Tesla Pickup Truck Demo Was Smashing, but Not a Success
[Stay on top of transportation news: Get TTNews in your inbox.]
Elon Musk unveiled Tesla Inc.’s electric pickup truck Nov. 21, but it didn’t go as planned, ending with two smashed windows and the hashtag #cybertruck trending on Twitter for all the wrong reasons.
In the demo, Tesla chief designer Franz von Holzhausen initially took a sledgehammer to the truck, which withstood the impact. Then it all went wrong.
Von Holzhausen took a metallic ball in his right hand, wound up and tossed it at the truck — smashing the front driver-side window, stunning the audience and viewers live streaming the event.
Musk uttered a profanity when the window broke.
“Maybe that was a little too hard,” he said after the ball cracked the glass. So they tried again. A second test broke a second window.
The event was shown on YouTube, with the video made private shortly after. The heavy-duty truck retails from $39,900 and will come in three different variants.
Tesla's demo of its first electric pickup didn't go quite according to plan. The "Tesla armor glass" windows shattered when hit with a metallic ball pic.twitter.com/u05ZNKOn1W — Bloomberg TicToc (@tictoc) November 22, 2019
“This obviously wasn’t a true production vehicle, so Tesla gets a pass for now,” said Akshay Anand, executive analyst at Kelley Blue Book. “But if they are going to market the glass as a differentiator, they better be able to show stronger tests leading up to launch.”
Want more news? Listen to today's daily briefing:
