Motorcycle (and backpacking) camper here, so right there are my credentials for being able to shove a camping loadout into a vehicle.
For $3000, you can buy an entire high end backpacking setup, and also be able to use it without the presence of your stupid truck. And when I say entire, I mean it: A nice free standing tent you could probably pitch inside the truck bed if you had some creativity and really wanted to, a premium cot or inflatable pad, very competent sleeping bag, backpack, stove, water filter, hiking poles, a chair, a nice knife, the whole lot.
With change left over. I just added up the full list prices of everything in my core loadout and you could buy it all (including the backpack, which you don't need for truck camping) for $1418.82.
Yeah, even a high-quality truck or SUV compatible tent is a minor fraction of the cost here. I could walk into an REI with $3,000.00 and end up with an incredible kit of camping gear. This is highway robbery.
I’m pretty sure what happened is that they were essentially pitching a shell for the back of the truck. And if it’s rigid and made of metal and maybe folded down to act as a cover while driving, fine. That’d still be a lot more than what the average truck/SUV convertible will cost. But it’s Tesla so it’s expected.
But then they changed to this BS and couldn’t reduce the price without recognizing the drop in expectation so here we are.
free standing tent you could probably pitch inside the truck bed if you had some creativity and really wanted to
The cyber truck bed is ~72x51(I have also seen 49"). Most 2 person tents are 50-54x78-88. I couldn't find the bed length with the tailgate down, but the interior height with the cover closed is about 20", so we can assume the available length would be over 90". The other issue is most 2 person tents are side opening and getting out would be a bother, but a head or foot opening tent could totally work.
You could squeeze in a very nice 2 person head opening tent and spend under $800 easily, you can have a nice tent for $250. A custom 4 season tent is still only about $1,000.
But truck bed tents do exist, and those would fit easily and are under $500 all day.
Hell, for 3k you could hire someone to haul a tent out to you. Maybe even air drop the damn thing to you.
The self-assembling tent I used to use was only $50.
Apple makes some really stupid products that they charge ridiculous money for and their usual stuff is more expensive than it needs to be but at least their core products are of very good quality. The same cannot be said of Tesla
It must be because not everyone follows him around like us on reddit/Lemmy. I think this sort of thing is not reported in mainstream news. So the average person is barely aware of who Elon Musk even is.
Ego dream marketing. Same as any people buying SUVs after seeing an advertisement with a handsome business man in a suite with a big watch driving across the Alpes.
I have one of those 76 "canvas" (vinyl) bags sitting around somewhere. Anytime somebody I know gets excited about a new Bethesda game, I just send them a picture of it and tell them that I've got a great bag to sell them.
"We're sorry that you aren't happy with the tent. The tent shown in the media was a prototype and was too expensive to make. We aren't planning on doing anything about it."
That's the famous honest bethesda support reply to giving a cheap nylon carrying bag with a special edition of fallout 76 instead of a high quality canvas one
Depending on your requirements (e.g. are you planning on camping in hardcore places or just regular spots in fair weather), you could get not only the tent but all the rest of the camping gear as well for that price.
Ok, but like... You're talking about people who'd waste money on buying a "cyber" truck in the first place. At that point it's like people buying Apple products; it's less about having the best possible version of the thing and more about having something from Tesla/Musk.
Idk, he is still managing to sell way overpriced versions of existing tech to people. Albeit much less polished. His main mistake is exposing himself as an idiot at every opportunity, rather than keeping the mystique to make it seem cool.
These idiots just line up to be grifted publicly and then willingly drive around advertising that they are broken trash people. Never stop ridiculing these chuds
A theory I follow is that Musk got hold of some findom customer lists and built his customer base from those. His customers love getting financially fucked by that guy.
Its a continuing mystery to me why people want these vehicle-integrated tents. If you want to go into town for a burrito, you have to break down your camp. If parking is only by the road that's where you sleep. If parking isn't level you aren't sleeping level. Your tent is exposed to road dirt and water all the time. They are way more expensive than a regular tent. They are locked in to one vehicle. They make your gas mileage worse. They are hard to install and remove.
If you could have HVAC in the tent then ok. But sounds like that isn't a thing here either.
Well I have a hard shell RTT (Autohome) that I love. Gets me off of the ground on a memory foam mattress and it's well insulated. Very little hit to mileage. I've used it on my Jeep Rubicon and now on my Rivian R1S. Takes less than 2 minutes to pop up and I don't have to worry about wild animals (I camp in bear/mountain lion territory).
But I agree this thing is ridiculous. I read someone else called it a Cyberdiaper lol.
