The Most Polarizing Thing on Wheels
It’s high July in Mason, in the heart of the Hill Country.
位于丘陵地区中心地带的梅森正值七月盛夏。
Several thousand have turned out for the town’s annual rodeo roundup parade, a splendidly small-time procession that circles the county courthouse twice before dispersing into a subworld of barbecue, corn dogs, funnel cakes, and handicrafts.
数千人参加了该镇一年一度的牛仔竞技游行，这是一场精彩的小型游行，绕县法院两圈，然后分散到烧烤、玉米热狗、漏斗蛋糕和手工艺品的地下世界。
Flags flutter.
旗帜飘扬。
Floats rumble by featuring the camo-themed Yonker Brothers Meat Market & Processing, the rodeo queen’s court, and, in case you have forgotten what part of the country you are in, “Texans for Trump.”
花车隆隆作响，特色是迷彩主题的扬克兄弟肉类市场和加工中心、牛仔竞技皇后法庭，如果您忘记了自己身处美国的哪个地区，还有“德克萨斯人支持特朗普”。
The parade is picture-perfect.
游行场面堪称完美。
It is also perfectly predictable, except for one wildly singular participant: a blinding collision of dystopian triangles known as the Cybertruck.
这也是完全可以预测的，除了一个极其独特的参与者：被称为赛博卡车的反乌托邦三角形的令人眼花缭乱的碰撞。
Though it’s hard to tell by looking at it, the vehicle is an electric pickup made by Tesla, one of around 15,000 in existence at the time.
虽然很难从外观上看出来，但这辆车是特斯拉制造的电动皮卡，当时有大约 15,000 辆皮卡之一。
The effect is dislocating, as though a lunar excursion module has been dropped into a Norman Rockwell painting.
效果令人错位，就好像月球旅行舱被扔进诺曼·洛克威尔的画作中一样。
I happen to be riding shotgun in this Cybertruck, a guest of its owner.
我碰巧坐在这辆赛博卡车上，是车主的客人。
I wave and smile.
我挥手微笑。
We cause a minor sensation.
我们引起了轻微的轰动。
Everyone stares.
每个人都盯着看。
Many point.
很多点。
The truck’s presence is so jarring that it inspires both laughter and bewilderment.
这辆卡车的存在如此刺耳，既让人笑又让人困惑。
“Did you spend all your money on that?” asks a teenage boy.
“你把所有的钱都花在这上面了吗？”一个十几岁的男孩问道。
“I’ve got a generator if you need one,” says one man with a wink as we pass.
“如果你需要的话，我有一台发电机，”我们经过时，一个男人眨了眨眼睛说道。
From somewhere in the crowd a disembodied female voice says, “It’s kind of ugly.”
人群中的某个地方传来一个空洞的女声：“这有点丑。”
Rewind to its late 2023 debut, and the Cybertruck, built in Tesla’s nearly mile-long Gigafactory, in Austin, seems in danger of becoming the most disastrous product launch in automotive history, in the company of such über-turkeys as the Ford Edsel, the Yugo, the DeLorean, and the Pontiac Aztek.
时间回到 2023 年末的首次亮相，在特斯拉位于奥斯汀的近一英里长的 Gigafactory 工厂生产的 Cybertruck 似乎有可能成为汽车历史上最灾难性的产品发布，与福特 Edsel、Yugo、DeLorean 和 Pontiac Aztek 等超级火鸡一起推出。
The truck, relentlessly hyped by CEO Elon Musk, is a rolling catalog of promises unkept: It is years behind schedule.
首席执行官埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)不断大肆宣传的卡车是一系列未兑现的承诺：它比计划晚了好几年。
It costs around $100,000—more than twice what Musk said it would—and travels several hundred fewer miles on a battery charge than he originally projected.
它的成本约为 10 万美元，是马斯克所说价格的两倍多，而且一次充电后的行驶里程比他最初预计的要少数百英里。
It hauls and tows far less than initially advertised and has nothing like the “full self-driving” capability that Musk touted.
它的牵引力远低于最初宣传的水平，而且完全没有马斯克吹捧的“全自动驾驶”能力。
As it turns out, the truck is a compendium of defects and malfunctions .
事实证明，这辆卡车充满了缺陷和故障。
The list includes: dying batteries, sticky accelerators, wheel covers that gouge the tires, warping tailgates, trim pieces that fall off, malfunctioning wipers, software that seems to work only when it wants to, and body panels that don’t come close to fitting, leading to protruding edges that are so sharp they draw blood.
清单包括：电池没电、加速器发粘、刮伤轮胎的轮盖、翘曲的尾门、脱落的装饰件、雨刷器故障、似乎只在需要时才工作的软件，以及车身面板不接近贴合，导致边缘突出，锋利到会流血。
The truck’s skin, an alloy made of stainless steel—it’s the first vehicle to feature this material since the ill-fated DeLorean—stains so easily that ordinary fingerprints are very difficult to remove.
这辆卡车的外壳是由不锈钢合金制成的——这是自命运多舛的德洛宁以来第一款采用这种材料的车辆——很容易弄脏，普通的指纹很难去除。
And so on.
等等。
Not all Cybertrucks have all these defects, which is part of the problem: The product is maddeningly inconsistent.
并非所有赛博卡车都存在所有这些缺陷，这也是问题的一部分：产品的不一致程度令人发狂。
To read the posts on a Cybertruck owners’ forum is to enter a world of pain and suffering.
阅读 Cybertruck 车主论坛上的帖子就等于进入了一个痛苦的世界。
Then, too, Musk seems to be in a weird cultural and personal free fall.
此外，马斯克似乎也陷入了奇怪的文化和个人自由落体之中。
Once seen as a brilliantly quirky guy who built environmentally friendly cars and wanted to colonize Mars, he is now often identified as a conspiracy-spouting blowhard whose right-wing political views are alienating many of his customers.
