‘Oh wow! My first Cybertruck.’

‘What car is that? Does it fly?’

‘Did you build it?’

‘Is it a concept car?’

‘Thanks for letting us see your geometry project.’

Moving off into LA traffic, people grin and point to an extent I haven’t experienced since I got booed by a film-premiere crowd who thought I was Jason Statham. (No, I’m not seeing that either.) Although it’s on sale, the Cybertruck is a rare sight, judging from the number of camera phones pointed our way.

The Cybertruck feels like a car for LA. Instead of the softly-softly feel of a Boston or Washington, the city has a brutal modernity – low-rise geometric buildings, all concrete and glass, where edges rule – that matches the Tesla. And yet, in stark contrast to the sledgehammer-subtle looks, the ride is forgiving as we glide onto the freeway. Baked in LA’s 24/7 sunshine, the bleached concrete hums to the sound of thousands of engines and tyres. To this bleak, pre-apocalyptic scene the Cybertruck offers an even starker (possibly Starker) vision of the future.

Plotting a course for Palm Springs, buildings are replaced by desert scrub punctuated with billboards promoting ambulance-chasing lawyers and varicose-vein removal services. The Tesla settles into a comfortable, long-legged cruise at odds with its other-worldly looks. Sure, there are idiosyncrasies – this is a Tesla, after all – but it’s nothing like as eccentric to drive as it is to look at.

Time for a first charge. Tesla’s Supercharger network continues to impress, but the Cybertruck is on the large side for some of the bays. Still, with the car having automatically pre-heated the battery, it swiftly charges at 200kW while I talk to some onlookers. (Tesla claims a 250kW peak charging capability and, like the new Macan Electric, uses split-pack charging.) 

Few know it’s a pick-up truck. One roofer in his Ford F-350, complete with massive trailer carrying steel and timber, is bamboozled when I press a switch and the Tesla peels back its tonneau cover to reveal the flat bed beneath. Stripped of traditional truck proportions, Cybertruck’s pick-up utility isn’t immediately obvious.

He’s impressed but doesn’t see it as a potential replacement for his Ford. This is where it gets interesting for Tesla. With Cybertruck it has entered a new battleground, one defined by partisanship and generational loyalties.

In upmarket Palm Springs – real Tesla country – people go wild for our truck. In a street scene straight out of Pleasantville, all immaculate gardens and box-fresh housing, the Cybertruck’s a rolling stainless steel scar on the landscape.

We have two other trucks with us today, Rivian’s R1T and a Ram 1500 TRX, but all eyes are on the Tesla. One woman glances at the Rivian and looks glum – it’s only when she spots the Cybertruck that she breaks into a smile. Kids go mad for it (admittedly more for the screen in the back that plays YouTube. A discourse on the dystopian, Pythagorean design language? Not so much). Someone tells me his friend is swapping out of his Ram 1500 TRX for one.

These are people who go to country clubs where the Kardashians hang out, Model X owners who think the truck’s ‘beautiful’. ‘It’s got the bells and whistles of the regular car but with the rugged bits of a truck.’

It’s interesting to hear that at least some people think of it as an alternative to a regular truck, of the kind bought by our roofer friend. Musk and Tesla have done what they always do and opened the world up, asking questions of how we perceive things and systematically challenging every long-held absolute. I thought the Cybertruck’s complete contrast to every Tesla that’s come before would put people off – you bought into Tesla because of the amazing software, the charging and the friendly, almost anonymous design language. But clearly the brand can be stretched. Perhaps Americans are more open to this sort of shift than Europeans.