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Tesla's new Cybertruck smashed during demo
- agumonkey 7y agoAFAIK Ford did a similar thing with hemp based plastic car body.
- TheAdamist 7y agoAutomotive windows have been a solved problem and commodity for a while. I don't really understand the point of this demonstration, except for two possibilities: 1. They're gaslighting the Tesla faithful with "super strong" windows that are just normal. Or 2. Demonstrating they are still wasting tons of r&d dollars on non-problems and ought to bring in an adult who can design and manufacture commodity things efficiently.
- tomlong 7y agoI think maybe the target audience for this is people with old trucks not people who know about Teslas
- diffeomorphism 7y agoSure, but they explicitly advertised to not go for the commodity version but more durable/damage resistant ones. This is not really very new tech (bullet proof glass for VIPs, bank transporters etc.) but also not a commodity. > I don't really understand the point Congrats, you are not the target market. It is a demonstration of a feature some people want (though these peoples are wrong to want this according to your authoritative judgement).
- w0utert 7y agoCan you explain why 'super strong windows' is a useful feature to have? I've never owned a pickup so I wouldn't know, but do the windows regularly break or something? Never happened to any of the cars I or anyone I know ever owned. Is it against car thieves or something? Because I imagine they would find a way around this anyway. What I'm wondering about is personal safety in case of an accident (water, fire, etc). How do you get out? In some EU countries a safety hammer to break the glass in case you are trapped is actually mandatory on new cars, how does unbreakable glass deal with that? Same goes for the sharp angles by the way, as demonstrated, this design will never be road-legal in the EU because new cars are not allowed to have sharp features for pedestrian safety.
- davedx 7y agoNever had a chip in your windscreen? Happens to our cars with annoying regularity here on flat well maintained Dutch roads. Imagine what happens to your windows if you regularly drive on construction sites or unpaved roads
- diffeomorphism 7y ago> Can you explain why 'super strong windows' is a useful feature to have? I am also not the target market and it is not something I personally find useful. But the post I was replying to was nonsensical (I don't see why they didn't pick the commodity option -> must be gaslighting).
- Traster 7y agoYour argument would be far more compelling if someone could actually tell us why exactly the target market wants extra strong windows. I might not be the target market, but if someone says "Well I have a Ford and gravel flicks up and smashes my passenger side windows" I would be able to understand. The problem is that even the people doing the demonstration didn't actually tell us why you would want stronger windows.
- dirtyid 7y ago> new cars are not allowed to have sharp features for pedestrian safety Do you have more information on this. I know there's minimum radius for blunting sheet metal panel edges on the fascias that are prone to pedestrian collision. Seems pretty trivial change to smooth things out a little, though I wonder how much of the sharp edges here is value engineering vs desired aesthetic.
- tomkarlo 7y agoThe EU (and Japan and Australia) has a range of rules now for increasing pedestrian safety, including softer materials on the front bumper, hoods that give so that they cushion the impact if a pedestrian is hit, and limiteing sharp protrusions / edges on the front of the vehicle. The new G-wagon, for example, has turn signals that flex down into the vehicle on an impact. https://www.autonews.com/article/20120423/OEM03/304239967/european-safety-styled-cars-due-in-u-s https://www.autonews.com/article/20120423/OEM03/304239967/eu...
- maxerickson 7y agoWhatever glass they put in there will essentially be a commodity. They will have lots of options for getting it manufactured and so on.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y agoWhich affects the final price and also the mechanical requirements. Bullet-proof glass isn't an exotic item, but you're not going to find it in most consumer products.
- lolc 7y ago3. They buy phone screen protectors on Amazon and stick them on the windows to make them stronger.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoAnd since Amazon commingles inventory, they got a counterfeit batch.
- modernerd 7y ago3. It's a PR stunt. It invites people who don't care much for Tesla or the vehicle itself to share the video, it softens the seriousness and tension of a launch, and it helps to humanise the brand and the presenter.
