51. Cybertruck

In the design phas­es of the Tes­la Cybertruck between 2018 and 2019, Elon Musk and chief design­er Franz von Holzhausen embarked on a cre­ative jour­ney to rev­o­lu­tion­ize the con­cept of the pick­up truck. Ini­tial­ly draw­ing inspi­ra­tion from tra­di­tion­al mod­els such as the Chevro­let Sil­ver­a­do and the Chevro­let El Camino from the 1960s, their dis­cus­sions fre­quent­ly occurred in Tes­la’s design stu­dio in Los Ange­les, reflect­ing on aspects that blend­ed his­tor­i­cal allure with futur­is­tic prospects. How­ev­er, Musk sought a design that broke away from the norm, a vehi­cle that both sur­prised and cap­ti­vat­ed.

Delv­ing into a mix of nos­tal­gic and avant-garde sources, includ­ing the wedge-shaped Lotus Esprit fea­tured in a James Bond film—which Musk owned—the duo sought a design that embod­ied both strength and inno­va­tion. Their quest for a ground­break­ing approach took a piv­otal turn upon real­iz­ing that pick­up trucks had not sig­nif­i­cant­ly evolved in form or man­u­fac­tur­ing for eighty years. This insight led to ques­tion­ing the fun­da­men­tal mate­ri­als used in truck design, steer­ing away from con­ven­tion­al alu­minum and tita­ni­um towards stain­less steel, inspired by Musk’s inter­est in space explo­ration tech­nol­o­gy.

This mate­r­i­al choice was not mere­ly aes­thet­ic but func­tion­al, allow­ing for a struc­tur­al reimag­in­ing of the truck into an exoskele­ton design that would for­go tra­di­tion­al chas­sis depen­den­cies. The deci­sion to employ cold-rolled, ultra-hard stain­less steel, a mate­r­i­al shared with SpaceX endeav­ors, was instru­men­tal in shap­ing the Cybertruck­’s dis­tinc­tive appear­ance. Its design was com­pelled to adopt straight planes and sharp angles, a stark depar­ture from the soft cur­va­tures of typ­i­cal vehi­cles.

Musk’s dri­ve to inno­vate was fur­ther fueled by per­son­al chal­lenges and con­tro­ver­sies he faced in 2018, push­ing him to focus on devel­op­ing a truck that depart­ed from con­ven­tion­al designs and expec­ta­tions. Invit­ing bold­ness and a will­ing­ness to sur­prise, Musk and his team were inspired by futur­is­tic and cyber­net­ic aes­thet­ics found in video games, sci-fi movies, and his son’s poignant inquiry: “Why doesn’t the future look like the future?” This sen­ti­ment shaped their design ethos, striv­ing to mate­ri­al­ize a vehi­cle that tru­ly looked as if it belonged to the future, sig­nal­ing a delib­er­ate depar­ture from tra­di­tion­al­ism towards embrac­ing a rad­i­cal and futur­is­tic vision for the Tes­la Cybertruck.