Tesla has just delivered the first Cybertrucks, and alongside the release of the new vehicle, it has announced several accessories, including one commemorating an embarrassing moment from the Cybertruck unveiling event, which generated quite a reaction.
At the original Cybertruck unveiling event, Tesla intended to show off the exceptional resiliency of its Cybertruck with a couple of demonstrations of its impact resistance.
The truck uses “ultra-hard” steel for its exterior, so designer Franz von Holzhausen came to the stage and whacked the door with a baseball bat (although, from my vantage point beside the stage, it was apparent that he pulled up a little at the end of the swing, rather than giving it a full-throated whack).
This demo went well enough, but the next demo was the most talked-about moment from the event. It was intended to show the strength of “Tesla Armor Glass,” which could supposedly resist an impact from a steel ball.
To demonstrate this, von Holzhausen pulled out a steel ball and hurled it into the window of his beloved prototype. And that, uh, didn’t go as planned.
He went on to do the demo again with the rear window, and that one, too, ended up breaking. Over the next few days and weeks, Tesla tried to smooth over the event and explain what happened, but the damage was already done.
But Tesla ended up having good humor over it. The event generated a lot of reactions, and as they say, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. Tesla even sold t-shirts commemorating the failure.
So, in today’s delivery event, Tesla repeated the demo, hoping not to have the same amount of embarrassment as before. But instead of using a steel ball, Franz used a baseball, which visibly bounced around on the stage after the fact, after a not-too-hard throw – so not quite the same demo as before. You can see it at 45:30 in the video below:
Regardless, Tesla is using the memory of the original unveiling event to sell another joke accessory for the Cybertruck: a $55 window decal of a broken window.
Unfortunately, you only get one broken window decal with the purchase, sized for the rear driver’s side window, one of the same ones that was broken in the demo. Tesla isn’t selling a broken front window decal since that would be more of a safety issue for driver visibility.
Alternatively, if you want to save a few bucks, you could also purchase a 3″ steel ball from Amazon for $29 and just break your rear window yourself. And, as a huge plus, it’s reusable, so you could use it on as many windows as you want and even let your friends borrow it so they can break their own windows! Think of the savings!