I saw the only Cybertruck I’ve ever liked yesterday.
Those googly eyes are great.
I see a Cybertruck regularly in the parking lot of our grocery store. Yesterday, we were stopped at a red light as it turned left in front of us. The doors as it passed by us were a different color than the body of the truck. They looked tarnished. Really ugly. This is a beach community where stainless steel is not a good choice with the salt air and damp fogginess.
Those eyes are great.
Those of us who’ve lived in the US southwest or Florida are familiar with this company: Truly Nolen Pest Control. Who are famous for their silly logo-encrusted cars:
Those ears are made of plastic and have springs in their base so at high speed they lay back pretty flat along the roof but spring upright again as the car slows down. As logo branding goes, this is about as instantly recognizable as the Weinermobile, if not as well known across the whole country.
I really with they’d get some CTs and do them up Nolen style!
They already resemble cockroaches.
I haven’t though of those guys since I moved away from Albuquerque NM! I’m being overwhelmed by a wave of nostalgia, thank a lot (honest and sarcastic)!
Now, back to the reason I swung by the thread, I saw a Cybertruck doing poorly yesterday. We had a mid month minor snowfall that hit right around 1pm. The area I live is quite hilly, so slopes are to be expected. I saw a Cybertruck struggling mightily on one of the main roads near me, which is a 7% grade. Now, to be fair, this is rough on plenty of cars with even light snow, 4WD/AWD handles it fine, FWD is okay as long as you’re careful, but RWD (which many CTs are) are going to have a hard time, especially with their weight. I think the driver was giving it too much power compared to their grip.
But it warmed my heart that the perfect post-apoc vehicle was passed by me in my Prius PHEV.
Dang, I thought they were all AWD. Can’t believe that a truck that starts at essentially $70K is only rear wheel drive at that price. Now that I look at the wiki entry, I see the RWD model is also basically a stripped model. What a rip off.
@wolfpup : Glad I can be of service!
Doordash’s delivery robots have animated googy eyes.
Decades ago when front-wheel drive first started appearing I remember drivers backing up a hill giving them trouble because the CG shifted towards the driven axle. Are motor driven wheels different?
Honestly, it’s entirely observation, so it may have a built in bias. As I said, it’s a tough hill when snowy for most vehicles, and it may be confirmation bias, including the time my friend came to visit up that road in his RWD Mustang and got stuck. Lots of longer term locals (though I’ve been here 30ish years now) swear by the extra engine weight over the drive wheels, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a scientific study (quick googling doesn’t show one).
So anecdotal. And as I mentioned, it looked like the CT driver was trying to use more power rather than more control.
And yes, long term Snow Country drivers on the board will also mention having the right tires and preparation are (correctly) more important. But that’s always harder when it’s a later season storm bracketed by 70 degree weather on either side. 
Rear wheel drive vehicles, especially pickups, have problems in snow because there’s no weight on the drive wheels. Front wheel drive vehicles can have problems on hills because of the shift in CG.
The CT? It’s got a huge battery pack hanging down low, it’s probably about the best configuration you can get for snow. But EVs produce so much instant torque that you need a really good traction control system, and the CT was so rushed it’s probably not been tuned well, especially for conditions not present in SoCal. As far as I know, Tesla doesn’t have its own cold weather testing facilities, they were renting time at GM’s in Michigan last I knew.
And the custom tires probably aren’t optimized for snow.
I have friends who were early adopters of a Tesla, and they said it was a couple of years before the car was upgraded to be able to handle snow on the windshield. It wasn’t great about rain, either.
Teslas are not optimized for weather found outside of California. 
That’s a lot less true that the old garage tales often told.
Some googling suggests the typical weight distribution of a Ford F-150 with full fuel but nothing else aboard is about 56% front, 44% rear. So roughly 3400# front & 2700# rear out of ~6000# total weight. Is it front-heavy? You bet. Is there “no weight” on the rear wheels? Not even close.
It gets worse with less fuel and, you know, people in it.
Sometimes traction control can make things worse. It detects wheel spin, and cuts power, and the car never goes anywhere. This isn’t a Tesla thing, but an all cars thing.
Also, sometimes roads can be so slick that nothing is going to help to climb a hill.
It seems fine now, but 2018 to maybe 2020 the rain detection was really bad. It’s vision only, so it will wipe in response to the camera being blocked. For the last few years it’s been good enough that I rarely have to turn the wipers on manually. The biggest issue is wiping when it isn’t necessary, such as wiping in response to bright sunlight.
The snow traction control on my AWD Model 3 seems fine. If I just mash the go pedal in the snow it will keep the car straight, and move off the line without drama. If I punch it in a corner it will let the rear end slide just a bit, then bring it back in line. The traction control has always been fine.
Where it really falls down in cold weather is dealing with ice buildup on the windshield wipers. Because snow sticks to snow, once it starts building up it very quickly gets extremely bad, and if the snow is falling fast enough the heat from the windshield defroster isn’t enough to make progress.
Probably weighed about as much as a Cybertruck battery, but my RWD 1986 Toyota pickup at idle with an automatic transmission would spin a rear tire in the snow at a complete stop just from taking my foot off the brake. The one winter I had it in Colorado, I did not drive it if there was snow on the ground.
They said it was now okay. Maybe it was much worse when it was new. 
Hey! They also test in Austin Texas. 
A common mistake, even by those who’ve lived in snow country their entire lives. 
The Chevy Bolt has two driving modes, Standard which simulates an ICE with an automatic transmission. With no throttle and no brake it will crawl forward and when braking it blends regenerative braking with the hydraulic brakes.
One Pedal Drive (OPD) on the other hand uses regenerative braking a lot more aggressively. Close the throttle and the car slows quickly, coming to a complete stop. I prefer to use it and in city driving rarely touch the brake pedal except to keep the rotors polished up.
Living in Arizona I have no personal experience but on the Bolt owners board I participate in who drive in icy conditions say to stick to Standard mode and avoid OPD like the plague. If CTs don’t have an equivalent of Standard mode with the blended braking that could the problem.
Chicago weather must not do them any favors either because the non-wrapped ones I see look dire. I assume the upkeep to keep them polished is more than most people are willing to put into it.
So true. As I was a mountain dweller for decades, we had a very steep long driveway. 4 wheel drive with snow tires and I would have to turn traction control off in deep snow.
I just realized that I haven’t seen the neighbor’s truck in months, or one of the two Tesla’s. I wonder if the bloom went off the rose rather quickly.
Either they got tired of the Teslas and sold them or one of the two members of the couple got tired of the other and departed, taking their vehicles with them.