Some people are excited about soon being able to drive the company’s electric pickup truck, which is already accepting pre-orders in China.
“I’ve only seen this in Death Race and Mad Max,” one Weibo user said. “This is so cool.”
“When I think that I could drive this thing to and from work before I’m 40 years old, I look forward to the year 2030,” a user on Q&A site Zhihu wrote.
But what some people see as sleek and futuristic, others see as crude and ugly. Netizens are joking that the pickup truck looks like something made by Geng Shuai -- a welder from a village near Beijing who has attracted a large following on short video app Kuaishou with quirky inventions like a smartphone case that doubles as a meat cleaver and a toilet built into a scooter.
“Is this a partnership between Tesla and Geng?” one Weibo user asked, with many similarcomments appearing under other posts about Cybertruck.
“Suddenly I feel like I could design a car,” another said.
Others are pointing out the most embarrassing part of the truck’s launch: When trying to demonstrate the strength of the vehicle’s “Armor Glass” windows, they cracked.
Under Elon Musk’s Weibo post about the truck, one user simply commented, “But the glass…”
The Cybertruck starts at US$39,900, and Chinese consumers can now pre-order it with a deposit of 1,000 yuan (US$142). (Picture: Tesla)
Those in China who love the design can pre-order the truck with a deposit of 1,000 yuan (US$142) on Tesla’s Chinese website, which accepts Alipay and WeChat Pay. Someusers on Zhihu are already showing off screenshots of their pre-orders.
But selling pickup trucks in China is tricky business. Some consumers shy away from them because China has placed restrictions on the vehicles in the past. Before 2018, all pickup trucks, which are classified as cargo trucks in China, were required to have reflective safety labels on the trunks and information about the weight and height had to be spray-painted on the outside.
One of the most popular Cybertruck memes circulating on China’s internet shows some people worry the vehicle could lose its cyberpunk aesthetic in the country.
Netizens joke that Cybertruck will have to look like this in China. (Picture: Weibo)
But the popularity of pickup trucks has been rising as some cities ease their restrictions on the vehicles. Last year, when auto sales in China declined for the first time in two decades, sales of pickup trucks increased 10 percent.
