It was with no small amount of excitement (and maybe a bit of jealousy, since I work for a car website that would have love access) that I saw Hagerty’s Jason Cammisa-helmed exclusive review of the Tesla Cybertruck posted to YouTube. Even before watching it, I knew it would be chock full of insight and humor, and that it’d be produced to a level that would shame many television productions. Even more importantly, I knew it would do deservedly huge numbers. So why are some people online so upset about this review?
I’ve directed, produced, written and even poorly attempted to host more than a hundred car films and TV episodes over the years. Doing so has given me the opportunity to work alongside the most talented people in the industry and, in my mind, the best to ever do it is/was Chris Harris. No one balances insight, the ability to communicate, and the ability to drive for camera like Chris does. He picked up the mantle from Jeremy Clarkson, who added a dose of entertainment and theater that many earlier reviews lacked.
But right now there is no one better than Jason Cammisa, and there are no shows better produced and more entertaining than the ones he does for Hagerty. It doesn’t even really matter what the car is. Cammisa will make you care about the Subaru XT. You may prefer Throttle House or SavageGeese or whatever, but the production quality is unique.
I produced videos for Hagerty as well, for about a year (some occasionally fun stuff produced at a fractional budget and none remotely as good as what Cammisa was making), and got a little insight into the level of care he and producer/director Anthony Esposito put into everything. It was as impressive as it was enviable. Cammisa once told me and another host, as we were prepping for a show, that he read three books before each episode he shot. The results should surprise no one.
Is this Cybertruck review the biggest, best, most dynamic thing Cammisa has ever done? Maybe not, but compare it to the one from the only other outlet that got it, and I think it’s better:
So what’s with all the hate online?
People On Reddit, Forums And Twitter Think Something Was Missing
Here’s just a sampling of what you’ll find on the r/cars Subreddit this morning:
And here’s some from Bob Is The Oil Guy:
You’re probably noticing a trend here. This is an “ad” and there’s very little substance to it, people allege. And to be sure, you’re going to get this kind of response from folks when you produce effusive content, even if the vehicle is great. But nonetheless, the criticism isn’t just coming from Jim-Bob the EV-hater down the street. The advertising-ish nature part I’ve heard privately from other journalists (who, it’s worth noting, did not get access) as well, but I think that’s extremely wrongheaded as a criticism. I can’t imagine Hagerty and Jason have anything financially to gain from Tesla, which is a company that barely advertises and doesn’t need to pay anyone for good coverage. Also, for all the glowing references to the truck, Cammisa rightly refers to Musk as a man-child and includes critiques no ad would dare. It’s only advertising-ish in the sense that it’s positive and, sure, Hagerty will make a large amount of money from YouTube advertising (though possibly not enough to cover the cost of doing it).
LO, and I cannot stress this enough, L. https://t.co/HDAfJAXXqK
— Matt "Stick to Cars" Farah (@TheSmokingTire) December 1, 2023
Also, there is a ton of substance in the piece. As many other positive comments point out, the density of information here is extremely high, and the way that it’s communicated is amusing, straightforward, and easy to understand. By the nature of the fast-moving, tightly scripted show Cammisa doesn’t always take time to put an asterisk on everything (though he often does in the subtitles, as he does when referencing steer-by-wire) and it’s unreasonable to expect him to, frankly.
The more accurate critique is that this isn’t particularly “exclusive” (two other people had the vehicle) and it isn’t really a “review.”
no one has actually reviewed the Cybertruck yet. several have driven it, none have *reviewed* it https://t.co/HlI9Qdsq6X
— Kyle Cheromcha (@cheromcha) December 1, 2023
Kyle, who is the EIC of The /DRIVE, isn’t wrong, depending upon how you look at it, though I don’t know any EIC with any modicum of sense who would turn down this opportunity, even with whatever conditions were attached. We drove out to do a story on just looking at the thing. I don’t know what the conditions were, if there were any, but we’d have been happy to have the early drive of the vehicle under most circumstances. So far, the crew has admitted to being time-restricted.
Sure, you have to get a full 21 minutes into the video before there’s actually a section literally called “dynamic review” and that is a fractionally small part of the whole video. In that “review” section he mentions that the drive-by-wire steering is “pretty disorienting at first in parking lots” and he points out that you don’t have a rear-view mirror because of the Tonneau cover, though I’m not sure I heard a real judgment on that other than pointing out it’s a disadvantage relative to a regular truck. Honestly, maybe the karting section is where you get the best of a traditional “review.”
A big reason for this, I suspect, is something not dropped into the video until about 21 minutes in. This is a “prototype” Cybertruck and, for various good reasons, there’s a danger in giving too much of an impression to a prototype from any manufacturer (the degree to which this is a pure prototype and a pre-production car like the ones normally reviewed on launches, isn’t clear), let alone one owned by Elon Musk. Plus, Cammisa seems to genuinely be impressed by the truck.
