The funniest part of the Tesla Cybertruck unveiling was the second window. I understand the first one. You’re onstage, you’ve brought a metal ball, and everybody’s here to see how tough the glass is. But once you’ve cracked the driver’s window, you have a choice about what to do with that ball. I personally would put it in my pocket.
They threw it at the back window.
Now Elon Musk says Tesla plans to wind down Cybertruck production at its Texas factory around the middle of 2027 to make room for its Cybercab. That’s the plan he announced, according to CBS News. And it got me thinking about all the other products that had a perfectly good first cracked window and kept right on going.
Tesla Cybertruck, or what if a fridge could tailgate you?
Both windows cracked at the 2019 unveiling. Four years later, when Tesla started delivering trucks, its chief designer got another shot at the glass. This time he threw a baseball. The window held. Of all the things to redesign between those two events, I love that somebody thought of the ball. Ars Technica covered the rematch.
People did buy the thing. Kelley Blue Book estimated nearly 39,000 U.S. sales in 2024, then just over 20,000 in 2025. That’s still a lot of people who looked at the only cheese wedge in the parking lot and thought, In silver, please.
McDonald’s Hula Burger lost 350 to 6
In 1962, Cincinnati franchisee Lou Groen had a problem. Customers in his Catholic neighborhood were skipping burgers on Fridays during Lent. He wanted to sell them a fish sandwich. Ray Kroc figured they’d prefer a slice of grilled pineapple with cheese on a bun. The men agreed to let customers pick the winner.
Kroc felt so good about his Hula Burger that he also bet a colleague a new suit on the outcome. According to The Takeout’s account of the bet, the Filet-O-Fish sold 350. The Hula Burger sold six. I have no further questions about the fish. I would, however, love to have lunch with whoever ordered the pineapple.
We’ve got the rest of the story of how the Filet-O-Fish earned its spot on the menu.
BIC made a pen for women. Women had notes.
Listen, I love pink. Offer me a pink pen and I’ll probably take it. Tell me you’ve designed a pen for her, and now I need you to explain which part of signing a birthday card you thought I was struggling with.
When CBS Philadelphia covered BIC For Her in 2012, there were already more than 40 pages of sarcastic Amazon reviews. That might be my favorite use anyone found for the pens. The line was discontinued in 2016. Somehow we’ve kept writing.
New Coke answered the wrong question beautifully
I feel a little bad for the person who brought the research to this meeting. Coca-Cola says its new formula won taste tests involving nearly 200,000 people. If you ask me which sip I like better, I’ll pick a cup. If the next thing you do is take my regular Coke away forever, well, hang on. That was a different question.
By June 1985, Coke’s consumer hotline was getting about 1,500 calls a day, up from 400 before the switch. It took 79 days for the original formula to come back as Coca-Cola Classic. Imagine dialing a soda company on a landline, getting a busy signal and thinking, Oh, good, somebody else is handling it. Coca-Cola still tells the story.
Quibi wanted a monthly fee for ten minutes of television
Quibi raised $1.75 billion for a streaming service built around episodes of ten minutes or less. It launched in April 2020. About $5 a month bought you the version with commercials. In one actual show, Rachel Brosnahan played a woman who insisted on being buried with her golden arm.
See, I do want to know what happens with the arm. I just want the friend who saw it to finish telling me over drinks. In October, roughly six months after launch, Quibi’s founders announced they were winding down the business. I hope that friend got to the ending.
Nokia put the game slot under the battery
The N-Gage was both a phone and a handheld game system in 2003. That sounds like a pretty good prediction of what we’d all do with our phones. Now say you’re on the bus and you’d like to play a different game. Pop the back off your phone. Take out the battery. Change the game. Put your phone back together. Oh, look, there’s your stop.
Nokia redesigned it. On the N-Gage QD, you could swap games from the outside. You could even make calls without holding the narrow edge of the phone against your head. Sales still disappointed, and by 2005 Nokia had stopped developing new versions of the handset. Somewhere in there is a very good argument for letting one person take the prototype on the bus.
Juicero’s $400 juice press lost to a pair of hands
Juicero sold an internet-connected countertop press and little packets of chopped produce to put inside it. The machine originally cost $700. By the time Bloomberg reporters got their hands on the packets, the price was down to $400. The reporters squeezed a packet over a glass. Out came the juice.
Juicero suspended sales and offered refunds in 2017. But I keep coming back to how its founder described the force of that press. According to CBS San Francisco, it had enough power to lift two Teslas.
Sir, it’s a juice pouch. Please put the cars down.
