Having never driven a Tesla, but having sat in one in order to pretend to a friend that I thought the dominating computer screen was fascinating, I sensed no revulsion or any particular distaste for the car. Everybody dances to a different beat and if you want an electric car, a Tesla, then have at it, even if the front of a Tesla looks like the underbelly of a dolphin.
And the Tesla truck is perhaps the ugliest machine ever manufactured. Some cars are so ugly that they become cool. You’d a pay a pretty penny these days for an Edsel, not in spite of its horse collar grill, but probably because of it. The Tesla truck looks like an industrial toaster or a hastily slapped together prop for a 1952 invasion-from-Mars movie. What were you thinking, Elon?
There is no accounting for taste and the vehicle’s novelty cannot be denied. Besides, the way we’re going, cars will end up looking like hot dog buns and the Tesla truck will someday be as revered as a Ferrari.
A fellow doesn’t mean to pile on – Teslas have been getting keyed – but we have learned some lessons. Apparently, many of you who bought Teslas really, deep down, didn’t care about saving the Earth. You cared about making a statement that you cared about saving the Earth. Otherwise, so many of you wouldn’t now be plastering your cars with stickers that say, “Don’t blame me, I bought mine before Musk got to Washington.”
But then Musk joined President Donald Trump and because the two of them are ideologically evil, it is now acceptable to insist that you find Musk dastardly, even though when you bought the car, you thought Musk was ideologically a genius. I guess the stickers promote a wish to have the cake and eat it, too.
What changed? Well, Trump.
Our governor hasn’t helped. It would be a stretch to say that Tim Walz incited the destruction of property, but a couple of weeks back, on that whatever that tour of his is, he took great glee in Tesla’s falling stock price. It is now believed that the governor didn’t realize that his own State Board of Investment had 1.6 million shares of Tesla stock in its retirement fund or that Tesla owns a manufacturing plant in Brooklyn Park.
In a riotous display of first-world angst, Teslas have been shot at, keyed and kicked. Tesla dealerships have been vandalized.
And locally we have the astonishing case of Dylan Bryan Adams, a financial analyst in the Minnesota Department of Human Services. Adams was arrested recently in Minneapolis for allegedly keying at least six Tesla cars to the tune of more than $20,000 in damages. Allegedly seems redundant. Teslas are virtually rolling film studios. The cars filmed Adams in the act.
It is unlikely Adams will be fired or even have a note placed in his file. He’s been with the state since 2018 and nobody in the Walz administration has ever suffered any consequences for their incompetent handling of a $250 million food fraud. $20,000 is peanuts.
In fact, Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, has decided not to press felony charges against Adams. Instead, Adams was offered “diversion,” meaning restitution and some community service work. It almost sounds like Moriarty said, “Oh, what the hell, he was only keying Teslas.”
It’d hard to know if Moriarty’s charity to Adams reflected her politics. You have to wonder if she thought about it at all.
My question will go unanswered. Adams was out walking his dog when he struck. Why wasn’t he at work?
Joe Soucheray can be reached at jsoucheray@pioneerpress.com. Soucheray’s “Garage Logic” podcast can be heard at garagelogic.com.
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