Even the Tesla Cybertruck’s Brake Lights Don’t Make Sense::Brake lights shouldn’t be confusing, but Tesla’s determined to be different with the Cybertruck, for better or worse.
Wow, what a dumb design. It actually looks less like it’s braking with the brake lights on.
It’s also got the whole brake light and turn signal are the same light thing I hate too. Just keep them separate lights with a yellow light for the turn signal.
I don’t get how that’s legal in some parts of the world.
American manufacturing don’t want to have to change anything in their production lines so most American cars have only a red taillight that flashes the same bulk for brakes and turn signal.
It is lazy and unsafe but it would probably cost a few pennies to have an orange turn signal light so it is more profit not to do it.
Meanwhile every nice car out there has a $1000 LED for branding. It has little to do with cost and more to do with manufacturers using lights for style and branding. Folks are very happy to spend more on nice looking LEDs.
Thankfully it’s changing a bit. I’ve noticed that newer Ford and Dodge full sized pickups use amber turn signals. I assume that these vehicles don’t sell very well in places that require amber turn signals (Europe).
Meanwhile, VW, Audi, BMW, Land Rover, and Mercedes all modify their amber European turn signals to red to sell in the US. For some reason, they go out of their way to make 2 parts instead of 1 for many of their models.
I think it’s a styling thing rather than a cost thing now. Back when taillights in the US were a single bulb on each side, cost was a driving factor. Now with complex LED taillights, I think it’s something else keeping amber out of our indicators.
Older ones do this too, its just this weird range of years where people tried to get clever with their turn signals.
All the more reason it should be illegal! It is in other parts of the world.
I’ve read that it used to be done on purpose to prevent models meant for US to be sold in other parts of the world, and the other way around.
Conversions are not straightforward since on US models there’s a single wire that goes to a single bulb and carries both the brake (steady) and turn (blink) signals, while in other places there’s a distinct turn bulb with it’s own wire.
Mixed brake and turn signals are not legal in several EU countries.
It’s been an issue with imported Jeep Wrangler US models, which run afoul not only of not having separate brake and turn lights but also not meeting spec about minimum surface of brake lights.
Some people were skirting around the regulations by registering them as off-road vehicles but those have to meet specific criteria (such as not being used primarily as a cool ride in the middle of an urban area…)
It would not be in Germany AFAIK. But there’s also no chance it’ll ever come out over here, and frankly trying to sell a pretty truck is a tall order here. Nevermind something with a design only it’s deranged nazi inventor could love, if even that.
I’m not even sure its legal in the US. The mixed brake lights are one thing, but even in the US they cannot be the ONLY form of brake light. And the idea of a “center light” being the normal tail light turning OFF and being replaced with a smaller light doesn’t seem like it would meet even the relatively lax US DOT requirements.
I meant the mixed breaklight thing.
The cybertruck is a whole other level of fucking dumb.
My model 3 has red turn signals. Model Y? Literally exact same taillights? Yellow. Model S? Yellow. Model X? Yellow.
Why!?
Why!?
It’s called mood swings IIRC :-)
$
Is it though? Presumably they’re making 2 separate parts. One with red indicators and one with amber. I can’t imagine that’s somehow cheaper than making one part.
Aren’t there US states that require red turn signals to pass inspection?
No.
Specially in say foggy conditions and little bit distance. At which point you won’t clearly maybe differentiate individual elements and more like that’s the rear and “block of light in middle, left and right”. At which point it all little blending one might infact be under impression “the light intensity lowered at the rear, huh, not braking then, did they have they parking break dragging they released or something… ohhhjj shuiiiiiit no it is braking hard”.
My two cents from here north of Europe and land of snow, rain, fog and occasional white out conditions.
I know! Lets make the “brake lights” just be the normal tail lights turning off. It’ll look way cooler that way!
It’s honestly amazing because a decent amount of work had to go into making the brake lights work like this. The number of people involved who didn’t notice or care how bad this is, is baffling…
Someone actually bought this n64 piece of shit?
N64 had more polygons than that. This thing is more like a virtualboy game, and it gives you a migraine when you look at it just like virtualboy.
I remember the virtualboy and the dire warnings that we were told about it.
A now ex-colleague pre-ordered straight away. It came up during a lunch discussion where he was convinced Teslas (which he owned) were at a more advanced self-driving class (3 or 4 versus the actual 2).
Some people really drank the Musk Coolaid and that was back before he went full-on alt-right troll.
It totally reminds me of playing Deathtrack on my 1989 PC. Especially Preying Menace’s car…
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It should come with an expansion pack to get rid of the sharp edges
That will take the 32-bit hardware upgrade.
to get rid of the sharp edges
Or you blow a little air into it…
More like Atari Jaguar or the 3DO. Absolute trash.
Actually kinda reminds me of the cars you see in the old arcade game Hard Drivin.
