Arnn said he “was charmed by” the Cybertruck. Catherine Maxwell | Collegian

When Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn graduated high school, his dad gave him “an old, used Dodge Dart.” On the last day of 2024, he bought a Tesla Cybertruck.

“It’s a robot you can ride,” Arnn said. “Rides like a dream.”

Arnn said he has driven the Cybertruck around campus and to the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. But he said the car self-drove to Ann Arbor “without making a mistake.”

“When you’re in a parking lot, the empty spaces come up, and you touch one of them, and it will parallel park or back in perpendicular, as the case may be,” Arnn said. “Isn’t that ridiculous?”

When this reporter rode in the Cybertruck with Arnn, the snow interfered with the self-parking. But the self-driving truck navigated hairpin turns, stopped at stop signs, and avoided pedestrians and other cars.

Arnn said he saw the Cybertruck’s introduction in 2019, when a video went viral of Tesla CEO Elon Musk accidentally smashing the truck’s supposedly unbreakable windows.

But Arnn said he “was charmed by it.”

The truck is the type of vehicle one might drive on Mars, Arnn said. Falling somewhere between a rocket and a pickup, “it’s like a Modernist house suddenly appearing in a neighborhood of neo-Colonial mini-mansions,” said Wall Street Journal Auto Columnist Dan Neil. The angular frame and stainless steel body disguise an almost-indestructible undercarriage and an engine that hits 60 mph in under three seconds, according to Tesla.

“I got to looking them up and reading about them for sport, and I ran across the claim that an electric motor is more efficient converting energy to force than an internal combustion engine, and significantly more,” Arnn said. “And if that’s true — and I checked around and think it’s true — then it’s got an enormous advantage.”

He said the truck drives well thanks to its tight, back-wheel-powered turns. All of the truck’s controls are in the rectangular steering wheel and the large, iPad-like screen. The truck comes with side and rear-view mirrors, which are detachable. So far, Arnn has kept them on.

“These have to be there for regulatory reasons,” Arnn said. “It’s not legal to sell a car without them, but it’s legal to drive a car without them. So Musk leaves it up to you.”

Dog Mode keeps the truck at a comfortable temperature for a pet, and Camp Mode lets the truck power utilities, such as a tent that fits in the truck bed.

“I think it won’t power the food truck, because I think there’s not quite enough amps, but I’m gonna test it,” Arnn said.

Arnn said although he knew he wanted one, it wasn’t until he received a referral with a slight discount that he “took a notion” and bought one.

Will Dunham ’07, senior vice president at the American Investment Council, accompanied Arnn to pick up the Cybertruck in Bloomfield Hills, near Detroit.

“We usually get coffee when I’m in town — once a student of Dr. Arnn, always a student — but this is what he happened to be doing, so I did it with him,” Dunham said.

He said the truck is so quiet on the inside that it’s easy to forget how loud it actually is.

“The Cybertruck is like a zen garden on the inside and an urban-warfare tank on the outside,” Dunham said. “It makes sense, on a lot of levels, that Dr. Arnn would be attracted to a giant, polarizing gadget made up of elemental shapes and materials.”

Arnn said he admires Musk as well as the Cybertruck.

“I know Elon Musk a little bit, and I think he’s really odd and great in some important ways, maybe a little crazy,” Arnn said. “He always over-promises and then delivers more than others.”

Arnn said he met Musk at the White House at the beginning of the first Trump administration. Arnn had been talking to former Hillsdale students, and Musk had asked who they were.

“I said, ‘I work in the best college in America, and these are my kids,’” Arnn recalled. “And he said, ‘They don’t look like kids to me.’ And I said, ‘To you, sir, they are authorities. To me, they are kids.’”

Musk “liked that,” Arnn said, and after a brief conversation, Musk invited Arnn to visit Tesla. Both Arnn and his wife, Penny, went.

“You’ve got to be fascinated with that guy,” Arnn said. “He’s a force of nature. He wants to go to Mars. And he thinks that if you can use AI and get out in space, you can figure out the meaning of the universe, which I think is not exactly the way you go about doing that.”

Arnn compared him to J. D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, who both invented “great industry.”

“I admire him,” Arnn said. “There’s some things he seems to think that I don’t agree with. But who cares? He’s an interesting guy, but I like the Cybertruck.”

Musk will not be the 2025 commencement speaker, Arnn said.

Arnn said the Cybertruck’s navigation system automatically includes charging stations in its routes — 10 minutes of charging can add about 50 miles.

But the increase and integration of electric vehicles is “a complex problem,” said Assistant Professor of Physics Michael Tripepi.

“Right now, we don’t have a large infrastructure for electric vehicles,” he said. “Although, surprisingly, this area does have a few charging stations around.”

Tripepi said thanks to the abundance of gas stations, drivers expect to be able to power their vehicles from the East Coast to West Coast.

“It’s hard to say what the solution might be,” he said. “It might be a combination of technologies.”

He said he’s not sure what the future of driving looks like.

“I don’t think we’re going to have gas-powered vehicles forever,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Cybertruck might herald the future of Hillsdale College’s vehicles.

Arnn said the college currently owns about 25-30 vehicles, all of which have to be serviced and taken to the gas station. The Tesla Model Y — which has a lower price tag and similar features to the Cybertruck — might become the school’s go-to car.

“I’m gonna get the guys and the girls to use it for airport trips to see how they like it,” Arnn said.

Arnn said when he left the truck at the Detroit airport for five days, it still showed enough charge to make it back to Hillsdale.

“The problem is batteries — range and charging time — but that’s getting faster, and the range is getting longer, and I thought, ‘Electric cars are going to win,’” Arnn said.

He said he’s currently saved about $85 by charging the Cybertruck, compared to filling it with gas, according to the truck’s data.

Sophomore Aaron Grossman said he’s seen Arnn driving around in the truck.

“I think Dr. Arnn should arrive at President’s Ball in his Cybertruck,” Grossman said.

Certain students might get a chance to experience the truck for themselves.

“Students who do exceptional deeds and thoughts are going to be given rides in the Cybertruck,” Arnn said.