.50 Caliber Bullets Tear Right Through the Cybertruck in Test

"I can see through the truck from here."

This Time Baby

For a vehicle designed to survive the apocalypse and eventually head to Mars, Tesla's Cybertruck seems far less capable than its designers initially suggested.

For one, it's vulnerable to rain. It also has a tendency to have its wheels ripped off, and has repeatedly gotten ensnared by mild hazards like a sandy beach.

Even Tesla CEO Elon Musk's claim that the vehicle's thick, stainless steel exoskeleton is bulletproof comes with some notable caveats. As YouTuber Zack Nelson from his channel JerryRigEverything found out in a recent video, rounds of a variety of sizes have no trouble at all penetrating the steel.

Whether any of that even matters in the first place is another debate entirely — after all, who in their right mind needs their pickup to be bulletproof? Besides, attackers could simply target the vehicle's windows instead, which are far more vulnerable.

 

Rocking a Bullet

To be fair, a .50-caliber gun, the biggest round tested out by Nelson in his video, is a ludicrous uncommon weapon — and a lot more powerful than the Tommy gun Musk unloaded on a Cybertruck late last year.

But even smaller rounds like the .17 Hornady Mangum Rimfire round, which travels at over 2,000 feet per second — roughly twice the velocity of a handgun round — made it past the stainless steel, Nelson found. An AR round that travels at over 3,000 feet per second also pierced both the stainless steel and the Cybertruck's interior door panel.

Unsurprisingly, the much larger .50 caliber round had zero issues either.

"I can see through the truck from here," Nelson said in his video before examining the half-inch hole in the truck's door. "That's wild."

"Still, slowing down a bullet is still infinitely better than letting it pass through both sides of the vehicle," he concluded.

So there we have it. The Cybertruck is vaguely resistant to handguns, but big guns will still tear it apart.

More on the Cybertruck: Tesla's Official Cybertruck Camping Attachment Looks Absolutely Laughable