Tesla’s Head Designer Drove A Black Cybertruck To A Car Show And Everyone’s Making Fun Of It. Here Are All The Pics So You Can Judge For Yourself

I’m not sure there has ever been a vehicle that inspires so much simultaneous adoration and revulsion as the Tesla Cybertruck. The thing isn’t even out yet, and there’s already people both ready to burn one in (a simple, plywood) effigy and those that are seriously considering starting to pray to it instead of their current deity. I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced anything like this before.

A fantastic example of this can be seen when, just yesterday, Tesla’s lead designer Franz von Holzhausen showed up to the Malibu Cars and Coffee with a pre-production (I hope) Cybertruck wearing a matte black wrap. Autojournalist Daniel Golson spotted the thing and took these pictures you see here, and there are two really interesting revelations: the surprisingly rough build quality of this thing, and, even better, the alarmingly rough interactions of Tesla -philes and -phobes in the comments of Daniel’s X (something something former Twitter something) post. Because they’re nuts.

Here’s Daniel’s initial post, which has been retweeted by over 1,200 people:

Don’t worry everyone, the Cybertruck looks horrible in matte black too pic.twitter.com/hMu0mUk1zJ

— Daniel Golson (@dsgolson) November 5, 2023

And here are some more pictures of the wrapped Cybertruck:

Then Daniel posted these close-up pictures of the Cybertruck, which reveals some pretty iffy build quality and panel fitment issues, and I think this is really where all the fun starts. I mean, look at this:

Oof, that’s um, not great, even if we ignore the wrap wrinkles. There are lots of tricky angles coming together there, I get that, but that hood doesn’t even really look closed. Here’s another angle:

All those angles and straight edges can be pretty unforgiving for this type of thing; I think it’d be challenging to build well for almost any carmaker, if that helps. Of course, that could be part of why other carmakers haven’t decided to build a car like this, with these huge, flat, stainless body panels.

Getting these wheelarch trims to fit flush seems a challenge, too. But by far the most egregious issue had to be with the tailgate, which looked like this when closed:

I’m pretty sure that the tailgate is supposed to meet and close flush with the bedsides there, and the rear taillight bar is supposed to line up seamlessly with the light units build into the bedsides.

As you can see, it’s not, by at least a good quarter inch or so? Maybe a bit more? Also, even in matte black, this all feels like commercial kitchen equipment, somehow. And, yes, with the bed tonneau up, you do lose the rear window.

Also interesting is the size of this support pillar under the steeply-raked A-pillar, where the rear-view mirror is mounted. It’s a pretty thick block of metal and plastic that does make for a hell of a blind spot:

???????????? https://t.co/yuJz8QB0Y2 pic.twitter.com/YdTZkw5dZI

— Daniel Golson (@dsgolson) November 5, 2023

There are lots more good pictures here, too, beyond what was tweeted, which we have purchased from Daniel to run here:

Of course, when Daniel pointed out some of these issues – many of which, to be fair, may be solved when the final production Cybertruck hits the market – he got a lot of predictably cranky responses from the Cybertruck faithful.

The type of response varies a lot, but there are a few key staples, like the reminder that most of us have not, in fact, designed and developed a full-size automobile and placed it into mass production, and I guess that means you can’t complain about any production car as a result:

You know, it’s how there are no movie critics that have not produced entire movies, or food critics who have never run a restaurant, or cultural critics who have never started an entire society.

There’s also the attacks based on doing a lot of Googling for pictures of the original poster, and saying some shit about their style choices:

This is only a tiny look at the unacceptable harassment Golson has dealt with from Cybertruck diehards.

This interaction, though, I think is my favorite:

Here’s a nice example of the truly unhinged culty Tesla fan, where changing the world comes up:

I do have to disagree with Daniel on this point: I think Back to the Future picked the DeLorean BECAUSE it was cool:

Ah, Cybertruck madness! I hope it never ends!

All photos: Daniel Golson/The Autopian

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