Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable

[KarenRei]

Elon has always been a slightly clunky presenter, that's part of his charm. But devoting almost the entire presentation to your vehicle being smash proof (here's a video of bullets, here's a guy on a ladder dropping a metal ball) and then casually smashing both windows without much effort is just bizarre.

Why not focus on the utility that this vehicle gives workers? Show a bunch of guys building a movie set and powering a bunch of tools off it. Show it nailing an off road dirt track. Show it driving through a stream. And as I said, show a few of them dragging a Falcon 9 first stage. All of this could have been done with Elon being his attractively awkward self. It was just poorly executed, which is a crying shame for all those that worked so hard on the vehicle.

It's a shame because up to that point I thought he'd been executing really well. There was a great vibe and he had great excitement and energy. After that it felt sort of rote, in a "the show must go on" sort of way. I get the impression that they very much had been practicing throwing steel balls at the truck and had never seen what happened, and were rather in shock that the glass actually broke. Hope Elon tweets about it as soon as they figure out WTH went wrong.

But as mentioned above, I really wish they'd gotten into the logic behind the truck rather than leaving the audience think that the unusual aesthetics were purely some sort of style choice.

 

[KarenRei]

BTW, I've "been there". I was once demoing a software product from a company that I ran (which had a web interface), and in the middle of the presentation I got a Google Chrome "Aww, snap! Something went wrong with the page you're displaying". Twice in a row. :Þ Leaves a really great impression, that...

But, you just trudge on. What else can you do?

 

[floydboy]

Attitudes will morph once people hear about the truck's moon or Mars roving capabilities as it gets closer to production.

 

[Artful Dodger]

Anyone figure out the folds to make a paper origami Cybertruck yet? TIA.

Cheers!

 

[Singer3000]

I am pretty sure the vast majority of current Truck owners will not consider the Cybrtrk.

Most people are normal and want a normal vehicle.

So Tesla vacated that market and left it to Rivian, Ford, and GM.

Of course the danger to them is that with implied Tesla powertrain cost they can come back in two years with a conservative design at much lower price.

But today is not that day.

And Rivian isn't looking to compete with $24k Detroit work truck specials to fleets that buy in the dozens either.

As Pixar had Newt, Tesla has Cybrtrk. I doubt this product will make it to production.

 

[Frank Einstein]

I’m not too keen on the look of the truck - but that’s ok, looks are subjective and I’m not the intended demographic (my only vehicle is a bicycle). I was never going to buy it anyway.

I think it’ll do very well and I have no doubt it’s a marvel of engineering. People will focus more on what it can do for them at which price. The clunky presentation will soon be forgotten and the broken window, which makes Elon look more human if anything, will be a joke for a while but irrelevant to sales. The Model Y launch had issues as well, but I don’t think anyone is saying it’ll affect sales of the Y.

I must confess that as a cyclist and pedestrian I do worry about being hit by one of these things. But I guess that’s what FSD is for.

 

[SteveG3]

I am pretty sure the vast majority of current Truck owners will not consider the Cybrtrk.

Most people are normal and want a normal vehicle.

So Tesla vacated that market and left it to Rivian, Ford, and GM.

Of course the danger to them is that with implied Tesla powertrain cost they can come back in two years with a conservative design at much lower price.

But today is not that day.

And Rivian isn't looking to compete with $24k Detroit work truck specials to fleets that buy in the dozens either.

the first minute or so I saw Tesla's truck, I'd of somewhat agreed with you, which is really something given the $30k savings with the Tesla... but, the aesthetics of Tesla's truck have grown on me to an extent I would not have believed was possible over just a matter of hours. I was just looking at the MT article on the cybrtrk, and, after seeing the cybrtrk repeatedly from many angles, I genuinely found uncomfortable the look of the incumbent “normal” cars and trucks as they popped up in little ads on the page. true story.

from what I've been reading here and elsewhere, this very rapid "growing on me" phenomena is quite common... imagine what 2 years will do.

no worries if you it hasn't grown on you an iota, and you are convinced that I'm in a minuscule minority susceptible to such not "normal" changes of perspective.

ps having lived a few decades, I find it "normal" that many cars, products, clothes, hairstyles, etc., that once looked "normal" to me (and made earlier products from before my time look dated and silly to me) now look dated and clumsy to me. some turned out to be classic, and still look great... but, not most.

 

[Singuy]

I’m not too keen on the look of the truck - but that’s ok, looks are subjective and I’m not the intended demographic (my only vehicle is a bicycle). I was never going to buy it anyway.

I think it’ll do very well and I have no doubt it’s a marvel of engineering. People will focus more on what it can do for them at which price. The clunky presentation will soon be forgotten and the broken window, which makes Elon look more human if anything, will be a joke for a while but irrelevant to sales. The Model Y launch had issues as well, but I don’t think anyone is saying it’ll affect sales of the Y.

I must confess that as a cyclist and pedestrian I do worry about being hit by one of these things. But I guess that’s what FSD is for.

As oppose to being hit by other cars?

 

[electracity]

Attitudes will morph once people hear about the truck's moon or Mars roving capabilities as it gets closer to production.

Why does a Mars truck need a design dominated by aerodynamics?

