Cybertruck

Cybertruck

Last night we had dinner with brother-in-law Jeff and his wife Lisa and their friends George & Julie. We have known George & Julie for most of the last four years, almost entirely from going to dinner with them when they and Jeff & Lisa get together. The normal drill is to meet at Sushi Yama in Escondido for their collective fix of raw fish. Fortunately for me, they also serve gyoza and yakisoba, so I really don’t mind the whole sushi program. George is an old work friend of Lisa’s from the days when they worked in the restaurant business. Since then, George has gotten his clinical psychology degree (Julie is also a therapist) and he has gone into practice as a therapist. What that translates into, in addition to what I assume is a good deal of job satisfaction, is a much more substantial income stream for their family. Not atypically of Americans, and certainly Californians, George and Julie (especially George) are quite car-focused. It seems that Tesla has become a California phenomenon at this point and over the past 7-8 years there are Teslas everywhere you look. Elon Musk’s vision of creating the New Millennium Volkswagen has taken root. The idea was to produce a very affordable EV like the Tesla 3 so that anyone could afford it. Of course, what was suppose to be a $30,000 car is now a $50,000+ car for the most part, but they have become ubiquitous.

Far less common than the Tesla 3 have been the pricier Tesla X, Y, S and now, the Tesla Plaid. Tesla Plaid is a muscle car in the extreme. It has two rear motors and one front motor and throws off 1,000 horsepower whereas the top-of-the-line Tesla S 100D with “Ludicrous” capability has 650 horsepower. Let’s put it this way, even the Porsche 918 has only 887 horsepower, so 1,000 is a lot. Only a few rare cars like a Bugatti and a Koenigsegg (a German brand I’ve never even heard of before) make 1,000 horsepower cars. Since driving this Plaid beast at its maximum of 203 mph is something few are either capable of or willing to risk, the Plaid is clearly meant for prestige more than anything else.

George, with his newfound wealth as a therapist, needed to buy himself a Tesla Plaid to add to his stable of a Tesla 3. He also mentioned over the last three years that he had a reservation on, not one, but two Tesla Cybertrucks (not sure why it ended up being 2, but so be it). At that time, I too was intrigued by the Cybertruck and thought it looked cool. When I found out I was number 1.25 million on the waiting list, I diversified my interest to the Ford F-150 Lightning and eventually cancelled both reservations since I thought the wait was just too much to deal with. George, on the other hand, stayed the course and showed his loyalty to Tesla products by taking up his order for the Cybertruck, getting delivery on it a week or so ago. He drove the truck to Sushi Yama to show us his new acquisition.

I will start by saying that Julie has inherited the Tesla Plaid and is quick to say that the Ludicrous speed capability is lost on her since she has no interest in racing. She also says that people come up to her at streetlights looking for a race and she does her best to just ignore them. So much for that $140,000 prestige investment. The same is apparently not the case with George, who can, indeed, be goaded into a race or two, previously in his Plaid and now in his Cybertruck. One story he tells is that he ran into another guy when picking up his Cybertruck that also had two reservations and decided to take them both (that’s basically $100,000 a pop) and sent one of them up to L.A. where he rents it daily for $2,000 and has already paid it off. Clearly that is a program that has a limited life as the Cybertruck’s have been on back order for so long that people are generally amazed to see one in person. In fact, George’s Cybertruck is the first one either Jeff or I had ever seen. Kim says she had seen one at Trader Joe’s recently, but these beasts are very serious attention-getters with their avant-garde styling and their stainless steel body.

George says he is very happy with the truck so far, but one look at the interior and comparing that to my Lightning’s interior and I would suggest that it has the typical roominess of a Tesla sedan rather than any pick-up truck I have ever seen. I’m not entirely sure I would even be comfortable in the thing and the back seat looks like a typical mid-sized sedan. As for the truck bed, it has an automatic opener (but not a tailgate closer like some larger trucks have these days) and it has buttons to open and close the truck bed rolling cover. It lends the truck a very sleek look, which I guess was the point for the urban youthful glitterati, and the truck bed more or less looked like any other small truck bed, but I do tend to wonder whether it will ever be put to any truck use. As for George’s use of it as a truck, I’m guessing that will rarely be the case because George also has a Tundra pick-up which he says is perfect for such chores.

What occurs to me from looking at the Cybertruck and hearing the stories of George’s first week with it, is that this is a vehicle that seems to be all about drawing attention to yourself. With the Tesla X, the same thing happened when you had occasion to open the real gull-wing doors. That always drew some oohs and aahs, not to mention one notable “so unnecessary” from a passerby. But at least with the Tesla X, the styling of the vehicle and body finish were very mainstream and more or less blended in inconspicuously with the vast bulk of the other cars on the road. That is simply not the case with the Cybertruck. Remember when you first saw a Hummer? That monster stood out like a sore thumb. Now you drive around and there are enough Hummer wannabes and look-alikes that they stand out much less. It is hard to imagine the Cybertruck ever blending in with the rest of the traffic. This thing looks like a modern DeLorean on steroids. This is back to the distant future in looks. Funny thing is that the stainless steel exterior is supposedly less than perfectly rustproof and George’s week-old truck looks a little discolored already on the sides. Time will tell how they hold up.

George is also quick to say that he likes standing out from the crowd and doesn’t mind the attention at all. I, on the other hand, find that one of the nicest things about the Ford F-150 Lightning in that unless you look closely and find the Lightning insignia on the side or the solid front grille, my EV truck does blend in with all the other pick-up trucks on the road. It doesn’t drive like those other trucks, but it does look pretty much like any of them. Apparently George wants attention and I don’t. I have pointed out to him that having a reputedly bulletproof truck (so far only bulletproof for 9mm and .22 caliber bullets) could draw unwanted fire of the ballistic sort, not just the verbal or visual sort. George, who is also a gun-owner, seems non-plussed by all this. But when I saw him pull out of his handicapped space at Sushi Yama (having acquired a handicap sticker somewhere along the way towards clinical psychosocial fame), I thought to myself that drawing attention compounded by drawing fire and then drawing ire from the disabled was simply more risk than he or anyone needs in these modern turbulent times.