Going with car analogies, the question is similar to "Is a bus better than a race car?" - there's no correct answer without more context. How many people use one or the other, how many people praise one or the other, that's no help either.

That said, regardless of whether it makes me happy or whether it's a solid technical decision, TypeScript appears to be used somewhat widely at this point. So learning to deal with the complexities and gotchas of it is IMHO worth it for anyone who's serious about web development. No need to become a zealot though, there's no need to find and defend some silver bullet. It just depends.