Tesla starts shipping $3,000 Cybertruck tent, looks nothing like what was unveiled | Electrek
2 years ago by filister to c/technology
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.
It's the price you deserve to pay if you support Tesla.
Yeah, but none of that helps convince me I didn't buy a shitty truck and stave off the buyer's remorse for another few months!
And! You can move that to your next vehicle when your Cybertruck inevitably disintegrates.
This requires a cybertruck. And there's a whole class of people that already have crossbars on their cars. I priced out a Thule kit for my wagon and it was about 2400 bucks for the whole kit including the mounting hardware for my roof rails. And it's modular, and will work on any vehicle.
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.
I need to understand why people still keep giving that man money. Willingly. It's mind boggling.
I don't either. People love being shit on I guess. It's what makes huge companies like Apple and Tesla so popular.
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
Good quality but still overpriced. You pay for the brand name.
Good quality but still overpriced. You pay for the brand name.
It really is.
I'm just amazed anyone would buy the truck, let alone a $3k tent for it.
Just tattoo idiot on your forehead. At least you'd still have most of your money.
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.
They like being scammed pretty much.
That's like Bethesda fallout backpack levels of quality
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.
Literally. It's like owning a piece of video game history like one of the cartridges of ET for the Atari - a shitty piece of video game history about the greed of companies.
Can I see the Pic of the bag?

It feels a lot like one of those bags you get at a con for free, or a jacket that you'd get off of a cheap Chinese website like Alibaba or Temu. That cheap woven plastic type of material.
That's even worse than I was expecting
Oooh, me too.
It does literally compare it to that whole debacle in the article

Ah. I use reader mode and it didn’t load the comments. Thanks
Honestly, I didn’t see that whole controversy when it happened and I just looked it up. The final, actually canvas, bag they ended up sending…still seems like a huge ripoff. But that’s just me and I’ve never really seen anything but the monster factory episodes of fallout.
I had the exact same thought, and was about to make the same post
"Oh god, its the Fallout preorder bags 2: electric car boogaloo"
Pontiac Aztec anyone?


Quite close.
Tent unfolded.

Adding this to my directives. If I'm ever seen sitting underneath a Pontiac Aztec tent in flip-flops, it means I've lost the will to live and life supporting measures should be halted. Primarily removing my available oxygen supply via pillow suffocation.
Frankly he looks like he's thriving. I'm happy for him
This one looks like a fleshlight. Where can I find dye bleach?
dye bleach 🤔
It was supposed to be eye bleach but I'm keeping the typo, it's an interesting one.
I'm guessing the dragons fucking cars community didn't migrate over to lemmy yet
New plan baby. New Pontiac Aztec plan...
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Ow lad he's coming
"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."
Do you really think they'd get a reply, and not the usual poop emoji?
Light wood laminate!
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.
You can get a good tent for $50, or a tarp and some rope for $30. You can get all your camping stuff for $1000. Less is more with camping.
That walmart tent you buy for 50 aint a good tent, and will either leak like a sieve in the rain, or be so unbreathable as to become an unlivable humidity drenched hotbox from your perspiration and body heat.
You can certainly get a decent one for <$300 though. Which is an order of magnitude less than $3000.
These will last 20 years. They haven't even changed the design.
Also, why are you camping in crazy ass weather? Like I said, a tarp is even cheaper and better when it's hot.
If you're taking that shitty truck, from early reports, you aren't going to anywhere hardcore. Maybe the park down the street.
500 dollars will get you a really nice regular tent.
3000 will get you a fucking glampers dream setup.
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.
I finally saw one of these ugly things (the truck), down in Miami a few days ago.
Wait, 3k? My $50 tent is better and larger.
easier to setup and will probably last longer.
Definitely does not have the Steve Jobs talent
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.
The guy single-handedly moved IT from astronomy to astrology in the eyes of masses, thank God he's dead.
Until Musk tries to sue them.
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.
I mean, I've seen weirder crap for my car...

I actually kinda like those things.
They were huge at multi day music festivals with camping, probably still are.
You only got so much space for camping, so camping on your car saved space and helped make sure you got a breeze being higher up than everyone.
Like a treefort.
Looks like an AI generated monstrosity.
Just like the truck itself
Reminds me of this Top Gear moment.
Hammond had one on his car in the new Prime special Sand Job.
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These are weird?
Having it hang over? yeah... little weird...
The rack isn't even attached to the rails in this picture. So not that weird.
Hefty! Hefty! Hefty! Wimpy, Wimpy, Wimpy!
Remember when they introduced the hefty hefty cinch sack?
The FLEX!
Man, they really fucked that up...
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.
I guess if you were going for that post-apocalyptic mad max vibe the cybertruck offers then this is the perfect accessory!
Really looks like someone made a makeshift shelter out of trash bags over the shell of a wrecked old shitty truck.
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.
Ebben Eastern Germany had a better solution: https://vezess2.p3k.hu/...
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.
It is the minority of campsites that have shore power.
Regardless, why would you take a truckbed tent camping and want HVAC? If you have a $100k truck with 11,000lbs towing capacity and want HVAC at a site with shore power, you tow a trailer.
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?
Sounds like an RV
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.
Stop preordering unreleased things.
Don't preorder games or unreleased cars.
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 article at least implies there were changes between the time you could buy and the time they were shipping.
It said it changed since the Cybertruck reveal in 2019, and when then tent arrived for sale 3 months ago, it was different than the original reveal concept.
I don’t believe you were able to preorder the tent during the reveal. You could only reserve an order spot for the truck, and you could back out of that reservation if you changed your mind.
If you didn’t like changes that were made to the truck or the accessories between reveal and launch, you could totally get your $250 back and walk over to the Rivian store.
The way it said:
The product became ‘Basecamp’ and was released for sale shortly after Tesla revealed the production version of the truck last year. It already seemed to be a lot less attractive design at that point. Now, Tesla has started shipping, or rather installing, the Basecamp for early Cybertruck owners.
(Emphasis mine) made me think it got worse after the design changes at sale time, but maybe I misinterpreted it.
You can see the awful, misaligned panel gaps in those photos.
When you order your ugly truck tent from Wish
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 Pontiac Aztec has risen from the dead.
Well to be honest, the advertised tent looks like Snow White's Coffin to me...
Ok Honda, you see it right? 2025 Honda Element would absolutely dust this trash.
Clearly there's been a market segment since 2011 that still wants it so c'mon.
This cybertruck feels like it would be such visual pollution on campgrounds and stuff.
It's visual pollution anywhere. I cannot for the life of me fathom why anyone finds that style appealing to begin with.
The Cyber truck is like the Pontiac Aztec's special ed electrically charged cousin.
That moonroof sure makes stargazing comfy
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
Le piez de mierdance!
Looks like Elon accidentally added a zero to his price tag and everyone just kinda accepted it.
Ha ha ha ha! Now that it's some complete shit right there!
Oof
I'll stick with my Transit camper build, thanks.
For $3,000? What a kick in the teeth!
I’m not like the other CEOs
They bought the car in the first place, which waives their right to complain in my opinion.
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.
Didn't the guy at the helm recently say "go fuck yourself" to other kind of people giving him money too? Just sayin
"ha ha, suckers"
Elon Musk
@lemmy.world
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
go to feed...
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.
So just do that instead.
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