- TheGallopedHigh 7y agoDo you bleieve they are playing that type of self-deprecating meta?
- bil7 7y agoseems on brand for Mr. Musk to me.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoI believe that they are PR and marketing experts. They've created a big buzz that has everyone talking about this car. "Armor glass" that completely shatters when you throw something at it by hand? Come on... Also, why would it need armor glass in the first place? They picked a gimmick that is irrelevant to the product so that this "failure" does not hurt at all.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 7y agoIf you think Tesla's PR and marketing is done by experts, please explain Musk's Thai cave rescue pedophile fiasco last year.
- mytailorisrich 7y agoWhat has Tesla's PR team to do with Elon Musk's personal tweets? This is a very poor argument...
- modernerd 7y agoSure, it seems plausible. It's slapstick comedy applied to PR. It's either clever marketing or a happy accident. SpaceX failed launches are marketing too, but they're not stunts. They are live tests that are filmed anyway. The fact they share the video is secondary to the main goal of the tests. But this? It's a staged marketing event. It's not a test procedure. The point is to get as many people to see it as possible. Smashing the windows doesn't cost much or stop a potential buyer in their tracks. The windows break easily in a highly visible but safe way (no broken glass fragments spilling onto the stage, no projectiles bouncing back into the audience). They repeat the “demonstration” with the same “accidental” result instead of just moving on. Musk knows it's fun to watch things go wrong, and it boosts the already high newsworthiness of the event. It would have been fun to watch anyway because company founders don't tend to let people throw things at their latest vehicle on stage, but that alone wouldn't make as many headlines as an accident.
- _carl_jung 7y agoIf all it takes is "an adult who can design and manufacture commodity things efficiently", it should be pretty easy to set up some competition for Tesla with a team of competent "adults", right?
- UserIsUnused 7y agoHe is talking about a very specific issue not about telsa engineering as a whole. The issue is wasting over-engineering small irrelevant stuff that provide no real benefit. He is criticizing a part of Tesla not Tesla as a whole. A company can do many great things and can still be crap in some others.
- _carl_jung 7y agoThe phrasing makes it clear that this was a character attack on Elon himself, not Tesla.
- lmm 7y agoThe hard part is finding "investors" who are happy to keep buying your bonds while you run a massive cash burn. Anyone can run a "successful" business as long as the supply of other people's money holds out.
- friendlybus 7y agoElon sounded hurt for real. I think it just happened. They went on banging on car doors with sledgehammers that went fine, it was just one piece as part of the show around the same theme that it's a strong car.
- nikofeyn 7y agoyea, i believe it was for real too. they guy throwing the ball did so with much, much less force the second time.
- joekrill 7y ago"...have been a solved problem and commodity for a while" So there's absolutely no room for improvement? Should we just move on from everything that we've deemed "a solved problem and commodity"? Another possibility: they want to foster an image of a product designed to last, with very little maintenance cost. I'm not suggesting car windows are a maintenance cost, by the way - just that it adds to the overall image of reliability. Additionally, I'm not sure where you draw the line at what are "non-problems" and what exactly is and is not "wasting tons of r&d dollars". Or, as others have suggested, what constitutes a "PR stunt". Is it wasting time and resource to select Tesla-specific paints, interior designs, wheel designs? After all, every other car has those. They are "solved problems" - just do whatever the other guys are doing!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zubiaur 7y agoThey have close ties with AGP a company that specializes in high tech glass, the model X windshield is one of the most complex in the industry. AGP also specializes in bullet resistant glass and use many of their techniques in regular glass as well. I believe what musk said, they threw wrenches, a kitchen sink, just about Avery thing and it didn’t break. A metal ball is probably the worst case scenario. A solid ball will be very heavy, but even worse, there is only ONE point of contact. All the kinematic energy has to be stopped at ONE incredibly small point. What is the area of contact? It’s infinitesimally small! Even a bullet would have more contact area, and suffer plastic deformation. A metal sphere? Worst case scenario.
