Jordyn Banks | Writer
March 22, 2024
As I was driving the other day and glanced back at my rearview mirror, I saw a car that looked like it was straight out of an alien or sci-fi movie. Tesla’s new pickup truck, the cyber truck, looks nothing like the typical truck. When I saw the car out and about, I didn’t even realize it was a truck.
It ranges from around $70,000 to $100,000, but many are going for almost $200,000 due to delivery costs, taxes, and additions. But what is so special about the truck? Most of the hype around the truck is due to its unique appearance, but it also has some interesting features that make the vehicle a lot more appealing. First, the car has a stainless steel exterior customized to prevent paint chips or scratches and make repairs simple and quicker. It has very angular body parts and the largest windshield ever on a car. The roof is fully glass. Inside, it has two large touchscreens and such a simple interior that you can’t see any visible buttons. The steering wheel is rectangular shaped. In terms of size, the truck is quite tall but is only slightly longer than the average pickup truck. In terms of mileage, the car has a range of 340 miles, but with a range extender, can reach up to 440 miles. In 2.6 seconds, the car can accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour. You may not have seen many of these on the road yet because when the cars first came out last year, delivery wait times could be up to four years since there were 1 million pre-orders but only an annual production of roughly 125,000.
Some people think these cars look pretty cool, and while they are different, every time I see a new electric vehicle come out, I feel that they are getting uglier and uglier due to their modern look.
Senior Roxana Hernandez says, “I think the Tesla truck looks super weird. I just don’t understand why anyone would want to buy a car that looks so strange for so much money.”
Car designers create cars like this for that very reason: the shock factor from the appearance. When carmakers have this bold, confident design, they hope consumers will be compelled. While there used to be a lot of emphasis on car designing as an art and a skill, nowadays, carmakers lean more towards the idea of “ugly is beautiful.” Famous designer Frank Stephenson said this change in design also occurred because auto designers have become lazy and do not hand sketch their designs; they rely on a computer that spits out a million identical cars. “I find it sad that computers are now just generating all the cars and that they look so plain and modern,” senior Ava Martinez explains. “I’ve always liked older cars better.”
I hope that we stop promoting these hideous AI-generated cars in the future and go back to the basics.
Agreed. Nearly all so-called modern lack aesthetics. Vehicles are no longer works of art in any sense, aside, perhaps, from an electrical or mechanical perspective. It’s extremely sad to see this change. “Progress” is not always progress.