For Trucks’ Sake, Elon! Will You Please Get a Move on with Your EV Pickup?

I mean, just look at it. I haven’t seen anything this cool on four wheels since picking my jaw up off the floor when I saw the U.S. Marines’ recovery vehicle in the movie Aliens. It just assaults the senses, it’s so incredible. You may not share my enthusiasm but you’ve got to admit it does remind one of the future (if you can work your head around that piece of mangled logic!). Like almost everything Mr. Musk does, it disrupts with instant icon status.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Sceptic

Yet the visual of the Tesla EV CyberTruck has  also become a symbol of failure, which is ridiculous. Boy, how we love to tear down the mighty, right? We laughed when its windows were smashed when it first arrived on stage, introduced by Elon Musk himself. Actually, we had a double dose of merriment when he dropped the F-bomb as it happened.

Just a slip of the tongue

I just had a relook at the event on YouTube and it could have been the S-bomb or the G-bomb. There was a dirty great bleep inserted over the words. Actually, the more I think about it, it was almost certainly the F- and G-bomb in that order. That’s what usually follows “oh my…!”. You have a look. Anyway, we all had a laugh and waited with baited breath for the next clickbait nonsense about the stuttering development of the Tesla EV Cybertruck.

It took a while but dependably, it turned up last week. I was browsing through my second favourite online tech magazine, Wired, and I spotted it. An article about a leaked report that Tesla engineers were aware of problems with braking, handling, noisiness and leaks (It’s an EV, what on Earth could it be leaking, sparks?). And they knew this before almost 2 million drooling good ol’ boys in ten gallon hats planted their hundred bucks on the table to reserve one.

So yet another million questioning eyebrows raised over the veracity of Elon Musk. Another tasty piece of gossip to bring a maverick with a sense of theatre down to our level. I’m sure many of you could respond with a “Yes, but…”, and refer to some or other tabloid report on the man. But I have my own “Yes, but…” to yours. However, before this article descends to a schoolyard tit-for-tat scuffle, let me rather just refer you to his achievements. And let’s get on with the subject at hand: the Tesla EV Cybertruck.

I gotta get me one

When it does hit the road, so to speak, it will compete with a brand new Ford F-150, the biggest selling vehicle of all time. GM will weigh in with a Hummer EV, as well as Chevrolet with a new Silverado EV. The darling of America’s farming community, Dodge Ram, will front up with an EV as well. These are iconic brands as American as apple pie and baseball. Tesla’s about as American as pizza (spoiler alert to all the fine folks in the mid-west). So Elon Musk has a fight on his hands. But then again, when hasn’t he?

One thing’s for sure, the behemoths of commercial vehicles are looking over the shoulders right now. You can be certain that they’re not fooled at all by the social media fodder about Tesla and Elon Musk. Love him or hate him. Be amused or confused by him. But let’s find some middle ground and concede that history may very well record him in the same pantheon as the man he named his company after, Nikolai Tesla.


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