I just wrote what I intended to be a measured review on 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.
Before I left my brother’s house, this had 64 comments. Right now it’s at 240. What the hell, I’ll jump in.
One, first and foremost, above everything, nothing excuses personal attacks on DT, or anyone here, full stop. There’s no need for that in civil discourse, and if (royal) you aren’t interested in civil discourse, x[.]com is over there to the right.
Next is artist from the art. I despise Elon Musk, and I do think it supports him directly to buy a Tesla. With that out of the way, even that had no bearing in the criticism I had of the original post. I think I took a sideways potshot at Musk because I do believe he is a bad person, a net negative for society, and that you should buy or use things from his companies or otherwise associate with him.
Third, a controversial take is not intrinsically clickbait, jesus. Show up and discuss why you think it’s off or wrong, but having an unpopular opinion isn’t a thing that only happens when evil media gobshites are trying to grab your eyeballs. Get over it, haters.
Those things out of the way, I disliked your review and I don’t think it was fair to your readers or the public at large to bring up 10 key “compromises” that range from needless to dumb to dangerous, and *then* proceed to celebrate how it’s a miraculous execution of vision. You offered precious little to offset the various and myriad failures it has besides “it’s fast” and “it looks a like the concept.” You make no value judgement on the concept itself being worthy of execution, and lose yourself in praise to the fact that it is a concept that bumbled into existence largely unchanged. There’s optimism and then there’s naivete, and your review was much more the latter, and not even passingly justified. What makes a CT worth the sharp edges, the touchscreen shifter, the mismatched steel? There’s precious little information – not word count but **information** – about why the spectrum of issues ranging from annoying to dangerous is a miracle worth tolerating.
I love this place and I’m not cancelling my membership or attacking anyone or calling it clickbait. I do think it’s a poor conclusion from a poor review. Replace the word CyberTruck with any other model in that review, strike anything referring to the concept, and on what sane basis would you call it a miracle, or even cool? If a Corvette came out looking like a concept *but cut your goddamn hands when you opened the trunk* it would be rightly pilloried, if not recalled. Why does the CT get a pass? What was so compelling about the concept that making it to manufacture is a worthwhile expression of the form?
Anywhere else, any other industry, it’d be a little “let’s catch that next time,” but in media, where everyone can see and throw stones without retaliation, it’s brutal.
should *not buy
it looks a *lot like the concept
can’t edit comments made from mobile on desktop, harrumph
“I do think it’s a poor conclusion from a poor review.”
I’m of the opinion that you are completely wrong about that. I think the review was great and the conclusion was interesting.
I know I don’t like the CT, and I expect a positive review to give me reasons to the contrary I can at least respect, even if I don’t agree with them. I felt that was absent in DT’s review. To me, it celebrated a thing happening, being made, while staunchly refusing to question if that thing should have happened, should have been made. Unblind my eyes, what did you take away from it?
Even if you don’t answer, hell yeah, here’s to disagreeing without being jerks! Cheers!
… Since you’re not here I’m just gonna go ahead and drink yours, hope that’s cool.
Yep, some people LOVED it, some people HATED it. For a review of a vehicle as controversial as the Cybertruck, the center may actually be the best place to be.
What I want to know is – what the hell are you feeding that dog??
I mean the CT isn’t a Chevy H2 or H3 right… those things were really bad and all…. There were all kinds of stories about how bad those were….
Gen X here so we don’t really care or have strong opinions about much. We just manage and move on.
Great top-shot, I was unaware that Tesla had an app for its flamethrower. You may not be able to prevent a dog from dumping in your lawn, but best not step in it, then proceed to track it through your house. Your reviews on balance come across well reasoned, where you stepped into it, was em blazing “Extremely Cool because of its faults” then tracked it with “avoiding death by a thousand cuts” regarding a truck that you concede cut you. I’ve long criticized the CT for what I believe are critical flaws. Tesla states that the molded in crumple zones at the rear of its giga casting will give a controlled collapse (HA, like to see that) then states sail panel increases rigidity 25%. These statements are diametrically opposed. Hard to trust steer by wire, and screen incorporation of mission critical functions from the company that gives you full self driving. The CT more than their other vehicles represents a knife edge that makes being grey on it untenable, dividing to black or white.