This is also the trap of online media and, especially, a world in which YouTube is the dominant and most ingested form of car reviewership. As an online creator, there’s a great pressure to call things “exclusive” and you have to call them a “review” every chance you get. Is anyone going to Google “Tesla Cybertruck Amusing And Highly Educational Video That Contains Partial Impressions But Mostly Does An Extremely Good Job Of Placing The Vehicle In Historical Context”?
Nah. We all know that Cammisa can do a real review as good as anyone else and this, definitely, is not a full review. There’s a reason why some folks aren’t entirey satisfied with the piece, and that’s because of Cammisa’s well respected car-critiquing skill. If there’s any error here on Cammisa’s part it’s in calling it a review, but the context of this truck is important, and context is what Cammisa is trying to provide.
Also, making videos is hard and it seems like Cammisa and crew had limited time to put this together.
The Challenges Of Making A Car Film
Here’s a little explanation of how hard filming with a vehicle as new as the Tesla Cybertruck is:
JUST SO YOU UNDERSTAND THERE’S NOTHING DEVIOUS GOING ON, YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW THIS FILMING BUSINESS WORKS. WHEN YOU FILM A CAR REVIEW, THE REVIEWER IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG. BEHIND THE LENS IS A FILM CREW, AND ONLY A DAY’S WORTH OF LIGHT TO SHOOT THE EIGHT MINUTE FILM. THIS MEANS WE HAVE TO PREPARE IN ADVANCE A TREATMENT – A ROUGH DRAFT OF A SCRIPT SO THAT THE DIRECTOR AND FILM CREW CAN GET TO WORK RIGHT AWAY, KNOWING WHAT SHOTS THEY WILL NEED TO CAPTURE. IT WILL CONTAIN THE FACTS ABOUT A CAR, AND WHAT WE THINK OF ITS LOOKS AND SO ON, BUT HOW WELL THE CAR ACTUALLY DRIVES IS ADDED ON THE DAY. IF WE’VE DRIVEN IT AHEAD OF FILMING, AS WE DO WITH MOST CARS, WE WILL ALSO HAVE AN IDEA HOW IT FEELS TO DRIVE. BUT, AND THIS IS CRUCIAL, AS WE UNCOVER FRESH INFORMATION ABOUT A CAR WHILST FILMING IT, IT IS ENTIRELY NORMAL FOR THE TREATMENT TO BE MODIFIED AS THE DAY UNFOLDS.
Oh, wait, that isn’t from the review of this Tesla, this is Top Gear super producer Andy Wilman responding to a lawsuit over the infamous Top Gear review of the Tesla Roadster from 2011 that led to an unsuccessful Tesla lawsuit where the carmaker complained the show committed libel and malicious falsehoods. This is a key moment in history and I think, in many ways, it accelerated Elon Musk’s creeping paranoia about the media and desire for control over every aspect of his company and its image.
Musk and Tesla were famously mad that the necessity of film production saw Top Gear, to some degree, cutting corners to tell a story. The whole fiasco was annoying and laid bare the reality that most of these videos are as much entertainment as they are journalism.
If you watch Jason’s podcast he covers a lot of this and talks about the difficulty in getting this episode together so quickly.
His co-host on the podcast, the delightful Derek Tam-Scott, points out that the timeline of this was very compressed compared to what the crew normally does. According to Cammisa, they had days to set it up, a day and 3/4 to film, and it rained, cutting into the shooting time. Also, they were shooting on some of the shortest shooting days of the year. It was tight.
“Typically, and I don’t know if I want to admit this publicly, but typically an “Icons” episode is 4-8 weeks of pre-production planning, and that includes writing scripts and research and whatever blah blah blah… logistics. And you know typically, we have 12, 13, 14 vehicles in the show. Plus support vehicles. And then it’s four days of filming, four and half days of filming, to get the shots exactly the way we want it. And then it’s 4-8 weeks in post.”
I appreciate the clarity here, though, when someone on a podcast with their name on it says “I don’t know if I want to admit this” they aren’t confessing, they’re bragging.
This is the challenge of access. Any time you agree to review a car on someone else’s terms you are, in some small or large way, making a sacrifice. The Autopian regularly reviews cars on press launches. In a past life, I worked with the pre-production crews responsible for route planning and setup for these press launches and these are controlled environments with hand-picked pre-production cars. If there’s a part of a route that’s bad for the specific vehicle you can assume it’s not going to be on the map.
David and I were recently chided by a PR person from an automaker (I’ll let you guess) because that person was mad that we went a little out of the norm of a typical car drive and berated the automaker for a bad technical decision. [Ed Note: I stand by it. If you make a dumb technical decision and I call it out, don’t come complaining to me. Go to your purchasing folks or engineers. -DT]. Implicit in the complaint, I felt, was the idea that it wasn’t worth inviting us on the drives anymore, which is a risk that does exist.
