Was Cringe Inducing Cybertruck Window Demo Failure a Marketing Stunt?
November 23rd, 2019Update: Now 200,000 Reservations
200k
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 25, 2019
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I watched it live and it was definitely cringe inducing. I physically winced and mumbled, “Ouch, that’s not a good look, Elon.”
Knowing that most mainstream media coverage of Tesla is negative, my thoughts turned to how these outlets are going to have a field day with the incident. Endlessly playing it. Looping it.
And the memes…
The next day, my son asked my mother in law if she had heard about the new Tesla truck and she said, “Yes, the one where they threw a rock through the window!”
It was a large ball bearing, not a rock. And it didn’t go through the windows, plural (two windows were damaged after two different throws). But, close enough.
Hmm…
My mother in law knew about the Tesla truck, at some level, which seemed astonishing to me. My mother in law has no interest in electric vehicles, technology, Tesla, anything like that at all, but she knew about that cracked Tesla truck windows incident…
My eyes narrowed and I started scratching my chin…
Was the whole mess some sort of information operation?
No way. It couldn’t be. A marketing stunt?
No.
Maybe?
Well, I just saw this while looking through Reddit: Elon Musks had the armored windows fail on purpose to trick the internet into making memes and therefore creating free advertising for the cyber truck.
Is this a crazy theory?
Look at the reservations after less than two days:
“With no advertising & no paid endorsement”
But virtually all media running headlines about the failed demo.
One example, Reuters: Shattered Glass: Futuristic Design Questioned After Tesla Cybertruck Launch.
Did this lead more people to look at the truck who would have otherwise not looked at it? Despite the window demo mess, did some of those people pull out their wallets?
Sure, it’s only $100 to get in the queue, but what I’m trying to understand is, if the demo was so disastrous, why did 146,000 people pay $100 to express interest in purchasing roughly $8 billion worth of those trucks?
In less than two days.
For the lulz?
Or, did the Cybertruck’s shit-your-pants specs trump the deluge negative press everywhere?
Very intriguing.
It took Musk to build what I’ve been wanting for years: an off-road sports-car. Air the suspension up to 16″ ground clearance, plus short overhangs, and you have a real off road vehicle; drop the suspension all the way down and you have sports-car performance. Also, it only took 5 decades, but leave it to Musk to bring back the front bench seat so you can carry 6 people in it (the whole dam fam). The tailgate making into a ramp is really nice, as well as the roll up bed cover, plus the truck does look pretty bad-ass.
It’s a game changer. No doubt about it.