Car designer Frank Stephenson's view on the Cybertruck

strongsafety31

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This designer says he doesn't like the utilitarian and brutal design of the Cybertruck. I love it. It's a freakin' truck, for chrissakes. The Buick body curves would be double the cost to manufacture. I am not sure I would want to take the Buick off road.
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I thought this was very interesting so I thought I would share. I see his points, don't agree with them all of course. It's interesting to see what someone who is very successful at car design thinks about something so polarizing though.

Who really cares all that much what such a functional and durable vehicles looks like? The CT isn't for everyone, only those that appreciate true engineering genius.
 

Clinicalfixer

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Strange... I don't want any of the cars this guy designed.
DITTO! He doesn’t understand why the CT is shaped this way, functionality, buildability and it makes those who don’t understand jealous.
 


David R Kirkpatrick

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I thought this was very interesting so I thought I would share. I see his points, don't agree with them all of course. It's interesting to see what someone who is very successful at car design thinks about something so polarizing though.

Odd comparison of apples and oranges. No mention of functionality because there is no comparison. Neither of the saloons could carry a load of lumber, go off road, house a full sized bed, or tow anything. My feeling just with regard to design is that the enduring design of the ultra futuristic car he shows (Careem sp?) is the true heritage of the CT that will look futuristic in decades to come. The other car he shows is ignorably predictable.
 

CybrGator

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I thought this was very interesting so I thought I would share. I see his points, don't agree with them all of course. It's interesting to see what someone who is very successful at car design thinks about something so polarizing though.

I couldn't care less about his design pedigree or what he designed in the past. The Cybertruck was love at first sight for me and I know exactly where my 80k will be spent approximately a year from now ?
 

Delusional

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This guy is scared and covering his own ass.
He sees engineers taking over his design turf and instantly everything he "knows" about car design is thrown right out the window, He knows that the Cybrtrk's folded-steel method of producing vehicle bodies may prove to be far cheaper and at the same time far stronger than his designs. If the advantages of the Cybrtrk method are adopted by more in the industry, suddenly he's the one who appears out of date. Therefore he is forced to defend everything he has done in his entire career as being "right", and attack anything that does not follow his principles as being "wrong". It's simple self-preservation.

It's the engineers taking over design that really rubs him raw. He cannot sit still for that and I believe is the true motivation for creating his review.

And he's way outside his niche. Why should a Ferrari and McClaren designer care in the slightest about a pickup truck. The design language does not translate between the two.
He has no clue of the concerns of a truck buyer, and his short video emphasizes that.
I doubt he's ever driven the truck that carries his cars from show to show.

Ferarris are overloaded if you bring an extra pair of sunglasses.
 

cybercamper

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For me, the most worrisome design feature is the exoskeleton. Lotus tried a lightweight fiberglass exoskeleton in 1966 with the Europa S1 and they quickly ran away from it for the S2:

" The most significant change was the switch from fully bonded construction to the use of bolt fasteners to attach the fibreglass body to the backbone steel frame. While reducing the torsional and flexural stiffneses somewhat, the use of a separable body was welcomed by the automotive insurance industry as it greatly reduced the complexity and cost of making repairs to the vehicle.[3] " You could easily total an S1 in a minor accident.

However, I believe that if Lotus had been using 3mm stainless steel, the design would have succeeded. It would have been many times stronger, although much heavier. Perfect for a truck, maybe not for a sportscar. Note the Cybertruck has sail pillars just like the Europa S1.
Tesla Cybertruck Car designer Frank Stephenson's view on the Cybertruck 1607980972240


An interesting side note is that the other mass market stainless car design (DeLorean) had to be rescued by Lotus. In order to stamp the body panels, the stainless had to be very thin, too thin in fact for a car. Lotus helped DeLorean reinforce the panels with fiberglass just to make them strong enough. Since Tesla has had a long relationship with Lotus, all this history must have been well known and informed the Cybertuck design. Hence origami.

OK one more side note: The Europa S2 got rid of the sail pillars, as did the 1977 Lancia Montecarlo, because of rearward visibility concerns.

