Was the glass break intentional? (EDIT: No it wasn't)

[ducktales]

Moderator note: Thread title edited to add a fact.

Tesla prides itself in not needing to resort to conventional advertising to get the word out about their products. The glass demo, while not great news, is still news that many news outlets will create buzz about. I doubt that Franz had that much adrenaline going through his system.

*edit: had the steel ball gone through the window, it'd be a different story, and cause a safety concern. but it didn't.

 

[Rockster]

There's no way that was intentional. Musk was too affected by it for it to have been intentional. He was clearly bothered by it. He kept looking over his shoulder at it, disbelievingly, and his presentation was even more stuttered and awkward than his usual.

 

[Bellch]

THERE WAS ONE MENTION I HEARD that stated that they had thrown that steel ball 50 times before the showing event. Anyone confirm that?

 

[MichaelP90DL]

Unfortunate but they'll get it fixed.

 

[Puddles]

"No publicity is bad publicity"

 

[OrbiterTI4]

Agreed, not intentional.

"No publicity is bad publicity"

Except when it comes to the stock price.

 

[Ostrichsak]

No way in hell was this black eye for Tesla intentional. This was painful and rather than having to report on the specs because they had nothing else to print, the shorts and naysayers can now say how god awful ugly it is and that Tesla proved how inept they were by demonstrating an all new apocalypse-proof glass that shatters much in the same way most other windows would have. There's no way this overall epic fail was intentional and current stock prices back that up.

THERE WAS ONE MENTION I HEARD that stated that they had thrown that steel ball 50 times before the showing event. Anyone confirm that?

That's BS. So you mean to tell me that threw the ball at the windows 50 times (100 in total) and then during the reveal they actually broke not only one but BOTH on the 51st time they hit them. That's just not mathematically within the realm of possibility.

 

[corduroy]

I think I heard the 50 times practice on some video also. It might not have been 50 time, but there is no way they hadn't tested that over and over and were confident in the outcome. Maybe some sort of fatigue occurred from repeated testing?

But *sugar* happens in live demos. I wish they would have just recorded it and played it on the giant screen.

 

[RedNeB]

Definitely not intentional. I think they probably had different glass on the actual truck that wasn't completely the same shatter-proof material they used in the demos. It looks like Franz might have known the glass wasn't the same since he kind of looked at Elon funny when he told him to throw the ball at the actual truck. I'm thinking that part was all ad libbed by Elon and no one told Elon the actual truck wasn't the same glass. That's why he asked him to throw it again at the back window because he thought the first time must have been an anomoly.

 

[willow_hiller]

shatters much in the same way most other windows would have

Most automotive side windows are tempered glass, which shatters in a very different way.

Here's an example:

 

[Togg]

I think it was a brilliant marketing tactic, to get publicity! This clearly demonstrates that this is a man toy. We're not interested in a pretty little sports car here, my gal already has a M3. I want a mean, tough truck. And I think throwing a steel ball at the window was just the sort of thing that boys would do. Who cares if they broke the window.

I've also seen the stuff on gorilla glass. And you should check the stuff out too.

 

[seattlite2004]

Here is the marquee moment for everyone to enjoy:

 

[KOL2000]

I was there last night and I ASKED one of the Tesla folks after the event when it was late, off the record in a whisper - was the glass supposed to break? NO was the answer - that was totally unexpected and probably off script. Elon looked totally thrown off after that and did not look excited to present the rest of the show.

 

[user212_nr]

So the reason for it breaking is probably the weather. Fremont is fairly north, and I'm not sure if they were outside and if heated, but no doubt they tried it during the daylight hours. The glass cooled by 8pm to about 20 degrees off the day's high, then was brought into the warmed arena from outside.

Definitely a case of "laboratory conditions" never fitting the real-world use.

 

[willow_hiller]

Some guy on Reddit spoke to an engineer behind the scenes: I held "the ball" and talked to Senior Reliability Engineer for 30 minutes about the broken glass incident. : teslamotors

It was not intentional.

"I talked to their chief reliability engineer at event and held the 1 kg steel ball Franz threw. He said they threw it 5 times the night before with no issue, and suspected microfractures were root cause. Interestingly, they had spare windows on standby and fixed it within 45 minutes. But they chose not to use the fresh windows during event. They also recommended to Elon that he should NOT try it, and instead just stick with the ball drop gag."

 

[pbfoot]

So the reason for it breaking is probably the weather. Fremont is fairly north, and I'm not sure if they were outside and if heated, but no doubt they tried it during the daylight hours. The glass cooled by 8pm to about 20 degrees off the day's high, then was brought into the warmed arena from outside.

Definitely a case of "laboratory conditions" never fitting the real-world use.

Event was at the design studio in LA, and it wasn’t that cold here yesterday.

 

[Remonster]

No way in hell was this black eye for Tesla intentional. This was painful and rather than having to report on the specs because they had nothing else to print, the shorts and naysayers can now say how god awful ugly it is and that Tesla proved how inept they were by demonstrating an all new apocalypse-proof glass that shatters much in the same way most other windows would have. There's no way this overall epic fail was intentional and current stock prices back that up.



That's BS. So you mean to tell me that threw the ball at the windows 50 times (100 in total) and then during the reveal they actually broke not only one but BOTH on the 51st time they hit them. That's just not mathematically within the realm of possibility.

+1
No way it was intentional and as a fan, it was painful to watch. For whatever reason it failed...weather, microfractures, not actually toughglass...it should not have been demoed without confirming it could be done with a ball of larger size first. Safety factor.

It reminded me of Samsung software gimmicks. The sledgehammer swing was clearly babied compared to the F-150 door. Don't demo it if you can't showcase it truly.

The Google Soli demo's were less cringy, even though we all know it was under completely controlled conditions. At least it didn't break during the presentation.

 

[Az_Rael]

Pre-reveal test:

Elon Musk on Twitter

Watching this video, I don’t think the glass was fully installed and could flex after the hit.

 

[destructure00]

Pre-reveal test:

Elon Musk on Twitter

View attachment 480307


Watching this video, I don’t think the glass was fully installed and could flex after the hit.

Looks like the door was partially open or not latched, you can see the glass flex when the ball hits it, and the window drops right after like the door was bumped open.

 

[Sunshine State]

So the reason for it breaking is probably the weather. Fremont is fairly north, and I'm not sure if they were outside and if heated, but no doubt they tried it during the daylight hours. The glass cooled by 8pm to about 20 degrees off the day's high, then was brought into the warmed arena from outside.

Definitely a case of "laboratory conditions" never fitting the real-world use.

I hope you don’t have to only use the truck inside. At least if you do nobody will have to see it.