他曾经被视为一个聪明古怪的人，制造环保汽车并想要殖民火星，但现在他经常被认为是一个散布阴谋的吹牛者，他的右翼政治观点疏远了他的许多客户。
His 2022 purchase of Twitter, now X, has been an outright disaster.
他在 2022 年收购了 Twitter（现在的 X），这完全是一场灾难。
USA Today estimated in October that the company, which has lost large numbers of users and advertisers, is now worth less than a quarter of its $44 billion purchase price .
《今日美国》10月份估计，该公司已经失去了大量用户和广告商，目前其价值还不到其440亿美元收购价格的四分之一。
His earth-tunneling, Bastrop-based “Boring Company,” which he said would help solve the world’s traffic woes, has become its own catalog of overhyped technologies and recurring failures to close a deal.
他的位于巴斯特罗普的土方开挖公司“Boring Company”声称将帮助解决世界交通问题，但该公司已成为技术过度炒作、交易屡屡失败的公司。
The temptation, of course, is to write off the ugly new truck as a piece of Musk-inflected hubris and industrial idiocy.
当然，人们很容易将这辆丑陋的新卡车视为受马斯克影响的狂妄自大和工业白痴。
Many critics already have.
许多批评家已经这样做了。
But—and this is a very large and capacious “but”—to do so is to ignore the last quarter century in which Musk has repeatedly pulled off what everyone said was impossible.
但是——这是一个非常大而宽泛的“但是”——这样做就等于忽视了过去四分之一个世纪，马斯克一再实现了每个人都认为不可能的事情。
With his dazzling Tesla Model S in 2012, he was the first to make electric cars cool and sell them for profit.
2012年，他凭借令人眼花缭乱的特斯拉 Model S，成为第一个让电动汽车变得很酷并通过销售获利的人。
When both industry experts and his own staff told him they couldn’t possibly make five thousand mass-market cars a week, they nonetheless produced the Model 3 at exactly that level and saved the company.
当行业专家和他自己的员工都告诉他，他们不可能每周生产 5000 辆面向大众市场的汽车时，他们仍然按照这个水平生产了 Model 3，拯救了公司。
He was bet against more heavily in the stock market than anyone in history.
他在股市上的空头押注比历史上任何人都多。
Most of those short sellers got burned.
大多数卖空者都被烧毁了。
The market, which in 2018 made the money-losing Tesla more valuable than profit-rich General Motors, is still running massively in his favor.
2018年，市场让亏损的特斯拉比利润丰厚的通用汽车更有价值，但目前市场仍然对他有利。
Today Tesla is the world’s most valuable car company.
如今，特斯拉是世界上最有价值的汽车公司。
Similarly, SpaceX, the company he founded in 2002, has, against all odds and predictions, launched more than four hundred rockets to date.
同样，他于 2002 年创立的 SpaceX 公司，尽管困难重重，也出人意料，迄今为止已发射了 400 多枚火箭。
Last year Musk put up more rockets than China.
去年，马斯克发射的火箭比中国还多。
He is years ahead of the other private space companies, including Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin.
他领先其他私人太空公司多年，包括杰夫·贝佐斯的蓝色起源公司。
The question, then, is where the Cybertruck fits into Musk’s manic career.
那么问题是，赛博卡车在马斯克疯狂的职业生涯中扮演着怎样的角色。
Is it the latest groundbreaking, rule-bending product from a company that has been successfully defying convention for the whole of its existence?
它是一家自成立以来一直成功地挑战传统的公司最新推出的突破性、打破规则的产品吗？
Or is it a sign that he has finally gone off the deep end?
又或者是他终于脱离了深渊的征兆？
Like other products of Elon Musk’s empire, the Cybertruck is a creation of his overactive imagination.
与埃隆·马斯克帝国的其他产品一样，Cybertruck 是他过度活跃的想象力的创造。
What you see clumping down the highway is at once incomprehensibly peculiar and exactly— exactly —the way he wants it.
你在高速公路上看到的东西既令人难以理解又奇特，而且完全——完全地——正是他想要的。
It’s an extension of his personality and must be understood that way.
这是他个性的延伸，必须这样理解。
Someone who is worth well more than $300 billion can have what he wants, including what his critics have called a “low polygon joke” that looks like the box it came in.
身价超过 3000 亿美元的人可以拥有他想要的东西，包括他的批评者所说的“低多边形笑话”，它看起来就像它的盒子一样。
But the question persists: How did a vehicle this weird ever escape from a corporate design studio?
但问题仍然存在：如此奇怪的车辆是如何从公司设计工作室逃脱的？
The simple answer is that it was bullied into existence.
简单的答案是它是被胁迫而存在的。
In 2017 Musk and Tesla’s design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, began exploring the idea of a pickup truck, which was logical because pickups are where a big chunk of the money is in the American car market.
2017 年，马斯克和特斯拉的设计总监弗兰兹·冯·霍尔茨豪森 (Franz von Holzhausen) 开始探索皮卡的想法，这是合乎逻辑的，因为皮卡是美国汽车市场的一大块钱。
It was clear from the beginning that Musk did not want something that looked even remotely like a Ford F-150.
从一开始就很明显，马斯克不想要一款看起来像福特 F-150 的车。
He was thinking more along the lines of the Warthog, a futuristic vehicle from the Halo video game, or the flying car from Blade Runner .
他更多地沿着“疣猪”的路线思考，这是《光环》电子游戏中的一种未来车辆，或者是《银翼杀手》中的飞行汽车。
When some of his designers objected, as described in Walter Isaacson’s 2023 biography of Musk, he replied: “I don’t care if no one buys it.
正如沃尔特·艾萨克森 (Walter Isaacson) 2023 年出版的马斯克传记中所述，当他的一些设计师提出反对时，他回答道：“我不在乎是否没人买。
We’re not doing a traditional boring truck .
我们不是做传统的钻孔卡车。
.
。
.
。
I want to build something that’s cool.
我想打造一些很酷的东西。
Like, don’t resist me.”
