Cool.
The last time I experimented with such a shape it was a tandem two seater with outboard wheels, and a canopy that slid back so it was also a convertible. Drew 3 and 4 wheel versions, a mix between BF-109 and F-117.
The project prior to that was (30 years ago now?) was a 3rd world flat plane plywood car (just for fun) that I built a foam core model of.
The buttresses on this Tesla are rather first Gen Honda Ridgeline-ish, and I like that.
This is an angular pill to swallow but maybe what the doctor ordered?
I was fairly sure that the Tesla pickup was going to be a scaled down version of the Semi-Truck design, at least that the direction my own private sketches have been going for the last few years.
I suspect this Tesla has the military market in mind, and not so much civilian, why else the special unbreakable windows?
Tesla reveals Cybertruck, but breaks its 'unbreakable' windows during unveiling
https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/22/cars/...uck/index.html
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Another eye-catching feature of the truck is its price. The base version of the truck will start at $39,900. That's only about $10,000 more than the price of a base model Ford F-150, which starts at about $30,000. But it would compete well with the cost of a nicely equipped F-150. An F-150 Lariat Super Cab, for instance, starts at about $44,000.
Prices for the top end Tri Motor AWD version of the Cybertruck start at $69,900. Buyers will also be able to choose Tesla's "self-driving" option for $7,000. (The truck should be able to drive itself once the software for that becomes available.)
Musk had one final surprise as the presentation was wrapping up.
"Oh, yeah," he said. "We also made an ATV."
With that, a rider came out from a side room on a small electric all-terrain vehicle. He flipped down the truck's tailgate, extended a built in ramp, and rode it up into the bed.
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To stay in business I suspect they will have to add $100,000 to those prices and become advanced scout vehicles for the world wide military market.
I could be wrong, but do not see this specialty item derailing any of the electric truck offerings and or plans on the near horizon.
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Rivian, a Michigan-based start up also plans to begin selling its own electric pickup next year. The company counts Amazon and Ford as major investors. Rivian founder, R.J. Scaringe, ranked third on this year's just-released Motor Trend Power List, a largely subjective ranking of relative auto industry mojo. Musk ranked 24th. Rivian's trucks will cost tens of thousands of dollars more then Tesla's, but they will look far more like trucks.
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Aerodynamically speaking, lots of drag from those wheel flares. I know this first hand and not just by looking at CFD images online because I've done stuff to my pickup truck.
I also expect a lot of flat plane rolling vortexes of which numerous diagrams have been posted in the forum over the years. That roof plane change isn't exactly a friendly transition.
From the Random Aerodynamic Oddity Thread:
Strouhal Numbers of Unsteady Flow Structures Around a Simplified Car Model
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10...642-40371-2_26
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is work aims to gain relatively thorough understanding of unsteady flow structures around an Ahmed body and associated predominated Strouhal numbers St x SQ RT "A" based on the square root of the frontal area A.
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Flow structures in the near-wake of the Ahmed model
https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...89974605000514
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Time-dependant analysis revealed that the shedding behind the model is analogous to vortex shedding behind bluff bodies, with most of the fluctuations confined to the axial direction.
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