I just wrote what I intended to be a measured review of the Tesla Cybertruck. I simply drove the machine and wrote down my thoughts. My review pointed out the truck’s flaws and ultimately concluded that I think it’s “cool” despite its controversial founder. That may sound like the most lukewarm take in automotive media history, but even it was enough to cause people to go absolutely crazy. 442 comments (and counting)!
I initially wondered “How are you supposed to write about the Cybertruck these days without people getting upset?” I’ve concluded that the answer is: You can’t. The Tesla Cybertruck should be renamed the Tesla Powderkeg, and reviewing it is totally pointless.
I’m exhausted by the comments sections of my Tesla Cybertruck review. Readers are pissed. YouTube viewers are pissed. Twitter/x users are pissed. Your neighbor’s dog that just laid a mound on your lawn probably did so because it was pissed. Everyone is pissed! And I don’t like it; I want people (and dogs) to be happy. I want them to enjoy their Sunday, not spend it banging away at a keyboard arguing with people.
But like I said, folks were LIVID the other day. “spooky cartoon spider-man,” in particular, let me HAVE IT on Twitter:
Do I think ripping on such a handsome devil’s looks because said HD called a truck cool is a great way to spend a Sunday? Not at all! Go outside! Throw that dog a frisbee so it doesn’t shit on your lawn again!
To be sure, I get why everyone is pissed. The Cybertruck’s primary proponent, Elon Musk, is a ridiculous person who has offended numerous groups, including ones that have already been marginalized. That’s a big deal, and it’s good that people take that seriously. But if you’re going to promote social unity/fairness, you gotta practice what you preach! That’s the thing about the Cybertruck and my review; it turned people who are normally nice and rational, and who regularly speak up to preserve civil discourse and dignity, into that which they denounce.
There are plenty of parallels to the current political situation. You have one group that believes that you must actively and endlessly hate someone or you yourself are condoning all of the bad things they’ve ever done (one commenter even wrote “There are some people (myself included) that consider Musk a large enough problem that they will judge a persons character when that persons uses or praises his work.” For reference, Tesla sells half a million cars annually in the U.S.). And then you have the other group that worships that person and thinks that anyone who slightly criticizes him is an ignorant hater.
While I think both groups — those who love Tesla and those who loathe it — have good intentions, oftentimes neither can think clearly. One is blinded by hatred, one is blinded by admiration; it really is a tale as old as time.
As such, writing my review was pointless. Solely because I called the Cybertruck “cool,” people are throwing tomatoes and soiled underpants at me and my beautiful, carefully crafted words, saying the writing is somehow “flawed” and that I wrote it solely for “clicks.” Clicks?! THE AUDACITY.
To be a bit more serious: I’m sympathetic to these folks. They are commenters on this site, and I’m grateful they’re here — even the ones who make fun of my looks. At the very least, they are purporting to be standing up against bad things Musk has said. To them, they are championing for a better, more civil, more accepting world, and that’s what we should all want. Does being mean online help their cause? Probably not, but the anonymity provided by the web often ends this way.
But it’s not just the haters, it’s also the lovers.
They believe Musk is saving the world, and in some ways, he’s definitely helped! He’s pushed the world towards electrification, which will end up having huge positive climate change implications (a macho Cybertruck to lure folks away from fuel-sucking SuperDuties could help, too). He’s changed the way the world does space exploration with SpaceX. And he’s done a bunch of other great things, but as was the case before when talking about his flaws, no matter what I say here, I’ll get criticized for not mentioning all of what he’s done. Suffice it to say: He’s done some amazing things in addition to the dumb things he’s said and done.
So when Musk fans see all the compromises I mention in my review and say things like “It’s a dumb, poorly disguised ‘hit piece’ peppered with ads. Don’t waste your time. Zero real insight,” I’m sympathetic. They want Musk to succeed — to sell lots of trucks, so he can save the universe.
I don’t think either group has bad intentions (and we here at The Autopian are totally cool with both writing in the comments section (in a civilized way) their strong opinions about the truck or Musk). I think the problem is that there are only two vocal groups. This is the world we live in today; it’s black or white, and there is little nuance. As a result, people in both groups are allowing the topic to get the best of them, and neither group is going to actually read a Cybertruck review with an open mind, making my endeavor to write one — as previously stated — thoroughly pointless.
Maybe I Should Have Included In My Review Every Single Good And Bad Thing Elon Musk Has Ever Done
Lord knows I’m fallible. While I did point out that the truck cannot be disconnected from highly controversial CEO Elon Musk, some folks felt I should have criticized Musk more. They wanted me to make a special exception for this vehicle review and add a paragraph about the transgressions of the CEO of the company that built the truck.
I personally think that pointing out that people have big feelings about Musk is enough, especially given that The Autopian (and everyone) has written ad nauseam about Musk and his foolish words/actions. I’ve never seen a car review spend that much time focusing on the transgressions of a company exec; plus, I know Elon proponents would have demanded that I add another paragraph of all the good stuff Elon has done. Should I do this for all cars? When I write about Lucid, exactly how many paragraphs do I need to commit to the Saudi Royal Family and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi? If I write a VW review, do I need to talk about Dieselgate? Should reviewers of the Ford Model A and VW Beetle have included paragraph-long asides in their reviews about Henry Ford’s nasty prejudices and the Third Reich, respectively?