Still can’t believe this made it to production
Homer Simpson ass lookin car
Homer Simpson at least had the intent of making a car that would meet the needs of his imagined consumer. I don’t know who the hell this truck was designed for.
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This comes to mind.
If the Homer and Canyonero had a baby
“Unexplained fires are a matter for the courts! Canyonero…🎵🎵🎵”
That looks like a shitty future car mock-up for a late 80’s future/action movie. Like Robocop or an Arnold movie 🤣 Only Elon would fund something this unappealing.
Much like naming a company “X”
Maybe he’s hoping people will start calling him the X-man.
Dear god… I think you could be onto something.
It looks like something RIGHT out of Robocop, which is funny because the stupid fucking cars was actually a point of satire in that movie.
I think Elon missed the the obvious joke, as per usual lol
everything about this truck is ugly, and fucked up. Just scrap it and start over.
I’m convinced that Elon himself drew a shitty sketch for the truck on a napkin and said “make it exactly how I drew it!” and they did unfortunately.
I’m convinced it’s worse than that. I think he originally drew this thing when he was six years old and is so impressed with himself that he thought it was pure genius then and now.
It was also at that time that he became obsessed with the letter X because he loved pirates and treasure maps.
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Remember when Homer designed a car?
I’d rather own that car.
Malicious Compliance.
I think he learned a 3D modeling program like just enough
It looks like an uglier version of the Aztec, and that’s really saying something
I think the CAD program they uaed for design was based on the Logo language.
Funny enough the Aztec has this cult following now
I assume that’s because of Breaking Bad more than anything else
If I could have afforded an Aztec when they came out I would have bought one. There are dozens of us.
I actually love the way it can look in some of the promo materials and concept art. They should have left it as a concept car and showed it off at events and shit. The things that make it work as a concept, like the striking geometry under certain lighting at specific angles, I haven’t seen a pic of it on the road that looks cool yet. The smaller details like these lights take away from the minimalist geometry and make it look messy and busy instead of sleek and weird, and it just looks like a bunch of rectangles haphazardly arranged.
Good concepts look good on the road. They have all the lights worked out. You’re proving the point this is a bad design. Leave it a rudimentary sketch and never building it, means it’s a bad design.
A lot of concepts aren’t even road legal or would just be laying frame on any normal road. The Cybertruck’s bad design isn’t really due to the aesthetics, it’s the design of the platform and structure underneath.
Ok call me crazy but wouldn’t the requirements be written in law? I’d expect in many countries it simply wouldn’t be able to be sold.
From the article
The Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards regulate taillight design, mandating minimum area, placement, quantity, and visibility according to vehicle category, dimensions, and weight. However, the FMVSS does not appear to prohibit deactivating taillights during braking, so the Cybertruck’s taillights as seen here seem to be legal—even if they are perplexing, and potentially dangerous.
I still can barely believe this thing is real, and not something out of a bad 90s movie where video game characters come into the real world.
I was more meaning in a wider sense. A car manufacturer who can’t sell their cars outside the US is shooting themselves in the foot.
Isn’t that kinda his specialty these days?
Manufacturers usually have separate models, a standard one for the whole world and a cut down version to save cost for the US
It’s not “common” at all for US cars to have a lesser model. I can think of 1 popular model off the top of my head.
No it is pretty common, especially when it comes to safety features.
The EU has stricter requirements especially stuff like lights, and you see European models often fitted with extra lights to comply with the regulations.
Technology connections has an old video on this regarding brake lights and turn signals at least https://youtu.be/O1lZ9n2bxWA?si=h5I-5_BMLoFEoj1k
🙄👌👍 having different LEDs is a cut down model. 👍
It sure is, significant cost savings to only stock one part rather than two. Multiply that by thousands of service centers and millions of vehicles
Not having distinct brake and turning lights is
I can. Look at that weird VR thing Facebook tried. No one says no to these people the result is they just go with any sci-fi movie they liked.
As with most laws, first someone has to do something really stupid for others to say “we should probably write this down in the rule book and not allow others to do this.”
Elon and his designers are basically doing things that other car designers aren’t dumb enough to do.
But there are countries all around the world. You can find yourself a loophole in one country but then you can’t sell your car in all the countries that loophole doesn’t exist
Let me introduce you to Elon musk…
But they’ve been doing the same dumb shit with brake and turn signals for decades and no one has done anything about it. They’ll have one set for Europe to comply with local regulations and then design and engineer a whole other set for the US just to have the wrong colors.
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Yes they need to be separate lights and yellow here in NZ. We mostly follow japan’s car safety rules so probably the same in many countries
Yellow? Brake lights are red, reversing lights white (which could be considered yellow).
Edit: I’m seriously confused with the downvotes. I live in NZ, and have never heard of yellow brake lights. The requirement is that they are red. Did I miss something?
and turn indicators are yellow/orange
Most of the world mandates 3 colors in rear — red for brakes, amber for turn, white for reverse, and often there are additional distinct red lights to differentiate between night lights and night braking.