- koonsolo 7y agoThose windows are not normal. As far as I know, front windows always stay together when they break, and side windows scatter to little pieces. I understand why you would make the front window super strong. But the side windows, why can't they not scatter like in all the other cars?
- eropple 7y agoAutomotive safety glass is usually the same in both windshields and side windows, but windshields are laminated together with plastic layers so when a front impact shatters them, they don't shred the people inside. As I understand it, the force of a (non-fatal) side impact in a car is generally less--reducing the danger of the above--and occupants need a way to escape in case of non-functioning doors, and so glass that can be broken free from the inside is the norm for cars. That looks like they laminated the side windows. I'm not sure I'd want to be in that even if it didn't have Musk's...musk...all over it.
- abhiminator 7y agoThis incident should be a good argument against making live product demos (particularly those that test product 'ruggedness'), especially for a brand new/untested class of product. I'd rather let the broader 'tech reviewers' community test it out for themselves once the product launches to public -- that'll certainly look more authentic and less staged.
- libertine 7y agoThis is a minor detail in a full event. The worst case scenario he made a fool out of himself on that moment, which is something he is most definitely used to. The best case scenario he will get a lot of PR, even haters will be talking about the Cybertruck. If there are products that deserve live product demos are these that break the mold and leave people scratching their heads. If you left it to tech reviewers they would probably bitch about the design. When what happened was a truck with an odd design that at first leaves you uncomfortable but by the end of the event you've grown to like it.
- lazyjones 7y agoPerhaps they did it on purpose as a marketing gag.
- isoprophlex 7y agoYeah. Any press coverage is good press coverage with this thing. The thing is so outlandish, like something Philip k Dick dreamt up, you'll either love it or hate it. The outcome seems determined by your taste, to me it is not influenced by what happened in the demo. As an aside... What a fucking cool car.
- pgt 7y agoIt's possible. Peter Thiel has called Elon Musk, "the master marketer."
- Traster 7y agoIt's honestly amazing how debased our society has become where even outright fucks are excused as "Oh well maybe they're just so clever that their success looks indistinguishable from a normal person failing"
- pjc50 7y agoYou've seen who's President, right?
- viraptor 7y agoThat doesn't have to be the thinking behind it. I agree it could be a PR stunt. They're not clever - they're just abusing marketing edge cases hoping that more eyes is better than an irrelevant staged failure. (Possibly true given this post made it to the top of HN) It's still terrible, but I wouldn't say clever. Maybe sleazy.
- reportgunner 7y agoThat's what you get from buying the newest, shiniest ad without the customer caring about the product itself. This approach has been glorified and happily adapted by everyone in the past decade just for the purpose of getting external validation on social networks. We are just witnessing late stages of that.
- ianai 7y agoTitle is a little dramatic. Saying they smashed the truck when the window glass broke when it shouldn’t have but everything else was the same is inaccurate.
- fwxwi 7y agoIt's the BBC... What did you expect besides sensationalism?
- Ecco 7y agoConspiracy theory: that incident was on purpose to generate massive PR. Argument: seriously, how hard would it be to rehearse that thing so that it does not happen live twice?
- Someone 7y agoThey could have rehearsed too often. For example, Duralex drinking glasses, which are made from tempered glass, dropped on a hard floor have a habit of bouncing once and exploding on the second impact (cause: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_glass_breakage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_glass_breakage. Classical example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert's_drop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert's_drop) These windows could have a similar weakness, being fine on x huge impacts, to shatter on a relatively weak later impact.
- bob1029 7y agoI actually believe this is probably the case. Watching MKBHD's ride on YT indicated they replaced the glass prior to riding the press around, so they probably had this planned in advanced to some extent. I don't think anyone should have realistic expectations of the outer layer of glass not shattering. That is why there are multiple layers. If you threw a big metal ball really hard at the president's limo, it would likely crack the outer layer as well in similar ways. What fundamentally controls the strength of armored glass is how many layers you have.
