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.
"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."
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 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