I hate to continue amplifying this insane conversation, but I have to call out Jason’s logic in his in-text comment.
The problem is his comparison with VW. Nobody was buying Volkswagens while the Nazis made them… except Nazis. After the Nazis were kicked out of VW, normal people started buying VWs because they were just cars that could be sold on their merits under the production of a company with a regular (and anti-fascist!) corporate identity – not an industrial wing of an explicitly violent and twisted political ideology.
Buying a Cybertruck from Elon Mush today is like buying a Beetle from the Nazis in the 1930s. You cannot separate the product from the builder.
I see this viewpoint a lot and I disagree with it substantially. It would have merit if Elon were wiggled in to being the POTUS and then ordered the nationalization of Tesla before having the Cybertruck designed.
Saying that Elon == Hitler and Elon == Trump discounts and erases the tens of thousands of very talented people who work for the organizations he’s the nominal head of, that have busted ass to produce new technologies and processes. No matter how much of an irritating loudmouth he is, he’s still in the private sector, and the contributions Tesla, SpaceX, etc. have made will long outlast him.
Continually bringing up “But he’s just like Hitler!” contributes to the slow decline in seriousness about the threats of facism and ultranationalism because it becomes hackneyed and ignored as a boy-cries-wolf.
What I’m saying here is that in this very normal, no… extremely normal late-stage capitalist landscape we have ethical decisions to make about our consumer behavior.
There are many very good EVs on the market, a lot of them better than Teslas by a lot of measurements. Are Jim Farely or Mary Barra leveraging their positions to loudly advance racist, homophobic, transphobic, and generally falsehood ridden ideologies (on one of the world’s largest communication platforms) to everyone they can reach? Not the last time I checked. They’re acting like normal CEOs of normal giant multinational companies! (As normal as those entities can get.)
Elon himself and only Elon is specifically responsible for making the decision to buy a Tesla an ideological choice, not a rational consumer choice. If he wasn’t spewing bullshit 24/7, bullying his shareholders to groan under the weight of a $55B compensation package, and literally undermining all the amazing technological and design work done by those engineers you mention at every turn, we literally would not be having this conversation.
We’d all just be having a fun laugh at how terrible the Cybertruck is. If people wanted to buy it because they thought it looked cool, we’d roll our eyes and move on. But not any more. I’ve never seen a “I bought this car before I knew he was terrible” sticker on anything other than a Tesla. For a person to publicly shame their own consumer choice is a sign that something is deeply wrong.
Is Tesla a state-run company like VW was in the 1930s? No, of course not. Is Elon Musk Hitler? No. Is he Trump? Never said that. Do Elon Musk and Tesla have the societal power of state actors? Not so far. But I think the average person understands the parallels here from a consumer standpoint. Do you want your dollars to support Musk’s ideologies and comically ballooning wealth, or do you just want an EV to drive around in? Increasingly, you can’t do the latter and buy a Tesla. If you do the former, you’re signaling your allegiance, whether you want to or not.
As for all those engineers? Eh, I feel a little bad, but I don’t know how much sympathy I have in the end. This is all Elon’s fault, but they’re choosing to work there. My guess will be for not much longer. It’s too bad – he’s actively ruining the most innovative car company to come along in a century.
“Elon himself and only Elon is specifically responsible for making the decision to buy a Tesla an ideological choice,”
It might be for some. But I strongly suspect that most people who buy a Tesla are simply people who want one because it’s a great vehicle… and they don’t give a shit about the politics… least of all, the opinions of the anti-Tesla stans.
And I say that as someone who has interacted with Tesla owners. And I say that as someone who’s planning on buying a used Model S at some point.
When I get a Model S eventually, it’s not due to any ideological or political reason. It will be because it’s a great vehicle for my purposes.
That’s good for you – I’m not going to drag your personal vehicle choice, and I’m not inherently anti-Tesla, they’ve done some amazing things from an engineering standpoint.