比如说，不要反抗我。”
Early on, Musk established a radical rule that would determine both the look and much of the function of the Cybertruck: He decreed that it would be made of the same stainless steel alloy that SpaceX would soon use in its Starship.
早些时候，马斯克制定了一项激进的规则，该规则将决定 Cybertruck 的外观和大部分功能：他规定该卡车将采用 SpaceX 很快将在其星际飞船中使用的相同不锈钢合金制成。
Stainless steel is hard and durable but very difficult to stamp, form, bend, cut, and weld into body panels for a car or truck.
不锈钢坚硬耐用，但很难冲压、成型、弯曲、切割和焊接成汽车或卡车的车身面板。
Its use, as Detroit entrepreneur John Z.
它的使用，正如底特律企业家 John Z.
DeLorean found out in the eighties, violates most of the car-building lessons of the past one hundred years.
德罗宁在八十年代发现，违反了过去一百年的大部分汽车制造经验。
Even if you can get a single truck’s panels to fit flush with each other, it’s almost impossible to produce such uniform vehicles at scale.
即使你能让一辆卡车的面板彼此齐平，也几乎不可能大规模生产如此统一的车辆。
Fingerprint smudges on the exterior of a Cybertruck.
赛博卡车外部有指纹痕迹。
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty A defective Cybertruck panel.
Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty 有缺陷的 Cybertruck 面板。
Arina Habich/Alamy The stainless requirement pushed Holzhausen and his team even further into the imagined future with a design that was all flat panels, sharp angles, and razor edges.
Arina Habich/Alamy 不锈钢的要求将 Holzhausen 和他的团队推向了想象中的未来，他们的设计全部都是平板、锐角和剃刀边缘。
Musk was thrilled.
马斯克很兴奋。
“That’s it,” he said, according to Isaacson’s biography.
根据艾萨克森的传记，他说：“就是这样。”
“I love it.
“我喜欢它。
We are doing that.” Unfortunately, Holzhausen told Isaacson, “The majority of people in the studio hated it.
我们正在这样做。”不幸的是，霍尔茨豪森告诉艾萨克森：“工作室里的大多数人都讨厌它。
They were like, ‘You can’t be serious.’ It was just too weird.” When they pushed Musk to do market testing, he told them, “I don’t do focus groups.” (Musk and other Tesla executives weren’t available for interviews for this story.)
他们说，‘你不可能是认真的。’这太奇怪了。”当他们敦促马斯克进行市场测试时，他告诉他们，“我不做焦点小组。” （马斯克和其他特斯拉高管未能接受本文采访。）
In November 2019, Musk stood on a stage in Hawthorne, California, where, amid thundering music, flashing lasers, and clouds of artificial smoke, he rolled out his silver trapezoid on wheels.
2019 年 11 月，马斯克站在加利福尼亚州霍桑市的一个舞台上，在雷鸣般的音乐、闪烁的激光和人造烟雾云中，他推出了带轮子的银色梯形。
There were cheers and, predictably, gasps.
欢呼声此起彼伏，不出所料，还有喘息声。
To demonstrate the toughness of the truck, Musk had his chief designer hit it repeatedly with a sledgehammer, without denting it.
为了展示卡车的坚固性，马斯克让他的首席设计师用大锤反复敲击卡车，但没有将其弄凹。
To show that it was bulletproof, he played a video of the door being shot with a 9mm.
为了证明它是防弹的，他播放了一段用 9 毫米口径子弹射击门的视频。
The test of its “armor glass” windows failed when two of them were shattered by a steel ball.
其“装甲玻璃”窗户的测试失败，其中两扇窗户被钢球击碎。
He showed other videos of a Cybertruck winning a tug-of-war with an F-150 and pulling ahead of a Porsche 911 during a drag race.
他还播放了其他视频，显示一辆 Cybertruck 赢得了与 F-150 的拉锯战，并在一场拉力赛中领先于保时捷 911。
He got his biggest applause when he announced the base price: $39,900.
当他宣布底价：39,900 美元时，赢得了热烈的掌声。
The truck, the company said, would go into production in two years.
该公司表示，该卡车将在两年内投入生产。
Soon more than one million buyers would put down a deposit, initially just $100, on a Cybertruck.
很快就有超过 100 万买家支付了 100 美元的押金购买 Cybertruck。
Four years later the long overdue Cybertruck made its debut.
四年后，姗姗来迟的 Cybertruck 首次亮相。
Price: $100,000, which came with all of Musk’s other unfulfilled promises, and was fully in keeping with his past pledges to produce other Tesla products, including a tractor trailer, a new roadster, a robotaxi, and cars that fully drive themselves.
价格：10万美元，连同马斯克所有其他未兑现的承诺，完全符合他过去生产其他特斯拉产品的承诺，包括拖拉机拖车、新型跑车、机器人出租车和完全自动驾驶的汽车。
That the Cybertruck was both deeply compromised by its design and visibly flawed was apparent from the start.
从一开始，Cybertruck 就因其设计而受到严重损害，并且存在明显缺陷。
The truck looked like a puzzle whose pieces didn’t quite fit together, like a high school shop project.
这辆卡车看起来就像一个拼图，各个部分并不能完全拼在一起，就像高中商店的项目一样。
In the parking lot of Tesla’s office in Austin, I saw Cybertrucks with half-inch gaps in their trunk panels and protruding, knife-sharp points where joints should have fit together.
在特斯拉位于奥斯汀的办公室的停车场，我看到赛博卡车的后备箱面板上有半英寸的间隙，并且在接头应该接合的地方有突出的、锋利的点。
It was shocking to see this firsthand, especially in a vehicle that costs as much as a Range Rover.
亲眼目睹这一点令人震惊，尤其是在一辆价格与路虎揽胜一样高的车辆上。
“So much of this car is worst in class,” says Matt Farah, the host of The Smoking Tire, the country’s leading automotive podcast.
