With Cybertruck ending, pull the plug on the EV culture war | Aaron Brown

I saw my first picture of a Tesla Cybertruck at the big wooden table of our family’s northern Minnesota hunting shack. Except for myself, a soft-handed writer with a minivan, this was a gathering of men who drove pickup trucks their whole lives.

We passed around someone’s phone displaying the glistening stainless steel prototype while the motorheads among us marveled at the angular truck’s horsepower and torque. Sure, it looked dumb, but we were certain this was just a rendering they hadn’t finished. No way they’d actually make a truck that looked like that.

We would learn otherwise when Tesla CEO Elon Musk unveiled the Cybertruck on Nov. 21, 2019. It would be 2023 before customers began receiving the first models and only last year that I saw one near my rural home. My wife remarked that it looks like a child’s drawing of a truck brought to life at great expense.

Musk recently announced that Tesla would end production of the Cybertruck in 2027.

Sales for the Cybertruck fell short of expectations and dropped. Tesla will now convert the Cybertruck production lines to the Cybercab, a fully autonomous passenger vehicle.

The Cybertruck was always more than a truck. It was a manifestation of Musk’s ambition and stark aesthetic. As Musk became more political in 2020, he became a lightning rod of controversy just as he was asking EV enthusiasts to order Cybertrucks. In subsequent years, Musk became the biggest single donor in U.S. politics, spending almost half a billion dollars on behalf of Republican candidates in the midterm election.

That’s relevant because EV adoption has been stymied, in part, by partisan politics.

I learned this in February 2024 when I attended an EV demonstration in northern Minnesota. The event was planned for the coldest part of winter to show off the ability of EVs to drive in subzero conditions. Unfortunately for organizers, it was a sunny, warm afternoon that left nearby snow sculptors performing the slushy equivalent of plastic surgery on their creations.

I drove my first Tesla, a Model X, marveling at its rapid acceleration and smooth ride. They’re good cars. One of my sons drove a Ford F-150 Lightning, an all-electric version of America’s top selling pickup truck. He saw little difference from driving his grandpa’s F-150, other than that this one was newer and fancier.

But when I wrote a column about this experience, the online blowback was fierce. One man said if he saw me on the side of a road with my EV he would flip me off rather than stop to help. That seemed harsh, given that I don’t own an EV and wrote that I wasn’t ready to buy one.

I should have recognized it as evidence of political peril facing former President Joe Biden, then still a candidate for reelection. Weighing the pros and cons of EVs was less important to online critics than winning the culture war around them.

Then, something funny happened. President Donald Trump won that November and brought Musk into his second administration. Suddenly, electric cars weren’t as dangerous to society as they had been a few months earlier. Most people still weren’t buying EVs, but the mood shifted. It’s around this time that I saw that first Cybertruck.

EVs are fast and maneuverable, with rapid acceleration. Their range is a concern only for long drives. They lose range in cold weather, but so do gas vehicles. More charging stations would help.

But they are not a panacea for the environment. They save gas, but they’re heavy and take lots of critical minerals to make. Their real advantage is that you can charge them with any electrons you want, including those derived from renewable energy.

Simple facts. No politics needed. EVs work well for some drivers, while others might prefer a different choice. They are going to become more common as electricity becomes the primary fuel of homes and industry.

EVs remain a small part of the U.S. automotive mix. About 2.5% of vehicles on national roads are fully electric, and only 1.6% in Minnesota, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

Though overall EV sales slowed significantly last year, largely because of the expiration of federal energy credits, they increased slightly during the third quarter of 2026.

This brings us back to our mortally wounded friend, the Cybertruck. The death of the Cybertruck should not be confused with declining potential of EVs in general, or even electric trucks. Rather, these rolling refrigerators were a living, and now dying, reminder that basic infrastructure and functionality are what sells new technology to a skeptical public.

We run our off-grid hunting shack on solar energy and gas-powered generators because both technologies have pros and cons. Eventually, we’ll run all solar. In my lifetime, many of us will arrive in EVs.

The one I drive will be designed with the customer in mind, rather than the ego of the manufacturer’s CEO. Until then, the minivan is paid for, and good enough for me.