Tesla starts shipping $3,000 Cybertruck tent, looks nothing like what was unveiled | Electrek

filister@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 959 points – Tesla starts shipping $3,000 Cybertruck tent, looks nothing like what was unveiled
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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.

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.

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!

Even in the same kind of class of hardware, a Thule roof-tent is vastly superior for less money.

When you factor in the roof rack you need to get, most reputable RTT are in that $3k price range.

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

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.

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.

Ego dream marketing

Lol for real, I was thinking just that when I watched the Charger EV commercial.

But then they're taking off from a traffic light in the Chicago suburbs which at least straightens out the somewhat rough idle that the check engine tape didn't really fix and the glovebox falls open for the third time that day due to another pothole. Turns out the 20" wheels from the spirit package were wasted money on top of wasted money.

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.

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

I wasn't surprised that they cheaped out on the bag, most collector's edition stuff isn't what I'd call "high quality" and a canvas bag on its own would be pretty pricey for collector's edition stuff (and that game came with like a full-size helmet and stuff too), but I was really surprised at just how cheap they went. There's replacing the item with a cheaper alternative, and then there's lowest bidder from the sweatshops cheap.

Didn't a lot of them show up moldy, too?

That does sound familiar, but I don't remember enough to say for sure one way or the other. Mine was fine, just cheap junk and not canvas.

It does literally compare it to that whole debacle in the article

It does? I didn’t see that anywhere

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.

Yeah the whole thing was a sham. So glad I usually buy games after 1 year and on sale.

Same. I gotta update my console though. I bought an Xbox X or S, whichever is the cheaper of the two. And I don’t play many games. Literally like two. RDR2 and fifa. Used to play GTA V but I’m over it. Getting there with rdr2. But I wanted to play the new resident evil 4 remake but it’s “not optimized for this console.”

But now all this talk about PlayStation 5 “reaching the sunset of its career” or whatever Sony said recently and then the whole Microsoft maybe bailing on the Xbox thing, I feel like if I sink the money into a new console soon, I’ll just be getting into another situation where all the things I might want to try are for the NEWER console. I dunno, I’m not a huge gamer, but I still enjoy playing.

I never liked consoles. Even less when they started charging for online play. Like vitch I already bought the fucking game. Let me play it.

I think the worst part is they gave streamers and influencers the actual promised canvas bag. That shows someone made this shitty decision and knew it was shitty.

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.

Why so mean? Don't be the bully! That's just a random camper dude... What happened that you get PTSD because of flip-flops...?

This one looks like a fleshlight. Where can I find dye bleach?

I'm guessing the dragons fucking cars community didn't migrate over to lemmy yet

Still, what's the point of this kind of tent vs a regular one?

"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."

OK Elon, thank you! How much money do you need next? No need to tell me for what. Just let me send you some money.

Do you really think they'd get a reply, and not the usual poop emoji?

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

$3,000 will get you a really nice regular tent

Why spend it on a tiny little swag that sits on your ute back, I can do that already lol

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.

https://www.amazon.com/Coleman-Sundome-3-Person-Dome-Tent/dp/B019N9W6EQ

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.

Weather is a thing that happens when you're outdoors.

Camping is not living outdoors permanently. You can choose the dates that you are outside and the place you go, so you can choose the weather too.

Sometimes people go for more than a single day, or you book weeks in advance and have to deal with whatever shit weather you get.

Weather can also suddenly change over a single day.

Especially camping up in the mountains, the weather can change real fast. But I'm not gonna let a little rain stop me, that's why tents have footprints and rain covers.

I have the 2 person version of that tent. It's me through down pours and wind. The only thing more expensive tents have is easy of set up and tear down.

I know. This other dude doesn't. Expensive camping gear is just lighter by a few oz. Just carry less.

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.

Holy shit this had me laughing hard. Someone paid $3k for that shit? 😂

This is what happens when you let billionaire leeches like Elon make decisions rather than real engineers.

This is proveably true since Rivian offers similar gear and those actually work. And they didn't reinvent the wheel so existing truck tents just work.

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.

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.

I finally saw one of these ugly things (the truck), down in Miami a few days ago.

C'mon, Tesla. Pontiac had this shit figured out almost 25 years ago with the Aztek. This isn't difficult.

Third party Cybertruck tents will probably have an easy time competing.

You're not paying for a ridiculously expensive novelty vehicle and then getting practical on after market accessories.

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.

What is this, a house for bees?

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..

This looks like a quality tent that won't fold if someone breathes on it.

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.

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.

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.

There's thousands of options for bed-tents with trucks. Tesla ain't the first to do this by a thousand miles.

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.

Over-promise and under-deliver, that is the tesla way.

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.

What do Tesla fans expect at this point? Every product is made as cheaply as possible and sold on marketing bullshit.

And here I was thinking all of Elon's fanboys carry a permanent tent anyway?

I could literally do better myself.

Source: I'm just a guy on the Internet.

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.

If you're at a campsite with hookups you don't need to use battery for HVAC.

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?

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.

Here are the press shots from when it was announced for sale at the of end last year. They’re the press shots they’re still using to promote the product 3 months later.

https://expeditionportal.com/tesla-launches-the-cybertruck-basecamp/

The article is basically saying that when the tent was announced for sale, the design changed and it was much less exciting than the early concepts. Some people bought them anyway, fully knowing that they were no longer something with stainless steel sides.

Now that they have arrived, the reality of the lacklusterness has now really set in.

$3000 is way too much for a tarp stapled to the back of an overpriced pile of shit

You can see the awful, misaligned panel gaps in those photos.

At what point does it become cheaper to just have a W-2 menial stand around you with an umbrella?

I feel like relentless bullying is in this truck's owner's future.

When I read the headline, I thought it was talking about a thing to park your Cybertruck under so it wouldn't rust.

This is only slightly less stupid.

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.

This thing somehow keeps getting worse

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 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 had one of these for my Avalanche, it cost $200.

Looks like Elon accidentally added a zero to his price tag and everyone just kinda accepted it.

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