“这辆车的很多方面都是同级车中最差的，”美国领先的汽车播客《冒烟的轮胎》的主持人马特·法拉赫(Matt Farah)说。
“The panel gaps are atrocious.
“面板间隙非常严重。
The wiper sticks out over the A-pillar.
雨刮器伸出 A 柱上方。
I wouldn’t let these flaws pass on a Sub-Zero refrigerator, let alone a six-figure truck.
我不会让这些缺陷传到零度以下的冰箱上，更不用说六位数的卡车了。
There are so many corners they have backed themselves into with this design.” Musk admitted that the stainless steel had created severe production problems.
他们在这个设计中遇到了很多困难。”马斯克承认不锈钢造成了严重的生产问题。
According to MotorTrend, in a 2023 conference call with analysts, he said, “We dug our own grave with the Cybertruck.”
据 MotorTrend 报道，他在 2023 年与分析师举行的电话会议上表示，“我们用 Cybertruck 挖了自己的坟墓。”
I neglected to mention one other thing: The Cybertruck is completely, and unambiguously, thrilling to drive.
我忽略了另一件事：Cybertruck 驾驶起来绝对令人兴奋。
When the parade in Mason was over, I steered the purple-wrapped pickup into the live oak woodlands and granite hills of the Llano Uplift.
梅森的游行结束后，我驾驶着紫色包裹的皮卡驶入拉诺隆起的橡树林和花岗岩山丘。
On the first straightaway, I opened it up.
我第一时间就打开了它。
The Cybertruck is a big, heavy thing, weighing more than three tons.
Cybertruck是一个又大又重的东西，重量超过三吨。
If you didn’t know better, you might think it was also slow and cumbersome.
如果您不了解的话，您可能会认为它既缓慢又麻烦。
It is actually rocketlike.
它实际上就像火箭一样。
I’m not saying that it caused the skin on my face to ripple and distort, but accelerating from 0 to 60 in 4.1 seconds was a fully physical experience.
我并不是说它导致我脸上的皮肤出现波纹和扭曲，但在 4.1 秒内从 0 加速到 60 是一种完全的物理体验。
The effect of going from 40 miles per hour to 80 miles per hour was even more impressive.
从每小时 40 英里提高到每小时 80 英里的效果更加令人印象深刻。
It’s effortless.
这毫不费力。
You hit the, er, gas, and you are there in a little over one second.
你踩下油门，一秒多一点就到了。
It’s just this side of alarming.
这只是令人担忧的一面。
My only regret was that a Dodge Charger Hellcat Redeye, the world’s fastest four-door muscle car, hadn’t pulled up alongside me at the light.
我唯一的遗憾是，世界上最快的四门肌肉车道奇 Charger Hellcat Redeye 没有在红绿灯时停在我旁边。
The race would have been a dead heat.
这场比赛将会是一场势均力敌的比赛。
(My truck had two electric motors.
（我的卡车有两个电动机。
If you want to enter Lamborghini territory, there’s a three-motor version, known as the Cyberbeast, that goes from 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds.)
如果你想进入兰博基尼的领域，有一个三电机版本，称为 Cyberbeast，它可以在 2.6 秒内从 0 加速到 60。）
The Cybertruck may look like something from the Island of Misfit Toys, but it handles like a sports car.
Cybertruck 可能看起来像来自 Misfit Toys 岛的东西，但它的操控方式却像一辆跑车。
There are many technical reasons for this, but the two that the average car idiot like me can understand both relate to the steering.
这有很多技术原因，但像我这样的普通汽车白痴都能理解的两个原因都与转向有关。
The truck is the first vehicle on the planet to have stand-alone “steer-by-wire,” a technology that allows the wheels to be moved with no mechanical linkage to the steering wheel.
该卡车是地球上第一辆拥有独立“线控转向”技术的车辆，该技术允许车轮在与方向盘没有机械连接的情况下移动。
This is the way commercial jetliners are controlled: actuators and electronics instead of gears.
这就是商用喷气式客机的控制方式：执行器和电子设备而不是齿轮。
The steering wheel—which looks more like a race car yoke—responds algorithmically to relatively small movements.
方向盘看起来更像是赛车操纵杆，通过算法对相对较小的运动做出反应。
There is no hand-over-hand wheel jockeying.
不存在交手轮盘操纵的情况。
The effect is light and precise.
效果轻盈而精确。
I loved it.
我喜欢它。
Though Lexus and Infiniti have offered steer-by-wire systems, both had mechanical backups.
尽管雷克萨斯和英菲尼迪都提供了线控转向系统，但两者都有机械备份。
The Cybertruck is the first to dare to go it alone.
Cybertruck 是第一个敢于单打独斗的车。
The other feature is four-wheel steering, in which the rear wheels can turn in opposite directions from the front.
另一个特点是四轮转向，后轮可以与前轮以相反的方向转动。
Don’t ask me how this works.
不要问我这是如何运作的。
But you can feel the precision, especially at low speeds or backing into parking places.
但您可以感受到精度，尤其是在低速或倒车入停车场时。
The adaptive air suspension—which allows the vehicle to be raised as high as seventeen inches off the ground—makes the ride seem light, smooth, and comfortable.
自适应空气悬架使车辆能够升到距地面 17 英寸的高度，使乘坐感觉轻盈、平稳且舒适。
Reviews of the truck’s road performance have been almost universally good.
对卡车道路性能的评价几乎普遍良好。
Which brings us back to the vexing question of why the quality of the construction is so bad.
这让我们回到了一个令人烦恼的问题：为什么建筑质量如此糟糕。
Part of the answer lies in Musk’s roots in Silicon Valley, the place where “fake it till you make it” is more than just a slogan.
部分答案在于马斯克扎根于硅谷，在硅谷，“假装成功”不仅仅是一句口号。
“There’s this disruptive mentality that says the legacy carmakers don’t know what they are doing, even though they have been doing it for one hundred years, and even though building a car is magnitudes more complicated than a mobile phone,” says Adrian Clarke, an automotive designer and columnist.