It doesn’t mean anyone is being dishonest. It doesn’t mean you can’t trust these reviews. It just means there are limits to what you can discover in these circumstances and why most car outlets do a second review after a limited first drive. To get the fullest review you need to do like Consumer Reports and buy a car, independently test it, and live with it for a while.
Ultimately, Elon Musk gave the truck to three people: Cammisa, Marques Brownlee, and Top Gear. What’s interesting to me is that Brownlee, who is great but has the least journalistic background of the three, arguably did more of a review than the other two. It’s also amusing that, after all this time, Musk also endowed a car to Top Gear.
Cammisa Vs. DeMuro And The Art Of Entertaining
I remember when Doug DeMuro came to write for Jalopnik. It was one of his first (his first?) media gigs and at one point he asked if he could put his YouTube videos from his channel in the stories. This was a fine arrangement for me as, at the time, Jalopnik barely had a YouTube or video presence. Obviously, Doug was smarter than all of us and managed to grow his channel rapidly and eventually flip that success until multiple other ventures. He’s extremely talented so he’d have been successful regardless, but it surely helped.
It was in this nascent period of online car films that we saw the rise of MotorTrend‘s team (including Cammisa), /Drive with Harris and Farah, and freelancers like Jason Fenske and Doug DeMuro. The former group, influenced by TV, produced something more like TV. The latter produced videos that were more like podcasts.
I think it’s pretty clear with Doug that who you see in his videos who is he is. There’s very little artifice and it’s why, as he told me, adding production value to his personal videos doesn’t seem to result in any more viewership. You aren’t watching a character, you’re watching Doug, and Doug is weird in a way that flashy camera tricks and jokes won’t help. The best way to experience Doug if you like Doug (and many, many people do, including us of course) is simply to watch him as he is.
The Jason Cammisa you see in these “ICONS” videos isn’t even the same Cammisa you see on his podcast and not, necessarily, even the Cammisa you experience in real life (at least in my limited experience). The Jason Cammisa in this context is a character, and it’s the job of this character to be a big, happy, ornery man-child who knows everything about cars and takes glee in surprising the audience and tweaking driver Randy Pobst. It’s a schtick and it’s a very good one.
To varying degrees, all the true professionals I’ve worked with in this business are playing a character, and Cammisa is nothing if not a professional. The reason why we love the Clarkson/Hammond/May Top Gear is not that they were faithfully themselves, but because they were acting, even if only amplifying their true characteristics. Clarkson may be a big buffoon, Hammond may be a rural sweetheart, and May is definitely a nerd, but those traits were heightened as necessary for those specific episodes and conditions. Again, there’s nothing wrong or dishonest about this. It’s entertainment. Why anyone would expect anything less from a film wherein a dude blasts a refrigerator with a sledgehammer and drives an LM002 confounds me.
Additionally, Hagerty itself has a schtick. Its schtick is to be pro-car and pro-driving, much as we are here at The Autopian, and the company has the resources and reach, on YouTube and elsewhere, to get the access it needs to get to do these films. This doesn’t mean that Cammisa is restricted from being critical, it just means that Hagerty has an overall editorial direction and even Cammisa is, so far as I know, influenced by it. Watch his podcast (on the Hagerty podcast network) and you’ll see him saying plenty of critical things about the truck.
The Cybertruck Is Like No Other Vehicle And Tesla Is No Other Car Company
It’s worth watching the whole podcast because Tam-Scott is a useful counterbalance to Cammisa, and he asks some probing questions. Cammisa early on acknowledges that most people have already decided that they love or hate the thing, which is undoubtedly true.
Cammisa’s main point in the podcast undergirds his main point in his review:
“The Cybertruck advances the art of the truck far more than the Model S advanced the art of the automobile,” he says when pressed by Tam-Scott on why this is such a big deal. [Ed Note: This seems like a hell of a take, given that the Rivian R1T exists, and that the Model S was the first high-range mainstream EV in the history of earth. -DT].
In that context, his video serves a real purpose. Cammisa is, as he makes clear in his podcast, trying to cut through all the preconceived notions of the truck that he has and that others have in order to explain why it’s so revolutionary and why it took so long to produce.
Explaining all of this in a way that didn’t feel like advertising for Tesla is a difficult chore, and the irony of all of this is it’s Tesla itself that made it so difficult. Elon Musk has made so many promises about so many things and sewn so much distrust in the world that to like or dislike one of his vehicles sometimes feels like choosing a side instead of buying a product.
It’s because of this, actually, that the media-averse Musk needs the media. He needs Cammisa. He needs Top Gear. Sure, a million people plunked down $100 to reserve a Cybertruck, but for all the wild success of Tesla it still requires new customers and it still needs many of those reservations to eventually be turned into real purchases.
Musk and team are just a little smarter about this now than they were in 2011. They picked their outlets (why the hell didn’t MotorTrend, a publication that fawns over Musk, get a truck) and they clearly inundated those outlets with access to the truck and engineers. I don’t think Tesla picked these three and gave this level of access because they knew they’d get soft-balled.