I don't get the truck bed tents, personally. I guess they might have their use cases for hunters or something who are taking their truck out to the woods anyway, crashing overnight, and getting up at the crack of dawn to shoot Bambi and go home. Or something. But otherwise I don't see the appeal over just using a regular old tent, which will be both cheaper and considerably more versatile or doing as we used to do and just put a cap on your truck, and throw an air mattress in the back. The cap-and-mattress plan also has the advantage of not needing an actual camp site or anywhere to even put down stakes for a fly; you can just stop in any damn fool sandy/muddy/rocky/wet/paved location you like and there you go.
I almost bought a rooftop tent a few years ago. I was in Snoqualmie in the pouring rain at dusk, because Seattle, just crashing there after driving across the country before moving on the next morning. The guy at the site next to me rocked up with an Xterra with a rooftop tent on it and just folded the thing out and climbed in. Meanwhile I was out there getting drenched working on hammering my tent stakes into the damn hard packed clinker they dump all over the camp sites there. At that exact moment I did not hate any person on earth more than I hated that motherfucker and his rooftop tent.
A friend of mine has that one. I was a little surprised to see that the telescope ladder is the exact same as the cheapest one in a discount hardware store. I wonder how much it costs at Audi..
If it cost like $75 max that's within realms of sensibility. If I bought that thing for 3000 I'd probably die from embarrassment. It's like an advertisement for how gullible you are.
From the original concept it looks like it started out as a camper shell that could be lifted and had fabric flaps that would keep it sealed. And with the shell closed it would have a relatively flat top.
But it got cheapened to all tent before announced, and then a shitty tent by release.
But that camper shell idea? That would be worth 3k and incredibly awesome.
100%. That has been exactly my experience. There’s no question it’s a good car, but they always manage to set higher expectations than what they are capable of delivering. You can’t help but feel disappointed even though you have a great EV. It’s really soured me on the whole brand. I would never buy another one.
As a seasoned camper the original design doesn't look even remotely weatherproof. So to me, this is an improvement.
The lack of tent mode (suspension self levelling) is disappointing but in reality other vehicles don't have that feature either and the world is full of level campsites. It's also not that hard to manually level things up with ramps or a jack.
More disappointing is there's no way to connect the tent to the HVAC system - that would have been a massive selling point if they could manage it and surely wouldn't have been difficult? Just need some sort of opening or pipe to the main cabin and a few software tweaks to make sure you don't drain the battery overnight.
Agreed, the original was a stupid design. This is much more realistic looking and looks 'fine'. Though it doesn't look like it's worth 3 grand either...
Not having HVAC access in the tent is totally reasonable because you would have to have an opening that seals. Sure having a window in the back glass would work, but you are still using power to regulate the entire cab plus the tent.
They could have had an option for a bed tent duct and wireless temperature sensor so you are only regulating the tent, but the cost and design investment for a low adoption option would not make it viable.
In any case, trying to regulate the temperature of an uninsulated tent would destroy battery life and there would be tons of cyber trucks stuck in camping sites with dead batteries.
If you want heating and cooling when camping, get a trailer or camper.
I don't want a cybertruck and I think Elon is an ass, but it would pretty cool if you had a tent like this that didn't suck on a truck that wasn't stupid and you could hook the tent up to the climate control and have it vented through the tent. Like, winter camping, toasty warm, summer camping, nice and cool. That would be pretty baller. Is that a thing already?
There are a few different options that I've seen. There's a tent that comes out of the back of an SUV to allow airflow and a bit of extra room. There's also a normal sort of dome tent that zips around the hatch of an SUV, making your vehicle into an extra room of the tent, or maybe vice versa.
The “preorders” for the truck were $250 and were refundable. They basically just held your spot in line and allowed you the option to order at a certain time.
Also, I could be wrong, but I don’t think you could preorder the tent.
The Rivian that was announced a few days ago has a nice feature, rear seats and the two front ones all fold flat so that it can fit a twin air mattress in the cabin. That seems a better solution than ... whatever the fuck this is.
The actual product bows at the top. Their entire back half of the truck is flat, wouldn't a lightweight hardtop would be a much better choice over tent poles across the roof?
Especially if they're going for looks.
It would be easier to match the angle of the open tent to that of the front of the truck. (Although even the render doesn't match it, so maybe they want the extra angle).
They already lose several inches in horizontal space, they could fit a metal prop in there as a redundancy to support the top.
Could add a large plexiglass tinted window in the hardtop.
It would look a lot better when closed into the bed.
I'm a little sad the new VW van doesn't have a Westfalia trim. Those pop up campers were great: Stove, fridge, sink, table, and it sleeps four. Plus with a tailwind you might hit 55.
Adam Something has an infallible equation that explains all of this kind of stuff: rich asshole + stupid idea with tons of nice CGI renders = dumb shit
I actually do care that a company is violating advertisment laws and I hope each and every person gets their money back. Owning something I dislike isn't enough for me to ignore the wrongdoings of a company.