Tesla’s unveiling of the Cybertruck was filled with oddities and surprises, but perhaps nothing more surprising than when the apparently super-strong glass on the Cybertruck shattered on stage, twice.
For those who missed out, here’s what happened – after demonstrating the strength of the shatter-resistant glass by dropping a steel ball onto the glass from a height of about 3 meters, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk decided to level-up the demonstration by hurling the steel ball at the show car instead.
The person designated to do the honours was none other than Tesla’s Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen. We can’t tell if this part of the demonstration was planned, but smashing both windows definitely wasn’t. Musk reportedly swore under his breath after the glass shattered to pieces, before muttering “room to improve.”
However, Musk said that he knew what went wrong with the demonstration, and took to Twitter to explain the situation. Apparently in the test to exhibit the strength of the ultra-hard body (which happened right before the unfortunate window test), the sledgehammer impact “cracked base of glass”, which caused it to shatter when it was hit by a steel ball.
To prove that the glass is indeed strong enough to withstand a steel ball impact, Musk also uploaded a slow-motion video of the same test performed before the unveiling, with the ball bouncing harmlessly off the pane of glass.
Despite its divisive styling, the Tesla Cybertruck is still garnering significant interest. Just three days after the unveiling, Musk tweeted that the company received 200,000 bookings for the Cybertruck. “With no advertising & no paid endorsement,” Musk said in a separate tweet.
Maybe the smashed glass proved to be beneficial, after all.
