My response to designer Frank Stephenson's criticism of the Cybertruck (Video)

[cybertrucktruckguy]

Frank Stephenson's video for reference:

Advertisement

 

[MEDICALJMP]

Everything he brought up, each example, was A CAR. This is a truck, to be used for truck stuff. Irrelevant.

 

[firsttruck]

It only took the cybertruck truck guy 10 minutes to completely destroy the arguments of that designer who struggled for a year and still got it completely wrong.

Good job cybertruck truck guy.

 

[Dids]

That guy hated the model T. It was engineered to be a car and it looked the way it did because that's what was neccessary to make it a car. Its a total classic! Beautiful and popular since 1908.

 

[DarinCT]

I had already been thinking along @cybertrucktruckguy 's point of view but there was something that I'm glad he hammered home that I didn't notice the first time around. The idea of carpet or even something that will hold dirt is so off the mark for a truck. The Dodge Ram (or Dodge Ram TRX) [MotorTrend Truck of the Year] has about three times the number of buttons and knobs that this guy suggested are a mark of an "essential of amount of buttons to explore". Dude, I'm driving. I don't need to explore buttons or rub the dirt onto the carpet.

Thanks for putting this one up.

 

[Crissa]

Sometimes it's nicer to rub dirt on the carpet than slip on it!

-Crissa

 

[Geo]

That guy hated the model T. It was engineered to be a car and it looked the way it did because that's what was neccessary to make it a car. Its a total classic! Beautiful and popular since 1908.

The Model T was a phenomenal success, and I may desire one, and pay big bucks for it today for what it nostalgically represents.

But it has absolutely not remotely, stood the test of time. It failed it a long long time ago.

Thankfully there has been much improvement since then, functionally and very very much aesthetically.

The Model T is well and truely absurd rubbish by the time we get to the standards of the 1930's let alone after that !

Neanderthal's were genius' for harnessing fire, in view of any other creature that came before, but they are just a little behind, to put it mildly, compared to the achievements of those who harnessed it just a little better, a little later in time., let alone by the time paradigm shift after paradigm shift, after revolutionary invention, after revolutionary discovery was made . . . . . over and over and over again.

I wouldn't be trying to suggest the Cybertruck will stand the test of time like the Model T.
The model T didn't. But it was a phenomenal success at the time.

What is a great success but for an even more fleeting time, is called a fad.
Like Yoyo's are fad. And they don't even have a functional purpose at all . . . . . . perhaps improving dexterity or demonstrating some physics principles or mental soothing.

So, no, not even sales success can dilute the designers valid criticism about the Cybertruck is very Plain and simple, and runs the risk of dating quickly.
Not a concern for those that buy it for its phenomenal utility value, but it is for others who want function and more.
For those that would buy regardless of how ugly it is, its saying something,
but for those who deny how ugly it actually is to many, I think are like those people who cant see the reality of those drawing that contain 2 images in one.

Personally I don't think its ugly, but it is definitely plain and simple and runs the risk of dating quickly. But its a great platform and very easy to refresh and personalise.

P.S.
in the immortal words of Kent Brockman, this is my 2 cents !
I'm guessing the following is in the list of many small improvements.
increases the approach angle at the wheels.

 

[Hungedu]

Yeah. The Cybertruck will be dated-looking like a Lamborghini Countach, and who wouldn't want that old car in their garage... even now?

 

[Zoltan Vlad]

Frank Stephenson's video for reference:

I signed up on this site just so I could comment on this video.
I watched the Stevenson video shortly after it posted and read all the comments. My overwhelming thought was "What a coven of weenies".

Engineering is art except it's harder to fake.

 

[Geo]

Engineering is art except it's harder to fake.

That is a great line, and I couldn't agree with you more.
And that's why beauty is also in the eye of the beholder.
When you and I see the Cybertruck, we see beautiful 3mm thick (unique, outside military) exoskeleton others see plain ugly.

But not everybody sees what you and I see, and there is something to be said for being myopic, and not being able to see more broadly.

Like those that can only see one of the two images that are equally and clearly there.
Frank's criticism is more than valid, I would love it if there was a way to have a 3mm thick S/S exoskeleton that incorporates Frank's critique. I wonder what Franz thinks.

Do you see a young lady, or an old hag with a big crooked nose ? They are both there !

 

[KrodEKid]

Todd, thanks for taking to time to do another video. Love the content.

I'd like to see Frank try and critique the design of this...

Or maybe even just this...

...I needed a shovel like that to get through Frank's video if you know what I mean.

P.S.
To quote the Master Chief "that cybertruck, sure does look like a warthog hog doesn't it." Sorry the irony and duality of this statement was too much to pass up if anybody else knows where I'm coming from.

...I'll give you some hints that string my thoughts together.
... durability as function over form ... A10 ... Halo ... Ride the lightening podcast, okay I need to go to sleep now I know.

 

[davidngo44]

Frank Stephenson's video for reference:

Hey Cybertruck guy. This is copcon.
18,997 in line ..... YAHOOOO so I should be getting the cybertruck within the first 6 month of the cybertruck production. Cool... very cool.
you can use my cybertruck for your Utub review channel if you like. let me know. lol. You can come the visit california or I come and visit you....where ever you are. Cybertruck road trip that is. : )

 

[Dids]

Hey Cybertruck guy. This is copcon.
18,997 in line ..... YAHOOOO so I should be getting the cybertruck within the first 6 month of the cybertruck production. Cool... very cool.
you can use my cybertruck for your Utub review channel if you like. let me know. lol. You can come the visit california or I come and visit you....where ever you are. Cybertruck road trip that is. : )

I am looking forward to the review!

 

[ricinro]

There is a minor adversarial relationship between "designers" and engineers. Designers grab their pens and sketch the facade and then rationalize it, like architects, with heaping piles of steaming rhetoric. Yes, eye candy sells and in the truck market it is brutish grills with gravelly voiced men and boxy trucks that are shown doing hard work or chewing up the environment.
Engineers are more like morlocks in the underworld. They make the ugly insides that is shrouded by the facade. They need to make it work and producible.
The CT is more of an engineer's truck and a designers nightmare. The form, Zen like, is the look of its manufacturing process with a priority on durability, weight reduction, simplicity and utility. So gone is the pricey complexity of stamping and painting complicated assemblies replaced low cost sheetmetal and limited welding of 304L SS.
Yes, Franz was involved but with engineering and manufacturing leading- not me-too marketing and designers.

 

[Crissa]

The form, Zen like, is the look of its manufacturing process with a priority on durability, weight reduction, simplicity and utility.

+10 for Zen-like.

-Crissa