# Tesla Cybertruck **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 23, 2019, 10:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866 "2019-11-23T10:32:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/361 "2023-12-12T21:36:15Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > If I saw anyone driving around with a plow of any kind, I’d laugh and laugh and laugh. Because it doesn’t snow at all here. And to be sure. I was not laughing at you. But people that live in snow have a bit of a different perception. I laugh at ATV’s with plows on them but admit they have their place. I had an 8hp Toro snowblower when I first moved up here. It didn’t stand a chance. It ‘worked’ but it could not go uphill. Even with chains on. I had to blow snow downhill, get in the path that I just plowed, go up the drive, and come back down. Oh the memories. Glad they are just memories. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/362 "2023-12-12T21:58:01Z")
> [@echoreply](#): > > the “lockers” weren’t working due to software issues. A tri-motor version won’t need a rear locker, and supposedly a front locker is an option From other sources, the dual-motor model has physical differential locks on both front and rear. The tri-motor version just has one on the front, since as you say it has electronic locking on the rear. It wouldn’t surprise me if these features aren’t fully enabled in the software, though. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2023, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/363 "2023-12-12T23:06:03Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > OTOH, if that is the “price” of persuading the vast majority of current pick-up truck owners to buy them, it’s money & effort well-spent. The sales evidence shows that the US (& Canadian?) truck-buying public is not culturally ready for EV trucks; they _might_ be ready for electrically-augmented ICE trucks. Which is what that vehicle amounts to. good points, altogether … goes to show that - changing the scope - something might be perfectly smart … or that perceived smart/dumb is often a function of scope rather than the item itself ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/364 "2023-12-13T00:31:20Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > > [@echoreply](#): > > > > “it’s time-sliced. It looks a little bit more like a Token Ring network in that regard.” Gigabit token ring > > It’s exactly what you want, though. Standard Ethernet is not exactly deterministic. But you really, really don’t want your 11-channel audio stream to impede packets going to the steering system. So you slice off a tiny bit of the stream capacity, dedicated for just that one destination, and it gets perfectly deterministic packet transport. I don’t know enough about what they’ve done to comment substantively, but you can’t have what sounds like time division multiplexing (TDMA) and still call it Ethernet. One hopes that this is not anything like traditional token ring (IEEE 802.5) either, because that’s plagued with drawbacks including single points of failure. There’s a reason that as a LAN technology it’s been obsolete for a long time. What you’re looking for in a LAN of this kind is not really “deterministic” packet delivery, but adequately timely packet delivery with acceptably low latency. Ethernet should be perfectly fine as long it’s fast enough.and never comes anywhere close to saturation due to excessive packet collisions. One might argue that some rogue device gone wild could saturate the network, but other LAN schemes also have potential points of failure that may indeed be a lot more likely. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/365 "2023-12-13T00:42:54Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > but you can’t have what sounds like time division multiplexing (TDMA) and still call it Ethernet Well, their internal name seems to be Etherloop. It has a bunch of other differences from Ethernet as well. We could call it Ethernet-inspired instead, but that gets kinda clunky. It runs on twisted pair, probably uses the same packet format, and may even use the same ICs as “real” Ethernet. It just has some extra stuff as well. > [@wolfpup](#): > > What you’re looking for in a LAN of this kind is not really “deterministic” packet delivery, but adequately timely packet delivery with acceptably low latency. I’d argue that “deterministic” is a reasonable enough label for that plus delivery guarantees. The big non-deterministic part of Ethernet is the collision detection and handling. That’s solved completely with TDMA. TDMA can be inefficient since you have to set up the timeslices in advance and you may not have balanced them correctly. But the majority of devices in the car need very little data, so tiny timeslices are enough on a gigabit bus. The CAN bus that most cars use is 500-1000 kbit/sec, and that’s enough for most things. They can shave off 1 packet in 10,000 for power windows, door locks, etc. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/366 "2023-12-13T00:46:51Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > This page has a video on the F-150 Lightning being used as a plow: Thanks for that, and it’s interesting that the Lightning is being talked about in the context of snowplowing, but FTR, the video doesn’t show that. It just shows a Ford Pro guy extolling the virtues of the Lightning, and mentioning near the end that it does NOT currently have an available setup for plowing, and moreover, that although customers can do what they like, Ford recommends staying within equipment configurations that have been tested and approved. