Posted on 11/22/2019 3:29:03 PM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
Well, I don't think that was supposed to happen.
In what was one of the more surreal product launches I've seen, Tesla debuted its $39,900 Cybertruck pickup tonight. After running through some specs and hitting the truck's door with a sledge hammer, Elon asked an onstage companion (Tesla's lead designer, Franz von Holzhausen) to demonstrate the strength of the Tesla "Armor Glass" by throwing a solid metal, baseball-sized ball at the driver side window.
It... did not go well. While the glass didn't completely shatter, it did appear to crack from edge to edge.
"Oh my [bleeping] God," Musk laughs. "Well, maybe that was a little too hard."
So they tried it again on the rear passenger window... and it cracked too. "Room for improvement," Musk says with a shrug.
Was this a gag? A "Hah hah! Just kidding, here's a test on the real glass!" sort of thing? Nope. Elon stood in front of the truck, two broken windows and all, and completed the presentation.
While no one would expect most standard windows to stand up to a test like this, even Elon seemed surprised by the results. "We threw wrenches, we threw everything," he said on stage. "We even literally threw a kitchen sink at the glass, and it didn't break. For a little weird reason it broke now, I don't know why."
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
Must have been a long, hard day at work?
Quitting the rat race does have advantages! ;>)
Was this a gag?
...
It was almost certainly a publicity stunt.
Doesn’t anyone think they tested the glass ahead of time for the demo?
Curiously, Tesla had replacement glass ready to go and the truck was repaired before they gave test drives.
“Time to get a new Timex, I’m afraid”.
When I was a kid, Timex used to run these commercials to demonstrate how durable Timex watches were. They would put a watch on a boat motor and run it for an hour and show it was still working. And they would always ask what time is it. Stuff like that.
One day they put the watch on a foot stool used by a Circus Elefant and had the Elefant stand on it. When the Elevant stepped off, they asked what time is it. And the guy was holding about a dozen pieces in his hand, and said “Time to get a new Timex I’m afraid.”
That’s a truck?
Looks like a lunar rover
Just too fugly for me to care.
The stagecraft build up was incredible.
Fireworks, laser lights, colored clouds of fog and something thunderous. Then....this?
I almost think this was a prank. Surely they would have tested the glass out before. Right?
The CEO is a very eccentric sort of character.
It’s well known that he likes his spliffs every so often.
The window breakage was a retro event and a visual lie. The door glasses broken are safety glass. That is two pieces of double strength glass laminated with a butyl plastic inner layer. Safety glass was used for decades in automobiles after there were so many truly horrible accidents with ordinary glass.
Such glass was obsoleted for all glass except windshields decades ago. The replacement for safety glass is tempered.
Tempered glass is very strong and would likely resist a thrown object. However if subjected to a point impact, tempered glass shatters. The reason windshields are still safety glass is that a head impact will be coushioned by the safety glass. A head impact with tempered glass would likely kill
Look, it is not elefant, or elevant, or elehant, or elesant. It is elephant.
And at a cost of how much per window? My guess - $1000+ each. And the windshield of the same material - probably $2-3k.
Stainless Steel body panels - wait for your insurance company to vomit and your rates to be insane.
And of course, we still have this little matter of the batteries in these things - that do far more real, tangible environmental damage than any among of fossil-fuel vehicle...and has to be recycled ever what, 5 years or so? A battery for a 3-motor truck that supposedly can go 500+ miles on a charge- imagine the size and cost of such a battery.
According to Fox News when the window shattered the Tesla stock dropped 6%.
I think the whole thing is just Musk trolling everybody. They are taking a mere $100 deposit for a car they say wont even enter production for 2 years. I say it won’t ever be mass produced. It’s a publicity stunt.
Ya gotta love the guy’s attitude. “room for improvement!” Love it . Also, his MK-1 Starship just blew its top in a fuel pressurization test. No one hurt so that is good. Gotta say he is our modern day Edison (for better or worse). :) As long as he figures it all out when there are humans in this thing, it should be ok.
A lot of vehicles manufactured in the last 4 years are using laminated safety glass on side windows again. I have no clue why. I guess we need to get used to seeing cracked side glasses like we did in the ‘50’s and people with giant lac’s on their face after a side impact.
Elegant.
Musk recently started a keto diet whos main ingredient is spinach.
That must be what accounts for that muscular pitch.
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