The aerodynamics of a conventional pickup truck are extremely bad. You need probably twice the battery capacity to get highway performance at 60 mph on par with a Jaguar I-PACE.
That is a big No-No for Tesla.
The first design parameter for Tesla was: no open bed. The second was: no box form.
High on the list would also be: Tesla cars are beautiful, not rusty or dented. Another would be that you should be able to actually use the bed for your stuff. In urban environments, everything in it that can be carried away will be carried away when you return. Cheap and easy to produce would also be on that list.
Put this list into an AI system that does not have preconceived notions what a pickup should look like, and out comes the Tesla Cybertruck.
The aerodynamics are great. The bed coffer turns that open space into a vault. The stainless steel enables a unibody design that is lighter, stronger, and cheaper to make.
With a relatively small battery (~75kWh), a “low-cost” version can shock the market. With the Plaid powertrain, there is nothing on the road (except other Teslas) that can compete in pure badass driving.
This is such a radical departure from what is thought to be a normal pickup, that most will be unable, at first, to comprehend this concept.
Reference- Clean Technica, Tesla website and online Newsroom, BBC
