Test Drove a Tesla Today

6-3/4 ~n^2

Cool.

Dog Mode. That's funny.

Did you notice one of the posters on the forum was Steve Wozniak? Gee, who would have thought he was a tech junky?

Reportedly, Tesla has beaten the Porsche Taycan lap record at Nürburgring. Not that this is important. The Tesla is a lot cheaper and more comfortable and has longer range and better stats all around.

But it's still interesting.

The 7:20 claimed lap time sounds impressive until you compare it with all other lap records:

• 5:19.546 Porsche 919 EVO hybrid
  
• 6:05.336 Volkswagen ID.R
  
• 6:44.749 Porsche GT2
  
• 7:20.143 Lynk Cyan
  
• 7:23.164 Jaguar XE
  
• 7:30.11 Mercedes AMG-GT
  
• 7:45.39 Renault Mégane
  

Nobody yet has any idea what the Tesla truck is going to look like.

I think I found it.

Or maybe this is it:

Yet another render:

The driver sits alone:

_Howard wrote:

The salesman said that he had driven the Cadillac home the night it was traded in (common practice; he told my wife he would drive her Merc home last night). Lisa's timing in trading cars was impeccable: the salesman said that as soon as he pulled up in front of his house that evening, the Escalade's engine blew up. (Those were his words: "blew up".) Now and then, it's all in the timing.

The day I traded in my '98 was one of the few days the 'check engine light' was not on.

Even though it's pretty innocuous.

Okay, I guess the Tesla pickup truck has finally been unveiled.

And it's uglier even than any of the worst guesses.

Quote :

Musk spent months telling everyone that Tesla’s first electric pickup truck would look like something out of Blade Runner. And yet, for a brief moment after the truck appeared onstage, the entire room — one full of Tesla customers and fans from all around the world — fell practically silent in disbelief. As he rattled off the truck’s specs and features, I heard a few low exclamations of “what the fuck?” before the hooting and hollering picked back up. It was as if the people in the room were expecting a different kind of magic trick, one where Musk would coyly laugh before revealing the true Tesla pickup truck, which would still eat Ford F-150s for breakfast but look a little less alien. (That feeling only seemed to multiply when Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen broke the truck’s windows while trying to demonstrate their durability.)

It looks like something somebody -- somebody with no metalworking skills -- put together in his garage.  Or it looks like a cheesegrater designed by Delorean.

Elon Musk lives in a world of his own making.  Kinda like a president I know.

Quote :

The electric pickup truck prompted corners of the internet this week to make up memes over its unique appearance. The angular style has been compared to everything from a doorstop or an old Apple Mouse to a SpongeBob Squarepants character or a triangle on wheels.

I'm starting to think that Musk has a very-well hidden sense of humor.
I've certainly gotten a few laughs from the new truck intro.

Renderings of the Cybertruck with proposed different configurations:

Maybe (hopefully?) the Tesla Cybertruck design isn't finalized:

Quote :

Tesla still has work to do.  The design is not finalized and the car does have some pain points – like the rough A-pillars, the large front bumper and the peak at the top of the roof.  But it seems likely that it will be the most efficient pickup truck on the market when it does hit the market – and the most aerodynamically efficient as well.

Elon Musk wrote:

With extreme effort, Cybertruck might hit a 0.30 drag coefficient, which would be insane for a truck. Requires tweaking many small details.

Bloomberg wrote:

The ride up Highway 2 to Newcombs Ranch restaurant, high above Los Angeles, loops you through hills until you’re 5,600 feet above sea level. It’s a thrilling location to test the Taycan, the perfect place to revel in its whopping strength and inexorable speed. It also sucked almost 40% of the total battery life. As I climbed past the signs to Wrightwood and the hairpin curve carved next to the lonely ranger station halfway up, I watched the charge seep out of the car like I was watching my fate unfold in an old-fashioned hourglass.

Upon arriving at the top, as I parked next to the big white sign out front, I fretted: I may have cut it too close. Would this newfangled electric Porsche have enough juice to make the 40 miles all the way back down?

40% in forty miles? Yesh.

More renderings of the Cybertruck with various mods: