Tesla CEO Elon Mush unveiled the company’s new “Cybertruck” on Thursday night just outside of Los Angeles in front of a hyped crowd but was soon greeted with problems from the vehicle.
“CEO Elon Musk claimed the car was ‘bulletproof’ against a 9mm handgun. But when he got Tesla’s chief designer to throw a metal ball at one of its armored windows, audible surprise could be heard as the glass smashed — twice,” CNBC reported.
“Oh my f****** God,” Musk responded. “Well, maybe that was a little too hard. But it didn’t go through.”
It’s worth noting that the man who threw the metal ball at the glass did not appear to throw it hard. The same man also hit the side of the truck with a sledgehammer to prove that the vehicle would not dent when hit but again he did not appear to hit the vehicle that hard.
The metal that was used to build the vehicle is the same metal that is used to build Musk’s SpaceX rockets.
WATCH:
The @Tesla #Cybertruck ‘Armor Glass’ demo didn’t go exactly as plannedpic.twitter.com/gl88Yhs35b
— Engadget (@engadget) November 22, 2019
“The market potential for Tesla’s truck remains somewhat of a mystery,” CNN reported. “There has, to date, been little overlap between full-size pickup truck buyers and Tesla buyers. For instance, Teslas and other electric cars sell well on America’s coasts, while large pickups sell best in the Midwest.”
Matt DeLorenzo, senior executive editor at Kelley Blue Book, suggested that Tesla’s new truck will not be that popular.
“It will be a niche product at best and poses no threat in the pickup market as we know it today,” DeLorenzo said. “The other downside is that this truck will have no federal tax credits by the time it comes out.”
During an interview last year on the Recode Decode podcast with Kara Swisher, Musk said that this new truck was the product that he was most anticipating but acknowledged that it might not be a great seller:
Musk: Then we’ve got the pickup truck, which — actually, I’m personally most excited about the pickup truck.
Swisher: Why’s that?
Musk: Well I can’t talk about the details, but it’s gonna be like a really futuristic-like cyberpunk, “Blade Runner” pickup truck. It’s gonna be awesome, it’s gonna be amazing. This will be heart-stopping. It stops my heart. It’s like, oh, it’s great.
Swisher: Who do you wanna sell that to? People that buy F— whatever?
Musk: You know, I actually don’t know if a lot of people will buy this pickup truck or not, but I don’t care.
Swisher: Okay.
Musk: I mean I do care, eventually, you know. Like sure, I care. We wanna get gasoline, diesel pickup trucks off the road.
Swisher: Right.
Musk: It’s something I’ve been wanting to make for a long time. If there’s only a small number of people that like that truck, I guess we’ll make a more conventional truck in the future. But it’s the thing that I am personally most fired up about.
Wired reported the following specs that will be available on Tesla’s new truck: “The base version of the Cybertruck, with a single motor, will start at $39,900, good for 250 miles of range, a tow rating of 7,500 pounds, and a 0 to 60 mph time of 6.5 seconds. A dual motor $49,000 version can tow 10,000 pounds and reach 60 mph in 4.5 seconds, with 300 miles of range. And the top of the line variant, starting at $69,900, will go more than 500 miles between charges, hit 60 mph in under 3 seconds, tow up to 14,000 pounds, and start production in late 2022.”