one thing i think the cybertruck represents is a shift towards independent design thinking.

for the last few decades, the name of the game for automakers has been optimizing for MPG, leading to a bunch of cars basically looking the same.

However, the low-cost, scalable nature of batteries makes it so that EVs can take on an incredibly wide array of forms without being constrained by efficiency.

This shift has already flipped the bike industry on its head, and I suspect cars and trucks are next.

Bikes were roughly all the same size/shape prior to electrification, and now we’ve got all sorts of custom variants like fat-tire bikes, foldable mini-bikes, motorcycle-esque e-bikes, and things like hoverboards and scooters which are sort of adjacent.

None of these new variants would be very efficient or useful without batteries, they all trended to either gas-powered (motorcycles) or human-powered (bikes, skateboards, scooters).

As EV battery tech improves (and it is improving, albeit slower than Tesla had hoped for), I think we’ll see a much wider array of car designs as fuel consumption and efficiency become secondary considerations.

The cybertruck feels like the first of many unique car designs we’ll see in the coming decades.