But the ideological stuff will still cling to these things for a while, whether we want it to or not – maybe it will die down at some point, especially if Tesla can get their shit together and start building better cars. (Man, the Model S needs an update soon…)
But the fact that anecdotally we’re seeing all these CT owners expressing shock that people on the street are openly mocking them means that even though they may not have bought the truck for political reasons, they’re being roped into it, which is Elon’s fault. It’s kind of naive, actually, if you’re not expecting it.
The ideological bullshit surrounding Tesla is the same ideological bullshit that surrounded the Prius and hybrids in general back in the 2000s.
Actually, it was interesting to watch the Prius/hybrid haters shift their attention to the “much more scary thing” that was Tesla and BEVs in general in the 2010s time frame.
It was just bullshit mostly fueled by haters who felt threatened by the new thing… likely because they had/have ties either to the oil industry or had/have ties to the competition that had nothing that could compete with the new tech.
And the BS from the haters would instigate a response from the people who loved the new tech.
It will pass eventually as the haters focus their attention on something even more scary… whatever that turns out to be in the future.
But I think you are missing the point, David’s review wasn’t an endorsement, just a (mostly) objective look at the car.
To stretch the metaphor a bit longer, the Americans (or British, I forget) captured some Kubelwagens during the war, and had to evaluate them. If I recall correctly, they pitted it against the Jeep and found it lighter, better at handling snow and fording rivers for some reason, and worse at maintenance (of all things!). They were literally at war with the makers, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t separate the car from the fuckturds building them.
Sure, we know the Brits who took over the VW factory at the end of the war were amazed at the engineering that went into the Nazi-era VWs. That’s a huge reason why they salvaged the plant, got workers back onto the lines, and helped the community rebuild the city and grow the company.
I’m not necessarily criticizing David’s original review, I’m mostly surprised at Jason’s editorial comment in this article. Ferdinand Porsche was a Nazi, the Nazis built the first Beetles. But the company that emerged in 1948 to sell VWs to the public was not tied to Nazism in any way.
I’m willing to bet if those soldiers you mention who captured a Kubelwagen or two were offered the opportunity to buy one from a company that was still run by Nazis, they wouldn’t do it. Would you?
“Buying a Cybertruck from Elon Mush today is like buying a Beetle from the Nazis in the 1930s.”
No it’s not. Musk pushes his employees hard and he can be autocratic, but he’s no Nazi.
If you think he’s a Nazi (or like one), then all that really means is you know very little about the real Nazis.
Dude – read my reply below to Professor Chorls, I don’t feel like typing it out again. ????
Dude, your reply was just 17 paragraphs of saying the same thing you did in your OP, but denying you said it. Let me reprise what I was quoted over in the main article: We get it. You don’t like Elon. You think he’s a hateful loudmouth who is fawned over by sycophants and surrounded by yes men. Trust me, I think we all do already.
Objectively, these characteristics mean that Tesla as a company is not performing as well as it could be. I think we can agree it’s long past his prime time at the helm of the Musk & Companies.
I bring up Trump because there’s plenty of others in this article page and the original who spent tons of energy equating Elon and Trump or Elon and Hitler. And I have said the same thing to everybody: You can objectively criticize the company and the build quality of the cars, but the moment you begin throwing around word like fascism or Nazis like candy sprinkles, it shows your own biases more than anything else.
Years ago I thought about buying a Tesla, but then I kept reading several reviews about poor quality control (like this unbiased article), and decided against it.
That is what reviews are for: figuring out if what a reviewer likes or dislikes is something I care about or is it something could live with before buying.
Oops you did it again, Captain Clicks.
Two things
I don’t know where we go from here, but there is probably a venn diagram involved.
I thought it was a great article that made me think about the “soul” of a vehicle.
Separating the art from the artist was always a struggle for me until I thought of all the other people who worked on an album or movie. Don’t they matter? Should I not watch any Harvey Weinstein movies because the producer is a horrible human being? That says everyone else involved in the movie is also a horrible person. We know that isn’t true. We should judge a vehicle (like any art) based off the quality of the work not the head of the company. I don’t know the exact percentage Musk had to do with the design of the CT, but there were other designers, engineers, etc also involved.