[Editor’ Note: I feel sort of compelled to step in at this point, because I’ve been separating the terrible people who ran the companies of the cars I’ve loved from the cars themselves for pretty much all my life. That’s what happens when you’re a Jew who loves VW Beetles, like me. At some point, you just have to let the car be the car. This I suppose can bleed into the idea of separating the art from the artist, which I think generally I tend to do as well, though there’s always some point of too far or too much. Or at least, there can be. It’s blurry, and I think at this moment we’re in an era where no one wants to see gradients or shades, everything is all or nothing, so you either hate the Cybertruck with the heat of a thousand suns or love it with the heat of an equal and opposite number of suns. But that’s not how reality works.
We’re going to be deeply fucked if we, collectively can’t get past this. Not everything is pure good or pure evil, but we can always try to keep our eyes on being as good as we can to as many people as we can, and if that means that sometimes we accept that people will find a truck cool even if the guy whose company sells it is a steaming pile, then maybe that’s not the worst thing. I’ve never seen car fandom/hatedom quite like this ever before, and I sincerely hope this is an inane phase we’ll get past, because at this moment, we all seem kind of nuts. – JT]
No one is objective, and not everyone writes from my perspective, but my perspective is that Elon Musk is a lot of things both good and bad, but he’s definitely a bit of an edgelord with some awful takes and even awful-er communication skills. And because of his megaphone, those are indeed a big deal. My perspective is also that people care about the Cybertruck, and I care about trucks, and I want to know how the truck drives. Doing so, and communicating it in a cogent, uncontaminated way, is my job.
And I have to believe that what some people want is a car review without politics. I’m not saying “stick to sports,” as we write often about politics, and the larger world has to be considered when talking about Tesla — but how much throat-clearing is enough throat-clearing? It is, in a way, absurd to assume that anyone reading a review in The Autopian doesn’t already know about Elon Musk and hasn’t already formed an opinion about him.
Think about how many Tesla Model Ys are sold each year (I’m using this example because loads of them are already out; you likely know somebody who owns one) — roughly a quarter million. The people buying that car just want a good, clean, fun-to-drive, cheap-to-operate car. LOADs of people who drive a Model Y are not Elon Musk supporters. And when they read a review, they want a review — they already know about Elon and his weirdness. They want to know what the reviewer thinks of the Model Y so that they can make an informed purchase. While I suspect Cybertruck shoppers are a bit more opinionated on Musk’s antics than Model Y owners given the polarizing nature of the truck, many — and I’d guess the majority — just think it looks cool, and want to know what it’s like to drive. “It’s only a ’cause’ to you. To me, it’s a truck that does what I need it to do,” writes Cybertruck owner Loudog in the comments of my article. “It’s my money. I had an F-150 I daily drove before this (A Powerboost. Excellent truck but too many recalls.) Now I drive a Cybertruck.”
So that’s how I approached the Cybertruck. I drove it, I thought it was cool, I noted that I thought it was cool even though it had some major flaws, and then I wrote just that, while noting, of course, that it’s a product of a controversial man named Elon Musk (whom you can read about on your own, separately). It was measured, thorough, neutral, and nuanced, and that was my mistake.
I should have acknowledged exactly how much of a jerk Elon Musk can be, while also acknowledging all the things he’s done, while also acknowledging that he didn’t do all those things himself, while also acknowledging the global importance of Tesla, while also acknowledging the local impacts of Tesla, while also, maybe, finding a few minutes to write about the actual vehicle. I’ll do better next time. For that dog, and for your lawn.
Finally, to avoid ending on the sad realization that a simple review of a controversial truck championed by an insanely controversial man caused the internet — a place that struggles with nuance and subtlety — to lose its mind, here’s a comment from “Lost on the Nürburgring” that is fair and manages to be critical of the review and the car, but in a way that’s not completely devoid of reason.
Fair enough. We all have differing appreciation of vehicles for a variety of reasons, in all directions. Even leaving Tesla’s majority shareholder out of the assessment, I just find the Cybertruck a deeply silly vehicle, it’s ugly, there are much better trucks out there, there are better EVs out there, it’s too big/heavy, it’s made out of a silly material for cars, the flat panels are an empirically poor choice for the construction of the vehicle, it’s poorly constructed, it’s charmless. I just fail to find what its value proposition is at any level, other than you’ll get plenty of attention driving it around.
Side note, my initial comment did seem tonally to be more negative towards you than was in any way my intent. I read your whole article on the Cybertruck and enjoyed it, even if I disagreed with most of it. But we can agree to disagree, all of us, I hope, in our passion for various cars.
Now go grab that frisbee. Maybe I should have done that myself instead of wasting time writing a review of a Cybertruck that people have already decided to love or hate! [Dog takes second shit on lawn].
Well I’d like to start off by saying I appreciate DT’s largely unbiased reviews of vehicles. I think the nice thing about this site (and why I’m a velour member) is that you guys review all cars and this is a place for everyone.
