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Old 11-23-19, 09:00 PM   #84
MN Renovator
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The specs on the Cybertruck look great and the price for a 500 mile range vehicle with access to a supercharger is amazing. I'm imagining the disappointment when someone hitches up a 2 or 3 ton travel trailer and finds out the range loss primarily due to aerodynamics. Their advertisement of 14,000 pounds will get people towing heavy loads with it. Might not be an issue if towing a trailer to move a heavy load a reasonable distance, but for a vacation I could see the complaints from folks who weren't informed.

My biggest concern about this design is crash safety. The rest of the Tesla's starting with the Model S have had excellent crumple zones, NHTSA and IIHS ratings, and crash statistics. This vehicle has a strong monocoque body made with stainless steel. I'm trying to imagine how this will crumple and what NHTSA and IIHS ratings and opinions will look like. Hopefully Tesla has completed crash modeling already and this is a non issue, but I think this could be the biggest downfall and a significant risk that nobody is talking about.

I think I'd personally be gunning for the same 500 mile range in a hatchback package(perhaps a 500 mile range Model Y), but these are personal preferences and I can't justify any EV right now anyway because anything cheap enough to make sense to me can't supercharge and I drive cross country often. Anything that can supercharge doesn't work out on paper economically compared to my existing car with the factors being much higher insurance costs, initial purchase price of even a used unit, low gasoline price and high MPG of current car, and bad reliability history of the Model S with the Model 3 being too new to get a solid litmus. If I were to get a brand new car and initial purchase price was a factor, I'd get a Toyota Prius Prime, covers most local driving trips without burning gas and my cross country trips are convenient.
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