David gave an honest reaction to the truck as well as a good defense of any vehicle that makes probably poor choices to preserve its identity (looking at my Jeep in the driveway).
I thought it was a good and balanced review! I honestly skipped it at first because I don’t really care about the thing, and then after reading it I didn’t feel a need to post a boring comment. The people reading that review were either going to be die-hard CT fans or die-hard haters hence the polarizing comments. The (hopefully majority) moderate crowd is probably bored with the Cybertruck coverage. I see your frustration though, since I know all the Tesla articles get lots of traffic and attention, just maybe not the healthy kind (see also: social media and the last few election cycles)
Spot on article. The Tesla fanboy cars aren’t powered by electricity, but delusion. There’s no reasoning with them. Elon could literally install electric motors onto a giant turd, and they’ll adore him for his ingenuity.
This is the most mileage anyone ever got out of a Cybertruck.
COTD candidate right here ^^
Gold.
I’m just dropping in to enter a comment about a commentary about comments.
I have no comment on this comment.
I tried responding with just a space, but it said my input was too short.
Now having written that “out loud”, I can see this thread going off in a very different direction. (Sorry!)
Is like to comment on this comment with this comment.
I am leaving a “comment” here as a spokesperson for the unfairly maligned motivic dog in the article.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say that Musk critics are motivated by hatred – quite the blanket statement – when most criticism of Musk is way more about concern for those impacted by his actions. I’m certainly a critic of many of his ideas, but ‘hatred’ is far from what I feel for him. I think mass market Teslas are fine cars, and I think the Cybertruck is lame-ass trolling as a concept, and a dangerous car to be allowed on public roads here in Europe – USA, you do you.
If we’re going to talk about hatred, Musk fandom is way quicker to pull out hateful speech against anyone who doesn’t idolise the guy.
I am writing my first comment on the site to state the following:
If that was my picture, on a trail in the woods in front of a resurrected Jeep FC, certain of my own ability to pilot such a vehicle into such beautiful off-road territory and keep it running well enough to return, I would have that photograph printed up about four or five foot tall and post it prominently.
That poster would serve as a general notice to the community at large of what real masculinity and true cool really is. Or, as the classical Greeks used to call it, Arete.
This person in the picture also is without fear. That FC was full of the most unimaginable substances both organic (and perhaps alien) to inorganic parts that are out to give you tetanus in anyway possible. His coolness is not something I would question.
I was running the engine on a gravity-feed fuel system!
Well, it’s not like you could just ignore it. This is an automotive website after all, and the Cybertruck is a Big Thing in that space.
I’ll even agree with your assessment in the original article: it is a miracle the design survived from concept to production relatively unscathed. At any other company, this would have been a talking point at auto shows before getting stuffed into a warehouse for the next few decades.
That doesn’t mean I like it, though. The other electric trucks on the market may not be as daring, but a number of them beat Cybertruck to market with their more conventional designs and construction. What boggles my mind is how even the Tesla semi shares obvious design DNA with the rest of the lineup, but then there’s this.
But I’m not going to set the internet on fire to disagree. You do you.
Aww, I almost commented on the original article but got lazy. Now I wish I had.
I thought it was the best review of the Cybertruck I’ve read or seen. If you want to see a review that’s actually an advertisement, Jason Camisa’s initial video with Hagerty was actually that – such a disappointment from a man I respected so much that I felt like I got punched in the gut. Similarly, there are dozens of reviews out there who treat the Cybertruck like an Elon Must effigy and stick pins in it, so blinded that they can’t see through their hatred to look at the truck.
I’m definitely a Tesla hater because it is so difficult to separate Tesla from Musk since he’s so integrally tied to the company’s perception and a worthless, horrible human being. That said, I saw a Cybertruck in person a few days ago, and it is just cool. I would never own one – the flaws David mentioned in his article are all dealbreakers, and I wouldn’t be caught dead in a Tesla simply because I’d be afraid people would think I support Musk.
