Children Are Obsessed With the Cybertruck

"Kids were hugging it and kissing it."

Child's Play

Tesla's Cybertruck is deeply polarizing to adults. But as The New York Times reports, it's a huge hit with one key demographic: literal children.

"Kids were hugging it and kissing it," California lawyer Jonathan Widjaja told the NYT when he brought his Cybertruck to Venice over the July 4th holiday.

He told the newspaper that he had put the sharp-angled vehicle on Sentry Mode, a security feature that remotely activates cameras and sensors while the owner is away from the vehicle. Apparently this demo wowed a bunch of children.

"The car is definitely a celebrity," Widjaja said.

Adults are another matter, the newspaper concedes.

"They are so filled with rage that they have lost all sense of human decency and respect," another driver told the NYT.

Keep on Trucking

Moreso than the other cars in the Tesla line up, the Cybertruck is inextricable from the public standing of Tesla's CEO Elon Musk, who's known for his "non-woke" views and offensive tweets on the social media platform X-formerly-Twitter, which he bought in 2022.

"They’re logical," The Autopian editor-in-chief and automotive expert David Tracy told the NYT about the rest of the Tesla fleet. "They are aerodynamic, they are efficient, they make sense from a usability standpoint. You can convince yourself anybody would have developed this car."

"The Cybertruck is very hard to separate from Elon Musk, because it’s not really logical," he added.

That's certainly a common view on social.

The "cybertruck, the ultimate display of greed and arrogance from the richest man on earth... hate grows on my heart," quipped one user on X.

With all this hate from people who seem to be progressive, you'd think more rightwing folks would love the truck.

But if that was the gambit, it's not paying off. Because it's an electric vehicle, it doesn't get much respect from drivers of other trucks, who are stereotyped to hold more conservative views.

Cybertruck owner Dwayne Sinclair told the NYT about how guys in trucks like the Ford F-150 have flipped him off.

"A guy in his big, super-heavy diesel truck drove up and as he was driving past he started laughing," Sinclair recalled one encounter. "It was weird. You’ll get someone just break out, uncontrollably laughing."

More on the Cybertruck: Cybertruck No Match for the Fury of Hungry Raccoons