28 kids. One Tesla Cybertruck. Laughter that echoed deep inside Ernest S. Harbaugh. What was supposed to be an epic moment for a proud Tesla Cybertruck owner ended up being a viral nightmare. This Ohio resident had taken his son to a baseball game aboard his shiny Tesla. Like everyone, he wanted to impress everyone who saw his vehicle… And boy, did he do it (although not in the way he expected, of course). His truck ended up on a tow truck in front of 28 ten-year-old kids who didn’t hesitate to laugh.
Ernest had placed everything his son needed for the game in the trunk of his imposing Cybertruck, but when they arrived at the field, it decided not to open. Between frustration and embarrassment, this father didn’t know what to do and his vehicle went into “emergency mode”. What does that mean? We’ll tell you below, only if you keep reading!
From hero to meme in less than an hour
Ernest shared it with resignation on his social media. Everything was fine until he tried to open the front trunk, the famous frunk. That’s when the disaster started. The system not only refused to open but interpreted that the frunk was improperly closed, activating the dreaded Limp Mode, an emergency mode that limits the car’s speed to a miserable 15 miles per hour…
The scene couldn’t have been more ridiculous: a Cybertruck stuck and crawling along, unable to move properly, until the tow truck arrived to haul it away… in front of everyone. The 28 kids, who until then thought the Cybertruck was the coolest thing in the universe, quickly changed their wows to laughter. They pointed, laughed, and turned the moment into a hard-to-forget show. Ernest summed it up on Facebook: “It was like my son and I were at the center of a collective mockery.”
Not even the fan groups could save him
As often happens, Ernest shared his frustration in the Cybertruck owners group hoping for DIY solutions. Other users in the group recommended everything from connecting a 9V battery to a hidden port to looking for the secret button under the bumper. Nothing worked. Because the problem wasn’t the battery, but a pure and simple failure in the frunk latch. And when that happens, there’s no Reddit trick that can save you.
But what happened to this Tesla?
These types of vehicles, when they detect an error, completely lock up. In this case, the user had tried to go back home for another glove so his son could play the game, but his Tesla started to drive at a maximum speed of 15 mph. It was almost like a scene from a bad cartoon.
Did Tesla say anything about the incident?
Neither Elon Musk nor Tesla have said a single word about the incident. But on social media, the story has served to fuel the fire of those who already see the Cybertruck as a magnet for problems. Because yes, this is not the first case to go viral for absurd failures in this model (although let’s not kid ourselves, this is the most amusing one).
What can you do if this happens to your Tesla?
Well, according to other users’ recommendations, some advised using the bumper button, turning off the Bluetooth controls, or using 48-volt batteries to revive the Cybertruck if it shuts down completely. Although in Ernest’s case, it was a problem in the latch mechanism that made the trunk impossible to open.
When technology fails… and the audience doesn’t forgive
In the end, this tragicomic episode leaves a pretty clear lesson: when a product is sold with so much hype, any failure, no matter how small, becomes a show. And if it happens in front of kids, who today are ruthless viral judges, the damage is double. A car that boasts of being indestructible and ends up ridiculed in front of a group of kids is a blow that not even the best advertising campaign can cover up.
Tesla and Musk are going to have to work not only on correcting the mechanical errors but on something much more complicated: regaining the trust of those who once believed the Cybertruck was an unstoppable tank.