Yeah maybe you could drive your car on solar
 

Elon Musk introduced the Cybertruck last night. There are a lot of opinions on it. One thing he didn't mention during the demo, but tweeted later:

They intend to put a solar panel tonneau cover on it.

Depending on local conditions, it will recharge 15 miles of range per day.

If you could extend wings of solar panel out from it, it could recharge 30 miles per day.

Average car is driven 20 miles per day.

But snow or rain or heat or gloom of night stays these panel from their appointed duty.

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The things I read said he was telling how the truck is bulletproof up to 9mm, and he had someone throw ball bearings at the window which cracked to his embarrassment and and the reporters glee. Doesn't anyone understand how bullet proof glass work? The outer layer show the impact, the subsequent layers should not. Like a windshield it's laminated but with a lot more layers. Duh

Most pickup trucks look pretty much alike from the cab back. The reason is it evolved over 100 years to meet the needs of the people who used them. This reminds me of the Lincoln Mark LT, Ranchero, and El Camino. Not a serious truck, but there's so many people driving trucks now that don't need one there may be a market.

It's weird that he did mention the 110/220v AND that you can run pneumatics via the air suspension system, as if to say it could be a work truck.

The reporter called it a power center for the jobsite. I think that's hyperbole.

Possibly it's because they know the average person won't have that monstrosity in their driveway, but it wouldn't be as out of place on a job site where the vehicles aren't exactly attractive to begin with and everyone can say the boss makes them drive it.

Hmm the bed is stainless steel too

I guess we'll have Tesla Fanboys in the model of Apple Fanboys. They'll love the Buck Rogers looks and The grand poobah changing their software on the fly with his string of low earth orbit satellites.
This truck has some good ideas, also some excellent features, but it misses the mark for a working tradesmans pickup. It was designed by space cadets, dreamers, the way all big strides are achieved, and I'm sure it will evolve when they get in touch with people who would use this for work. Or maybe that's not the target.

You see millions of people driving pickups that don't need one other than picking something up from Lowes or the Antique store. The main reason they've become popular for the two car family, other than the manly man image, is you sit high enough to see more than a trunk lid in front of you. Tesla's truck is low, maybe too low, but I guess you don't have to see ahead when you've got bullet proof. ;)

You don’t have to see ahead when the car drives itself.

Certainly not, just sit back and write out your last will and testament.
So who will buy them in the next 10 years before they can be trusted?
They won't be close to safe until ALL vehicles are self driving.

I'm surprised at the price. Idiots around here spend numbers like that on their trucks. I don't think Hillbillys will drive them but maybe Ford's will come in at a similar pp.

Yeah, pickups over $100,000 are not all that rare, of course those Tesla numbers are followed by "and up" like the others.

150K pre-ordered so far

I want this to succeed. Maybe there will be a Tacoma down the line.

I suspect they'll be safer than human drivers somewhat soon, but part of that will come from driving less agressively, so human drivers will be cutting them off constantly, and part will be because they will give up and transfer control to humans part of the time.


Also, when they do make mistakes, they are likely to be ones that no human would make, so people will me much more freaked out by one robot doing something we find bizarre than by 100 humans rear-ending someone while texting.

The opening/closing of the tonneau cover is very slick. They say you can stand on it when it's closed.

now 187k. (for comparison, F150 sells like 900k per year)

I don't know, all the videos of them self driving seem to be at the speed limit everywhere. On the open roads that's fine (actually a pain in the ass but legal) but in city traffic 25 MPH can be too fast for people to get out of the way.
That brings up the other problem, and why 25 can be too fast. They have trouble with people and animals that move after they've determined them to be stationary objects. Hopefully they'll get that figured out before it's all self driving.

I'm not against the principle, it will be an advantage to me someday, I just don't trust them yet. I've seen TomTom and Garmin make too many mistakes and we're talking about situations where 50 ft makes a hell of a difference.

That truck bed cover (I don't know if they call it a tonneau cover, GM does not. A tonneau cover is historically the cover for a retracted roof, but it's been appropriated by aftermarket truck accessory makers), what do you do with it when you have to carry something large? Say a refrigerator that has to stand up.

Leave it open, like all other bed covers

:lol: That doesn't work, First of all none I've seen open 90 degrees, but even if they did you'd have a huge sail area pushing against your refrigerator you don't want pushed against, while eating up your battery. This is why I said it's not designed to be used the way working pickups are used, where most of the stuff going in and out of the bed don't go through the tailgate but over the side. Especially tools and small frequently used items. I'm sure he'll sell a lot of them to be used for recreation, profiling, camping, and commuting, but they are not practical for working. Tough mounting tool boxes on the slope.

?? A refrigerator is going in through the tailgate and you just leave the bed open like normal

The bed is covered normally isn't it? That's why I questioned what you do with that cover when you have something big to carry. Usually they hinge but that may lift off. If so, you have to plan ahead.

OK I found it.
It must not be one piece but sectional to fit it there since it would obviously store vertically.
I haven't seen the size of the bed, length or width?

Watch the video of the bed cover retracting, it slides down behind the back seats

Like a roll top desk in channels. That gets it out of the way, I wonder if there's glass between the cabin and bed when it's open.

Armor glass.

Also, the rear view mirror is a high-definition camera.

OK, it's sealed of then, that's good.

The question I keep hearing is they claim the 2 motor truck in the middle has a 300 mile range and can tow 10,000 lbs. How many miles towing that weight with the A/C on?

I got this from Texas this morning.

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Clever but unfair in that this thing has a lot of good ideas built in. It will sell well to the Attention-Whores, First-on-the-Blockers, Couldn't-have-a-Bricklin Kids, and whomever can plug in at work for free or a tax write off. But the guy who carries ladders and lumber, not so much.

I predict the next back to the future movie will feature this truck

I wonder if the flux capacitor and Mr Fusion will work with the bed cover closed?

People say, if you remove the visual of the rear triangle, it's more visible how it's a pickup truck. I've done that in MS Paint so you will have to squint hard to see it

http://cellar.org/img/teslatrucktriangle.jpg

It's a turd.

In more ways than one.

It's not hard to see where the bed is but the bed doesn't look very big(long) although I've yet to see dimensions. The perspective may be misleading.

It's not the biggest bed, but it looks a bit bigger than this one's bed:

I can see how they could cut costs significantly over their concept truck the showed previously.

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A buddy from Canada says the first one to come across the border will look like this in 24 hours. :haha:

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