Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by bearjaws 472 days ago
It's wild when you see these kinds of takes, because ultimately Elon has hired smart people and they would have built a R1T competitor, not the Cybertruck.

The idea of making an electric truck is a GOOD idea, but building one that is completely out of left field in terms of design is NOT. Tesla would have had a majorly successful pickup truck had they just built a normal ass pickup truck.

Acting like this was just some sort of "risk taking seat of the pants" maneuver is just absolving him of responsibility.

Quite literally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

1 comments

Rivian is clearly led by marketing folks who recognized that a successful truck would sacrifice efficiency for looking conventional.

A truly engineering led organization would end up with something like the Tesla & Nikola semi trucks, closer to the ideal teardrop shop that aerodynamics leads to.

If Americans cared one bit about efficiency the country would look entirely different.

Half of all people buy a massive SUV for their one child to be driven around in.

Also the R1T is only about 8% less efficient than a CT...

Yes, that's part of the point I'm trying to make. Only engineers care about efficiency.