This summer I worked a traffic control flagging job for my uncle’s construction company, specifically working to widen a shoulder on a country road. I had no car, so my uncle loaned me one for the summer. It was a 1999 Ford power pickup truck. It was the definition of a beater truck —the tires were nearly totally worn smooth, the engine made a concerning noise when I accelerated and the bumpers clanked if the truck got pushed more than 30 miles per hour. 

Despite all of this, I would still rather use it than even consider using a new Tesla Cybertruck. 

Since the Cybertruck’s release, it has been slammed for failing to meet promises that it set. Its inability to go offroad well, the failure to include important safety features like a pinch detector (the small rubber black strip along the door frame to keep your fingers attached), and the lack of a crumple zone(an area in which during a crash will crumple to reduce the amount of damage to the passengers)  make it extremely hard to even see the value of it as a vehicle let alone as a truck. 

Those who defend these design decisions are hard-pressed to do so. The stainless steel body that is said to protect from all damage can and will rust and deteriorate when coming in contact with almost anything, even human touch. The jagged design leaves the windshield open to destruction by hail at the soonest opportunity. The need for an external app to close and open doors or start the car can make any situation that requires quick movement or sudden action like trying to get someone’s finger out of a door dangerous. 

In short, it is a truck that cannot do what it was marketed to do, but also can’t do what any truck should be able to do. It cannot drive down anything more than a standard city road, and even then, it can run into trouble if a passerby so much as touches it. So yeah, I would take a beater car that struggled to get to 60 mph over a stainless steel garbage can. 

I think the blame rides solely on Elon Musk, and, by extension, Tesla. In their quest to create a unique vehicle, they have instead made the worst possible vehicle for any driver. This comes from Musk’s arrogance about his alleged genius. We have seen with business ventures such as X, formerly known as Twitter, and SpaceX that his ego far exceeds any actual genius he has as he crashes and burns again and again. His inability to be anything other than a billionaire with a superiority complex thwarts any innovation he has made. The people who make his inventions are also punished for having to work for him, as we understand that Musk seems to only care for his paycheck seeing as he recently laid off workers and tried to take their severance pay. He isn’t a genius; he is a criminal. 

I don’t hate the Cybertruck because I hate Musk. I hate the Cybertruck because it stands for exactly what he does — the creation of something that is functionally worthless. A car made nearly two decades ago and used for years can outperform this junk, but there are still people defending it due to their devotion to Musk. Musk isn’t a genius, and the Cybertruck isn’t novel. The thing they both share is the fact that they fail in every measure we have been told that they should succeed in.