If I could pinpoint the issue, I’d say people have lost the concept of what an opinion is and how to respond to it. It’s not just cars, it’s everything. People will see you provide an opinion on something (whether that’s a measured review or a hot take) and automatically start drawing conclusions, taking it very personally, and generally forgetting that you don’t have to agree with someone’s opinion. It can exist on its own. You can disagree, which is what a lot of people have politely done in the aforementioned CT review. Or you could see DT saying “I think this car is cool” and immediately think to yourself “you’re wrong”, as if a subjective take on the “coolness” of a car can be wrong.
And I’ll never understand how you can be so upset by something as insignificant as a car review that you’re willing to resort to argumentum ad hominem, or start attacking the way someone looks.
I could literally go on for days ranting about the pro-Tesla and anti-Tesla people (equally annoying groups), but no one wants to hear it and most people feel the same. But what I do believe is that you shouldn’t be part of this community if you can’t take a step back and realize “not everyone likes the things i do and that’s ok”, or if you’re so weak minded that you’re willing to attack someone personally over the review of a fucking car.
Well put!
I concur with Trenton’s comments. In addition to the even-handedness of your reviews (which is noted), I also appreciated the context provided from your own personal experience. Without getting into the ethical morass of separating Musk from his company, or the products it makes, I think the CT is, in ways, like a Jeep. To a degree, it is a vehicle that carries an image with it, has a number of inherent compromises, has a loyal fanbase, and (fair or not) assigns a certain perception of the owner.
I think your segue was absolutely germane to the review.
Also, more war stories like that if it’s possible. Please and thank you.
Gladly!
Hey, at least your CyberTruck takes are less divisive than your timing belt takes.
[Edit: For the record, I’m teasing. Please take it as a joke.]
I didn’t even read the review because the Cybertruck is unlikely to ever be available in Oz and the number of comments already suggested it was a shitshow in the comments section.
As for wether it was a pointless review…given the intensely personal response….no, I don’t think so. You did your job. Yes it made some people unhappy but that’s the nature of so many public service jobs. Some people are inevitably unhappy but you’ll find on reflection that most people end up satisfied at best or indifferent at worst.
Funnily enough, Tesla vehicles are very rarely reviewed in Australian media (let alone motoring media) as Tesla does not have or support a press fleet. So the outlets often have to try another way to procure a car…or not bother.
You may need a new segment titled “Breakover Angle”. Just saying
As everyone’s favorite Sith lord once said “If you’re not with me, you’re against me” and I can’t think of a better way to describe the state of the internet today.
It’s a problem I started realizing I had too, and I’ve spent the last year or so correcting it which also includes spending less time online. It started taking a toll on my mental health. Aside from direct communication with IRL friends, I tend to avoid social media once I’m home for the night. I completely abandoned reddit.
I can’t write a comment on any website regardless of the topic at hand without getting a handful of angry troll comments from people pissed off I don’t view things the way they do. Particularly with politics. I don’t want to turn this into a political rant, so I’ll keep it short. I’m a moderate, center-left, but if I say anything -positive or negative – in either direction… the commenters act like I just shoved someone’s kid to the ground. It’s ridiculous.
The problem is that there is no real conversation online. People just shout past each other without having to engage them. Everyone is trying to “win” their argument, but there is no winning, No compromise can be made that way. In real life, you have to actually look someone in the face when explaining your stance. That’s WAAY different. It reminds me of how differently people communicate based on the method at work. People are more bold/less receptive in email and on the phone than they are in person.
That’s exactly it. In real life, that’s how I argue, but I slowly realized that my online arguments were less about coming to an agreement, and more about trying to bring the other person down. I started emulating the very behavior I hated. Dropping Reddit (IMO, one of the most toxic websites around) was the key for me. I recommend others do the same if they haven’t already.
With that said, I’m incredibly passionate about the things I love and believe in, and I will shut down (poetically, not hatefully) people who are arrogant, disrespectful, or just flat out say hateful stuff about those things.
Taking a step back and looking at how the internet works, controversy gets attention.
I’m probably feeding the troll here, the point Horizontally Opposed made, but this post is already at 304 comments, and the original one is at 448 comments. Most of the posts on the top page have under 100 comments. I cannot see the views but I think its fair to stipulate they are proportionate to the comments.
People are reporting threats for going against the Tesla fans:
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2021/04/04/tesla-owner-reports-threats-praising-ford-mustang-mach-e-elon-musk-sergio-rodriguez/7076886002/
So going with Tesla is likely the safer option, even if the noted “spooky cartoon spider-man” implies the author is uncool in a picture that makes him look reasonably cool. Also, not that “spooky cartoon spider-man” was not already a household name, but note the Streisand effect, unless the author and Twitter celebrity are intentionally upping each other’s profiles in a manufactured beef?
Reviewing the Cybertruck is not pointless, it keeps the lights on.
For something like the Model 3 there is a separate the man from the art discussion. Not for the Cybertruck. The vehicle itself is the problem.