I suspect the company knew what it had was quite good, at least in prototype form, and understood that it would require someone from the outside to explain that fully. I don’t see Tesla ever doing a traditional press launch because, frankly, the company doesn’t do anything traditional. That’s Tesla’s schtick.
So, instead, we get Cammisa as the messenger. That’s a fundamentally difficult position to be in and, with all the inherent limitations, I think he did an admirable job. The truck is fascinating! You’re all talking about it. Hell, if you’ve gotten this far, you’re reading a review of a review.
Will the Cybertruck replace regular trucks? No idea, and this video isn’t going to answer that question. Nor will it fill in many of the blanks for regular consumers. It’s going to take time to find out how this truck performs in the real world, and it’s really on you for thinking a highly produced car film on an insurance company’s YouTube Channel is the real world.
I agree with the sentiment that this was not a review so much as an Icons episode with a review title slapped on it. Cammisa is clearly someone who just loves cars in general and all of his Icons videos dive more into the creation and impact of whatever they’re about. That’s exactly what this video did.
IMO it sure looks like they didn’t want to offend Tesla in any way. He didn’t really talk about the actual driving experience beyond the steering.
Would they have mentioned that he cut himself on the truck if he wasn’t looking to offend?
Probably? Elon would probably think that’s cool or something idk.
I actually learned things about this thing, from his review, that I had no idea about.
Whether Camisa sounded overecstatic or not is of little relevance, the info he put out was interesting, presented in a logical way, and made me see things in a light I never thought I’d be seeing them in.
He managed to first lay out the ground work to actually get me to look past the design and the preconceived stuff I had about this atrocity (baseically that something this ugly can not have inherent qualities, because – hey – ugly), then presented the really relevant engineering solutions used, about which I knew close to nothing about.
Kudos for that. I won’t get to like this vehicle, but I can get to start respecting it, and if I do it will be 110% thanks to this guy.
I don’t think it’s advertisement to lay down objective facts and let the viewer get influenced by them or not.
This is so far the best take I’ve seen in the comments
Well said. Excellent professional review. IMO. Kept me interested while I learned a ton I never knew. Popped an ego-button too, in that it kinda bugs me how my own opinion had been influenced by all the negativity surrounding the looks and Elon. Definitely NOT a mere gimmick.
Yeah, my takeaway is there’s at least a few novel things that will see broader adoption over time across the industry. For example, we had seen initial toes into the 48V water in recent years, but if there’s enough volume in the future (so all Teslas, not just the CT), the transition to 48V may come a few years earlier than the pre-existing timeline because the motivation for the suppliers will be greater than it currently is today.
Is everything here a winner? Of course not. It’s all tradeoffs! Though again, there’s some interesting big steps and bets here where some version (that is, not necessarily the CT’s implementation) where we’ll see earlier broad adoption than we otherwise would have.
You write:” I can’t imagine Hagerty and Jason have anything financially to gain from Tesla, which is a company that barely advertises and doesn’t need to pay anyone for good coverage.”
Suppose The Autopian had been selected as the exclusive outlet for the first review of the Cybertruck. Would that generate quite a bit of traffic for the site, and raise it’s profile so new regular readers appear, and, maybe, join the club at the Cloth, or even Rich Corinthian Leather, levels.
Would the writer of the exclusive review raise his profile in the automotive journalism arena? Would they get a ride in the Changli when Jason recovers?
Jesus, I tried to read, obviously the author feels strongly about this, really goes on and on–is their a video version?
Is it any different than Ferrari, who has been known to not only send different ringers tuned for specific tests, but will black list whoever gives them bad reviews? Since they’re such a big name even among non-enthusiasts, being on that blacklist is bad for business, probably worse than any reputational damage from giving a disingenuous puff of a review. Not that it makes it right, but reviews from different publications have been questionable since I started reading car magazines in the ’80s (and I’m sure before then). The first time I realized this was when a new generation of a given model was introduced and they tore on the previous model that had been highly praised when that had been reviewed. Something supposedly so good isn’t crap because it’s become a little outdated. It might seem worse now, but I’m not sure it is. The trick, IMO, is to read between the lines—what didn’t they say? I don’t need to drive the new Z to know it’s lackluster because the nearly universal faint praise and oblique compliments for what’s supposed to be a sports car told me that.
I will say that at the least, this ugly thing is a major release that will be strongly remembered, unlike 90% of vehicles today. Whether or not it’s as a white elephant is for the future to determine.
I don’t know why people keep giving this product so much oxygen. Go tune your Webers already, and as was sung on the Simpsons “Just Don’t Look”.
It’s like picking a scab; weirdly satisfying. My wife tells me to stop all the time, and you know – it is her lip, after all.
Sorry Matt, but I can’t disagree more with this. Look, I’m a producer, and I’ve been doing it a long time and so I understand more than most what production looks like. The problem with this video was never inherent in intricacies of production, and I think that’s a little bit of a cop out. The trouble isn’t that he called it a review either, though I think it hints a little at the problem. I think people know what to expect from Camisa and his character in terms of entertainment.
