Elon Musk’s new Tesla Cybertruck looks like a DeLorean DMC-12 if it was drawn by children, but that hasn’t stopped almost 150 000 people from ordering it.

Prospective buyers are also seemingly not put off by the lack of release date, or the recent events that played out at the launch of the vehicle.

Last week Thursday, Musk unveiled the ‘truck’, complete with a couple of demonstrations designed to show how indestructible the stainless steel alloy covered vehicle is.

BBC reports that things were going fine until Tesla’s head of design, Franz von Holzhausen, was asked to test the durability of the ‘bulletproof’ windows with a metal ball and this happened:

I wouldn’t drive that truck into any war zones just yet. As Musk put it – “room for improvement”.

The industrial-looking vehicle […] will be able to go from 0 to 100km/h in about three seconds, Mr Musk said in his presentation in Hawthorne, California.

…The pickup market represents a significant opportunity for Tesla as it improves its battery technology, meaning carrying heavier loads over long distances is now practical.

For more from Musk, here’s the entire event summed up in five minutes, including a couple of scenes where they take a hammer to the doors:

Tesla’s shares took a nosedive (6%) following the event, but Tesla’s shares drop often, so we’ll wait to see if this is a real crisis before bothering to care.

In the future, they might want to do a couple of factory tests before publicly throwing things at car windows.

[source:bbc]