 

[floydboy]

Attitudes will morph once people hear about the truck's moon or Mars roving capabilities as it gets closer to production.

Plus it'll already have the 'Future as viewed from the 80s' look to match Starship.

 

[Thekiwi]

As Pixar had Newt, Tesla has Cybrtrk. I doubt this product will make it to production.

What are you talking about? They are already taking orders, and there has already been detailed information supplied to motortrend by Tesla indicating that it is an extremely economical design to produce, why on earth wouldn’t it reach production??

 

[cricketman]

from what I've been reading here and elsewhere, this very rapid "growing on me" phenomena is quite common... imagine what 2 years will do.

Yes I agree. My first impression during the presentation was revulsion, which later turned to confusion. Now after the reading all the articles and looking through the photos, I really like it!

I am sceptical whether middle America will buy it which I guess is the big Q

 

[Frank Einstein]

As oppose to being hit by other cars?

I’d rather not get hit by any car, obviously. But a pedestrian is more likely to survive if a car hits them in the legs (low bonnet) than being hit much higher up.

 

[RobStark]

the first minute or so I saw Tesla's truck, I'd of somewhat agreed with you, which is really something given the $30k savings with the Tesla... but, the aesthetics of Tesla's truck has grown on me to an extent I would not have believed was possible over just a matter of hours. I was just looking at the MT article on the cybrtrk, and, I genuinely found uncomfortable the look of the cars and trucks as they popped up in little ads on the page. true story.

from what I've been reading here and elsewhere, this very rapid "growing on me" phenomena is quite common... imagine what 2 years will do.

no worries if you it hasn't grown on you an iota, and you are convinced that I'm in a minuscule minority susceptible to such not "normal" changes of perspective.

To the progressive minded yes.

To the conservative minded no.

Perhaps, the 15 year old in rural Kentucky will dream of owning a cybrtrk someday .

But not his 35 year old Daddy nor his 55 year old Pappy.

But unlike Detroit that sells a miniscule percentage of their full size trucks outside North America perhaps Tesla will cell a significant number of cybrtrucks in China,Scandinavia, Russia, and Australia.

 

[saniflash]

last visited this thread a couple of days ago when the page count was in the high 5,100s so quoting something here which might already be consensus since long:

As a truck guy who has owned a lot of trucks and currently owns a 2017 Ram 2500 CTD 4x4 and a Land Rover Defender 110, I'm telling you right now: this is going to kill it. This is the suburban status item of 2022.

I want to buy this right now. This has nearly the towing capacity of my Ram and will smoke my wife's Audi on the track.

Tesla Cybertruck | Hacker News

 

[Singer3000]

What are you talking about? They are already taking orders, and there has already been detailed information supplied to motortrend by Tesla indicating that it is an extremely economical design to produce, why on earth wouldn’t it reach production??

Because to produce it profitability it needs to be at scale. And I doubt they can sell this at the scale required. They'll rejig this further down the line to be less weird (formica dashboard??) and it will sell just fine.

 

[floydboy]

Why does a Mars truck need a design dominated by aerodynamics?

There's NO requirement for keeping body style. Obviously one can modify what's on top of the chassis.

 

[saniflash]

it does not matter how it looks this is pure marketing genius

 

[Fact Checking]

New article at Motor Trend about how Tesla is going to able to achieve a $39,990 entry price with the Cybertruck - via a manufacturing revolution:

How Tesla's Cybertruck Turns Car Engineering Norms Upside-Down - Motor Trend

"The plusses for a folded stainless steel, origami truck are compelling: no paint shop and no expensive tooling. No Godzilla-scale stamping machines stomping it with multiple strikes. Without all that, the capital and environmental costs of using stainless steel body panels are small. And big attractions for a company that's sensitive to both types of green—cash and environmentalism. Just groove the steel where it's supposed to fold (avoiding cracks) and bend it on simple, cheap machines (like I was actually doing last week with my garage vise!)"

"Brilliant … but prickly with trade-offs. Unlike the strength-to-weight efficiency of compound curves (feathery eggshells are the epitome), the flat-ish planes between the Cybertruck's simple bends require greater thickness to resist buckling compression loads or wrinkling oil-canning. Adding weight."

"To counter this? Ditch the heavy, traditional, body-on-frame, and rethink the structure as weight-efficient trussed bridge in its simplest load-spreading configuration: a triangle set on its hypotenuse. One side is the Cybertruck's wedgy cab, the other, its tapered, sail-sided bed, their meeting point at the truck's tall peak resulting in a huge cross-sectional area for maximum stiffness."
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[SteveG3]

Yes I agree. My first impression during the presentation was revulsion, which later turned to confusion. Now after the reading all the articles and looking through the photos, I really like it!

I am sceptical whether middle America will buy it which I guess is the big Q

I get that re the existing truck buyers, but,

I think Tesla is creating a category of its own to a considerable extent:

-A family vehicle with seating for 6 and 100 cubic feet of storage space, is a source of 120 or 240V power if needed, and $1-1.5k less cost per year to fuel... I think it could come after a lot of the traditional suburban/family SUV market...

-then there's the bullet proof, pretty much indestructible body/porsche torching "bad a" appeal, among other places I think this vehicle creates a new market