The problem is that this was a huge opportunity for massive views and the reputation and monetization that follows. But one that required the production to be so close to the manufacture side of the journo/manufacture dance that they are barely distinguishable.
No, its not enough to throw in a few mild depreciation towards Musk or the company in the same way it’s not a pass for screenwriters to use a tired trope by calling attention to using it.
“I can’t imagine Hagerty and Jason have anything financially to gain from Tesla,”
Dude, you of all people know that the financial gain was never going direct from Tesla. Why does Hagarty produce this content? It’s not for direct ad money.
No, I take issue with this because it took journalistic integrity, what little remained in the hyperbolic Top Gear entertainment genre, and sold it to make the product they knew would net them the most in the long run.
They deployed the playbook for views flawlessly and no question they succeeded judged on that metric but they mortgaged any future credibility to do it.
Hardigree’s claim that Tesla didn’t pay for this, therefore it isn’t an ad, is an intentional misguiding of the argument people are actually making. Either that, or he’s not qualified for his position and has a hell of a lot to learn. I lean towards the first though. He set up a false argument so he could knock it down.
I’ve been posting on Camissa’s videos for years advocating he team up with Jason Fenske and Jason Torchinsky and make a show called “Drive Jason”. He recently did a show with Fenske. We’re two thirds of the way there, folks! Let’s go!!
This is a relatively minor complaint, but I wish the Autopian would code links in a post so that they open in a new tab by default. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t – it’s especially annoying on mobile.
You don’t REALLY want us leaving the site any more than necessary, do ya?
You aren’t alone, Dead Elvis Inc! As of right now, links default to opening in the same page. There is a manual option to trigger a new page to open with each link, but it is one link at a time. With articles like mine, that would add perhaps another 30 minutes or so to the editing process.
Matt says this is a platform problem and there isn’t a solution. Hopefully, that will change in the future.
Disappointing to read, but I appreciate the reply.
Now, how about an easier way to find our own older comments? Or image posting?
Image posting is something we’d love to do! There is concern that someone will abuse it to upload images of an illegal nature. Back in 2015 or so, Kinja had a problem with burners posting child pornography, which was a headache. We don’t even have a real “grays,” so to speak.
So, for now, we’ve been playing it safe. You can post a link to an image, but not the image itself. Maybe one day on your requested features! 🙂
Frankly I hope you don’t allow images. If it’s worth then sharing a link to an image host will suffice. I really don’t want to scroll through “hilarious” memes.
Is it a platform problem or a style choice that links are almost indistinguishably colored from the body text? Very poor design either way.
I’m not entirely sure. As far as I’m aware, links that are inserted into a paragraph should appear to be red. Links inserted into a header (such as Mark’s Shitbox Showdown) are black, just like the text.
I agree that links should be clearer. I’ll ask if there are any tweaks to be done with that.
Thank you. Black and red are way too similar to each other on a white background.
As a software guy, whoever designed this platform is a numbskull
I would like to counter by asking that you not default links to open in a new tab. I’m perfectly capable of opening links in a new tab/window/completely other computer if I so choose. However, it is infuriating to me when I click a link wanting it to stay in the same tab/window and it forces open a new tab/window. No site designer knows what I want better than I do, please don’t try to guess. Every browser I’m aware of provides a way to open links in a new tab if you want, they don’t provide any way to suppress it when a site makes a bad choice.
Back Button? Really for me I think it is easier if it opens in the same window, as I usually have many open. Back button works easier than new window-open all windows, find old window. Android phone, maybe Apple works differently
I’d forgotten about that 2011 Tesla vs Top Gear lawsuit. At the time I would have been rooting for Tesla, as that was pre-Autopilot, Pedo-guy, FSD, etc.
But it now looks like Oscar Wilde’s “unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable”.
Also – “we love the Clarkson/Hammond/May Top Gear” – I think that’s far from a universal view.
If you guys did this (or rented cars commercially, paid owners for reviews, or something), it would be the thing that tipped me into becoming a member. I have a lot of respect for the “core group” of writers here, but it seems like lots of the manufacturer-event reviews are written by freelancers whom I can’t always trust not to pull punches in order to get their next gig. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s basically the nature of the industry as I understand it.
Not necessarily so directly, but I think these three knew they better be nice if they wanted this chance again.
As much as people rag on Consumer Reports, I’m still impressed that they go out and buy all their vehicles.
I’d love to do that but we have a small staff and we don’t have nearly enough money to do so. If we lose anyone for a day it’s a big deal and most drives result in three days out of pocket.
