TruckNutz (semi-open thread)
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Usually I don’t have any use for billionaires. They’re too unwieldy to be paperweights, too noisy to be draft excluders, and I wouldn’t trust one to change the litter box. But every so often they are good for a laugh.
Thursday’s unveiling of Tesla’s latest electric vehicle hit a snag when the company’s chief designer smashed the vehicle’s windows while attempting to demonstrate their durability. Tesla’s share price subsequently plummeted 6%, bringing Musk’s personal net worth down by $768m in a single day, according to Forbes.
“It is literally bulletproof to a 9mm handgun,” Musk said of the cybertruck, moments before the design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, went on to demonstrate not once, but twice, that the windows could break because a man threw a ball at them.
“It didn’t go through, that’s the plus side,” Musk said.
Citylab provides a more accurate quote.
“Oh my fucking god,” said a clearly surprised Musk. “At least they didn’t go through.”
Splendid.
As for the vehicle in question, I’ve seen several comparisons to the Delorean. This is deeply unfair to the Delorean. A better comparison would be Delorean rendered by 90s video game graphics.
Musk described it with the following collection of words: “really futuristic-like cyberpunk, Blade Runner pickup truck.”
Future future future! sci-fi, AI and other terms that make this vehicle seem so cool that you’ll put down a $100 deposit and wait until the end of 2022 — because it is the car of the future — to get one.
What the thing really looks like is this: A bloated ego with a limited imagination decided he wanted a Future Pickup Truck, and rather than leave the process to people who know how to design cars, he got heavily involved.
This would explain the sad and silly result. A combover, botoxed and folded socks down the front of the pants mobile.
And no way to see out the back, especially if one loads the cyberbed of one’s cybertruck with too much cyberstuff.
Citylab wrote up the Cybertruck as a vehicle designed for Earth, Apocalypse Style. Or at least for the sort of people who think Earth, Apocalypse Style will be just apocalypse-y enough to make an extremely complex, power grid and infrastructure-dependent vehicle with windows that can withstand at least two direct hits from a steel ball a good investment.
Also known as People who won’t survive an apocalypse. And possibly known as Jerky.
Discuss your favorite method of getting around before or during the apocalypse in the comments.
