A demonstration mishap where the armoured glass of Tesla's new CyberTruck smashed on stage happened because its door had already been hit with a sledgehammer, according to Elon Musk..
The blunder happened during the unveiling of Tesla’s first electric pick-up truck, with two supposedly armoured glass windows shattered when hit with a metal ball.
Mr Musk spent some time during the live unveiling in Los Angeles last week detailing how robust the new vehicle would be.
He said the windows had broken because a previous demo of the vehicle’s steel doors in which they were hit by 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 on Twitter.
“Should have done steel ball on window, *then* sledgehammer the door. Next time…”
Mr Musk also tweeted a video of the same window test being carried out backstage before the incident during the live unveiling.
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 Mr Musk told the audience “at least it didn’t go through” and admitted there was “room for improvement”.
Mr Musk also claimed Tesla has already received 200,000 orders for the CyberTruck despite the incident.
The futuristic-looking vehicle will be released at the end of 2021 and will have a range of up to 500 miles.
Tesla said the top of the range, triple electric motor version will be capable of going from zero to 60mph in 2.9 seconds – comparable with many sports cars.
The truck will start at 39,900 dollars (£31,000) for the single motor version.
