No matter what you think about Elon Musk, there’s no denying that he’s willing to take risks. He takes a break from his job at an online payment platform (PayPal), blows up a rocket worth millions of dollars in an attempt to colonize Mars, and buys his social media platform to thwart it. Developed his truck an expensive and edgy retro-futuristic pickup. It doesn’t seem to be working very well.
But when it comes to the Tesla Cybertruck, it appears they may have taken too much of a risk. From a logo that looks like a ’90s video game to serious safety issues, Tesla may be paying the price for acting on obvious design whims. Despite being delayed for years, the Cybertruck looks like a rush job. Musk claims it doesn’t matter that Tesla fails to sell cars, Tesla will just pivot to cloud storage or something, but we have a long story about the failure of the Cybertruck design. Summarize the story. For more wholesome automotive design inspiration, check out our selection of the best car logos.
01. Cybertruck overall concept
Perhaps the concept of the Cybertruck itself was a bad start to things. According to an anecdote about the design process shared by Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson, Musk was keen on creating edgy designs that looked futuristic, drawing inspiration from retro sci-fi movies. This suggests that aesthetics were always more important than function.
One image shows an early sketch of the Cybertruck, the famous DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future, James Bond’s underwater Lotus from The Spy Who Loved Me, and RoboCop. In the photo, Musk is seen standing in front of an inspiration board that includes scenes from the movie.
As for the early sketches, many of them look tame compared to the Cybertruck’s final design. We often see designers start with a wild idea and tone it down for the final product, but Musk seems to have gone the other way with the Cybertruck. If the original sketch was angular, Musk dialed it up to 11 to create the final triangular roof design.
The insistence on building the Cybertruck out of stainless steel meant straight lines and sharp angles, forcing the design team to explore more uncomfortable ideas. As a result, his electric pickup truck looks like early low-poly 3D art.many were Quick to scoff. “The future looks the way it does because some creative people created designs that seemed like a departure from their time, and other ambitious people who grew up thinking that was the future. Creative people built that future, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Nish with X. Even Lego got a Michael.
02. Cybertruck Logo and Branding
Oddly for such a successful businessman, Musk doesn’t seem to spend much time or energy on branding. Although he says he loves logo design, his company’s logos often tend to look like they were dreamed up in a hurry. He rebranded his Twitter overnight and crowdsourced a generic ready-made logo for X, but the Tesla logo looks like his IUD.
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Mr. Musk tends to follow his personal whims, preferring edgy designs, or rather the jaded, wealthy, middle-aged man’s idea of what edgy looks like. . The Cybertruck name itself was an embarrassing throwback to the 1990s, where adding “cyber” to the beginning of something instantly gave it high-tech cool. His patented Cybrtrk logo looked like a 90’s video game concept, but it’s downfall (the designer’s Republic has nothing to fear) and in terms of legibility he May conflict with Kia logo.
Tesla settled on an even harder-to-read design that looked like it had been scribbled by an elementary school student practicing designing a logo for a hypothetical death metal band that hadn’t yet formed. A logo might seem like a minor element if the car itself had a lot of issues, but the Cybertruck’s branding further reduces the car’s potential appeal and makes it difficult for many people to own it. It can make things embarrassing and ensure small problems. The target audience of techies who bought this would be laughed at.
03. Tesla breaks Cybertruck’s unbreakable window
A classic example of the Cybertruck’s disaster-prone development occurred at the launch event, where Elon Musk encouraged von Holzhausen to throw a metal ball at the car’s window to prove it was unbreakable. they broke. Twice. Some have suggested that the window may have been broken because it was not closed completely. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t a great sales pitch and I started to wonder how durable the Cybertruck would actually be.
04. Mess up the basics
Tesla began taking orders for the Cybertruck in November 2019, with the aim of reaching production in 2021. After pushing back the release date several times and raising the price by half along the way, the cheapest model finally began deliveries in November 2023. 60,000 dollars. A leaked internal presentation as of January 2022 revealed issues with brakes, handling, noise and leaks, hinting at some of the reasons for the delay.
Engineers struggled to protect the truck from water (which is an issue with standard Teslas) and noise, identifying 21 potential noise leaks. As for the brakes, the report points to excessive pedal travel, inconsistent power brake assist, and excessive pitch. Meanwhile, the truck’s handling suffered from “excessive mid-speed abruptness and chop” and “structural sway.”
One automotive engineer, speaking anonymously to Wired, said these flaws are “classic mechanical automotive engineering challenges that exist in almost every vehicle.” I’m surprised they have so much trouble with the basics. ” Tesla also didn’t seem to have thought ahead of time about its potential launch in other markets, with commentators saying the Cybertruck’s design would not be road legal in the European Union due to the lack of a crushable zone for pedestrians. He points out that it will not be accepted.
05. Cybertruck’s confusing brake lights
The back of the Cybertruck has been likened to everything from a trash can to a VHS tape winder to a refrigerator. One person wrote, “After 50 years of drawing science fiction illustrations of futuristic vehicles, is this what we’ve gotten? Pathetic.” X. But the Cybertruck’s rear contains design decisions that are not only ugly, but also potentially dangerous. The taillight occupies a single strip that spans the entire rear of the vehicle. When the car brakes, this is deactivated and a small brake light appears that occupies part of the taillight and the corner where the indicator is located. The result is a brake light that is less obtrusive than the taillight, and requires drivers following you to understand the code.
06. Cybertruck accelerator problem
The latest setback after Tesla’s font issue is the news that Tesla will recall 3,878 Cybertrucks due to a defective gas pedal. A rather horrifying failure was that an “unapproved lubricant” was used, which caused the pedals to slip and become stuck at full speed. This could be a minor health and safety regulatory issue that Musk sees as part of a Marxist conspiracy to limit freedoms in the West (Musk did very well under communist dictatorships). ), but sending a potential death trap onto the streets is another thing. It hurts the credibility of companies that really need to get things in order to maintain investor confidence.