1976 Montecarlo:
Tesla Cybertruck Car designer Frank Stephenson's view on the Cybertruck 1607997050861

1977 Montecarlo with glass sail pillars/flying buttresses:
Tesla Cybertruck Car designer Frank Stephenson's view on the Cybertruck 1607997025317


Europa S2:
Tesla Cybertruck Car designer Frank Stephenson's view on the Cybertruck 1607997292779
 


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Thats a very pretty design but I can't imagine looking over that hood and judging the front distance.
Well if you've ever driven a Chevrolet Lumina APV or Pontiac Trans Sport, you would know that GM cares not about the front distance viewing. The company I worked for in the 90s bought those POS's and they were all around terrible(except maybe the seats).
As far as an exotic car/plane designer, I don't want to waste much time on what he has to say. I'm ecstatic about the design and can't wait to get my hands on a CT. Don't care about what other concept artist have to show either. They are suppose to give an updated look at the changes they've made sometime this month and then we can wonder about the options available on final order.
 

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Elon had me at Exoskeleton! No further explanations needed nor wants unfulfilled.
Admittedly I did go through the 7 stages of acceptance and delayed ordering until day 2.5.

Ct stages of acceptance.jpg
This is perfect!
It took me about two days to cycle from 1 through 7, hence my place at 216,000 in line. But yes, in the words of Bonanno Pisano, "It's -a-perfect!
 
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For me, the most worrisome design feature is the exoskeleton.
Thank you Juliana for this gem from the past.?

Like so often (in Automotive) what seems to be something new (sail pilars) is not, it just has been forgotten.

"The third time is a charm "?? Or how does the saying go.....

btw. electric opening of the side pilar lids sould be standart..... how about a "Batmode" flapping them ? ??
 

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For me, the most worrisome design feature is the exoskeleton. Lotus tried a lightweight fiberglass exoskeleton in 1966 with the Europa S1 and they quickly ran away from it for the S2:

" The most significant change was the switch from fully bonded construction to the use of bolt fasteners to attach the fibreglass body to the backbone steel frame. While reducing the torsional and flexural stiffneses somewhat, the use of a separable body was welcomed by the automotive insurance industry as it greatly reduced the complexity and cost of making repairs to the vehicle.[3] " You could easily total an S1 in a minor accident.

However, I believe that if Lotus had been using 3mm stainless steel, the design would have succeeded. It would have been many times stronger, although much heavier. Perfect for a truck, maybe not for a sportscar. Note the Cybertruck has sail pillars just like the Europa S1.
1607980972240.png


An interesting side note is that the other mass market stainless car design (DeLorean) had to be rescued by Lotus. In order to stamp the body panels, the stainless had to be very thin, too thin in fact for a car. Lotus helped DeLorean reinforce the panels with fiberglass just to make them strong enough. Since Tesla has had a long relationship with Lotus, all this history must have been well known and informed the Cybertuck design. Hence origami.

OK one more side note: The Europa S2 got rid of the sail pillars, as did the 1977 Lancia Montecarlo, because of rearward visibility concerns.

1976 Montecarlo:
1607997050861.png

1977 Montecarlo with glass sail pillars/flying buttresses:
1607997025317.png


Europa S2:
1607997292779.png
(First post here). I'm thinking that the issue of torsion, as well as compression, extension, flexion and shear, forced the use of exoskeleton. Then, they leaned into it. This is backwards from a car designer's perspective. A car designer can say unibody and let's make something. Tesla has to say, "How do we insure the battery pack doesn't take large quantities of force while carrying a load in the bed or towing???".

Traditional body on frame and unibody won't support the towing and carrying while protecting the battery pack from the torsion and other forces.

How does Tesla do that? exoskeleton, that's good because then they can skip paint and save billions...ok...what's the most sturdy way to do it? single high point triangle. The Tesla look continues inside given the engineering and design constraints . It's almost as if the CyberTruck had to look this way for it to even work.

Personally, the only thing that they could have gotten wrong, they did. That steering wheel, ugh...
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