Big Truck Energy

If a car can embody the age that created it, the Tesla Cybertruck is, fittingly, a culture war on wheels.

When Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, unveiled it at a presentation in Los Angeles five years ago, he seemed to know this hulking wedge of stainless steel would be polarizing.

“It’s not going to be for everyone,” he said at the time.

Since the electric behemoth started rolling off the Tesla factory floor last November, its hard-edged geometric form has indeed proved to be a love-it-or-hate-it proposition. And more than any other Tesla, the Cybertruck seems to represent Mr. Musk himself — an extremely online attention seeker loved by some and loathed by others.

Lately it has become a sport among the vehicle’s detractors to spot Cybertruck owners parking improperly and driving aggressively — and to generalize about the type of people who would identify themselves with such a conspicuous machine.

A microgenre of online videos has also sprung up, showing Cybertrucks immobilized by sand, water and snow. The posts are often accompanied by commentary laden with Schadenfreude.

In May, a news site in Nantucket, Mass., got in on the act, shaming a Cybertruck driver for encroaching on a crosswalk on the affluent island and getting stuck while doing some off-roading on a beach.