Look at this gorgeous Cybertruck I was behind at the Franklin and 46 light.
I love that they got the Municipal Cleanup Edition: the $100,000 stainless-steel vehicle of the future, now with six wet logs, two blue tarps and a plastic crate thrown in the back.
What is all that shit? Are they going to bury a body?
Logs, tarps and a plastic crate are basically the traditional New Jersey body-disposal starter kit.
With the bed open, it looks less like a car and more like a dumpster that got tired of waiting to be emptied and drove itself away.
The Municipal Cleanup Package
I had one red light to study the vehicle, which is approximately how long most professional automotive journalists spend evaluating rear-seat legroom.
The Municipal Cleanup Edition may be a dealer-installed package, or it may only become available after a landscaper says, “Just throw it in there. It’ll be fine.”
Either way, it completes the Cybertruck. The basic model looks like the future. This one looks like the future lost municipal funding halfway through the fiscal year.
Observed Specifications
- Manufacturer classification
- Pickup truck
- Observed classification
- Self-propelled dumpster
- Cargo
- Six wet logs, two blue tarps, one plastic crate
- Seating
- Five, depending on alibis
- Estimated range
- Route 46 to the Pine Barrens
- Starting price
- Approximately one house from 1997
Cargo Analysis
Individually, every item is innocent.
Logs mean landscaping. A tarp means you are protecting something. A plastic crate means you are organized.
But three harmless nouns arranged in the correct order can become probable cause.
The blue tarps are particularly concerning because a tarp is the only object designed to conceal something that makes everybody much more interested in what is underneath it.
Nobody has ever seen a tarp and thought, “Well, that answers all my questions.”
Probability This Is a Completely Normal Landscaping Errand
Estimated from visible cargo and several years of living in New Jersey.
Source: The Jug Handle Institute. Margin of error: ± one shallow grave.
Exterior and Design
The Cybertruck looks like 1962 tried to imagine what 2026 would look like and became furious when somebody asked it to draw wheels.
Closed, it resembles a moon rover designed by an appliance company. Open the cargo bed and the entire vehicle changes professions.
Now it is in sanitation.
The stainless-steel body is ideal for municipal cleanup because it tells the world, “This vehicle can be hosed off,” whether anyone asked or not.
Performance on Route 46
At Franklin and 46, zero-to-sixty is largely theoretical.
The truck may be capable of extraordinary acceleration, but Route 46 has installed a traffic light approximately every 800 feet so drivers have time to reflect on their purchases.
The instant electric torque could be useful if the contents of the cargo bed suddenly needed to be somewhere else. Unfortunately, the exposed tarps appear capable of reaching a neighboring lane before the truck does.
Environmental Impact
The vehicle itself produces no tailpipe emissions. The emotional emissions produced by everyone behind it remain completely unregulated.
Transporting six pieces of a former tree in an electric vehicle is also technically carbon neutral if you stop examining the sentence early enough.
Final Verdict
Maybe this was completely innocent. Maybe the driver was doing yard work. Maybe the crate contained gardening supplies and the tarps were there to protect the interior of an open stainless-steel cargo bed from the dangerous outdoor environment surrounding it.
But when the future finally arrived at Franklin and Route 46, it was carrying wet logs, two blue tarps and a plastic crate.
It looked fantastic.
It also looked like it needed an alibi.