Even marquee enthusiast publications didn’t do this back in the days when they could afford to do all the things that they were doing then (large and heavy-drinking editorial staffs; long and heavy-drinking out-of-area trips; effective copyediting; the multi-car comparison tests that every commenter on Car and Driver’s website complains they don’t do anymore). The idea of freely-accessible information got picked up quick by the general public as Internet access became common and the ease of creating content led to an explosion in the number of available sources, but that also led to serious declines in the revenues of traditional, establishment (Establishment) media outlets. That’s why you can see so many diverse perspectives now, but that’s also why nobody covers your local school board meetings anymore and things like fact-checking and
koplytittincodieyisitngcopyediting are quaint reminders of a gentler, more controlled past.Explosion of available sources and viewpoints, and explosion of everybody writing for a living being talked with writing three articles a day. Disappearance of detailed road tests with lots of metrics and numbers, and as noted proofreading and editing, included the article above,which certainly could have been pared down quite a bit and still conveyed the message.
Also I miss the comparison tests…
I agree, but it’s a serious problem IMO when journalists depend on their subjects for access. Leads to all sorts of potential minefields, and not just in automotive.
I understand the financial issue; it’s precisely why I volunteered to pay for that type of unquestionably unbiased coverage in my first post.
Do it with old used cars and sell them after the review.
You just did a long article about old GM trucks. Buy one for $5000, drive it for a week, and sell it for $5000.
Aside from money, the first issue I see is time. You have to meet sketchy CL people, hit the DMV, make sure it’s running right. If in California, major emissions issues. Also, they’re spread over the country. And, can you just imagine how the vehicle choice would have us howling because it’s not a Miata—or because it is? Do we vote what it should be?
I do like the idea, but the issues are myriad
I watched the whole video and found it enjoyable but I generally like Cammisa’s schtick and agree with most of his takes. I also thought it was very informative and I came away with much more respect for the truck.
I will say there were times when it felt slightly cringey about Musk and Tesla. But it was also true. Only Tesla could have put this many advances in a vehicle because only Musk has enough control to throw the profit margin out the window. And only Musk is pigheaded enough to stick with it.
Journalists get very protective about their terms like “review” and “exclusive”. The public wants to be informed and entertained. Cammisa did both.
Honestly I’m moving towards adapting an “I don’t touch Tesla related media” policy. Unfortunately due to the flaming douche canoe who runs the company I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to really be objective with them. Folks love them or hate them and there’s little in between. I find their stans to be absolutely unbearable but I also acknowledge that people like me who will never pass up an opportunity to take a pot shot at ole Musky aren’t necessarily helping either.
This video came up in my recs and I skipped it, although I do really enjoy the Hagerty/Cammisa videos in general. He’s a smart, talented dude and Hagerty’s bottomless budget allows their team to go buck wild on production. It’s engaging, entertaining stuff and I think the Doug comp is accurate. I know this is a hot take in most circles but I love Doug. I think he’s a great ambassador for the enthusiast community who makes funny, very entertaining videos. He also seems like a great dude.
Do his opinions really matter to me? Eh, not really….because he’s into different stuff than I am and he’s primarily an entertainer. But I enjoy his videos and watch most of them. The Hagerty videos more or less fill the same void for me but in more of a car porn way. They’re clearly made with love…and Cammisa is a big deal. I can’t imagine he’d ever do anything that would put that in jeopardy.
That being said I’m a little surprised that so many of the early impressions of the Cybertruck that are coming out are so positive…but if Tesla somehow managed to make a good product with all the ludicrous constraints around this thing then more power to them, I guess. I certainly won’t be buying one but I’m sure people will.
Flaming douche canoe is an underrated insult. Thanks for bringing it up!
My favorite way to insult people is to combine an actual insult with something completely innocuous. Douche canoe, ass hat, etc. It adds a layer of levity without watering things down too much.
Where this guy (Elon) is concerned “Turd Monkey” is my go to.
But I do appreciate expanding my vocabulary. Keep up the good work!
My reply is essentially going to be that I agree with you on nearly this whole post. I wish Tesla were in the news less, because everything becomes about… *makes articulate gestures*
I haven’t watched the video yet and honestly, haven’t been in YouTube in a couple of days so haven’t seen it pop up, but it will be there, because I do subscribe to the Hagerty channel.
A friend and I talked the other day about the Cybertruck. We both think it’s ridiculous. He made the point that Tesla probably could have introduced a more mainstream truck a whole lot quicker and likely have had it sell like hot cakes. That they didn’t just speaks to, I don’t know, hubris? Daringness? Musk being Musk?
A huge part of the story, as far as I’m concerned, is how good Teslas are *despite* Elon.
Let me add that I am not a Tesla fan, overall. I don’t think I’ll ever buy one unless perhaps every other manufacturer also does away with every single hard control .
Importantly, also, I think the government should sue them out of existence for using the term full self driving for something that crashes into white semis.
I thought it was terrible-stopped watching about halfway through. Do you cared how a TRUCK will do on a drag strip? Well they are going to do multiple drag races apparently only because the cyber truck is good at that, not that you ever will. I didn’t think it was an “ad” as no one would pay for it, but it was unwatchable as someone who actually wanted some info on the truck.
