Tesla's Cybertruck Shakes Up Auto World with Bold Design and High Demand

The Cybertruck's angular, controversial form would help improve Tesla's brand, the electric vehicle maker's head designer said on Thursday, adding that the pickup was not an experiment.

Tesla Stainless Steel Pickup Is Not An Experiment

"Love it or hate it, it's a conversation starter, and it gets people talking about the brand," Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen stated at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, which is adding Cybertruck models to a Tesla exhibit, as per Reuters.

The long-delayed Cybertruck starts at $60,990, which is more than 50% more than what CEO Elon Musk had projected in 2019, and has a lesser range than originally promised.

However, it is attracting attention from those who have never had a truck, with some potential buyers waiting for it at Tesla shops, according to von Holzhausen.

"Just because it looks different doesn't mean that it can't be potentially a high volume vehicle," he furthered, adding that the pick-up measures up to the performance of traditional rivals. "There seems to be this air of doubt. "We're bringing people into the market that never would have owned a truck before. And so I don't think it's an experiment."

Because a typical press cannot bend stainless steel into curves, the truck is all angles. The Lamborghini Countach, another radically angular car, inspired the design, as did Lockheed's F-117 Stealth Fighter plane, according to von Holzhausen. "It looks like it shouldn't do what it does, yet, intelligent engineers figured it out," he stated of the F-117.

Elon Musk's Bond-Inspired Vision Meets Reality in Cybertruck's Eventful Journey

Elon Musk was also inspired by the car-turned-submarine in the 1977 James Bond film "The Spy Who Loved Me," which he purchased. The launch of the Cybertruck was not without problems, according to The Guardian.

During the truck's unveiling event in 2019, von Holzhausen fired a metal ball at it, shattering two of its armored glass windows. He tossed a baseball at the windows without causing any damage at another ceremony last month where the first trucks were delivered.

A recent popular video also showed the Cybertruck pulling a Christmas tree up a slope that a gasoline-powered automobile couldn't climb. Von Holzhausen, on the other hand, defended the vehicle, claiming that his children enjoy being picked up from school in the Cybertruck and that he has been mistaken for Musk when driving it.

Photo: Cali Naughton/Unsplash