汽车设计师兼专栏作家阿德里安·克拉克 (Adrian Clarke) 表示：“这种颠覆性的心态表明，传统汽车制造商不知道自己在做什么，尽管他们已经这样做了一百年，而且制造汽车比手机复杂得多。”
“The thinking is, ‘Those companies are so inefficient.
“人们的想法是，‘这些公司效率太低了。
We can do it better.’ The idea is move fast and break stuff and we’ll fix it later.” So push it out the door like the latest high-tech gadget, and don’t worry too much about the details.
我们可以做得更好。’我们的想法是快速行动并打破一些东西，然后我们会修复它。”所以像最新的高科技小玩意一样把它推出去吧，不用太担心细节。
Tesla, in fact, sees itself as a maker more of digital products than of cars.
事实上，特斯拉更多地将自己视为数字产品制造商，而不是汽车制造商。
In January 2024 Musk tweeted that “Tesla is an AI/robotics company that appears to many to be a car company.”
2024 年 1 月，马斯克在推特上表示，“特斯拉是一家人工智能/机器人公司，在许多人看来就像一家汽车公司。”
Still, his noncar company does make things with wheels, and those things have been plagued with serious quality and reliability problems since the debut of its first car in 2008.
尽管如此，他的非汽车公司确实生产带轮子的东西，而自 2008 年第一辆汽车首次亮相以来，这些东西就一直受到严重的质量和可靠性问题的困扰。
In this sense the Cybertruck’s troubles are nothing new.
从这个意义上说，Cybertruck 的麻烦并不是什么新鲜事。
Tesla cars—the Roadster, the Model S, Model X, Model 3, and Model Y—rank near the bottom of the industry for defects and dependability.
特斯拉汽车（Roadster、Model S、Model X、Model 3 和 Model Y）的缺陷和可靠性在行业中排名接近垫底。
A 2023 J.D.
2023 年法学博士
Power & Associates vehicle-dependability survey examining the 2020 model year found that Tesla ranked among the car industry’s worst performers.
Power & Associates 对 2020 年车型进行的车辆可靠性调查发现，特斯拉跻身汽车行业表现最差之列。
Consumer Reports, which had once raved over the Model S’s performance , withdrew its recommendation because of the car’s poor reliability.
曾经对 Model S 的性能赞不绝口的《消费者报告》由于该车可靠性较差而撤回了推荐。
Oddly, but fully in keeping with the company’s mystique, in 2020 Power ranked owners’ feelings about their vehicles, and Tesla scored highest.
奇怪的是，但完全符合该公司的神秘感，2020 年 Power 对车主对其车辆的感受进行了排名，特斯拉得分最高。
Buyers love them so much that they’re willing to put up with all sorts of problems.
买家非常喜欢它们，以至于他们愿意忍受各种各样的问题。
This is the Tesla paradox: “Customers would complain about the hilariously inept quality or service problems one minute,” wrote Edward Niedermeyer in his book Ludicrous, “and then extol the company as the future of the car business the next.”
这就是特斯拉悖论：“前一分钟客户还抱怨质量或服务问题，”爱德华·尼德迈尔在他的《荒唐》一书中写道，“然后下一分钟就称赞这家公司是汽车行业的未来。”
To be fair, very few electric vehicles have had smooth rollouts.
公平地说，很少有电动汽车能顺利推出。
They have far more defects than their gas-dependent counterparts, though for reasons that may surprise critics of EVs.
与依赖天然气的同类产品相比，它们的缺陷要多得多，尽管原因可能会让电动汽车的批评者感到惊讶。
“In most cases, it’s not because they are EVs, per se,” says Dave Sargent, a vice president at J.D.
J.D. 副总裁戴夫·萨金特 (Dave Sargent) 表示：“在大多数情况下，这并不是因为它们本身就是电动汽车。”
Power who oversees auto research worldwide.
权力谁监督全球汽车研究。
“It’s because automakers tend to load up their EVs with lots of other new technologies and use them as a test bed to try out new things that don’t always turn out especially well.
“这是因为汽车制造商倾向于在他们的电动汽车上装载许多其他新技术，并将它们用作试验台来尝试新事物，但这些新事物的结果并不总是特别好。
The power train is normally the least problematic part of an EV.”
动力传动系统通常是电动汽车中问题最少的部分。”
The Cybertruck is fully inside this tradition, loaded with new technologies and new materials that tend to malfunction.
Cybertruck 完全遵循这一传统，装载了容易发生故障的新技术和新材料。
Tesla has already recalled the Cybertruck six times.
特斯拉已经六次召回 Cybertruck。
The fixes include a piece of the truck bed that could come loose while driving; a faulty windshield wiper motor; a pedal that can get stuck while accelerating; and a display time-lag on the rearview camera.
修复措施包括卡车底盘的一块部件在行驶时可能会松动；挡风玻璃刮水器电机有故障；加速时可能卡住的踏板；以及后视摄像头的显示时间滞后。
The company also issued a “stop sale” on the truck’s wheel covers, which damage the tires after a few thousand miles of driving.
该公司还对卡车的轮盖发出了“停止销售”的通知，该轮盖在行驶数千英里后会损坏轮胎。
These issues are but a few examples of the vast number of more commonplace complaints that pervade the internet but which the company has not addressed.
这些问题只是互联网上普遍存在的大量更常见的投诉的几个例子，但该公司尚未解决这些问题。
Leaky truck bed covers, chronic error screens, and fast-dying batteries are subject to no recalls at all.
漏水的卡车底盖、长期错误的屏幕和快速耗尽的电池根本不会被召回。
Yet Tesla’s chronic deficiencies, which would destroy a company like Ford or Toyota, have somehow not interfered with its relentless success, nor prevented Musk from becoming the richest man in the world, largely on the strength of Tesla’s stock price.