If you kept watching, you would have seen the bit here Cammisa surmises that this isn’t meant to be a truck. It’s basically a status symbol, so it being fast plays to that, and it looking fuckin’ stupid as hell also plays into it, and all the other ridiculous things also play into it.
If the thing wasn’t called “truck” and had a hatchback, I wonder if it would cause the same angst. Americans have a lot of feelings about trucks.
Ehh, idk. I think it’s just because most trucks–like 99.9% of them–have usable beds, and people say they own them to town their boat or going camping or getting loads of mulch. When in reality a truck is really just a configuration.
I don’t think many people bitch that a GMC Syclone isn’t a very practical or useful truck. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone complain about how shit it would be on a rock course, because that truck clearly wasn’t designed for it and everyone recognizes that.
The Cybertruck was never intended to be a cross-country towing machine, or the pinnacle of offroading, or this super practical work truck that you’ll see at construction sites as welding rigs or fill of lumber. It’s a status symbol that can do a bit of those things if you really wanted, but it clearly is going to be a second, third, or Xth car for some rich douchebag to own that loudly proclaims they are rich and look at their flashy truck.
Obviously you’ve never pulled up to some lights next to a truck bro.
As the owner of an old wrx, I endorse this take. The chipped diesel bros really like to dust these cars. I like to watch the other light so I can jump on the green just enough to set them off, but I don’t street race so have no stake in the game. I just enjoy triggering them if they’re obviously trying for it.
I was surprised to see that video, watched it, and like nearly everything else Cammisa does, really enjoyed it. I don’t think he can play that character he does without being wickedly smart, and watching the impromptu video he did with Fenske recently really underscored that. It was kind of a brilliant choice to go with a guy who knows how to entertain but is also not the idiot he makes himself out to be.
I didn’t think the video much, and didn’t realize there was a hullabaloo over the video since then. Which, really just seems like another bullet point in the list of “Reasons why we can’t have nice things.”
The more I see, read and hear about the Cybertruck, the more I believe that it’s an expensive show pony. The subject video supports this view. That observation is not meant to demean the vehicle, but to classify it. Plenty of other fine cars proudly fall into this category.
The Cybertruck is not spiritually a truck, per se, it is a standard bearer wearing a truck’s armor and weapons. You probably won’t find it burdened at a work site in any capacity beyond that of a lightly used El Camino because, while you can hitch a show pony to a cart and send it down a mine to haul coal, what a waste to subject it to the tasks of lesser ponies. Better you put bows in its mane and tail have it prance around a ring showing off its steps to the horsey set all done up in their boots and jodhpurs and snapping their riding crops.
Sure, some sadistic souls will thrash a few of these through the rough and tumble, just because, and acfew others will load them with bricks and such til their axles bend, but most will live out their lives having never trucked anything bulkier than a set of golf clubs or, perhaps, an English saddle.
The Cybertruck is a fashion statement, an exercise in style. If the style appeals to you, you’ll like it, if not, you will not be moved. It does not advance the state of truck in any meaningful way (or embarrass it) and so is not a utility game-changer. Stylistically, we’ll see if it comes to be viewed as an archetype or just another DeLorean.
In this light, the Cammisa video seems a reasonable and balanced presentation, though not personally convincing in my eyes. Others will see differently and that’s the beauty of community.
Totally agree. If they had just made it another $100k car, it would have been competing against all the other $100k EV’s and ICE cars. By making it a “truck” it’s in a class all almost all it’s own. The video even made that clear; the closest competitors are the Hummer and the Rivian, and they are very different still.
That would track with Tesla’s strategy of making a halo car (model S, model X) before putting out its pedestrian version (3 and Y).
I wouldn’t be surprised if a toned down Tesla truck were to come out in a few years.
Or use the CT platform to create a 3 row van that can be used for delivery or for 7-8 people
The problem is not the content of the Hagarty or Top Gear videos — it’s they are pitched as reviews. No one can complete a proper review of anything as complex as a vehicle in a one day shooting schedule. I think that’s why I like Brownlee’s video. He pitches his report as a look at the truck’s speeds and feeds, and to my recollection, doesn’t use the word review.
In my mind, all three videos are first impressions. Pitched accurately as first drives, the only people reacting negatively would be those with anti-EV or Tesla agendas.
“that he read three books before each episode he shot”
Yeah but those Mack Bolan: The Executioner pulp novels aren’t very long and they’re not very challenging, so I’m not sure how relevant that is?
Plus, it’s always the same three books.
Automatic thumb up for all Mack Bolan content.
It’s interesting that you know this. (side eyes)
I guess these folks have never watched any of Cammisa’s other videos, the Bronco Raptor video was much more ad-like than this. Either way, like most of his videos, I enjoyed watching it.
I watched the review, and I thought it was well done; excitement for something like the Cybertruck is expected. I am going to say that while I understand those who wanted a “Consumer Reports” dispassionate review- HEY! it’s a first look and drive; not a physics experiment.
