried to look up "ultra hard stainless" but get no results other than Tesla. Anyone have a guess to the real grade of this steel?
Seems like using a hard metal might make it prone to cracking if over stressed. Curious to see how this works out.
My guess is that it is a hardened stainless variant. Curious what the gauge is on the material, LOL, they probably don't have that worked out for production yet, possibly to early in the process.
I read somewhere that it is 3mm thick. That seems excessive as it is 3x a normal car's sheet metal. Let's compare:
Ford F-150 is about 2000kg. The body in white (chassis and body without motor, interior and finishings) is probably 540kg or so. X3 sheet metal thickness would be 1500kg. Considering that a Model S is already a little over 2000 kg, that means this beast might weigh in the neighborhood of 3000kg. Then again, one would need more batteries to move that extra 1000 kg, so maybe 3500+ kg is a safer bet. That puts it in the range of the Hummer H1! What a great way to save the planet....
I get that the sheet cannot be stamped at this thickness (3mm), but first, no one need 3mm on all the planes and second, did these guys ever heard about rolling sheets ? It's used in boat making since mid-XIXth century ... with cylindrical AND ellipsoid rolls, so lots of curve shapes can be produced. I'm not buying the "there's no other choice".
I love trucks. I've driven one since I started driving a long time ago. I like cool trucks. But my response to the cybertruck is first ??????? and then ha ha ha ha ha then "that's not a truck".
In the past when we were looking at the first electric or hydrogen cars, they were futuristic looking concept cars to make you salivate. When they were finally released, most of the finals looked way more worldly, plain boring and stripped off most exciting features.
Is there any way the Cybertruck wasn't inspired by 2016's Low Res Car from United Nudes? Which is itself a low poly version of the wedgy and flat paneled Lamborghini Countach of 1974? Anyway, I am reserving final judgment until I see the production version on the road, but I am among the many people NOT clamoring for an even larger American pickup truck. I was hoping pickup trucks were done growing.
Seems pretty obvious to me that the side panels over the bed are reinforcements; it has to be pretty problematic to have an inward right angle right at the point where the forces on the chassis are highest.
" but I have to think the average designer will evaluate an object differently when they learn that its aesthetics are partially a result of its manufacturing process. "
I would say that the average designer is aware that a world-class design team would have a reason behind their decisions, and that "stupidity" or "lazyness" rarely explains anything. It's a shame you needed a tweet to re-evaluate and think clearly.
This reminds me of a tangential gripe that I have. Ford's Transit Connect is a nearly perfect mini van, it gets decent gas mileage and because the seats stow flat, I can almost load it up like a truck, save for loading it up with a dump of manure. The main drawback though is that the interior is about 3" shy of 4' across which makes it really hard to cram in 4'x8' sheet products. It would have been really easy to design the interior paneling so the user can transport three or four panels of plywood in the space above the driver's head (there is a lot of clearance between the roof and driver). I can't be the only minivan owner with that does this on a semi regular basis. That would have been really cool. I guess I could make those alterations myself...
I was thinking this might be a metric thing, but sheets are 122cm wide in France (about 4'). Strange!
Oh yea! The Transit Connect bodies are manufactured in Turkey, but I doubt they would accept 122cm sheets, either.