Which would reduce the no-recharge radius of action by about 1/2 mile per hour of heater use
Cybertruck gets stuck on the beach. Wet sand can be tricky.
and others on the internets ain’t helping much with cognitive disonances…
It’s easy to get stuck on the beach. If you’re not getting stuck, you’ve not trying.
That’s what I said!
I’m jumping into this thread after several hundred posts, so i apologize if this has already been answered, but this vehicle looks like a weird station wagon. What makes it a “truck”?
It has an open pickup truck bed starting right behind the two-seat cab. Which bed includes a built-in roll-up/down cover that is usually pictured closed which results in it looking more like a wagon/hatchback.
Did we already talk about the fact that they’ve been delivering them without aerodynamic wheel covers, because the wheel covers they had in place were damaging the tires?
I saw my first CT in the wild a couple days ago here in SoFL. It was trolling slowly through a pedestrian-heavy area where I was walking. Sadly it didn’t park, so I couldn’t study it up close at my leisure.
First impressions:
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Not tall, but long and very heavy / substantial looking. Like a low-slung IFV.
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Striking design. Ideal for the Alpha male aggressive poseur crowd. As I’d suspected.
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Silent.
The car had these guy’s name & logo painted on the doors. So a cyberbro’s car.
I’m as big a Tesla fan as anyone, but the fact is that the first 10,000 or so customers for a new Tesla model (especially one with as many new changes as this) are beta testers. It’s not a great mystery. And it’s part of the reason for the slow ramp. I doubt that any of the current buyers are under any delusions otherwise. If there are still problems like this after 100k units, then there’s an issue. The truck works and looks fine without the covers; it’s just a few percent less efficient.
Do other vehicle manufacturers treat their first customers as “beta testers”?
I’m not saying it’s a good thing. Just that the current buyers know what they’re getting.
But to some extent it’s true elsewhere as well. Not a great idea to buy the first new model off the line from any manufacturer. With Tesla it’s just taken to a new level.
From the article I linked:
The net effect of this is that cars with wheel covers on them can gain 5-10% more efficiency.
We had a long discussion somewhere here about what “a few” means, but I would say the top of that range is more than a few.
10% is aero plus the smaller wheels. They’re talking about the Model 3 there and comparing the 19" sport (or even the 20" premium) wheels vs. the 18" aero wheels. And I can confirm that 10% efficiency loss is the right ballpark when going from 18" to 20" (I got the 20" wheels free for convincing all my friends to buy Teslas).
But that’s not the same as saying wheel covers alone are worth that much. The tire drag and other factors all make a difference.
I had to run without the aero covers on my car for a while after they popped off going through a large puddle. And while it wasn’t a fully controlled experiment, I’d ballpark the loss at 3-4%. That is, 18" vs. 18", cover vs. no cover.
All else being equal, I’d expect the Cybertruck to lose slightly less, since it’s so much heavier and less aerodynamic to start with. So the wheel covers should have a smaller effect, relatively speaking. But anywhere in the 2-4% range is probably reasonable.
There has long been the bit of folk wisdom to never buy the first model year of a vehicle, so if there is anything to it, then yeah, other companies test on their customers.
Don’t in any way take this post as a whataboutism to excuse Tesla’s defects. It’s poor behavior when any of them do it. (I do also understand that some problems won’t show up regardless of how thorough the testing is.)
I like the roll top bed cover and would probably like some of the techno stuff but I just can’t warm up to the college art major “ode to stainless steel” that defines it’s appearance. It makes an Aztek look good. There has to be an ecological reason for California to mandate Cybertruck wraps as a public service.
I’m trying to think of a case where a car was considered to be ugly when it first debuted, then became liked once people got used to it. Maybe the first car with giant fins? The Citroen C2V?
The design of Cybertruck is polarizing. I’m surprised by how many people think it looks awesome. I’m really ambivalent on the design.
Why were the wheel covers harming the tires? Were they vibrating or spinning while driving? If so, they might have been costing range, or at least not improving it as much as it should have been.
I’m using that website to write my next development project proposal at work. It has ALL the buzzwords. AND three separate links to it’s (only) homepage.
ETA: And a busted link to another website that will provide more information. I’m guessing the email address or something must be over there.
I posted this in the What car did you see today thread. Thought I’d share it here too. It was nice and interesting, definitely.
A Cybertruck, wrapped.
It was green at first, and that green was truly stunning, but as I approached and the angles changed, the green turned to blue, then to pink, then to purple.
Pretty cool.
These pics don’t do it justice.
There is a part of the covers that touch the sidewall. When the tire spins, the sidewall flexes out at the bottom.