“Pedestrian protection with that unyielding front end is a big no for export as it stands, although Tesla continues to push in certain markets. Lars Moravy boils it down to two other things: ‘One, the truck market in the US is huge and two, European regulations call for a 3.2mm external radius on external projections. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to make a 3.2mm radius on a 1.4mm sheet of stainless steel.'”
https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/tesla/cybertruck/buying
“Adrian Lund, former president of the IIHS, has expressed concern, stating, ‘The big problem there is if they really make the skin of the vehicle very stiff by using thick stainless steel, then when people hit their heads on it, it’s going to cause more damage to them.'”
https://www.carscoops.com/2023/12/tesla-cybertrucks-sharp-edges-and-rigid-body-raise-pedestrian-safety-concerns/
I have a Silverado crewcab. It is admittedly indifferent to pedestrians, but it does create potential risks just to make a spectacle out of using a stupid material like stainless steel. My Silverado might pass by someone who needs help, but the Cybertuck stops and kicks them. That is not “cool.”
^does *not* create potential risks
To all you Tesla fans sending death threats: Maybe you should check out the resume of the person BEFORE you threaten them:
“Rodriguez, 41, a U.S. Army veteran who served two tours in Iraq and specialized in explosive ordnance disposal, is now a military contractor”
Weirdly, comments are not a good indicator of post performance. Some of our best posts of all time have just 50 or so comments.
David’s Cybertruck posts are doing about average in traffic. A random RV post beats them in that metric. But comments are off the charts.
What’s the definition of “cool?” That’s the whole point. Quantify it, give me a metric, measure the objective “coolness” of the CT on a numerical scale. You’re going to need some controls for this experiment too, so you’re going to need to find cars that everyone thinks are cool and cars no one thinks are cool. Good luck with that.
If you want to get technical, “cool” as a measure of temperature can be somewhat quantified, and I think the CT is “cool” when it’s stored around or below room temperature.
CyberTruck is the new Harley Davidson
EXACTLY THIS. We can all point to several obvious reasons why genteel public discourse is nearly dead (I’m looking at you US politics and social media), but we need to get over this deeply odd time. As JT put it, “We’re going to be deeply fucked if we, collectively can’t get past this.”
DT – Your review wasn’t pointless. It will never be pointless for us to have thoughtful, objective, and evidence-based journalism. I could not care less about the politics of Elon; however I have been curious to learn how a product that his company sells, something that actually exists in our physical world, stacks up when viewed objectively. You delivered spectacularly, as always.
If anything is pointless, it’s the comments section of a website, or at the very least putting value on anything that is said in a comment (yes, I’m aware that this is a comment and that statement is very meta).
I have to disagree with one of your points: the comment section of a website is its community, and that’s far from pointless on a site that desires to foster that sense of community, both for its own good, and the benefit of its readers.
Unfortunately, more often than not, comment sections just turn into a mess of individuals attacking each other instead of having real conversations. I’m thankful The Autopian is committed to fostering a community where the readers can contribute and engage in thoughtful, informed conversation with each other.
What Dave said.
I don’t think the comments on appearance or other personal attacks were even worth responding to, and there were a lot of more thoughtful comments that weren’t highlighted above. Most of the commentary below the pins was impassioned, but at least tactful. I don’t see that as a bad thing. Comment sections are good, and I will die on that hill.
What, comments can be pinned down?
Oh no, another way to get disappointed on my contributions to the conversation!
hahaha (you’re fine)
Agreed. There are a couple other websites in which the comments quickly devolve into politics and name-calling. Those websites are much less enjoyable than this one.
You’re right. The comments section for the Autopian is a pretty nice community. I like being a car nerd with y’all.
“I like being a car nerd with y’all.”
This needs to be on the next Autopian shirt.
I really enjoyed the write up of the Cybertruck, but I really regret reading the comments section. Several comments implied that Cybertruck owners are supporting nazis or are intentionally causing harm to others. It is frustrating that so many people feel the need to judge the character of others based on what they drive.
I don’t know if there is anything this site can do to keep the comments section civil (or at least free of personal insults), but the comments on that article decreased my interest in this site considerably.
It’s usually not like this.
Usually not, but it was enough to change my opinion of the comments section for the worse.
Unfortunately, there are some topics (mostly pickup trucks and Tesla products) where the comments section tends to devolve into insults and rants. More moderation of the comments section would be nice in those situations.
Only once have I seen someone banned on here; it was Mr. Sarcastic.
It’s a hard line to walk between moderation and letting opinionated people have their say (as unpleasant as that is).
So far the Autopian has gotten away without having to do too much moderation because of the quality of the commenting base. I’m uncertain if yesterday was a fluke or a sign of things to come. Hopefully the former.
It’s more like this more often though.
Yeah, I do hope those who registered here just to rant are banned. Perhaps comments should be available only to subscribers, like on a lot of Substack.
Some sites have the option to only see member comments, that may help as well.
That would help us, but not the folks that run this site, I’d think. They shouldn’t have to put up with the vitriol, either.
We don’t ban people for having disagreements with us or with one another. That’s what this site is about: We welcome all!
There are lines folks can’t cross, of course, but if it’s just “I disagree with the author,” that’s never going to be a problem here. (To make it abundantly clear: We will ban people who cross lines, just to keep things civil).
Sounds right, but it sounds like there was a lot of incivility going on in those comments on the article, though I can’t be certain because I noped right out of the comments on the original article.
It definitely wasn’t out finest comments section. But for the most part, we let it play out; we want this to be an open forum for folks to talk and hear new points of view and maybe learn a few things from others. I’m not sure that quite happened due to high emotions involved, but I’ve seen so much worse on other sites.