You’re correct about that, OP was talking about the turn signals.
In the US the turn signals in rear can/must be red (depends on state) and can even be the same light serving multiple purposes (turn, brake, night position, night brake).
I’m not really sure how it works if you need to do 3 of those at the same time (brake at night with the turn signal on)…
Yeah that got me very confused. The post is specifically about the brake lights, and they didn’t specify they were talking about something else. It’s not hard to confuse me, though.
Sorry, brake red, indicators yellow. In the US a lot of the indicators are red too.
There’s a video in the article and… oof, that’s good to know in case I end up behind one. It’s definitely a bit confusing and likely won’t alert distracted drivers because the red light is always present. (Not that drivers should be distracted on the road, but it happens often.)
We’ll turn off the lights off to show just the brake lights! Brilliant!
Thanks for specifically mentioning that there was a video. I’d glanced at the article, didn’t see a video and left. Had to click the extra link!
Looking at that, I almost feel like it could be pretty cool if instead of what actually happens, that middle part that stays lit up was actually a LED display that flashes the word braking.
As is, that’s pretty bonkers.
It must “look like the future”…
I guess, if you are stuck thinking the 80’s are the future.
The Huyndai N vision 74 looks like the future, and it looks amazing.
The Cybertruck just looks like a bad Playstation 1 game model.
I mean, it also looks like “80’s future” aesthetics but unlike the cybertruck, it does looks amazing
If you take the wing and ground effects off, it looks like a 30 year old Toyota Supra.
I don’t know if I’d call that “futuristic”.
That car looks excellent. I didn’t have my glasses and misread it as estrogen powered and was really confused for a bit though.
Its powered using the women!
The future as imagined in the 80’s
Back to the future. Since the thing looks like an ugly DeLorean on steroids.
This is what happens when you think you’re smarter than decades of lessons in vehicle safety design. Elon Musk is truly a dumb person’s idea of a smart person.
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You’d have to be a moron to buy one of these things at this point.
honestly, if you even buy an Elonmobile these days, it’s kind of embarrassing… people will make fun of you behind your back now because of it and weird Elon bros will approach you. I had so many middle aged Elon bros come up to me and peddle crypto to me while I was charging, it’s crazy. you really really have to be a super moron Elon fan to buy one today
Which really sucks because when you do the math for range and efficiency honestly nothing else really approaches the Tesla still. The closest is Hyundai with their iconic series but as aging Wheels did a video on recently the charging situation for non Tesla cars is just abysmal at the moment most Chargers are broken, derated, or just otherwise somehow not easily functional whereas the Tesla charging stations rarely have issues
They really puts a wet towel on my desire to own an electric vehicle
yeah they’re still capable cars if you can get over the terrible QA off the line. but like it or not, buying a Tesla these days is almost like making a political statement. it’s just way more annoying to own one these days than something that’s more low profile
Weren’t there articles like literally 2 days ago beinf posted about how they lied about the range so bad people were taking their cara in for service because they thought the batteries were faulty? (Then Tesla gets to charge a service fee too)
I didn’t see that, but I would not put it past them. However as mentioned the Aging Wheel videos shows how trying to actually charge your car anywhere other than home is a massive pain in the ass with anything other than Tesla which would still be a huge deal breaker.
My dad would be very offended by that…
If he could read…
(Mostly joking)
Nothing else comes close in price to model 3 in the us after federal tax rebate and not having dealer markups. After dealer markups the only one comparable is a Chevy Bolt that may be ~2k under the M3, but you end up with a car that has a top speed of 90 mph and abysmal fast charging.
I would say ioniq 5/6 are better cars, but you would be looking at paying ~15k more.
They say they have a million preorders…
I ordered a Tesla S way back in the day when it was a 6 month wait. I had to put down a $2000 deposit. But I got it all back when I cancelled the order a few months later.
So I have to wonder what those million preorders actually mean. Because boy howdy people are going to have some fucking buyer’s remorse once these eyesores start shipping.
They make the Pontiac Aztec look good. And that’s saying something!
Love that Walter White had the Aztec pre-Heisenberg. Went well with the character at that time.
The deposit was only $250, fully refundable, so there was no reason not to. At the time, there were no EV pickups, so this was announced to be first, and starting price target was $39k.
So now, it’s not first but last to release, price is way higher, and it’s not coming together as expected. I wish they’d stop reminding people about the preorders because they’re going to lose a lot of them
And if the million preorders did hold up, it would still be bad for them because they’ll need two years to produce them all.
That is insane. The “brake lights” are effectively just the regular tail lights turning OFF and being replaced with smaller less bright lights. That is stupid.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U0YW7x9U5TQ
Honestly all of Technology Connections’ videos on brake lights, but this is the newest. Also, I would give y’all a Piped link but you should have an auto redirect setup anyway (and there is that lovely bot).
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Hey, I found the driver!
