Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s Cybertruck in California yesterday evening, but the vehicle’s windows smashed during a demonstration of how hard it was meant to be to break them.
The futuristic-looking electric pickup truck is made from a stainless steel alloy also used for SpaceX’s rockets. “It is literally bulletproof to a 9 millimetre handgun,” said Musk at the launch.
Tesla’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, hit the sides of the Cybertruck with a sledgehammer without damage, but a demonstration of the vehicle’s armoured glass was less successful.
Holzhausen threw a metal ball at one of the windows and it smashed. He then threw it again, smashing a second window.
“It didn’t go through,” said Musk. “We threw everything, we even literally threw the kitchen sink at the glass and it didn’t break. For some weird reason, it broke now, I don’t know why,” he said.
The Cybertruck is being launched as a greener alternative to combustion pickup trucks, which comprise the three bestselling vehicle models in the US.
It can travel up to around 800 kilometres in a single charge and will be released at the end of 2021.