When Tesla designer Franz von Holzhausen threw a three-inch steel ball bearing at the “armoured glass” windows of the Cybertruck during the truck’s unveiling event in 2019, it was a moment that will play on repeat in my head forever. If you need a refresher, the ball was lobbed at the truck and immediately smashed the driver’s side front window. Elon Musk then encouraged Franz to try again with the rear window, and embarrassingly, it broke as well. In order to test if Tesla’s glass is any stronger today than it was five years ago, Ryan from The Kilowatts threw a series of increasingly heavier balls at his own Cybertruck. The results are, uh, yeah, pretty much what you’d expect.
Starting with ping pong and working up through golf, base, pool, one-inch steel, two-inch steel, and finally three-inch steel balls, Ryan and his musclebound amigo do their damndest to prove the strength of the glass. After the fiasco at the truck’s initial unveil, von Holzhausen merely underhanded a standard baseball at the truck’s glass for the truck’s Cyber Rodeo delivery event last fall. It was a weak attempt and showed Tesla’s reluctance to have the glass break again. A low-speed baseball not breaking your window proves very little.
As you would guess, the ping pong ball, golf ball, and baseball had no effect on the window, even when thrown by a strong guy. The pool cueball was the first ball thrown that you might think could break a car window, but it, too, left no trace of its impact behind. The one-inch ball, similarly, was a no-go.
When the duo got around to throwing the two-inch ball, the window started to show signs of stress. Even at high velocity, the heavy ball left nothing more than a surface scratch. The window held, but you’d definitely want to get it replaced after that. Even the three-inch ball, which weighs a handful of pounds and is an exact replica of the ball Franz threw several years ago, took more than one toss to do any damage. But once it did crack, it let loose like a collapsed dam. That window is toast!
This was a pretty fun test, and it was great of Ryan to risk his own truck and money to make it happen, even when Tesla wouldn’t. It’s clear that the glass in a new Cybertruck is tougher than the glass that was in the initial prototype, but it’s still not strong enough to prevent shattering from a high-speed impact with a three-inch ball. And it’s definitely not bulletproof.