Some could name Franz von Holzhausen’s unintentional destruction of a Tesla Cybertruck window a blunder; von Holzhausen would like to name it a “nice meme” as an alternative.
Through the 2019 reveal presentation of the Tesla Cybertruck, von Holzhausen, the corporate’s chief designer, threw metal balls on the automobile, meaning to reveal the home windows CEO Elon Musk mentioned have been manufactured from “armor glass” have been certainly additional powerful. The home windows, nevertheless, unexpectedly shattered, leaving Musk to ship the remainder of his presentation of the brand new truck whereas standing in entrance of the broken automobile. Tesla’s inventory fell greater than 5% the following day.
Whereas the incident appeared like an omen, indicative of the Cybertruck being poised to fail, the botched demonstration really opened up a possibility to provide the brand new mannequin a highlight, van Holzhausen mentioned in an interview with Tesla Membership Austria printed on Saturday.
“It was simply a type of Murphy’s Regulation type of issues the place one thing about occurs, nevertheless it turned out to be a terrific meme,” von Holzhausen mentioned, referring to the phenomenon of when one thing can go mistaken, it normally will. “And I believe in an odd kind of approach—we don’t do advertising and marketing—nevertheless it changed into a terrific advertising and marketing second.”
“It was not an anticipated second, however in that second, you must roll with it,” he added.
Following the reveal of the automobile, Musk posted a video on X of van Holzhausen throwing a metal ball on the mannequin Cybertruck earlier than its launch, with its home windows withstanding the power of the throw with no seen harm. The video was considered greater than 6 million occasions inside three days of its posting.
“Guess we’ve some enhancements to make earlier than manufacturing haha,” Musk wrote.
Days later, Musk touted the success of the Cybertruck launch, saying Tesla had obtained greater than 200,000 orders for the automobile. Whereas Tesla doesn’t escape Cybertruck numbers when it studies earnings, as an alternative grouping them with the Mannequin S and X, the corporate recalled almost the entire Cybertrucks it had on the street earlier this yr resulting from a difficulty the place an exterior panel might grow to be indifferent, and that solely tallied round 46,000 autos.
Larger issues than damaged home windows
Regardless of Musk’s preorder optimism, Cybertruck’s inauspicious launch was an indication of issues to come back for the automobile. Although Musk initially bragged the truck would retail at solely $39,900 when it was anticipated to hit the market in late 2021, the Cybertruck confronted years of delays, debuting in November 2023 with a price ticket of $60,990.
Tesla tried to reclaim the shattered glass mishap with a $45 T-shirt bought on its web site, however the model was growing an in any other case soured status on different components of the web, significantly as issues mounted over the safety of the Cybertrucks, which noticed quite a few remembers on account of a malfunctioning tire strain monitoring system, amongst different points—together with the aforementioned recall of all 46,100 Cybertrucks ever delivered again in March.
To pile onto its troubles, a number of deaths have occurred following Cybertruck crashes. One wrongful demise lawsuit alleged the truck had faulty security mechanisms after a person in Houston died in a crashed Cybertruck that burst into flames.
Security issues and remembers related to the Cybertruck have coincided with faltering gross sales for the truck. The automobile’s demand remained regular final yr, however Cybertrucks are actually piling up in tons as dealerships navigate stockpiles of the undesirable autos. Final quarter, Cox Automotive reported Cybertruck gross sales plummeted 51% year-over-year to simply 4,300 autos, eclipsed by the Ford F-150 Lightning and GMC Hummer EV truck as legacy manufacturers acquire market momentum.
“Suffice it to say, the hyper-competitive EV market is offering the troubled automaker no reduction,” Cox Automotive mentioned in its report.
Tesla didn’t reply to Fortune’s request for remark.
