Reviewing The Tesla Cybertruck Is Totally Pointless

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.