“It wasn’t an attention-seeking move. People have taken my picture so much.”
Cybertruck on Maine
A Cybertruck owner in Maine knew he’d be one of the few people in the state to own the futuristic-looking vehicle — but he didn’t expect everyone to hate it as much as they seem to.
In an interview with the Portland Press-Herald, Cybertruck owner and apparent introvert Travis Carter claimed that he didn’t buy the $100,000 vehicle to turn heads. So when people in the coastal town began gawking at his angular truck, he was shocked.
“I don’t like attention,” Carter, the owner of a cannabis dispensary, told the newspaper. “It wasn’t an attention-seeking move. People have taken my picture so much.”
It’s yet another sign that the Cybertruck has quickly become a symbolic representation of Tesla’s brand and its controversial CEO Elon Musk. To many, the divisive vehicle is more of a lifestyle choice than an electric pickup truck.
Bad Publicity
As the Portland Press-Herald notes, Carter is one of only two people in all of Maine to have registered a Cybertruck. Its most populous city, Portland is home to less than 70,000 people, so there’s little doubt that no-nonsense Mainers have taken notice of the vehicular anomaly in their midst.
According to Carter, people not only act as paparazzi when they see him driving around in his muted stainless steel behemoth, they’ve even reportedly flipped him off and yelled insults at him.
It’s as if the vehicle is the embodiment of the “away” that Mainers love to hate, and Carter, who told the paper that he hails from Kingston, New York and only moved to Portland seven years ago to open his dispensary, is bearing the brunt of that prejudice.
“I’m shy, so it has been a weird experience,” he continued, “where you pull up to a red light and every single person stares at you.”
Online and offline, Portlanders have taken to trashing Carter’s Cybertruck, and some have gone so far as to advise others not to patronize his dispensary, Vice Cannabis, due to their disagreement with his taste in electric cars.
“It’s actually nice of Vice Cannabis to do people the favor of giving them the heads up to stay away,” one disgruntled resident wrote in a thread on the town’s subreddit. “No way would I trust someone’s judgment that would buy a Cybertruck.”
More on Cybertruck: YouTuber Melts Down as Tesla Refuses to Replace His Lemon Cybertruck
Share This Article