That said, I appreciated the objectivity in David’s article and thought he did an amazing job recognizing how the Cybertruck was able to maintain its overall architecture from concept to production while not shying away from discussing its numerous issues.
David, I have no idea if you’ll read this, but a wise man once said that if you piss off both sides, you’re probably doing something right.
Haha. “if you piss off both sides, you’re probably doing something right.”
I like that.
Dear Mr. David Tracy,
There are a few big issues about Tesla:
A) The LIE that Tesla is an environmentally concerned corporation.
“Tesla has raked in money by selling credits that allowed its competitors to continue manufacturing higher-polluting cars. Tesla has sold credits to Fiat Chrysler, Mitsubishi, Mazda, Honda and Toyota in recent years.” https://www.govtech.com/policy/gov-newsom-says-california-subsidies-powered-teslas-success
Also see https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Tesla+EPA+Environmental+Violations&t=h_&ia=web
B) Tesla is known for being a Horrifically Racist & Sexist Work Environment. https://www.thenation.com/article/society/tesla-racism-sexual-harassment/
The UAW would fix Mr. Musk’s management in a strike or two…
C) The CyberGarbageTruck would suck as a real work truck if anyone actually bought it to do contracting, farming, ranching, etc. The small bed, poor performance on gravel & dirt roads, short range when towing, etc. etc. Expect the US DOT to order the recall & destruction of the CyberGarbageTruck due to it being more dangerous to pedestrians & cyclists than a 1950’s American car or even a Bloody Ginsu Knife…
D) The politics of White Nationalists like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Stephan Miller, etc. are something that some of us can’t just ignore. As an American Citizen of European & Native Ancestry, simply by existing, I trigger the Henry Ford variety of racist who are butt-hurt that my “family contaminated the great white race…”
I have no choice but to deal with racist White People here in Portland, Oregon. Mr. Musk, like Trump, Miller, etc. [even though he is Jewish] have been actively encouraging hate…
D) The in your face Tesla Owners who behave just as badly as the Prius Owners once did. Yes, my Ford Cargo Van burns gasoline [for the up to 1500 miles a year I drive as it is only used as a power tool.] However, my two Tesla neighbor who said that I “am killing the environment has cost the environment the four 8 ply cargo van tires that he slashed…
The Tesla Cybertruck can’t carry the weight of it’s own baggage.
I thought the comments section on the review was way off the wall. I don’t care for the CT and will never own one, but I have way better things to do than get pissed off about it at the slightest suggestion that it has any positive characteristics.
I’m not in the market for a car right now and I’ve never really entertained buying a Tesla before, BUT have you seen used EV prices these days???
David Tracy is a good and decent human being, and his optimism and heart shine through in every single thing published on this site … but I swear, if we get a Goth Uncle takedown of the CT before we get SWG’s Jag story, I will write a
strongly-wordedletter.haha!
…can we have both? I want both!
Author who brags about the amount of oil his crappy, dangerous vehicles leak into the soil and aquifers wonders where he went wrong, perhaps he should go back from where he came and not pollute the beautiful Best coast ffs
Totally get it. Speaking to Torch’s note, I absolutely hate L. Ron and all of the BS he stands for. But I love his book Battlefield Earth because it’s good, and I enjoy reading it. Not the movie. Sorry, Travolta.
I also hate Lone Skum and most of what he stands for. I hate his car company too. BUT I’m very impressed with the fact that he’s advanced EV acceptance almost single-handedly.
It’s like watching a Roman Polanski movie- and enjoying it.
Just last week there was a comment on here after some TANSTAAFL comments, about how Heinlein is problematic. His personal life isn’t my concern, but his writing is wonderful. And most people should be able to discern his biases, and form their own opinions based off his writing.
I believe hating something with broad strokes of black and white, because of its author/artist/progenitor’s beliefs, is the sign of someone who lacks the requisite capacity for critical thinking.
Well said.
