Tesla’s new stainless-steel Cybertruck had its limited debut on Thursday afternoon, arriving almost 2 years after its initial estimated release date. To celebrate, Elon Musk hosted a livestreamed delivery event at his company’s Giga Texas factory.
Before taking the stage, pre-recorded footage shown during the unveiling event featured the Cybertruck maneuvering through a variety of off-road landscapes including a snowscape and sepia-filtered desert, idling in front of a cinematic sunrise (or sunset), towing SpaceX rocket parts, aggressively driving in circles, and being pelted with machine gun bullets. Later, according to Newsweek, Musk told the audience, “In movies you often see the hero or heroine hiding behind the car door while being shot with bullets. That doesn’t really work unless you’re driving a Cybertruck. If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire magazine into the car door, you would still be alive.”
Screenshot: Tesla/ X, formerly Twitter
The CEO offered brief remarks before accompanying the first 30 owners into their new electric vehicles, occasionally seeming to struggle with the handleless passenger side doors as smiling owners stepped into their new sharp-edged EVs. “It’s not just some grandstanding piece of art like me. It’s actually very practical,” Musk assured as the camera seemed to struggle to remain focused on the afternoon’s host. “How tough is your truck?” Musk rhetorically asked unnamed, rival carmakers, speaking towards the direction of the audience. The challenge drew an enthusiastic response from many attendees. Later, Musk repeatedly emphasized the new, angular truck’s utility and durability.
During the Cybertruck’s official unveiling four years ago, Tesla vehicle designer Franz von Holzhausen threw metal balls at a prototype to showcase the EV’s “Armor Glass” enhancement, causing the driver side windows to shatter. Von Holzhausen demonstrated a similar exercise on Thursday afternoon, throwing a baseball at the Cybertruck twice. The windows did not appear to shatter this time.
[Related: Elon Musk says ‘we dug our own grave with Cybertruck’ ahead of its November release.]
“Here at Tesla we have the finest in armageddon technology,” Musk said to his excited fans at one point. Additional sizzle reel clips also highlighted the Cybertruck’s acceleration and towing capabilities. It reportedly can outpace a 2023 Porsche 911 while towing a similarly high-end vehicle for at least a quarter-mile.
“The experts said it was impossible,” Musk said of the Cybertruck’s design phase. Previously, critics have regularly voiced concerns about the Cybertruck’s potential safety issues and reports of various production issues purportedly costing Tesla billions of dollars. During an October 2023 earnings call, Musk warned investors and customers to “temper expectations” about Cybertruck’s initial success, adding that, “we dug our own grave with Cybertruck.” Here it finally was.
Several tweets following the one containing yesterday’s livestream said, “CAN’T WAIT! It’s basically the most badass vehicle [that] ever existed!