Or perhaps all subscribers should have something, perhaps a gold star or call it “Autopian Gold” maybe, that puts their comments in clear view, and all non-subscribers’ comments should be in another, lighter color, perhaps gray, and hidden until a reader clicks “show more”…
Thanks for doing what you do.
Side note, that topshot is amazing. That belongs in the Louvre of topshots.
David, Dave, Davy, DT, Rusty Tracy, POStal-man, Mr. i3, whatever you’re going by these days, you sound like someone who pulled the pin out of a grenade, set it down in the middle of the town square, and are now amazed at what happened.
I enjoyed your review – it was something different. I stayed out of the comments though, because I know what happens to grenades missing their pins.
My own take away from that review was that if I ever get a Jeep, it’s going to be a JL. I know next to nothing about those or even Jeeps in particular, but I found the opening story about the JL’s development to be quite fascinating.
I make it a point to never support someone that isn’t myself 100%. There is no person that can do no wrong, or no person that can do nothing right. Defending social figures with full devotion, that you have never interacted with is an odd personal choice for me. For example, I am a fan of this website and all the writers, and would consider myself a supporter that will defend them in most circumstances. However if I found out that Jason was buying up all the VW Beetles, and crushing them, in an attempt to make his more rare and valuable, I would not support him in that endeavor, but would still love to read his ramblings on tail lights.
“The Bug Short”, get VW and Netflix on the phone now, lol.
Wonder what a VW Beetle review from 1939 would look like in today’s world
Anyone who likes it would eventually be compared to Hilter. So, basically the same as today.
As that was the start of the war maybe not as bad? But shortly after the war and after everything was seen that happened and what was done yeah would be much worse.
My comment on the article involved what you said about the truck. You didn’t praise Musk or criticize him, so I left my feelings regarding him out of the comment. I guess that’s beyond the ability of a lot of people and it’s too bad you had to take the resulting abuse. Saying positive things about the CT doesn’t mean you find Musk’s behavior acceptable Unfortunately, this goes a lot further in our society. The whole, “if you’re Jewish, you support the killing of innocent Palestinians” thing is a more destructive version of the same sort of thinking.
But no one says that. That’s a straw man argument made up by people trying to block any criticism of Israel’s acts.
That doesn’t seem to be what I’m hearing. I have friends whose daughter is in med school who’s had to deal with this. Maybe it’s the kind of thing that happens mostly on college campuses, but it happens.
In media, recent protests at a land theft event held at a synagogue are frequently and incorrectly presented as being anti-Jewish. I have been told that displaying the Palestinian flag is antisemitic, that UNICEF, Amnesty, HRW, MSF, etc etc are as well.
I work adjacent to construction, and to me it seems that the overwhelming majority of antisemites are also Israel supporters – see AfD in Germany, Orban in Hungary, or Trump, who said that the Charlottesville neo-nazis were good people but that non-violent protesters are dangerous.
I cannot speak for your friends’ daughter’s experience, but I do know that Israel specifically targets medical personnel and medical institutions. They have recently tortured a number of doctors to death at Sde Teiman.
I did not and have never tried to defend any of that horrific sort of behavior (and I personally know Israelis who feel just as I do about it). It’s the idea that you can automatically assume that everyone who practices a particular religion or is of a particular nationality may be assumed to back heinous acts which I object to. I certainly don’t believe that anyone who is Palestinian believes that the mass slaughter of non-combatants solely because they are Jewish is to be celebrated.
Again, we don’t (I am sure that there are isolated incidents, as you can’t have millions of protesters without some of them being unhinged), but media is constantly trying to characterize any protest as being antisemitic.
Biden recently presented a protest outside of a synagogue as “Intimidating Jewish congregants” – it was not, it was a protest at a real estate event pushing sales of stolen land in the West Bank, which happens to have been held in a synagogue. It is outright slander and a lie, and people across America believe it.
You pretty much just summed up the entire experience of the Internet and social media in our current age.
Just as a point, I have read many reviews of vehicles you’ve written over the years. At no point in reading the article referenced here, did I think it was a review. I don’t recall it being referenced as a review in the piece or missed it if it was.
When Sunday is when “David’s spicy takes” are scheduled, it seems disingenuous to drop one at its regularly scheduled time and then feign innocence later.
I took issue with the central thesis, which seemed to be that defending key aspects of a product makes it cool. That is true for the already-successful Jeep defined by a product manager who understood what made it cool to its legions of buyers, and less true of the brand-new truck that is defined (and hampered) by a series of boasts from the edgelord CEO who cares primarily about what’s cool to him, and only secondarily about what’s cool to truck buyers.
One problem is you’re wrong about the “good/bad Elon” thing. He is not both sides — he’s essentially a total fraud and serial grifter, one of the Trumps of the tech world. Because you have a different view of him as a person, you’re living in a different universe from those of us who can see through him. (Read Niedermeyer’s Ludicrous book.) And you don’t gotta hand it to him. You really don’t.
If you want endless Elon hate, Jalopnik is your fix!
I’m of the mindset that any good he’s done is more or less accidental, but it’s still pretty amusing that he’s managed to sell EVs to the last people you’d ever expect to buy EVs, simply because they agree with the stupid shit he says — the same folks who have a few dusty cans of Goya beans in their pantry from a couple years back, and the same folks who try to convince themselves that they enjoy Kid Rock’s music.
