So THAT'S Why Tesla's Cybertruck Gives Us All The Ick

Has there ever been a car as polarizing as the Tesla Cybertruck?

The futuristic-looking electric pickup truck released by Elon Musk 's EV company last November recently became the best-selling vehicle priced over $100,000 . There continues to be high demand for the car — but there are just as many detractors as there are fans.

Critics point out its technical issues ― most notably, a defective accelerator pedal that led to nearly 4,000 of the cars being recalled last April. Its stainless-steel exterior makes it susceptible to grime and annoying to clean, others say, while its angular, far-out design calls to mind a stainless steel trash can on wheels.

Ahmed Ibraheem, the creator of the popular The Car Care Nut YouTube channel and an automotive diagnostic technician, sees both sides of the debate.

"I look at it as a tech demonstration of what happens when you give car designers and engineers the freedom to do whatever they want," Ibraheem told HuffPost. It's a very impressive leap in technology, he said — though you can get the same EV tech in other Teslas for a fraction of the cost — "but the design of the body reminds me of a 9-year-old 's idea of a car drawn on a piece of construction paper."

Still, he said, given the sameness of car designs these days, he gives Tesla points for thinking outside the box.

"It's nice to see something different," Ibraheem said. "Good-different or bad-different aside, it is very different."

Another reason the Cybertruck is easy to mock? The high price tag ensures that only the wealthy (or reckless spendthrifts) can afford it. The internet is deep in its anti-consumerist "eat the rich" era, and such a gaudy status symbol is an easy target for ridicule. (Plus, outside of Donald Trump himself, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more polarizing figure than Dark MAGA's own Elon Musk .)

"The Cybertruck embodies the best and the worst of America: Audacious design and potent power meet frat boy attitude and wretched excess," said Tom Voelk, an automotive reviewer on YouTube and a contributor for NBC News.

Generally, Voelk said, the cars we ridicule have a certain geekiness to them. If we anthropomorphize vehicles, cars like the Yugo, Pontiac Aztek, Chrysler PT Cruiser and AMC Pacer and Gremlin, with wide-set headlights and round or boxy frames, are your dorky friend. The Cybertruck is not your friend. It's more like a humanoid alien Klaatu on four wheels, Voelk joked.

"Humanity has a tough time understanding if it's friend or foe. It lacks human qualities like curves, hips or a face," he said. "The bullet-resistant stainless steel origami form is menacing and yet oddly soulless. In the real world it looks like a lost robot."

It has some similarities to other love-it-or-hate-it car designs from the past, too, according to Victoria Scott , a staff writer at Motor1.com and author of " We Deserve This: A Transfeminine Automotive Lookbook ."

Like the Hummer H2 and the DeLorean before it, it's designed to beg for attention but does a poor job at accomplishing its main purpose: being a pickup truck.

"Not only is it a bad truck, it represents conspicuous consumption that feels outdated and gauche," she said.

Still, there's clearly an audience for the car, said Scotty Reiss, the founder of the site A Girls Guide to Cars. She personally finds the exterior of the Cybertruck a bit boring, but she can see how the aesthetic is a tech-bro futurist's dream.

"It's like a video game fantasy — not just in its appearance but in its function, too," she said. "It's supposed to be able to go anywhere, to be impenetrable by objects, to protect its occupants in a post-apocalyptic world, which is how so many video games portray their universes."

To Tesla's credit, Reiss said there's a lot of good technology within the car ― its steer-by-wire electronic steering system that eliminates the mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the wheels, for example, and an interesting flat-bottom steering wheel design , both of which other car manufacturers have also been experimenting with.

At its price point, though, she thinks there are too many flaws in the design.

"There's a poor sight line that limits the driver's rear visibility, and the stainless panels ... have sharp edges and are dangerous for passengers," she said.

On a Tesla fan forum, one Cybertruck owner said he accidentally cut himself on the side of a door. And then there's the question of whether the stainless body panels are really "stainless"; owners are reporting rust and stains on their Cybertrucks.

"The only way to really protect your investment is to have it wrapped," Reiss said. (But wrapped Cybertrucks have been mocked , too ― especially one internet celebrity Adin Ross gave Donald Trump recently, featuring an image of the Republican presidential nominee moments after he survived an assassination attempt in July.)

The Cybertruck annoys Elizabeth Blackstock, the U.S. editor of the racing news site PlanetF1 , simply because it flies in the face of all the logic in the established automotive world.

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"The Cybertruck's off-road capabilities aren't any different than those of another off-road-focused truck, but the weight of the thing makes it a challenge to maneuver in a narrow pathway," she said. "Electric cars still suffer from unreliable battery life and range, and the Cybertruck has regularly shown it can't match its own promises."