Six months ago Elon Musk revealed his futuristic Tesla Cybertruck to the world. It got off to a bumpy start during the unveiling and received some bad press after Musk hit a traffic pylon with it in December. Still, people are frothing the chance to get behind the wheel of this sci-fi monster. This includes former talk show host Jay Leno, whoa Tesla Cybertruck for a test drive recently.
The footage aired last week Jay Leno’s Garage and it involved Leno rolling up to SpaceX to take a Tesla Cybertruck test drive through a test tunnel that Elon Musk’s Boring Company has dug under LA. Oh and a Tesla Semi is also in shot sometimes. That’s a lot of Musk related product placement to shove into one segment, so kudos to CNBC on that one.
The segment begins with Leno completing a walk around of the truck with Musk as well as senior design executive Franz Von Holzhausen. They talk about preconceived notion of pickup truck culture and Musk takes the opportunity to stress test the ‘vault’ cover at the back of the truck by literally standing on it.
During the test drive Leno says that it drives like any other Tesla and Musk talks about how he wants the finished product to be better than the show car. The CEO says that it always “drove [him] crazy” when manufacturers would show off cool concept cars and then the actual consumer product was “way worse”.
“We won’t do show cars that aren’t real.”
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Musk also states that the proportions of the Cybertruck are too big and that they will be reduced by 5 per cent. “It’s gotta fit in a normal garage,” Musk said.
There is also talk of the armoured glass being used for the Cybertruck as well as 300 series stainless steel for the door panels that are bullet proof when it comes to handguns. Leno asks Musk why bullet proofing is so important to him.
“Because it’s bad ass and super cool” Musk said.
“When the apocalypse comes you’ll be glad its bulletproof.”
Shortly after the pair take a test drive through the Boring Company tunnel and pass it off as a spur of the moment thing. It’s all a bit ham fisted in its execution (as is the extreme name dropping of Musk’s various companies) but its still fun. Despite the pretence that the Cybertruck might not even fit, the drive goes just fine.
You can watch the entire segment here:
It seems like Leno has been on a real Tesla bent of late. Last month the comedian released an unseen episode of Jay Leno’s Garage from 2008 that features the first driveable first of the original Tesla Roadster.