The cybertruck had good enough safety ratings, but kinda just decided to not care about the aerodynamics and economy side. Which freed Elon up a lot in terms of style.
Personally, I also agree that it was refreshing to see something bold out there on the road. It's just that the final product looked just 'off' enough to make it look bad in the end.
Like, it's wheel base is about 6 inches too long and the ride height is about 6 inches too low, making it look a bit toddler-y to my eyes. The bed was also just not practicable and too small (something I see on a lot of trucks these days). The speed was good, the torque was great, the giant screen you can't feel when driving was not. The seats were uncomfortable for my build.
Overall, the car was a statement, one that just barely missed the mark to my eyes, but it did miss
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/18/tesla-cyb...
> The bodywork of the vehicle is particularly problematic: the sharp-edged, rigid stainless steel panels of the Cybertruck violate EU safety regulations, which primarily serve to protect vulnerable road users.
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Cybertruck-remains-banned-in-Ge...
In many other countries it wasn’t even street legal because it couldn’t meet minimum safety standards.
And that's not just in cars but technology, furniture, lighting choices, clothing, etc, we're just converging to the same styles globally.
That’s a platform we can all get behind.
The functional design certainly needed work.
The Cybertruck that was released did not have that, instead the panels are just normal body parts connected to a standard car frame underneath - like any other car.
Most pick up trucks are body-on-frame style.
The Cybertruck is a hybrid. There is an aluminum frame for the tow hitch and battery pack, but the body panels are also structural (unibody).
Good design that breaks the mold and then succeeds for that reason is what changes the world. Bad design that starts from the desire to be different without understanding the forces that led to the preexisting equilibrium is what we got. If you start out with hundreds of billions of dollars you can fake it for much longer, but if your premise is fundamentally economically incorrect then it will only last as long as you can subsidize it.
I prefer to believe that this statement is incorrect.