On the first Sunday of the northern spring, surrounded by row houses and magnolia trees, I came to a horrifying realisation: My mum was right. I had been flipped off at least 17 times, called a “motherfucker” (in both English and Spanish), and a “fucking dork”. A woman in a blue sweater stared at me, sighed, and said, “you should be ashamed of yourself”. All of this because I was driving a Tesla Cybertruck. I had told my mum about my plan to rent this thing and drive it around Washington, DC, for a day – a journalistic experiment to...