I’ve seen exactly one CyberTruck here in Maryland. And it was at a charging station near I-95, so it might have been just passing through.
Aka canola. Not to be confused with safflower.
They should have gone with safflower.
Canola is a specific cultivar of rapeseed that isn’t generally grown in Europe.
I’ve heard that it was Canada that came up with the name canola. They decided that rapeseed had negative connotations.
Not that I have documentation.
Canola is a specific group of cultivars of rapeseed, the original of which was developed at the University of Saskatchewan Crop Sciences. Rapeseed oil is high in erucic acid, which is relatively unhealthy. CANadian Oilseed Low Acid was developed via selective breeding (the project pre-dated genetic manipulation techniques) to produce a healthier food oil.
My uncle was a member of the Crop Sciences faculty at that time, so I have a bit of a family connection to issue.
I believe the Europeans are now growing low-erucic acid varietals of rapeseed as well, though to my knowledge they don’t call them canola.
I’m no longer following this thread, but hey guys, if you’re interested, there’s a Lego-like toy company called minicubez that makes a toy Cybertruck.
Saw my first one last night! A weird rack of headlights looming out of the darkness on a two-lane, I didn’t recognize what it was until it passed. The tail lights didn’t seem very visible, but I didn’t get that good a look.
The past few weeks I’ve had more than the usual number of visiting family and friends, with kids in tow. Being the Bay Area, Cybertrucks are pretty common and you’ll usually spot a couple on any given drive.
My conclusion from (unprompted) comments: older people hate them. Just can’t understand the aesthetics at all. Middle-aged are hit or miss, but even the negative comments are more like “I don’t like it” instead of “it’s the most hideous thing I’ve ever seen”. Others like it.
The kids, though? They love it. They call it a “Minecraft car” or “Lego car”, and mean it in a positive way. They like that a bit of video game aesthetics has made it into the real world.
There’s a lesson in here somewhere. Not sure what, exactly–something about how people deal with things outside their usual frame of reference, particularly as they grow older.
Kinda funny because the video game aesthetics it echoes most is Battlezone, which none of the kids have ever heard of.
True enough, but lo-fi aesthetics in various forms are popular. Block art in Minecraft, 8-bit pixel art, synthwave, even just the cartooniness of Fortnite, etc. I don’t know of any low-poly art revival off the top of my head, but it’s still a step away from photorealism.
Well, that makes sense because it looks like it was designed by a kid.
The lesson is that kids have terrible taste.
Adults also mostly have terrible taste. The main difference is that kid’s brains haven’t calcified yet.
I really, intensely wonder about the age demographic for the Cybertruck. As I mentioned in this and related threads, I kinda get the appearance. I’m two years younger than Musk, and it appeals to my 80s childhood aesthetic along with Landmaster and Ark 2 that showed up in the Saturday Sci-Fi matinees I was extremely fond of on the local stations.
So many of the cars of that period were super angular, pointy and we (well, my friends and I of that age) loved them. Now, the modern “me” looks at the Cybertruck and overall disapproves, because it looks like it would be hard to see around, park, and all the practical elements of everyday life, but the inner tween/teen still quietly mutters “It’s cool.”
So, if most of the people buying the car turn out to be men in the 50 year old (+/- 10) bracket, I would say I wasn’t surprised.
So a modern day PT Cruiser? Got it. 
Although the target demographic for PTs was the 60-somethings when it was released.
Still the point of the PT was to appeal to the aesthetics formed when the buyer was too young to drive, but could hardly wait.
I still have a soft spot for the aesthetics of cars from my age ~10-20. And for many current designs. The seemingly nondescript crap in the midde I eagerly bought for 40 years? Fuhgeddaboudit!
Of only I wasn’t so stuck in my ways I too might enjoy dino nuggets and Bluey.
Anyone that can’t appreciate chicken nuggets, dino-shaped or not, is no friend of mine.
Not only is that the right bracket for the nostalgia, it’s also the right bracket for people with enough scratch to afford it. Much older and people are thinking about retirement. Much younger and they’re still saving for a house. Perfect combination, not to mention the mid-life crisis aspect.
I saw my first wrapped one today. Curiously enough it’s for a Jeep/Ram/Chrysler/Dodge dealer; why they’d use a competitor’s product to advertise themselves seem pretty dumb to me.
Except it’s 100% in an older person’s frame of reference since it’s a swipe from late 70s-80s culture via wireframe graphics and cyberpunk aesthetics. Which is why a 53 year old guy wanted to do it – because he thought it was whiz-bang cool based on his kid memories.