Test Shows Tesla Cybertruck Glass Seems Weak Versus VW Golf Glass

Watch the side window on a Volkswagen Golf hold up to a large steel ball thrown at it several times and repeated blows from a hammer. It only breaks when a sledgehammer strikes it.

Admittedly, this is not a video we thought we'd stumble across. Mainly because we didn't expect to see video surface of a guy trying to purposely break the window of his own car. But when we hit play on the video, the results were indeed quite shocking. Not only does the VW Golf glass outperform that of the Tesla Cybertruck, but with just a bit of protective film added, the Golf glass becomes virtually indestructible.

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The findings presented in this video lead us to wonder why Tesla is going through the expensive process of developing specialty glass when it could rather simply just apply a protective film to the glass instead.

Gallery: VW Golf Glass

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As you'll see in the video above, a large and heavy steel ball is thrown at the side glass of the Golf several times. With each throw, more force and speed are present. When the glass won't break, the creator of the video switches to a rather large hammer. Repeated strikes with increasing intensity still won't break the glass, so out comes the big sledgehammer. This is when the glass meets its match and shatters.

Then, the video creator adds protective films to the glass and installs it in the Golf. At this point, the glass becomes virtually unbreakable. It's so strong that when struck by the sledgehammer, the guy literally gets knocked backward and nearly takes a tumble.

It's surely worth pointing out that in the video you can see the door and glass flex to absorb the impacted. Additionally, the door seals absorb the shock and the whole car itself moves a bit when struck hard. All of this takes some of the force off of the glass and spreads it to a large area.

The glass of the Cybertruck reportedly failed due to the sledgehammer (actually a dead-blow hammer, likely to reduce rebound and limit the chance of injury) impacted the body of the truck earlier in the presentation. This weakened or fractured the edge of the glass and supposedly led to its failure. 

Check out the video of the Cybertruck glass breaking below and let us know in comments your thoughts both on the durability of standard glass and Tesla's decision to develop its own new glass specifically for the truck.