I will also walk out on the ice and say that a lot of negativity has nothing to do with the vehicle (which I do agree is more equivalent to a Lambo et al valuable for its gee whiz! factor and pretty useless as a truck) – than a general dislike for Musk, which has something that I can’t fathom to do with his purchase of Twitter.
I think people dislike Musk because he’s a Fascist (who imagines himself to be a Libertarian).
And an immoral douche bag who fancies himself to be a rational and decent human being.
Fool me once and all that.
Yep. Tesla gets both unwarranted love and exemptions (from fanbois) and unwarranted hate and criticism (from those who despise Elon). The truth is somewhere in the middle. I watched and enjoyed Cammisa’s video as entertainment, but I also learned some things. There is some impressive engineering that went into this thing, but I have no additional desire to own one, and won’t be surprised if the Cybertruck program never actually turns a profit. Elon is definitely doing too many drugs if he thinks it will ever sell 250k a year.
We’ll see what actual work truck users say after they’ve used one as a work truck for a few months. In my opinion, anything anyone says before that is of minimal utility.
It’s not a work truck; it’s a fashion statement.
Chris Bangle’s three wisest words ever spoken about the car industry:
Amen to that.
I regularly compare them to jackets.
There are some jackets I just won’t wear.
Why do people keep wanting this to be held to traditional truck standards. If Tesla wanted to make a work truck, they could have. But that’s not what they wanted.
I feel so weird coming to these comments and feeling like I’m defending Tesla. Their products have some great engineering, but they are also riddle with issues, and most of all, hindered by their nincompoop CEO. But I’m honestly amazed anyone thinks that Tesla actually intended this to be a “work truck” of any sort. It’s a freakin’ fashion statement that can do some truck things but is largely compromised (as a truck) due to it being a fashion statement.
A lot of the marketing shows it performing work truck like activities, off-road camping activities, hauling things like rocket engines. That being said, I don’t remember if any marketing shows it at, say, a construction site, except for Starbase of course.
The Lamborghini comparison was very apt. How many people want that level of LOOK AT ME!! everywhere they go?
By work truck, do you mean driving back and forth between a Millennial Grey McMansion and the leafy suburban office park where the owner works?
I mean people are smart enough to catch it as an “ad” bur not smart enough to consume it for what it is?
There’s a lot of good info there, it’s a good 30-minutes high quality entertainment, and there will be plenty of opportunities to see people bashing on this thing during the next two or some years it would take for anyone new to get one.
Thruth is the truck wipes the floor with any other truck performance-wise, looks bad as sin, but people need to see someone else saying it so they can agree.
I’m not mad at Cammisa or Hagerty, but I can see how and why people see this sort of coverage and jump to distrust. You have a couple people with special access to the vehicle, presumably with specific restrictions on what they can do and what they can talk about. You have these special prototypes that may be much nicer than customer deliveries end up being. And you have the overpromise/underdeliver record to consider, as well as some fans who will argue every single decision Tesla makes is perfect.
So people see this and distrust at several different levels. As well as some levels that aren’t reasonable, like the assumption positivity was purchased or that Musk told people what to say. Combine it all and you’re bound to see distrust and negativity.
Which isn’t to say you’re wrong. There’s just a lot going on, and reasonable criticism ends up being sort of combined with the conspiratorial in a way that can create a weird echo chamber.
Great take , Matt. I’ve never watched any of Jason’s stuff with Hagerty but your ” insider ‘ breaking the fourth wall ” knowledge really gave me insight as to ” how the sausage is made .” This is exactly why I come here.
Cammisa did an excellent job, and the video was always going to have a strong reaction. But I’m always cautious when Jason goes to the extreme of hyperbole.
Furthermore, I didn’t see from the video how this makes the truck as a monolith any better. At its core, the truck is a tool. One that has gained the usability of a family vehicle, but still able to be a tool. That’s why it is the shape that it is. That’s what Elon didn’t get. It’s a tool. You don’t make a hammer into a diamond-shaped block to improve its rigidity. That negatively impacts the usability of the tool. And, truly, I don’t see how 48V electrics, an exoskeleton, steer by wire, and no mirrors makes this a better truck. It’s a bold claim for a video where the inside of the bed barely even gets looked at. Maybe it’s in the podcast, which is now on the list to listen to.
Props to Jason and the team for producing an excellent video. I just don’t see their conclusion.
The integrated, roll-away (weather tight?) tonneau cover is one thing that seemingly improves the usability of a truck. But the way it’s applied here, losing vision to the rear when it’s closed, I really don’t like. And time will tell if the first time you get a load of mulch or sand the guides get all gunked up and causes issue with the operation.
Steer-by-wire + 4 wheel steer makes it way more maneuverable than a normal truck.
But seems like the odds of anyone using this thing for real work is very low (other than recreation – towing a big boat or camper or SxS).