You'll Be "Shocked" To Know Some Things Seem Amiss With Cybertruck's Bullet Test

In this particular case, it was last Friday that footage of a Cybertruck driving around California with approximately 73 (I did count them, despite having a life) bullet marks on its driver side first appeared on the once-reputable-social-media-platform-Twitter,-now-inaptly-named-X-thing, so "yesterday" wouldn't be that accurate on this occasion. Unless it's only working days that count, in which case, it's dead-on.

The whole scenario followed the same tried-and-tested scheme that Tesla uses to put new information out into the world: someone does the allegedly accidental spotting, they upload the footage online, people start talking about it, Elon replies and offers a few more details to give the sighting the closest thing to an official status, people talk even more, Musk is happy because, once again, Tesla gets attention without having to pay for advertising.

"We emptied the entire drum magazine of a Tommy gun into the driver door Al Capone style," Musk said in his reply. "No bullets penetrated into the passenger compartment." I mean, making bullets go pew-pew as they ricochet off the truck's body is cool and all, but what I want to know is, can it catch unicorns because both these features are just as important to pickup truck customers?

Gustavo wrote an excellent piece on why shooting the Cybertruck's door with a Thompson submachine gun is reckless, irresponsible, and could potentially get some of its future owners in serious (read "terminal") trouble, but I think it's also childish, stupid, and, ultimately, completely irrelevant. To be fair to Gustavo, he too touched on all of these in his material, but I would like to try and expand a little. Also, I feel as though the methodology of the test can be called into question, especially since all the information we have is as detailed as "emptied the entire drum magazine of a Tommy gun into the driver door."

Tesla prides itself about not shelling money on advertising as if that somehow puts it on higher moral ground than the rest of the industry. If you ask me, the one good thing about advertising is that it's open and honest about not being open and honest. Whenever you're watching an advertisement, you know exactly what it is because it's marked as such. And since it's material controlled by the company providing the product or service, you'll know to take everything you see and hear with a grain of salt. Advertising is a sensitive area that could very easily be used to mislead the consumer, which is precisely why it's regulated (less so in the US, but still) and under continuous scrutiny from the authorities.

Can you say the same about Twitter X, the world's self-proclaimed last bastion of free speech? Nope. Again, I'm not saying control is always a good thing, but when the alternative is to allow a company that has repeatedly proven it has a very seriously malfunctioning moral compass to spread whatever sort of information it wants to an already entrapped public, that can't be a healthy thing. You can't truly think freely if your thought process is based on tampered information.

So, about the whole attempt to see if the side of the Cybertruck turns into Swiss cheese or not when shot with an antiquated weapon... First off, why a Tommy Gun? I think we all know the answer to that: one, it's way cooler than any of the modern firearms, and it allowed Musk to include the "Al Capone style" expression in his non-advertisement for the electric pickup truck, which must have given him enormous pleasure; two, the Chicago Typewriter, as the gun is affectionately known, is definitely less potent when it comes to penetration than something made in the current century, so it presented a higher chance of success. Success being, on this occasion, failure to penetrate.

Shortcomings aside, the Thompson machinegun is still perfectly capable of shredding a human being to pieces, so anything capable of stopping those bullets does deserve credit. However, a quick look at the test subject immediately raises a set of questions, with the most important being "what about the glass?"

Anyone who played the masterpiece that is the first "Mafia" video game knows the Tommy Gun is a notoriously inaccurate weapon with a strong tendency of sending the barrel up in the air due to its very high rate of fire. Yet, in the Cybertruck's case, no bullet mark climbs higher than the vehicle's shoulder line. In the absence of any official information, it leaves us with quite a few possible scenarios.

One is that Tesla simply hired someone with incredible marksmanship. Unlikely, but not impossible. Another says the shots were made from very close range, hence the accuracy. You can even go as far as to suspect another weapon was actually used because, at this point, we only have Musk's word to rely on. This opens another can of worms regarding the type of bullets used. Was it armor piercing? Was it hollow point? Was it BB? We may never know, and even if we will, we'll still probably have no hard proof to rely on.

The one remaining scenario I can think of, and the one that makes the most sense, assuming everything in Musk's statement is correct, is that the glass was covered by some sort of material with ballistic protection capabilities. It would also explain why there are just 73 bullet marks (as counted by yours truly; mileage may vary) when a Tommy Gun drum magazine holds 50 or 100 bullets, but definitely not 73. That means a few of them (well, about 25 percent, which goes in line with the gun's accuracy stats) went astray and were absorbed by the protection.

You see, this right here is the very problem with Tesla's promotional methods: it always leaves so much to interpretation that those who support the company will always believe whatever is more flattering towards it, while detractors will think that everything that can be a deceit is precisely that.

Some will argue I'm missing the point here. Shooting at it isn't meant to showcase the truck's ability to function as an armored car, but demonstrate how tough the body will be during day-to-day, truck-specific regular activities instead. In this case, why shoot bullets from a gun made famous by the Chicago mafia in the 1920s and not send one hundred shopping carts hurling toward it before dropping power tools on its bed from two-feet high and unleashing two five-year-olds on the rear seats?

If a serious company was to perform this test, the only way you would have heard about it was through a line in the vehicle's official description that stated precisely what kind of ballistic protection its body panels offer - that is, assuming this kind of information would be relevant in any way (which, in the case of anything other than an armored car, is not).

Tesla could argue the Model Y is the world's bestselling car, so we can all shut up about its promotional antics because it's clearly effective. Tesla has achieved enviable notoriety. Well, so did a certain gentleman called Jack the Ripper, for instance, and you don't see anyone congratulating him on his methods. Just because everyone knows who you are doesn't automatically put you in an enviable position, does it?

YO WTF LMAO https://t.co/Jhz4PZScx4

— Farzad Mesbahi (@farzyness) October 20, 2023