“Hey, I need everybody to clear out,” sounds like good advice for a test in which a new vehicle faces a hail of bullets.
The new vehicle was Tesla’s Cybertruck, which was delivered to the first buyers by CEO Elon Musk at a special event at Gigafactory Texas on Thursday.
The 30-minute presentation featured Musk hyping up Tesla’s fully electric pickup, along with several short videos showing off various aspects of the new vehicle.
Looking for a spectacular way to highlight the toughness of the Cybertruck’s exterior, Tesla turned to firearms experts to shoot a load of bullets into the side of the pickup.
Later on Thursday, Tesla shared a video (below) on social media offering a behind-the-scenes look at how they performed the bullet test. Below the video is the final 30-second segment that Tesla included in Thursday’s live stream.
Behind the scenes https://t.co/xytpbvrnFJ pic.twitter.com/K7pZmGnGTv
— Cybertruck (@cybertruck) December 1, 2023
Tesla started off with a Tommy gun before moving onto a Glock, an MP5SD submachine gun, and a shotgun.
Taking a close look at the damage, it’s the shotgun (not included in the presentation video) that caused the most trouble, with a double hit on a single spot causing the window (down at the time and therefore behind the door) to crack, though the shot didn’t appear to reach the inside of the vehicle.
Overall, the exterior held up well, suffering mostly impact craters and little more.
When asked a couple of years ago about the point of having bulletproof glass on a pickup truck, Musk responded in his unique way, saying: “Because it’s badass and super cool.”
If you missed Thursday’s Cybertruck delivery event and want to check it out, here’s how to watch a replay.