I was about to say the Venn diagram of Tesla buyers and Kid Rock aficionados is two separate circles, but my mind was thinking of the run of the mill Teslas, not the CT.
There is it again… it always comes back to Orange Man Bad. For some reason the terminally online crowd is so quick to draw this connection everywhere that it’s reached “facist” levels of meaninglessness. And they’re also so quick to look down their noses “…you’re living in a different universe from those of us who can see through him”.
I can’t believe people are somehow making me defend that walking eyeroll, but here we are.
For those who continually don’t seem to get it… Elon, like our President in any administration, is largely a figurehead. The apparatus – the thousands and tens of thousands of people at Tesla, SpaceX, et al. make it happen. They get orders from the top. You might not like those orders, but they made it happen. That was the crux of the original writeup and the theme that every Elon Mininuteman seems to miss in their quest to write insightful-identifying crucifixions of him in comment sections and Reddit threads.
You know, honestly, it’s comments like these that do highlight the fact that you really are living in a different universe from the rest of us. You spent money on a book to read about how bad Elon Musk is to tell the rest of the world they don’t know him as well as you do. You probably wake up each morning checking Elon Musk’s tweets to see what controversial topic he’s tweeted about. You follow, read and comment all news articles that have anything remotely to do with Elon Musk. You spend time on forums parsing his old tweets to find contradictions with his new tweets. But most of all you wonder how anyone could even think about calling a vehicle from one of Elon’s company cool.
How is it that after all that been written, all you have commented, all the expose on Elon showing he is “a total fraud and serial grifter” there’s still half a million people each year plunking down thousands for Tesla’s. I mean don’t they see who he is? Don’t they see what you see, what you’ve researched, what you’ve read? Damn, the only logical conclusion is they’re living in a different world from THOSE OF YOU who can see through him. I mean, there’s no way the Cybertruck is cool. You and I know that. There is no way the best selling Electric SUV is a Tesla because, c’mon, it’s just all 500k Elon stans year after year buying what they consider the better electric SUV for their needs. I mean have you seen the panel gaps on those thing. Boy lemme tell you. But before I do Elon right?
You know what, it’s not like this is about to drag you outta the parallel universe you reside in, so hopefully you had a laugh out of this. Truth is, the biggest Elon Fanboy is people like you. Lets call it hate fanboying.
I appreciate that you gave the Cybertruck an objective review, to whatever extent someone possibly can. There isn’t a right way to do it. The truck is a passion project from an incredibly shitty person who has far more power and influence than he should reasonably have. At the same time, it is just a vehicle.
Well put. I had the audacity to express that I generally agreed with his takes and found it mostly bad with just a few mildly (but not sufficiently) redeeming qualities and…damn.
I’m not pissed! I don’t really like the truck, but it’s no reason to piss me off. David, you keep being you and don’t worry about the hate!
Yeah, it seems like the Elon hate is a big part of the connection to this truck. Me personally I just think its a bad product. I think that looking at a vehicle from a standing of weird = good is flawed generally. Weird is weird, and while some like weird for weird sake that doesn’t mean that weird, unique, or compromised is the bases for whether something should be admired.
My take is that the Jeep analogy, that is good and correct, doesn’t apply to the CT because the Jeep knew what it was supposed to be. It’s defenders were protecting something that had definitive value. The CT doesn’t know what it wants to be, and it’s eccentricities aren’t charming or endearing and its dedication to them isn’t admirable. Its just bad decisions based on bad thinking that got pushed into production.
We may look back on the CT like a DeLorean DMC-12, an objectively bad car, with some fondness and rose colored glasses in the next generation of car enthusiasts, but here and now…as a car…the CT is just bad.
Note: The engineering solutions are not on trial here. It’s an issue of macro choices I take issue with. This is the Hyperloop or the Boring company of vehicles. Fever dreams of limited practical value.
You are right though, the CT is a controversy machine and there was no chance you were going to avoid that. Lame that people attack you personally though.
Oh yeah, I’m not saying it’s a perfect analogy. But it’s a discussion of how an initial vision (no matter how flawed — and let’s be clear, the Jeep is flawed, too) — can be watered down for the sake of making the car devoid of any compromises to the driver. “Let’s round this edge a bit and we can get better fuel economy/range… let’s decrease the tires size for a better ride… let’s lean the windshield back for a few extra counts of drag reduction.”
Conventional designs are conventional because they minimize compromises. They’re why so many cars look the same. The Wrangler looks different because it says “To hell with ride quality, to hell with fuel economy, to hell with practicality — we are going to build this product to fit our vision, period.” The Cybertruck does the same thing.
I get the argument that the Jeep makes a lot of its compromises for better off-road capability (thus offering a usability benefit, even if only to a tiny minority of drivers), but it — and so many other vehicles throughout the history of automobiledom — makes loads of compromises to look cool. Because looking cool sells cars. It’s why the PDO at Chrysler has way ore power than the engineers.
But again, I get that it’s not an EXACT analogy. But it was the “death by a thousand cuts” concept that I wanted to get across. Because the only cuts associated with the Cybertruck are those on my right forearm. And I can’t lie, I think there’s something “cool” about being bold when the data says you should round those corners an rake that windshield.
