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During the 2019 unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck, The company’s chief designer, Franz von Holzhausen, threw in steel balls to show the truck’s strength, but instead broke two windows. In an interview, von Holzhausen said the crash became a “great marketing moment”. Tesla began selling T-shirts alluding to the crash, and CEO Elon Musk claimed the company saw 200,000 orders for the Cybertruck in the days following its launch.
Some might call Franz von Holzhausen’s accidental destruction of the Tesla Cybertruck window a mistake. Von Holzhausen prefers to call it “the great meme.”
During the 2019 unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck, the company’s chief designer von Holzhausen threw steel balls into the vehicle in an attempt to show Windows CEO Elon Musk that it was made of “armored glass.” The windows, however, unexpectedly shattered, leaving Musk standing in front of the damaged car to deliver the rest of the presentation of the new truck. Tesla’s stock fell more than 5% the next day.
The incident seemed like an omen, a sign that the Cybertruck was set to fail, but the crooked performance actually opened up an opportunity to spotlight the new model, von Holzhausen said in an interview with Tesla Club Austria published earlier this year.
“It was just one of those Murphy’s Law kind of things where something bad happens, but it became a great meme,” von Holzhausen said, referring to the fact that when something goes wrong, it usually will. “And I think in a weird way — we’re not marketing — but it turned into a great marketing moment.”
He added, “It wasn’t the expected moment, but in that moment you have to roll with it.”
After the vehicle’s reveal, Musk posted a video of von Holzhausen’s X throwing a steel ball at a model Cybertruck, its windows withstanding the force of the throw with no visible damage. The video has been viewed more than 600,000 times within three days of its posting.
“Haha guess we have some improvements before production,” Musk wrote.
A few days later, Musk touted the success of the Cybertruck launch as Tesla received more than 200,000 orders for the vehicle. Tesla doesn’t break out Cybertruck numbers when it reports earnings, instead grouping them together with the Model S and X. The company earlier this year recalled nearly all Cybertrucks on the road because the exterior panel could detach, and that numbered just 46,000 vehicles.
