Elon Musk has said hitting the door of Tesla’s new Cybertruck with a sledgehammer damaged its armoured glass which then broke during a failed demonstration of the new vehicle.
The unveiling of Tesla’s first electric pick-up truck was marred by the incident, which saw two supposedly armoured glass windows shatter when hit with a metal ball.
Musk had spent some time during the live unveiling in Los Angeles last week detailing how robust the new vehicle would be.
Responding to comments on Twitter about the incident, he said the windows had broken because a previous demo of the vehicle’s steel doors — in which they had been hit with a sledgehammer — had damaged the glass.
“Sledgehammer impact on door cracked base of glass, which is why steel ball didn’t bounce off,” he said in response to one commenter. “Should have done steel ball on window, then sledgehammer the door. Next time…”
Musk also tweeted a video of the same window test being carried out backstage before the incident during the live unveiling.
‘Room for improvement’
As had been the case on stage, it showed Tesla head of design Franz von Holzhausen throwing a metal ball at the window from close range.
After the glass cracked during the on-stage demo, a clearly shocked Musk told the audience “at least it didn’t go through” and admitted there was “room for improvement”.
Despite the embarrassing incident, he also claimed Tesla has already received 200 000 orders for the Cybertruck. The futuristic-looking vehicle will be released at the end of 2021, with a range of up to 800km.
Tesla has said the top of the range, triple-electric motor version will be capable of going from zero 0-100km/h in 2.9 seconds — comparable with many sports cars.
The truck will start at US$39 900 for the single-motor version.