然而，特斯拉的长期缺陷可能会摧毁福特或丰田这样的公司，但在某种程度上并没有影响其不断取得的成功，也没有阻止马斯克成为世界首富，这在很大程度上是依靠特斯拉股价的优势。
It’s just the way Tesla rolls.
这就是特斯拉的发展方式。
It’s late summer at the old Naval Air Station Alameda, or what’s left of it, just south of Oakland.
奥克兰以南的老阿拉米达海军航空站，或者说它的残余部分，正值夏末。
The morning rains have cleared, the wind is rising, and fat white cumulus clouds are tumbling across San Francisco Bay.
早晨的雨已经停了，风越来越大，厚厚的白色积云在旧金山湾翻滚。
On an ancient runway a 480-horsepower Ford Mustang Mach-E GT screeches around an improvised track, filling the air with the smell of burning rubber.
在一条古老的跑道上，一辆 480 马力的福特野马 Mach-E GT 在临时搭建的跑道上呼啸而过，空气中弥漫着橡胶燃烧的气味。
From a loudspeaker, a voice booms: “Buckle up for a hot lap in a Mach-E.” A line of young people wait to do just that, their eyes alight at the prospect.
扩音器里传出一个声音：“系好安全带，在 Mach-E 中跑一圈。”一队年轻人正等待这样做，他们的目光注视着这一前景。
The hot lap is part of Electrify Expo, the largest “e-mobility” festival in North America and about as far, culturally and technologically, from the retro-American, small-town charm of Mason, Texas, as you can get.
热圈是北美最大的“电动汽车”盛典 Electrify Expo 的一部分，在文化和技术上都与德克萨斯州梅森的复古美国小镇魅力相得益彰。
All manner of electric cars and trucks are here, all the reasons Tesla’s overall market share is getting smaller: Hyundais, Fords, Kias, Volvos, Porsches, Rivians, BMWs, Lucids, Nissans, and more.
各种各样的电动汽车和卡车都在这里，所有这些都是特斯拉整体市场份额越来越小的原因：现代、福特、起亚、沃尔沃、保时捷、Rivians、宝马、Lucids、日产等等。
All are available to drive.
全部都可以开车。
The festival also features e-bikes, e-scooters, e-skateboards, e-go-karts, and e-unicycles.
该节日还包括电动自行车、电动滑板车、电动滑板、电动卡丁车和电动独轮车。
Pretty much e-anything, as long as it has wheels.
几乎任何电子产品，只要它有轮子。
Here, too, on the bay side of one of the runways, is the Cybertruck.
在其中一条跑道的海湾一侧，也停着 Cybertruck。
Though more than a million enthusiasts have made reservations to buy one since 2019, and thousands now own one, no one has ever been able to take one for a test drive.
尽管自 2019 年以来已有超过 100 万爱好者预订购买一辆，并且现在已有数千人拥有一辆，但没有人能够试驾过一辆。
You buy it on faith: in Tesla; in Musk.
你凭信心购买它：特斯拉；在马斯克。
But shortly before the Expo, Tesla changed that policy, and the response is astounding.
但在世博会前不久，特斯拉改变了这一政策，反响令人震惊。
Most of the lines for test drives are short and the waits are minimal.
大多数试驾的队伍都很短，等待时间也很少。
The lines for the Volvo Polestar and the electric Ford F-150 Lightning are about twenty feet long.
沃尔沃 Polestar 和电动福特 F-150 Lightning 的排队长约 20 英尺。
The Cybertruck line is several city blocks long, a minimum wait of two and a half hours.
Cybertruck 线路长达几个街区，最少要等待两个半小时。
This has deterred no one.
这并没有阻止任何人。
The line is mostly men, about 70 percent by my quick estimate.
队伍中大部分是男性，根据我的快速估计，大约占 70%。
They are dressed in hoodies and gimme caps and T-shirts with Giants and A’s and Cal Berkeley logos.
他们穿着连帽衫、帽子和印有巨人队、A 队和加州大学伯克利分校标志的 T 恤。
They talk about steer-by-wire and four-wheel steer and “full self-driving.” They argue about the battery range.
他们谈论线控转向、四轮转向和“全自动驾驶”。他们争论电池续航里程。
They’re having fun.
他们玩得很开心。
I test-drive several vehicles, including the Cybertruck, but my focus is on the competition: the Rivian R1T and the Ford F-150 Lightning.
我试驾了几辆车，包括 Cybertruck，但我的重点是竞争对手：Rivian R1T 和福特 F-150 Lightning。
Both are pickups and, like the Cybertruck, both are wildly fun to drive.
两者都是皮卡，就像 Cybertruck 一样，驾驶起来都非常有趣。
The performance stats of the three vehicles, as measured by acceleration and braking, range, and towing capacity, are roughly comparable.
从加速和制动、续航里程和牵引能力来看，三辆车的性能统计数据大致相当。
The Rivian wins for speed and range, as tested by MotorTrend .
根据 MotorTrend 的测试，Rivian 在速度和续航里程方面获胜。
The Cybertruck and the Rivian came in at around $102,000, the Ford at $94,000.
Cybertruck 和 Rivian 的售价约为 102,000 美元，福特的售价为 94,000 美元。
(In October Tesla announced it was dropping the price of the Cybertruck by around $20,000.)
（10 月份，特斯拉宣布将 Cybertruck 的价格降低约 20,000 美元。）
Crowds at Electrify Expo San Francisco in August 2024.
2024 年 8 月，旧金山电气化博览会上的人群。
Courtesy of Electrify Expo Electric vehicles on a demo course at Electrify Expo Austin in November 2024.
由 Electrify Expo 提供 电动汽车将于 2024 年 11 月在奥斯汀 Electrify Expo 举办的演示课程中亮相。
Courtesy of Electrify Expo What the Lightning and R1T are not is weird .
Lightning 和 R1T 并不是什么奇怪的东西。
The Ford mimics the gas-powered F-150 in design.
