Texas hates Cybertruck. So does Florida, Mississippi, and Arizona. But the entire west coast of loves Cybertruck, with each of California, Oregon, and Washington loving it.
And New York?
Loves Cybertruck.
These are the results of 100,000 geotagged tweets, analyzed by Part Catalog (yes, a car and truck accessories dealer).
Cybertruck sentiment across the United States
“The map is based on geotagged twitter data immediately after the reveal, tracking the initial reaction to Tesla’s ‘Cybertruck’ reveal in each state,” Parts Catalog’s Alan Marek told me via email. “Over 100,000 geotagged tweets were tagged with #cybertruck, and within those, phrases such as ‘I hate it,’ or, ‘I love it’ or ‘I hate the design’ or ‘I love the design,’ in addition to terms like ‘ugly or ‘awesome’ were tracked.”
19 states love Cybertruck.
31 states, therefore, hate Cybertruck.
In other words, Tesla’s new vehicle is incredibly polarizing. While this is nothing like a scientific survey, the result should not be surprising to anyone. Extreme innovation is almost guaranteed to be controversial.
I spent some time this morning with a designer who has worked for Nissan and BMW, and is currently consulting with Mercedes, Fede Ponce. He’s also the chief innovation officer at Ronin X Design.
Ponce not only loves the design, but has pre-ordered it.
While I, of course … am not a huge fan of Cybertruck, in spite of the fact that I really do like Tesla as a company.
“Tesla has always elicited some very strong responses, love it or hate it,” says Ponce. “One thing I’ll tell you as an insider, when you’re in the meetings … what comes up? Tesla comes up!”
In other words, Tesla is leading design in the automotive world. Just one example: the new Ford Mustang Mach-E, which has a single large screen with most of the car’s controls … just like Tesla’s Model 3 and Cybertruck.
“Minimalism is one of the hardest things to pull through,” says Ponce. “In my view they did it right with [Cybertruck].”
One other thing that Ponce notes:
Tesla is building an ecosystem around its cars, and Cybertruck in particular. That’s the Supercharger network, of course, but it’s also the camping accessories that Tesla has displayed in the marketing photo. They carry a clear design language that continues the Cybertruck’s aesthetic.
“I love it,” says Ponce. “The UI looks incredible … from a designer’s point of view, that’s a dream.”
And, according to him, other automobile manufacturers will soon adopt similar thoughts.
Given that Illinois — home of Detroit and still much of the American car manufacturing business — also seems to love Cybertruck … he’s probably right.
