Design Crimes

These Tesla Cybertruck camper concepts are crimes against industrial design

We could social distance in one of these insofar as no one with any taste would want to come near us.

Look, we love Tesla's Cybertruck. It's bold and insane and the sort of thing only a company like Tesla (or Hot Wheels) could make. It's also the perfect people-carrier for the end times. And look, we also love camping. But we're absolutely repulsed by two concepts for a "Cyber Camper" that have shown up on the forum of the Cybertruck Owners Club website.

That's right, there's a website for owners of a vehicle that hasn't started shipping yet. We love that it exists, but we still don't care for the Camper that one of the forum's users has dubbed the "cybercophagus." That's hilarious. And so is this design. Core77, which first spotted the travesty, is droller in its take: "So, that's a thing," it says. Yeah, a thing we can't unsee.

Cybertruck Owners Club

So pointy. So horribly pointy — Why do we loathe these mockups so much? First off, the hideous pointy protruberance up front wrecks the Cybertruck's aerodynamics — you may as well tie a giant kite to the tailgate. Also, if it were made out of the same stainless steel as the rest of the Cybertruck, the extra weight of that polygonal tumor would ruin efficiency, too. And part of the reason you're getting a Cybertruck — if you're one of the allegedly half a million people who hope to — is the up-to-500-mile range that'll let you take it far away from other humans.

Then there's the angularity. Yes, we understand it's meant to create visual cohesion, but all it actually manages is to make us feel claustrophobic. Both iterations, the Camper Solo and the Camper Duo bring all of the worst attributes of an attic room to the ultimate get-away-from-it-all EV. They manage to make a spacious and enormous vehicle look cramped and restrictive... and liable to enthusiastically destroy drive-thru signage, foliage, and low-flying birds while also offending the sensibilities of any onlookers unfortunate enough to be facing the right way when this drives by.

Still better than plaid — We're not completely ruling out the possibility someone will actually build something like these campers, though. Cybertruck fans appear to be a rabidly enthusiastic bunch. But hopefully someone will have the sense to make the Solo and Duo Campers inflatable if they have to make them at all. Or they'll rope in bad robot queen Simone Giertz or, hell, Hyundai, to help with the design.

For heaven's sake, just keep Elon Musk away from this. After all, this is a man who thinks plaid is an acceptable naming convention for a Cybertruck variant.