Not defending Tesla at all, but just saying most older designs of cars look so much better than their modern versions. I don't know why we can't go back to some of them, at least exterior body wise. Sort of unrelated but I'd love to remove screens from cars as well.
I can't help feeling that Elon had one of his "you're all useless and fired" moments with a designer who pointed out some fact or other about aerodynamics and broad appeal, and Elon just said. "It's easy. Give me a pen..... Look. There you go. Truck. CYBER truck. It's so cool. I told you it was easy."
They said "OK we'll use this style and flesh it out into a design the engineers can work to."
"No, just give them this. This is how it should look."
"But...."
"No, who's in charge here? Do you want to be fired too? It has to look like this. Make it like this. Otherwise you're fired."
"OK I'll give it to the aerodynamicists to get it to work as close as possible to this."
"WTF?! Don't give it to those idiots, JUST MAKE IT LIKE THIS. If it DOESN'T look JUST LIKE THIS, you're FIRED."
"OK Elon."
"It had better FUCKING LOOK LIKE THIS."
"Got it, Elon. Exactly like this."
Clearly an unpopular opinion, but I think the Cybertruck looks cool. It's a bad car which you shouldn't buy for many reasons, but in terms of looks, I like it. It's unique, definitely stands out on the parking lot, and the retrofuturistic aesthetic is my vibe.
The Tesla definitely has big, "Oh god, what the fuck? Why?" energy.
I remember in the 90s, upper-middle class people would buy the most god awful stuff because it was sold to them as expensive modern art. (Think Lydia's parents in Beetlejuice)
The cybertruck has that same vibe. Its stupid and expensive and somehow that seems to be the appeal.