A Tesla Cybertruck has just been spotted in California with many bullet holes on the entire side door panels. The short video was recorded by a Tesla Owners Silicon Valley member who was passing by the Tesla pickup truck.
Minutes after the video was posted on X (Twitter), Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the Cybertruck did actually go through a bulletproof test. Interestingly, this test wasn’t performed with a small handgun, instead a vintage Tommy gun (Thompson submachine gun).
A Tommy gun can spray an array of bullets onto the target from a close range and the tested Cybertruck does look like it has been shot from a close distance.
Surprisingly, according to Musk, no bullets were able to penetrate into the passenger cabin. The thing to remember here is that Elon Musk is not talking about firing the bullets onto the glass windows but only on the body panels (side profile in this case).
“We emptied the entire drum magazine of a Tommy gun into the driver door Al Capone style. No bullets penetrated into the passenger compartment,” Elon Musk wrote on X (Twitter) in reply to the spotting video above.
This is probably 2nd most insane test of the Cybertruck’s rigidity after the steel ball breaking-the-glass test on live video back at the unveiling event in 2019. The broken glass of the Cybertruck is definitely the most viral moment of the modern automotive era. Now we can witness the after-effects of bulletproof testing of the Cybertruck.
It is totally possible that Tesla was filming for more promotional content while this shooting was taking place. Tesla might showcase this footage at the Cybertruck Delivery Event on Nov 30th.
Elon Musk once said during a Jay Leno’s Garage episode, “We want to be leaders in Apocalypse technology”. This test might be in context to this statement.
With a stainless steel body, a Cybertruck is very much prone to scratches, dents, and casual bumps — but enduring gun bullets is a next-level safety point.
We recently saw a Cybertruck after a crash test at Giga Texas and another one before that at a third-party rollover crash safety testing facility. But testing for bullet-proofing sounds something different, it’s not a matter of compliance but has to do much with Tesla’s pride in its unique pickup truck.
It will be fascinating to see how this story unfolds later on, we will have to wait for the Cybertruck customer handover event.
Elon Musk did not respond to a question asking if the bullets used in the Tommy gun were 9mm or 45mm. Later on in the official video, a Tesla employee confirmed that it was a 45-caliber version of the gun (watch below).
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