Elon Musk opened a can of worms when he originally showed the Cybertruck in late 2019. He passed the truck off as being incredibly tough, capable of handling anything, and “literally bulletproof.” Naturally, once owners began to get their hands on them in late 2023, they took Musk at his word. Since then, people online have subjected their Cybertrucks to all kinds of abuse. Wes Morrill, a Tesla engineer, took to Twitter to call for a cease fire against Cybertrucks by their owners.
He has a point. Business Insider highlighted a few extreme cases of what people have done to Cybertrucks so far:
Zack Nelson from JerryRigEverything took a torch and a variety of firearms to the truck, including a .50 caliber weapon.
Tesla Owners Silicon Valley threw a steel ball at the Cybertruck. (The video is an apparent homage to the truck’s debut when Tesla’s design chief, Franz von Holzhausen, threw a metal ball at the vehicle.)
Tesla shared a clip of the truck scaling a steep off-road trail. Some owners have followed suit, with varying degrees of success.
Jason Cammisa, an auto reporter, took a sledgehammer to the Cybertruck. (Musk did a similar test when the vehicle was first announced.)
The YouTuber TechRax took the truck into waters that were as high as its windshield to test out Cybertruck Wade Mode.
A group of Tesla fans tried to physically beat the truck up by kicking it.
It’s really wild considering that people are willingly trying to damage their six-figure pickup trucks. Some owners even see some of the damage they’ve done as sort of a weird badge of honor. Zack Nelson, for instance, told Insider that he plans to keep some of the bullet holes on his truck “because they look cool.”
To each their own I guess. But taking a billionaire CEO at his word about a product he’s trying to get you to buy as being indestructible by actually trying to destroy said product is some interesting behavior that needs to be studied.