Yeah right? A hundred years ago there was this guy who was a total racist, bigoted, Jew-hating POS. He even published a newspaper that praised Hitler and demonized the Jewish faith. He probably would’ve preferred that WW2 ended in a tie.
And now, today, tens of millions of Americans are driving around in a vehicle with his name on it. Swing by a Synagogue on a Saturday and there’s probably a dozen of his cars in the lot.
Fair point.
The best part about Heinlein is if anything he writes offends you you can easily find another book where he’s preached the exact opposite point of view. He’s hard to nail down.
Beyond even finding another book, if he has offended you with his writing, then he was successful, because he has made you think and form you own opinions.
I have to admit I know nothing about Heinlein’s life. But The Moon is a Harsh Mistress was awesome.
If you follow the political context of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Starship Troopers you should be able to successfully infer his political opinions.
It’s been a while. I remember the Lunies refused to send food bombs down to Earth- to feed India (excuse me, Bharat), but instead they launched rocks. But at the same time the Lunies were being oppressed by Earth, and were fighting for their freedom. I saw it as a cautionary tale with no real winners.
I should download that, it’s been almost 40 years since I read it.
We, as a society, managed to get past Hitler commissioning, and loving, the Volkswagen Beetle (née KdF-Wagen, Typ 60, Typ 82/Kübelwagen, and all the other wagens).
Can’t we at least do the same with an overgrown background NPC placeholder vehicle brought into existence by a petulant man-child?
committing genocide > trolling on X
Hitler being dead makes forgiving VW easier.
And yet, still no holiday to commemorate the man that killed Hitler.
I think we as a society can agree that killing Hitler was a really great thing that that guy did.
Do we really know who it was? Was it Eva? Was it the Dolphman himself?
I’m willing to just give the medal to FDR posthumously.
I think you’re going to need a lot more medals than just one.
I’m not sure that matters. He might be dead, but he left a profound, prolonged, legacy of destruction, misery, and hate. I want to believe that we’ll eventually get around to resolving the hate aspect, but sometimes I wonder when many people can’t get through an even-handed review of a Cybertruck without resorting to saying very unkind words.
I think Jason said it best. You have to separate the art from the artist. Otherwise, you’d never be able to enjoy much of anything in the world these days. We simply know too much about the people who produce things. Sometimes, a vehicle is just a vehicle and not a mobile platform for one’s beliefs.
There is nuance in dealing with problematic artists. But this particular example doesn’t need much nuance at all.
The question was specifically about blaming VW for Hitler’s support.
Hitler is dead. So far as I know he didn’t personally profit from VW’s vehicles. So far as I know there are no remnants of Hitler’s philosophy inside VW. Today’s VW is not supporting Hitler’s causes. It’s easy to forgive VW for being supported and boosted by Hitler
By comparison Elon Musk is alive and personally profiting from selling Tesla vehicle. He publicly demonstrates racism, sexism, and a disregard for safety for workers, customers, and general public, these attitudes are clearly part of Tesla culture. It’s very easy to link Tesla and Musk and *today* it’s easy to treat Musk and Tesla in very similar ways.
That’s a fair point and I see the distinction you make. I suppose the whole matter boils down to, “Can an individual buy any Tesla vehicle on virtue of what it is, because they legitimately like it, in a vacuum?”
It’s an ethical issue and different people have different lines. The whole concept of how do we interact with problematic artists (maybe creators in this case) is a seriously hard topic. Best I can do is talk about my choices.
I’m the guy quoted by DT saying that I will judge a person’s character based on buying a Tesla but even in that there’s nuance.
More precisely I judge a person’s character worse when:
A person who bought a Tesla without knowing Musk’s behavior shows their character when they learn about it. I’m not asking for a purity pony and demand they sell it immediately. I’m just looking at how they react.
A person who does know but makes the decision that getting into a cheap used Tesla is a better choice than not moving to an EV at all.
And yeah, I do know that I can’t know any of that just by looking at someone driving their car. I chose a difficult moral stand and it’s hard to be to be consistent.
Well said. This is about where I land on the matter as well.
There’s good reason why those “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy” stickers are making the rounds.