Musk boasts that if attacked with a .45 Tommy Gun or 9mm Glock, you will survive in a Cybertruck. But, Elon, babe, this is 'Murica. Dudes will learn to show up with 7.62NATO AP and .50BMG hardware.
Remember the Explorer Sport Trac?
At least it’s one piece of honesty about how much real hauling the average customer of this vehicle is expected to be doing.
So basically an El Camino?
https://www.oldcarsweekly.com/news/hauling-interest-final-gen-el-caminos-are-picking-up-steam
Survive? Or be able to drive away? Presumably the Glock owner would run out of ammo quickly, but the Tommy Gun operator may have a 100 round drum. If I were claiming a vehicle could survive that sort of attack, I’d include continued operation as a necessity. 
Does Tesla actually make any claims about the armoring on the Cybertruck? Because that sounds like it opens them up to liability.
Actually, Tesla sells cars using words like “autopilot” and “full self-driving” that don’t correspond to established standards. So perhaps I should not be surprised that they throw around words like “bulletproof” while ignoring those established standards.
Well it’s a truck, ist it not? It can carry a lot of bullets, if that is not bullet proof, I don’t know what is!
Of course you cannot expect all the targets of a shooting to survive, this is agile development! We’ll iterate from here as need be. We can also provide an auto-shoot-back full self-defending gadget for a monthly fee. Will be available by the end of some year.
Tesla is, apparently, the first car company in the history of car companies to ever use marketing words to describe their product.
Next up: “Built Ford Tough” does not actually refer to an SAE standard.
Granted, but I think there is a difference between advertising hype and using phrases like “full self-driving.”
Yeah, that’s a big sticking point. And its range is way too limited. I’m just not seeing spending a lot of money for downgraded capacities.
The Lightning is great for people who want but do not need a truck – like the Tesla. For those who actually need a truck, the EV has not yet been made.
Well, there’s this bit of puffery,
Elon Musk on X: “Doors are bulletproof to .45” & 9mm https://t.co/alTYkDcsIz” / X (twitter.com)
Longer clip from whence they got the tweet:
Tesla does not claim that any of their cars have Full Self-Driving yet. Perhaps this is a fine distinction, but they claim that their cars have FSD capability, and that the current functionality does not make the vehicle autonomous, but that further functionality will be unlocked over time via software.
I like short bet regular cab pickups. Leave the tail gate down and 4x8 is no problem. I like the shorter wheel base for plowing. The tighter turn radius REALLY helps.
Yeah they can’t carry as much, but for myself, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. And, well we are a 2 person, 2 SUV 1 Truck family.
While I certainly think plenty of people drive trucks that only think they need a truck, I find this to be equally ridiculous. Long-range towing is not the end-all be-all of truck use.
For instance, in my old hometown, there is a large and popular lake. Everyone in the area who buys a boat goes to the lake. There are probably a million people within 50 miles of the lake, and all of them would be served by the current generation of EV trucks.
Or, my old neighbor, who maintained a fantastic garden that spanned a few acres. Lots of runs to various local nurseries and Home Depot for topsoil and the like. Needed a large bed but again, only short range runs.
Or, all the landscapers in the area. They aren’t driving very far. But they need to haul their equipment trailer. The high-amperage plugs on EV trucks could be a huge boon to anyone using electric landscaping tools (increasingly popular around here, and probably mandatory at some point).
And so on. Not every truck use is hauling a fifth wheel on cross-country trips. I’d suggest that most truck use is actually fairly short range in nature.
Hmmm. Just watched a couple reviews of the CT (Marques Brownlee and Hagerty) and aside from the form, they’re sold. Sounds like the driving experience, detailing and UI is pretty good. I won’t be buying one, but maybe it’s not the flop I thought it would be.
Three reviewers got early access to the Cybertruck: Marques Brownlee, Hagerty (Jason Cammisa), and Top Gear. Brownlee was probably the most negative of the three, though mostly with respect to the pricing/range combos, which is understandable. But he still liked it enough to buy one. All three were impressed overall.
Top Gear had some nice interviews with their engineering/design leads at Tesla.
Marques Brownlee:
Hagerty:
Top Gear:
My guess is the vehicles provided to those reviewers were very carefully assembled and gone over with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there was nothing wrong with any of them. Will a random vehicle off the production line be as well built?
Clearly, we won’t know until production rate ramps up, and that won’t happen until 2024. But Cybertrucks have been appearing in dozens of Tesla showrooms and they’ve been basically immaculate. That’s still a small enough number to cherry-pick good examples, but probably too many to hand-tweak every one. They’re clearly capable of producing good quality units; the main question is whether they can just do that repeatedly.
Well, so is mine. But I do haul out to venues 2+ hours away a number of times a year. Heck, the vet hospital at Tufts is more than that – that’s where you take your horse when it’s really broken (Cornell is farther). Also, towing live weight like livestock is trickier than hauling an equipment trailer. You need a big engine to stop the thing safely. The main thing my truck does is carry stuff, under 20 miles usually. Sand, lumber, piles of debris. We don’t use the truck just to go to the grocery store, we have a Honda Fit for that. With 107K miles on it, so if we get a hybrid or EV, that’s the one to be replaced.
I’m just cautious. And my truck is practically new, by our standards of new.
nm. I shouldn’t comment on this.
Aside from Tesla fanboys, who exactly is the target market?