福特在设计上模仿了汽油动力 F-150。
Its interior seems cozy and crowded with old-fashioned stalks and buttons and dials and gauges compared with the austere minimalism and stark computer screen of the Cybertruck.
与 Cybertruck 朴素的极简主义和鲜明的电脑屏幕相比，它的内部看起来很舒适，挤满了老式的操纵杆、按钮、刻度盘和仪表。
The Rivian falls somewhere between the two: very definitely an electric truck but without the far-out futurism.
Rivian 介于两者之间：绝对是一辆电动卡车，但没有遥远的未来主义。
The Rivian R1T was MotorTrend ’s truck of the year in 2022.
Rivian R1T 被 MotorTrend 评为 2022 年年度卡车。
The F-150 Lightning won the same award in 2023.
F-150 Lightning 于 2023 年获得了同样的奖项。
But the Cybertruck is the hit of the show.
但 Cybertruck 却是本次展会的热门产品。
The people in line cannot know this yet, but for the month of July, the Cybertruck has surged to become the third-best-selling electric vehicle of any kind in the United States.
排队的人还不知道这一点，但在 7 月份，Cybertruck 已飙升成为美国第三畅销的电动汽车。
This was in spite of generally bad press and a Tesla sales slump in the first two quarters of the year.
尽管特斯拉今年前两个季度受到普遍负面报道且销量下滑，但情况仍然如此。
In the year’s second quarter it was the best-selling e-truck in the United States and, according to Kelley Blue Book, the leader in the “ultra high-end” segment, which includes the Mercedes-Benz S-Class and the BWM 7 Series.
据凯利蓝皮书称，它是今年第二季度美国最畅销的电动卡车，是“超高端”细分市场的领导者，其中包括梅赛德斯-奔驰 S 级和 BWM 7 系列。
But the truck’s July achievement was on an entirely different scale.
但卡车 7 月份的成绩却完全不同。
The Cybertruck sold 5,172 units that month, taking third place (behind the Tesla models Y and 3) from the Mustang Mach-E SUV, even though the Mach-E was $60,000 cheaper.
Cybertruck 当月售出 5,172 辆，从 Mustang Mach-E SUV 中排名第三（仅次于特斯拉 Model Y 和 3），尽管 Mach-E 便宜了 60,000 美元。
No one expected this.
没有人预料到这一点。
Like so much else about the Cybertruck, the meaning of these sales numbers is hard to discern.
就像 Cybertruck 的其他方面一样，这些销售数字的含义很难辨别。
The Ford F-150, America’s top-selling truck, sold roughly 750,000 units in 2023.
美国最畅销的卡车福特 F-150 2023 年销量约为 75 万辆。
Based on July sales, the Cybertruck will be lucky to sell 60,000 in 2024.
根据7月销量计算，Cybertruck有望在2024年售出6万辆。
Is that a success?
这算成功吗？
That depends on who you talk to.
这取决于你和谁说话。
“When they announced this product five years ago, I said it would never get made,” says Rory Carroll, the editor of the auto news and opinion website Jalopnik, which has been highly critical of the Cybertruck’s problems.
汽车新闻和评论网站 Jalopnik 的编辑罗里·卡罗尔 (Rory Carroll) 表示：“当他们五年前宣布这款产品时，我说它永远不会生产。”该网站一直对 Cybertruck 的问题持高度批评态度。
“I didn’t believe they could ever deliver one.
“我不相信他们能交付一个。
And they did.
他们做到了。
Even though there is really not a tremendous market for a product like the Cybertruck, that’s not the point.
尽管像 Cybertruck 这样的产品确实没有巨大的市场，但这不是重点。
Tesla is really all about hyping the next thing.
特斯拉确实热衷于炒作下一代产品。
It is about Musk being able to boast: ‘I delivered the Cybertruck.
这是关于马斯克能够吹嘘的：‘我交付了 Cybertruck。
So when I say I am going to do the next thing, you better believe me.’ If you look at Tesla as a stock market play, then I would think you have to say that the Cybertruck is successful.”
因此，当我说我要做下一步的事情时，你最好相信我。’如果你将特斯拉视为股市游戏，那么我认为你不得不说 Cybertruck 是成功的。”
Like Musk himself, the Cybertruck is both loved and loathed.
就像马斯克本人一样，Cybertruck 既让人又爱又恨。
It’s perhaps not an accident that its debut coincides with, and has come to symbolize, Musk’s rightward political turn.
它的首次亮相恰逢马斯克的右倾政治转向，这或许并非偶然。
He spent considerable time and money trying to reelect Donald Trump and has used X to amplify racist and antisemitic messages, along with a swirling fog of misinformation.
他花费了大量时间和金钱试图让唐纳德·特朗普连任，并利用 X 来放大种族主义和反犹太主义信息，以及虚假信息的迷雾。
He has also promoted the truck as though it belonged in one of those dystopian science fiction underworlds where, as The New York Times put it, “corporations reign over a teeming and violent underclass and cars often function as armored weapons.”
他还宣传这款卡车，就好像它属于反乌托邦科幻小说中的地下世界之一，正如《纽约时报》所言，“企业统治着一个拥挤而暴力的下层阶级，汽车常常充当装甲武器。”
During a private event at the Austin factory in 2023, Musk stood in the bed of a Cybertruck and proclaimed it to be the “finest in apocalypse technology.” He said, “If you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win.” He showed videos of the truck being shot with a Thompson submachine gun and an armor-piercing arrow.
2023 年，在奥斯汀工厂的一次私人活动中，马斯克站在一辆赛博卡车的车厢里，宣称它是“世界末日技术中最好的”。他说：“如果你与另一辆车发生争执，你就会赢。”他展示了用汤普森冲锋枪和穿甲箭射击卡车的视频。
Needless to say, no nonmilitary vehicle has ever been promoted quite this way.
不用说，还没有任何非军用车辆以这种方式得到推广。
“What I wonder is, who exactly is shooting at you?” says The Smoking Tire ’s Farah.