- kohtatsu 7y agoATTENTION CITIZEN Your online transmission contains material deemed threatening to the United States of America: "... threw a big metal ball really hard at the president's limo ..." Please volunteer yourself immediately to the nearest CYBERTRUCK for autonomous transport to a Security Processing Facility.
- double0jimb0 7y agoElon is a lot of things, but a good actor he is not. Watch the livestream for a few mins before to a few minutes after the throw. He was noticeably thrown off and flustered. The audience knew he was uncomfortable and cheered him for support. The whole thing was cringe inducing.
- ToFab123 7y agoReminds me of BillG presenting Windows 98 on live TV https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKy9fV_zX_o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKy9fV_zX_o
- csomar 7y agoImo, this is not the problem. The glass passed the test when it was not fixated on the car. (assuming the glass used on the freefall test is the same used in the car). The freefall test height is pretty significant, so either: 1. They were not using the same glass and lying on the freefall test or 2. They mistakenly put another glass type on the demo car. Which is a really bad mistake for the guys staging the demo. I expect Tesla to give clarifications as well as put the tech specs for their glass.
- NetBeck 7y agoI thought the way they handled a failed demo was cool. Most companies would have rolled the product off stage or put something in front of it, but Elon rolled with the punches and continued the presentation with two shattered windows. It lowers the probability the truck was hardened or altered for a better presentation.
- Insanity 7y agoHe did look a bit shaken up by it. As if he was less concentrated on the presentation after the incident. Apart from that, I do think he handled it quite well. Best to laugh it off and not make a big deal.
- phkahler 7y agoThe truck needs a better GPU so they can increase the polygon count.
- de_watcher 7y agoPoly count is low so our roads won't lag.
- Joe-Z-L 7y ago:0 So that’s how it can go to 60 so fast, damn
- foxyv 7y agoIt's to increase safety. If other drivers are using bad graphics cards they won't lag and crash into you.
- kube-system 7y agoPretty much all cars in the US are implementing laminated side glass to comply with FMVSS 226 occupant ejection mitigation requirements. They just figured out an interesting way to demonstrate a feature that nearly every car sold in the US since 2017 already has.
- rootusrootus 7y agoI haven't yet seen a car on the road with anything other than tempered side glass.
- kube-system 7y agoHere’s a list of a few: https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/Laminated-Glass-Vehicle-List.pdf https://www.aaa.com/AAA/common/AAR/files/Laminated-Glass-Veh...
- rootusrootus 7y agoWell that's a handy list of vehicles that won't be on my list when I'm shopping for my next car.
- kube-system 7y agoYou sure? I'm glad I had laminated glass when some projectile hit my driver side window on the highway last year. There are a far greater number of realistic and common scenarios where a windows pose a safety benefit by operating as a safety barrier than there are scenarios where they pose a safety benefit by being easily penetrable.
- tyingq 7y agoGuessing they tested before the live shot, which worked, but weakened the glass. Though the back window gives too, so maybe not.
- ijiiijji1 7y agoI think this is what happened. They probably hit it 3-4x to "make sure it worked," while each additional blow introduced microfractures and internal stresses that were overcome by the live demo hit. #LiveDemoitis If this were the case, a fresh window made of normal glass and a fresh new glass could be hit side-by-side to recover this incident in a subsequent demo.
- xtracto 7y agoIt happens, and it happens more than anyone would like to admit. Remembered me about https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNQOOr9aR8 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LfNQOOr9aR8
- brentonator 7y agoThey also hit the door with a sledgehammer as hard as they could and didn't dent it. The video for that is pretty amazing.
- exabrial 7y agoWith a design like that they're going to completely miss their target audience: the F150 buyers of America.
- new_realist 7y agoThe whole reveal was such a shitshow that I doubt this was a PR stunt. It’s just par for the course for Tesla.