I mean, sticking your dick in a fan is bold too. A terrible, bold idea.
I’m reminded of a song!!
Put your hand in a fan and you will lose a finger.
Put your foot in a fan and you will lose a toe.
Put your face in a fan and you will look at others differently!
Put your body in a fan and change your anatomy!
You’re certainly not the only one who thinks that.
Kind of in that vein, I feel like making the Cybertruck was the opposite of bold: it was a bunch of sycophants doing what the boss told them to do and making a product tightly adherent to napkin drawings he probably gave them.
What would have been bold would have been Tesla standing up as a company and saying No, Elon, we refuse to design and build this terrible idea of a vehicle and sign our names and reputations to it.
That would have been a bold idea. They would all be unemployed today, but it would have been bold.
I regret nothing.
The issue is that liking or disliking this inanimate object has become a virtue signal for people. If you can divorce it entirely from Elon ????????, it’s really quite an interesting (if overpriced) novelty vehicle that does a few things well. I actually kind of like them, truthfully.
Don’t apologize to anyone. Elon isn’t the first shitbag to own a car company and there’s no shortage of evidence of his shitbaggery elsewhere on the internet. Chainsaws and trench foot aside, you guys are some of the most level-headed automotive journalists in the business and you’ve convinced this cheap bastard to become a member even though I will never drive that thing.
I am shocked, shocked I tell you that you would write an article with the hopes that people would read it (clicks). And the fact that you, as someone running a business, might actually want to generate revenue for that business is absolutely, a crime against humanity. On top of that you choice to write about a car that generates passion (positive and negative) from people. I am sure that all these haters were subscribed at the highest level as well.
Haters gonna hate, you do you.
It’s funny. I disagreed with most of the original article and reading this, there were STILL several points I found myself wanting to argue with. The urge to argue on the internet is so strong. 🙂
But the more important point is that I’m sorry you were treated like shit by people online. There is a layer of humanity removed when we communicate by typing comments at each other, and I believe this is a big contributor to a lot of societal problems today. I like your writing and I like this site.
I can forgive a bad take, but I found your handling of the situation was inexcusable, such as the bizarre use of pinned comments. Combined with other recent actions, I’ve lost faith and respect for the Autopian leadership.
Jalopnik will always have you back…
I’m sorry you feel that way. I use pins in an effort to prevent that comments section from turning into a total shitstorm… as you can see, didn’t quite work here. 🙂
But I didn’t delete any comments; if you have an opinion that’s counter to mine or critical of me, even if it’s a bit rude, I can handle that. Everyone is totally welcome to write it, and it will be visible for all (though don’t expect me to pin that! 🙂 )
To be fair, if you hadn’t pinned one of them I wouldn’t have seen the CT owner devolve from “reasoned voice of an owner” to “Oh, the CT owner caricature was actually just a realistic representation” in a short span of time. I presume you later regretted placing that pin, but good on you for keeping it up.
Oh of course, that had to be pinned. We had insight from someone who actually owns and daily drives the truck!
The way and speed that comment turned from David asking, “please tell us more,” to a complete shitshow was something to see.
I’m glad to see someone bring this up, and to see you respond. As someone who read the piece very shortly after it went up and commented early (in that order! I read first!), and then followed the comments to an admittedly unhealthy degree throughout the day, the pinning felt like a big misstep.
I don’t know you, David, I can’t know what your state of mind was as you saw what was happening, but it was hard not to see you only pinning comments that praised or agreed with you as being a wee bit thin-skinned, which I don’t think is generally who you are. It also seemed like, at a certain point, you began to conflate responses you were getting elsewhere, especially Twitter, with what was (initially, at least) a generally civil, if lively, response here.
It makes me wonder if, as an organization, you might want to dedicate some thought to how and when the pinning feature gets used, and then be transparent about it. It comes across clearly as a kind of editorial endorsement, so I think it needs to be wielded very carefully and intentionally, whereas the way it was used on this piece felt a bit less judicious.
I’d also advocate for it being used very sparingly—as a simple user experience note, especially in the context of 4+ pages of comments, having to scroll past that giant block of crap pinned to the top of every page was really tiresome.
I see them as citations, which isn’t bizarre. If they’re out of context, then call David out for that, but I don’t see unfairness here.
I get what you’re saying in regards to separating the art from the artist, such as it is but your comparison the the Beetle and its troubling legacy are flawed I think. Its been 80 years since WW2 and I don’t think the outright Nazis that made the original are still alive and making profits on it. The same can’t be said for the Cybertruck.People that buy one of these you are directly enriching Elon, and by puffing it up with all of these pieces on it you’re doing even more so, even if the legions of fans think mild criticisms of it are a hatchet job.
I don’t say this as a condemnation because I generally enjoy the work you do but I really don’t think you can distance Tesla from Elon at this point.
Er, the editor that is, not you.
That’s where I land on this, too. Hitler died in WW2 and the VW company (as a real, non-KdF, customer-facing concern) came afterwards. Even if I bought a Beetle in 1949, that money wouldn’t have gone to Hitler’s war machine. It’s going to rebuild a country that needs to figure out how to get going again under better, more humane leadership. I understand folks who want to avoid them anyway because of that history, but leaving the country in shambles without industries to build things back up wouldn’t have made sense, either. Hopelessness makes extreme ideas more attractive. (See also: post-WWI.)