“我想知道，到底是谁向你开枪？” The Smoking Tire 的 Farah 说道。
“Why does someone need a truck that is in theory bulletproof?
“为什么有人需要一辆理论上防弹的卡车？
What he has built is a truck for people who are anticipating some kind of class war or race war.
他为那些期待某种阶级战争或种族战争的人们建造了一辆卡车。
What he has built is really a truck that is optimized for running over crowds of people and tearing pedestrians to shreds.”
他建造的实际上是一辆经过优化的卡车，可以碾压人群并将行人撕成碎片。”
Are Musk’s politics hurting the Cybertruck, or helping it?
马斯克的政治是伤害还是帮助了赛博卡车？
It’s too early to say.
现在说还为时过早。
The politics here don’t line up along conventional partisan lines.
这里的政治并不遵循传统的党派路线。
While Musk leaped onstage with Trump and dumped millions into his campaign, many Republican officials were busy demonizing electric car incentives.
当马斯克与特朗普一起登上舞台并投入数百万美元参加他的竞选活动时，许多共和党官员正忙着妖魔化电动汽车激励措施。
Musk has cozied up to Governor Greg Abbott, yet Texas depends hugely on oil and gas.
马斯克向州长格雷格·阿博特示好，但德克萨斯州严重依赖石油和天然气。
It’s clear that Musk has angered many Tesla car owners, some of whom have bought bumper stickers that read, “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy.” In California, new car registrations for Teslas declined for three consecutive quarters, according to a July report from the California New Car Dealers Association.
显然，马斯克激怒了许多特斯拉车主，其中一些人买了保险杠贴纸，上面写着：“我在知道埃隆疯了之前就买了这个。”根据加州新车经销商协会 7 月份的一份报告，在加州，特斯拉的新车注册量连续三个季度下降。
Those are the folks in La-La Land, of course, and those are Teslas, not Cybertrucks.
当然，这些都是爱乐之城的人们，他们是特斯拉，而不是赛博卡车。
There were 3,711 registered Cybertrucks in Texas by October.
截至 10 月，德克萨斯州注册的 Cybertruck 数量为 3,711 辆。
How Americans in general feel about the truck often comes down to how they feel about Musk himself.
美国人对卡车的总体看法往往取决于他们对马斯克本人的看法。
Do they believe in him?
他们相信他吗？
In spite of his exaggerations and broken promises, do they still consider him a singular visionary, a brilliant man who sees the future more clearly than anyone else?
尽管他言辞夸张，违背诺言，但他们是否仍然认为他是一个非凡的梦想家，一个比任何人都更清楚地看到未来的才华横溢的人？
Or is he simply a mad king who is fast running out of good ideas, as symbolized by his stumbles at X, his faltering launch of the Cybertruck, and his failure to deliver a fully self-driving car, which he has been promising as imminent since at least 2017?
或者他只是一个疯狂的国王，好主意很快就用完了，正如他在 X 的失败、他推出的 Cybertruck 步履蹒跚，以及他未能推出完全自动驾驶汽车（他至少从 2017 年起就一直承诺即将推出）？
In October Musk unveiled an autonomous taxi that comes without a steering wheel or pedals and that he contends is the future of the car business.
十月，马斯克推出了一款没有方向盘或踏板的自动出租车，他认为这是汽车行业的未来。
Production of the estimated $30,000 robot will begin, he said, in 2026.
他表示，预计价值 30,000 美元的机器人将于 2026 年开始生产。
The response has been deeply skeptical.
回应是深深的怀疑。
The next day Tesla stock fell by nearly 9 percent.
第二天，特斯拉股价下跌近 9%。
There are few comparable historical figures to help us predict the Cybertruck’s fate.
很少有类似的历史人物可以帮助我们预测 Cybertruck 的命运。
There is, however, a cautionary tale from the annals of the automobile industry that might interest Mr. Musk.
然而，汽车行业历史上的一个警示故事可能会让马斯克感兴趣。
It features a flamboyant early-twentieth-century empire builder named William Crapo “Billy” Durant.
它的主角是一位名叫威廉·克拉波·“比利”·杜兰特的 20 世纪早期帝国建设者。
Just as Musk used the money he made with PayPal to help launch Tesla, Durant parlayed the fortune he amassed as the nation’s biggest builder of horse-drawn carriages to take over the Buick Motor Company in 1904 and then launched General Motors in 1908.
正如马斯克用他在 PayPal 赚到的钱帮助推出特斯拉一样，杜兰特利用他作为美国最大的马车制造商积累的财富，于 1904 年收购了别克汽车公司，然后于 1908 年创立了通用汽车公司。
He lost control of GM to bankers in 1910, then managed to regain it in 1916.
1910 年，他将通用汽车的控制权让给了银行家，然后又于 1916 年重新获得了控制权。
It would soon become the world’s largest industrial corporation.
它很快就会成为世界上最大的工业公司。
But Durant lost control again, this time for good, in 1920.
但杜兰特在 1920 年再次失去了控制，这一次是永远的。
He went bankrupt in the thirties and by the early forties was running a bowling alley.
他在三十年代破产，到四十年代初开始经营一家保龄球馆。
Well, sic transit gloria.
好吧，原文如此，过境格洛丽亚。
Musk, who says he is a student of history, has likely heard the name.
自称是历史系学生的马斯克很可能听说过这个名字。
S. C.
S. C.
Gwynne, a former executive editor at Texas Monthly , is the author of Empire of the Summer Moon and many other books.
格温（Gwynne）是《德克萨斯月刊》的前执行编辑，也是《夏月帝国》和许多其他书籍的作者。
He once covered the auto business from Detroit for Time .
他曾为《时代》杂志在底特律报道过汽车行业。
This article originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “The Most Polarizing Thing on Wheels!” Subscribe today .
本文最初发表于 2025 年 1 月号《德克萨斯月刊》，标题为“车轮上最两极分化的事物！”立即订阅。