The Cybertruck answers a question no one in the auto industry even thought to ask: what if there was a truck that a Chechen warlord couldn’t possibly pass up – a bulletproof, bioweapons-resistant, road rage-inducing street tank that’s illegal to drive in most of the world?
Few had seen anything quite like the Cybertruck when it was unveiled in 2019. Wrapped in an “ultra-hard, 30X, cold-rolled stainless steel exoskeleton”, the Cybertruck was touted as the ultimate doomsday chariot – a virtually indestructible, obtuse-angled, electrically powered behemoth that can repel handgun fire and outrun a Porsche while towing a Porsche, with enough juice leftover to power your house in the event of a blackout. At the launch, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, said the truck could tackle any terrain on Earth and possibly also on Mars – and all for the low, low base price of $40,000. “Sometimes you get these late-civilization vibes [that the] apocalypse could come along at any moment,” Musk said. “Here at Tesla, we have the best in apocalypse technology.”
Six years on, Covid and Musk’s political alignment with Donald Trump have kicked up the apocalypse vibes, and Tesla’s good sense has only become more questionable as the Cybertruck has been reduced to an object of universal scorn and derision further raising a host of questions: is the Cybertruck even a decent doomsday chariot? Could it really survive end times? Will it survive Musk himself? “There’s no doubt it’s a heavy-duty vehicle that can take some punishment, even from small arms fire,” says Arthur Bradley, a prepping expert who oversees the building of satellite systems at Nasa’s Langley research center in Virginia. “But you can’t weigh the pros without also asking: ‘Are people shooting at me because they think I’m an idiot or a bad guy, or they don’t support my political views – or they don’t support me supporting this company?’”
