Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the company’s electric Cybertruck Thursday, but an attempt to flaunt the truck’s strength hit a bump in the road.
A sledgehammer was swung at the doors of the silver truck, with no actual effect. A video played on screens revealed a bullet striking it, and Musk stated, “It is literally bulletproof to a 9 mm handgun, that’s how strong the skin is.”
He joked that federal work safety regulations, as well as California’s gun regulations, precluded a live demonstration.
But when a metal sphere was hurled against the window, with the message “demo Tesla armor glass” lit on screen, in a test of strength, the glass broke.
“Well, maybe that was a little too hard,” Musk told to the crowd at Tesla’s design studio in Hawthorne, a city in the Los Angeles area. “It didn’t go through.”
When the ball was thrown against another window, it also broke. “Not bad — room for improvement,” Musk joked.
“We threw wrenches, we threw everything. We even literally threw the kitchen sink at the glass, and it didn’t break. For a little weird reason, it broke now, I don’t know why,” Musk stated on stage, remarks that elicited laughter.
The truck, which Musk stated will cost $39,900 and up, will have an estimated battery range of between 250 miles to over 500 miles.
With the introduction, Tesla is edging into the most profitable corner of the American auto market, where customers tend to have fierce brand loyalty, The Associated Press noted.
The truck is Tesla’s sixth vehicle since it started out in 2003. It will be rivaling in a market against the Ford F Series, which has been the best-selling pickup for over 40 years in the U.S., followed by General Motors’ Chevrolet Silverado.
The Cybertruck begins at $39,900 for a single motor model, with a base cost of $69,900 for a tri-motor all-wheel-drive model.
Production will start taking place in 2021, Tesla stated, though production for the tri-motor model will begin in 2022.
