A pair of Rice University professors say Elon Musk’s Tesla Cybertruck is reminiscent of a vehicle that “patrolled and terrorized” black townships in apartheid South Africa.
As such, Professors Vivian Chenxue Lu and Nana Osei-Opare write in Slate that the Cybertruck’s similarities to the Casspir military vehicle (pictured, below) — intentional or not — “blur the boundaries between the battlefield and the public street.”
“[T]he Cybertruck’s harsh, sharp edges remind us […] of something from the past: the larger armored personnel vehicles that patrolled streets throughout Musk’s youth in apartheid South Africa,” the professors write.