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > For light-duty work, you can buy plows that mount to the trailer hitch. You do all the plowing in reverse That plow may look funny mounted at the back, but it actually makes sense for an individual with a garaged Tesla needing to clear his own driveway. It’s much more practical to pull into a home garage front end first, because you can maneuver much more accurately that way in tight spaces. Then when your Tesla is nicely protected inside when there’s a snowfall, just lower the blade and back out. The problem with this thing, as you and @enipla both point out, is that it’s indeed “light duty”, meaning the blade is comically small. In areas that get heavy snowfalls, you’d still have to call the guy with the big pickup and a real plow. In areas that **don’t** get heavy snowfalls, you wonder why anyone would bother with this thing at all. > [@echoreply](#): > > EVs have excellent towing performance, they have terrible towing range By “performance” I meant how much plowing could be done under heavy snowplowing loads before you drain the battery. If a guy running a snowplowing business can only service a handful of customers before having to go home to recharge, an EV is pretty useless. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/367 "2023-12-13T00:59:45Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > By “performance” I meant how much plowing could be done under heavy snowplowing loads before you drain the battery. We can sorta work this out. While I don’t know how much force a snowplow can apply to a car, it surely is much less than the weight of the car, since most cars can’t accelerate or brake at more than about 1 G. Since we’re talking about snow traction, it’s probably less than half. A Cybertruck weighs ~3000 kg, so I’ll guess a max of 15,000 N of force. It has a 443 MJ battery, which I’ll say has 300 MJ usable due to cold and margin. We can just divide to get 20 km of plow distance at full capacity. That seems like quite a lot of plowing to me at a consumer level, though possibly not at a business level. Though the truck could go through multiple recharge cycles per day. I think I was somewhat pessimistic here as well, though without knowing much of the physics of plowing, it’s hard to say. Maybe some plows come with load-meters that could give more real-world results. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/368 "2023-12-13T15:44:08Z")
About that towing capacity: > ETA: Enjoying the comments on that Xitter thread, too. ---
**Author:** ![Al128](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/al128/32/16541_2.png) [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2023, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/369 "2023-12-13T18:38:16Z")
as a former avid 4x4 driver, i must say that in this scenario (standstill, icy-snow, uphill) even a Unimog would not make it up (w/out snowchains) there is only so much a truck design can do to modify the (near) zero friction between wet tires and icy snow. but yes, lots of people will go … looook, looook!!! I had fully tricked out off-road vehicles in similar situations getting stuck on wet gras ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/370 "2023-12-15T13:26:13Z")
Tesla fans can be so fucking weird. > ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/371 "2023-12-15T20:08:30Z")
The guy runs a [fairly ordinary car review channel](https://www.youtube.com/@carwow) on YouTube. He might be weird, but it has nothing to do with Tesla. It’s just part of his shtick. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/372 "2023-12-15T20:31:54Z")
No, I think Tesla told the journalists to try to damage the truck. They told Jason Cammissa to do whatever he wanted to it, and encouraged him to try. They said he could shoot it, hit it with a sledge, whatever. When he told them he didn’t have a sledge they sent him a serious 20lb deadblow hammer to whack it with. ‘Bulletproof’ may be a gimmick, but I think Tesla sees a major market advantage in having a truck that’s nearly impossible to scratch or dent. They are encouraging journalists to show that side of the truck. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/373 "2023-12-15T20:54:30Z")
Oh sure, but I think **Maserschmidt** was referring to the fact that he kicks like a nerd. ---
**Author:** ![Ulfreida](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ulfreida/32/8014_2.png) [@Ulfreida](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulfreida)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/374 "2023-12-15T22:06:39Z")
If you have a short flat paved driveway and a few inches of snow, a mere snow shovel will do it up in a few minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Spiderman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spiderman/32/230_2.png) [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/375 "2023-12-15T22:10:27Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > > > For light-duty work, you can buy plows that mount to the trailer hitch. You do all the plowing in reverse > > That plow may look funny mounted at the back, but it actually makes sense for an individual with a garaged Tesla needing to clear his own driveway. It’s much more practical to pull into a home garage front end first, because you can maneuver much more accurately that way in tight spaces. Then when your Tesla is nicely protected inside when there’s a snowfall, just lower the blade and back out. > > The problem with this thing, as you and @enipla both point out, is that it’s indeed “light duty”, meaning the blade is comically small. In areas that get heavy snowfalls, you’d still have to call the guy with the big pickup and a real plow. In areas that **don’t** get heavy snowfalls, you wonder why anyone would bother with this thing at all. only if you have your garage on the side. If you garage is in front of your house what happens when you get to the end of your driveway. You can’t legally push/plow/shovel/throw snow into the street & even attempting to push it all the way across the street it doesn’t look like that plow has any controls to push snow up over the curb on the opposite side of the street. If your driveway is long, there’s no way to push it off to the side, you’ll just be adding more snow/weight the further you push. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > A Cybertruck weighs ~3000 kg, so I’ll guess a max of 15,000 N of force. It has a 443 MJ battery, which I’ll say has 300 MJ usable due to cold and margin. We can just divide to get 20 km of plow distance at full capacity. That seems like quite a lot of plowing to me at a consumer level, though possibly not at a business level. **Though the truck could go through multiple recharge cycles per day**. I think I was somewhat pessimistic here as well, though without knowing much of the physics of plowing, it’s hard to say. Maybe some plows come with load-meters that could give more real-world results. It would breakdown if it needed multiple recharge cycles per day. Once a storm starts, plowing becomes a (virtually) non-stop operation, just bio breaks & a few mins to fill a tank; any food/drink is eaten in the truck. You plow lot A, then go plow lot B, then C, D, E, etc, & then go back to lot A & begin all over again. It’s much easier & faster to plow a little bit multiple times than a lot once. In big storms, the plow guys are out 12, 18, or even more hours. Once you fall behind with that first charge, every pass after that takes more energy (& possibly time) because you’re now pushing more inches. ---
**Author:** ![Tride](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tride/32/13907_2.png) [@Tride](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tride)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/376 "2023-12-15T22:20:50Z")
Lets see it with a steel sledge, not a plastic deadblow… ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/377 "2023-12-15T22:22:38Z")
I had a Tesla Cybertruck adventure today. Or at least a wannabe adventure. Sometimes the best adventures are the ones that happen when you’re seeking something else. I found our local Tesla dealership online and drove over to see if they had a Cybertruck in the showroom to ogle. It’s a few miles from me, but in a demographic where they might reasonably have one. Worth the short drive for the possibility. So I roll up in my car and shut down. Which car usually draws a crowd of salesmen. Nothing. I go inside the showroom. This facility had been another brand of car dealership previously and although all the trade dress is Tesla, and the lot has a good hundred plus Teslas sitting on it, the overall architecture screams generic 1990s car dealership; you’ve all been here before. Showroom has one model 3 and one model Y, and enough empty space for two more cars comfortably, or 4 cozily. A young customer couple is ogling the Y. There are no employees to be seen. The usual half-dozenish salesmen windowed mini-offices off the showroom are obviously in use: personal effects scattered about, etc., but no people in them. Curiouser and curiouser. I hear talking in the back, so head to a lounge area towards the rear. I pass a room full of PCs with women on headsets talking to somebody somewhere. That’s who I had heard. In the back is a lounge and a cashier’s window, presumably where deals get closed and paperwork is exchanged. A different customer couple is sitting on a couch waiting for gosh-knows-what. No one is at the cashier’s station that I can see, nor in the office behind it. I go back out to the showroom, inspect the two cars carefully; I’ve not really inspected a Tesla in several years. Exterior fit & finish is good, paint is mass-market car company meh, and the interior is cheap looking / feeling. I sat in all the seats which are roomy & comfortable for my small size. But overall the interior exudes cheap. I review a type brochure placed in each car, the window sticker on these individual vehicles, look around for more humans. Seeing none, I got back in my car and drove off. Having said zero words to anyone. In 50 years of buying cars, I have never been into a dealership, into two of their showroom cars, reviewed their literature, patrolled their halls, and gotten back out the driveway never seeing, much less interacting with, a customer service worker of any kind. If that’s how they usually sell cars, I’m sorta confused how it works. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/378 "2023-12-15T22:39:19Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > and the lot has a good hundred Teslas sitting on it Wait, what? Is this some type of hybrid showroom/distribution center? Or service center? The Tesla showrooms are just that. You go in, check out the goods, and leave. No one is trying to sell you anything, but there might be someone you can chase down for questions. If you liked what you saw, you go online and order one. In a few weeks, it gets delivered to your house. I am very confused about a Tesla showroom that’s half-pretending to be a dealership. That’s not at all how they usually work. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/379 "2023-12-15T22:53:36Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > In 50 years of buying cars, I have never been into a dealership, into two of their showroom cars, reviewed their literature, patrolled their halls, and gotten back out the driveway never seeing, much less interacting with, a customer service worker of any kind. Sounds blissful compared with “Soheyhowyadoinmyname’sMitchnot Mitchellthat’smydad’snameandabadmovie. Solookslikeyou coulddowithsomepamperingAMIRIGHTHUH?” ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [December 15, 2023, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866/380 "2023-12-15T22:54:00Z")
> [@Spiderman](#): > > In big storms, the plow guys are out 12, 18, or even more hours. We’re sorta wildly swinging between extremes on the plow spectrum. A Cybertruck is probably not appropriate for someone plowing 18 hours a day (that would really start to chafe). But it’s not obviously inadequate for plowing the neighborhood, or for someone with a long driveway, even in a heavy snow area. > [@Spiderman](#): > > It’s much easier & faster to plow a little bit multiple times than a lot once. Sure, but that doesn’t actually affect my calculation much. Half the force on the plow means half the energy consumed, so you can make twice as many passes. There’s some losses from having the heater running, but they aren’t immense. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tesla-cybertruck/843866.md?page=20)