By Ben McCarthy
Ted Owens, co-owner of Detail Auto & Window Tinting in Stilwell, KS, has been in the car business his entire life, and says he’s never seen a vehicle as polarizing as the new Tesla Cybertruck.
Owens, whose grandfather owned Glenn Owens Lincoln-Mercury dealership in Topeka, KS, co-owns Detail Auto alongside its founder, Jon Cummins. The duo have seen dozens of Cybertrucks in their shop since the spring. Tesla began delivering the vehicle to local buyers just before last Christmas. He estimates that they have tinted the windows of about 30 Cybertrucks since March, and of those they have also been tasked with putting custom wraps on about 12 to 15. They, and their small staff, also handle detailing many other high priced vehicles, but nothing has generated the kind interest and passionate reactions like the Cybertruck.
“We were in one on a trip to Leavenworth last week and suddenly a public works truck just flipped us off,” Owens said. “The people who have gotten the vehicle love it, but the reactions from people [on the road] are unbelievable.”
Owens and his colleagues think a lot of the animosity directed towards the hard-to-miss Cybertruck stems from people’s feelings towards Tesla founder, Elon Musk. Owens says he hears it from people all over the political spectrum.
“The ‘Left’ doesn’t like his perceived political leanings, and the ‘Right’ sees his company as the extinction of the combustible engine,” Owens said. “They also hate that government subsidies are involved.
Regardless of the hostility some Cybertruck drivers are seeing on local roads, Jamal Johnson, part of the sales team at the Tesla Dealership at 103rd and State Line Road, estimates that they have moved close to 200 Cybertrucks since late last year, and demand is heavy for the almost 7000 lb. vehicle. (Tesla had not officially responded to inquiries from the Telegraph about Cybertruck sales and it’s Kansas City market infiltration at press time). Local estimates place perhaps 50 of those Cybertrucks in the Kansas City market, with the rest being delivered to buyers throughout the Midwest.
The Cybertruck’s sturdy exterior is made of a proprietary, cold-rolled stainless steel alloy that Tesla calls Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled Stainless Steel, the same material used in Musk’s SpaceX Starship rocket. Owens, who has owned five Teslas in the past eight years, says that beyond its unique aesthetic, the Cybertruck is vastly different from anything else on the road.
“Switching from the traditional 12-volt to the 48-volt architecture is huge,” Owens said. “It has improvements in everything from better handling to more efficiency throughout the vehicle.”
When Owens spoke with the Telegraph recently, he and Cummins were busy putting the finishing touches on a custom wrap for Ken Smiley, President of the Kansas City Tesla Club. He highlighted the “touchscreen” inside the “Cyberbeast”– the pricier version of Cybertruck with 245 more horsepower and 18 miles per hour faster– which controls everything in the vehicle, beginning with a PIN protected startup feature. Smiley, who’s also owned multiple Tesla’s prior to his Cybertruck, says it boasts more towing capacity and interior space than the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning, but most of all, passengers are impressed with how smooth the vehicle performs.
“I took it on a 3600-mile cross country road trip across seven states this summer with buddies,” Smiley said. “We loaded it up with gear, we took it off road, and they were blown away.”
Smiley says the angular design is overshadowing the driving experience. After giving his three friends opportunities to drive the Cyberbeast for the first time, they all noted how fast, and yet nimble it is for its size. They also got to see the positive and negative reactions to the vehicle in other parts of the country.
“We had kids jumping up and down and giving us a ‘thumbs up’ sign,” Smiley said. “We also had people flipping us off, and we had a guy in North Dakota moon us.”
Smiley attended the Cybertruck unveiling event in Los Angeles in November 2019 and pre-ordered it on the spot after riding in the prototype. That event featured a now viral moment where Musk urged an employee to try and break the glass windows, which he did by throwing a metal ball. His Cyberbeast starts at $119,990 at Telsa on State Line Road, while the All-Wheel Drive model of the Cybertruck starts at $99,990. Both versions feature a driving range of over 300 miles, and 11,000 lbs. towing capacity.