But Tesla? I can’t fault anyone who bought one before Elon went off the deep end or even anyone who keeps using Elonverse products/services they already have because swapping cars or other systems is expensive, but I couldn’t in good conscience recommend it today. My biggest beef with the article was the conclusion that the Cybertruck was cool in spite of its obvious (and potentially dangerous) flaws and the extremely hateful guy who profits from it. Interesting would’ve been a better way to put it, IMHO, but it’s not my piece. It’s interesting how something so visually close to its concept could get made, and yeah, I want to know more. This is, culturally speaking, a big deal, whether you’re rooting for owners to get Cyberstuck or not. I can’t blame an outlet for driving it to see what it’s like.
But calling it cool is a bridge too far when buying one further enriches a guy who keeps spreading and advocating for outright hatred, and who’s been using that money and influence to do so — like, right now, in the present. Like a Cybertruck delivered sans lockers on a soft trail, that baggage is just too damn heavy to overcome and unless there’s some kind of 180-degree turnaround at the top there, it can never be cool.
Just know this, DT, any time someone decides to attack your opinions because of your appearance, insults are the last resort of the guy who’s already lost the argument.
Except for Jason’s hair LOLOLOLOL
Sorry, couldn’t resist
Dirty! 🙂
Hey now! I will fight haters of the hair. We will throw down. I’ll call them…idk, goofy.
I’m just wondering how many ppl got the joke 🙁
it is ENSHRINED as a Discord emoji for a reason
we respect that hair
Guys, we get it. My dad is a Holocaust Survivor, and bought a 914 in 1974; we stored it in the winters at his aunt’s house who was in a labor camp. And she got a kick out of showing “her” sports car to her friends and neighbors.
And it was an albatross around his neck. The first morning he had the car, he opened up the garage, looked at the car, and said to himself “I’m 35 years old, I’m married, overweight, I have two kids, what the f— did I just do?” And then the car wouldn’t start.
But realities and practicalities are very often secondary to every other emotion that cars can prompt.
When we finally got rid of the car 45 years later, My dad said something very sage: “It served its purpose. It proved I was as good as the other kids whose parents got them speedsters in 1956…”
David, for what it’s worth, I thought the review was nuanced and as neutral as can be with something so polarizing. Comments like mine were likely lost in the sea of others that were taking it as far as possible to one side or the other. The review made good points about how, whether it was a good idea or not, they made something as close to their crazy concept as possible.
Like I said in my comment on the review, the Cybertruck is so polarizing that there almost is no middle ground. You love it or you hate it. Nobody would cross shop this thing. You either want it or you don’t.
It sucks the review brought out the typical worst types we have. I thought it was good and made me happy I support this site.
I honestly think everyone is wrong about everything, all the time.
Lol!
That fits my data.
I only think this when people disagree with me.
Well I for one take the neutral stance and have no feeling on if someone is wrong or right on anything.
For everyone to copy and delete words as appropriate: I hate/love what you wrote about that thing I hate/love!
Useful!
If all the comments which aren’t entertaining or informative use the same format I can scroll past them quicker.
This is why the internet sucks… these haters (er…keyboard warriors) would have never said this stuff unless they had the security of the internet protecting them from actual consequences. While I may not agree with all of your takes, you’re still an excellent journalist that keeps many of us attached to the Autopian. Keep doing your thing, DT!
Yes, please keep doing your thing DT.
I want to know if the CT is cool to a trained engineer, rather than cool to whomever it is who arbitrates on social coolness (is it still the mean girls at school? I’ve no idea).
Yeah I didn’t even click on the review which sucks because I love the reviews on this website but I knew if I scrolled down to the comment section it was just going to be a bunch of brain rot. Like people can have different views and opinions as one selves. Just agree to disagree and move on with your day why bring someone down for their opinion on a vehicle? What are we kids on elementary school?
No! You can’t disagree with me! Literal human lives and human rights and the imminent collapse of civil society and the absolute empowerment of the rich are at hand! I am right!
/s
As an old GenX: Whatever……:)
I’m squarely a millennial. We started this whole “You ABSOLUTELY cannot disagree with me under ANY circumstance because THIS IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE”
The question I have is why?
Foundational? Tribalism, sports-team mentality, in-group security, virtue signalling. Same as everyone else and My-Guy-Can-Do-No-Wrong. Look at the diaper mafia.
Proximal? We (current mid to upper millennials) were the first to pioneer online flamewars and IRC assaults in the 90s into the forum age of of the 00s and were well trained already in absolutist grandstanding by the time we were in college (and college students always have the loudest opinions on everything)
Definitely see this in my GenZ kids…didnt get this from their parents…we’re more ‘roll with it’ kind of people.
I think social media plays a huge roll in this….everything is highly exaggerated/taken to the extreme to attract attention/clicks/ad$$. After a while, one becomes used to this/thinks the norm. Back in the pre-internet days, we would just go ‘what a wacko!’ or ‘man, you need to chill out!
‘.
Haha it is like hey I like deep dish pizza some ones disagrees and hates deep dish oh shit time to launch the nukes the end of the world is nigh because someone doesn’t like the same type of pizza as me