Recent news has brought up the possibility of Tesla armored vehicles. Do they actually exist? Are they in a stage of development? Are they just an idea?
Please, no politics and/or Musk background noise-Just info on the vehicle.
It’s idiotic, and just a way to enrich Musk.
Electric AFVs or emergency vehicles would be severely limited by range and charging infrastructure. Have particularly intense action? Need to recharge? You can’t just fill back up on the spot with diesel in a few minutes, but rather have to go somewhere else and charge for some extended (relatively speaking) period.
I’d sure hate to have the fire truck putting out the fire on my house have to leave and spend an hour recharging, especially if there weren’t any more available to take over.
To the best of anybody’s knowledge, they don’t exist yet, and they would presumably be modified versions of the CyberTruck, though that has yet to be confirmed.
Note that modified versions of SUVs and other vehicles from several manufacturers already do exist, so a reasonable guess would be that this would involve things like adding bullet-resistant glass and other passenger protection measures. Also note, this would presumably be for the State Department and not for the military, which would already have its own vehicles.
That is, there’s nothing from an inherent development point of view that would be difficult. Any controversy would be more on the political end, involving bid processes, cost, conflicts of interest, etc.
I think many armored vehicles are modified by outside companies rather than by the OEM. Presumably you could purchase a Tesla vehicle yourself and ask these companies to modify it.
Moderator Note
The OP specifically requests factual information about the vehicles and requests that the political aspects of the topic be avoided in this thread. We are in FQ, after all.
Feel free to discuss the idiotic politics involved in IMHO or P&E though.
The OP is also talking about armored vehicles (see @Great_Antibob’s link), not emergency vehicles. These armored vehicles would be for the state department, not for use as emergency vehicles.
The impracticality of Tesla trucks as emergency vehicles is probably a matter for a different thread, unless you have information about that use also being proposed that I haven’t seen.
Considering the general weight of such things, I wonder how much the range would take a hit. I don’t think it’s an inherently bad idea; for instance, how much gas does the presidential motorcade burn in a year on fairly short trips? It seems like an electric vehicle could make perfect sense in well controlled usages like that, much like they make a lot of sense for postal vehicles or in-town private delivery.
Again, I am asking about existence, not feasibility.
As above, they don’t exist yet but, if we compare to existing vehicles from other manufacturers for State Department purposes, a reasonable surmise is that ‘development’ would consist of sending them to an third party provider, rather than having an OEM version, who would make modifications to the glass and perhaps some structural reinforcement.
Right. I went to the Los Angeles Auto Show in November 2023, and one of the exhibitors was a company that specializes in modifying standard vehicles to make them armored. I was curious who they sold to.
The Cybertruck already has thick steel sides, doesn’t it? One warlord added a mounted machine gun: Putin Ally Shows Off Tesla Cybertruck Equipped With a Machine Gun - Business Insider
It still depends on what specifications the State Department would have for the vehicle.
There are tests showing those steel sides do not hold up against commonly used ammunition, i.e. the steel panels on the Cybertruck are not actually especially bulletproof. And the glass never was.
Beyond bullet resistivity, there may be other design factors to be considered, including potentially improving the resistance of the frame or panels to general impacts and rolling over.
At this point, we can only guess what those specs would be, based on similar vehicles ordered by State.
AFV = armored fighting vehicle. Tanks and various armored personnel carriers, light tanks, armored cars, etc.
I was pointing out that the reasons an electric fire truck would be impractical are the same ones that would make an electric AFV impractical.
I would think the only real advantage might be fire resistance if they’re hit with something that penetrates the armor. Unlike a diesel or gasoline vehicle, there’s no flammable liquid sloshing around onto hot engine parts, getting ignited by explosions, etc.
And some sort of credible off-road capability - armoured vehicles sometimes have to drive places that aren’t smooth, level roads.
If a battery is hit, though, wouldn’t that be even worse?
I have a hard time not thinking of the battery pack as “incendiary augmentation to any bottom attack”.
I don’t know… that’s why I said “might be”.
Elmo tried to demonstrate how “armored” the deplorean was at introduction.
He’s just gonna sell them as “armored” and call it good.
Yes.
“Armoured” at least suggests a level of armour over a normal car.
My 1985 Hilux Diesel truck is probably better “armoured” just because they were manufactured to be tough 3rd world work vehicles, not some pissant show-off 1st world bullshit.
(Ha, just realised the borrowed french word “amour” could be the real reason the Muskovites like the truck)
Do you really think Tesla can go head to head against Toyota in the “technical” gun-truck market?
The armored part was a big part of the spiel at introduction of the deplorean. He is definitely going to sell the government bog standard cybertrucks with all options stripped to the bone.