Tesla’s latest electric Cybertruck is already seeing much fame due to its design that makes it look like from the movie Blade Runner 2049. However, if that was not the news you wanted to hear, then the fact that Tesla ended up busting two of the windows while displaying the strength of the armoured glass…while demonstrating its strength, might.
During the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk called up the company’s lead designer, Franz von Holzhausen to demonstrate the strength of Tesla’s windows by throwing a solid metal baseball-sized ball at the driver’s windows. This eventually wound up in breaking one of the widows on their display car.
“Oh my God,” Musk laughed. “Well, maybe that was a little too hard.” So they tried it again on the rear passenger window, which like the first one ended up breaking too. “Room for improvement,” Musk said with a shrug.
The industrial-looking Cybertruck is covered in the same steel alloy Musk plans to use for his SpaceX rocket and will be able to go from 0 to 100 kilometers (62 miles) per hour in about three seconds, the Tesla chief executive claimed.
He said the entry-level model will have a starting price of $39,900 and a 400-kilometer (250-mile) range, while a deluxe option will be able to travel twice the distance and will sell for $69,900.
No date has been given for its release but analysts said it would not be ready before the end of 2021 at the earliest.
- 'Room for growth' -
Tesla dominates the global electric car market and has an especially firm grip on the United States, where pick-ups are particularly popular.
The California-based firm is hoping to edge in on domestic demand for larger car types such as pick-ups and sports utility vehicles, the margins for which have allowed manufacturers to cope with rising steel and aluminum costs.
A lack of models in the pick-up class left "plenty of room for growth and for automakers to carve out new niches", said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of automotive website Edmunds.
Caldwell suggested before the Cybertruck was unveiled that its design was likely to be "somewhat polarizing."
"Tesla's built its brand around striking design and doing things differently, so they can't just trot out a truck that looks like a version of something else," she said.
Musk said the vehicle's design had been inspired by the "cyberpunk" science fiction genre, including director Ridley Scott's classic 1982 film "Blade Runner."
He had promised before the launch that Tesla's latest offering would cost less than $50,000 -- the average US price for pick-up vehicles -- and that it would outperform the Ford F-150, the country's top-selling vehicle in the class.
(With Inputs from AFP Relaxnews)
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