Cybertruck Security Team
All of us in the Tesla community have been enjoying several months of amazing Cybertruck content - be it videos of sightings in the wild, or leaked photos of prototypes in pre-production.
In fact, there was so much of this information out there, that it was easy to think the Tesla was fine with all these leaks - but as it turns out, that’s not the case.
This is the new Tesla security escort for the Cybertruck. These two trucks were spotted by a drone operator in Austin, Texas as they got charged up at the company facility. The Model Y-driving security team is just the most visible of the new security measures intended to keep employees and contractors from sneaking images of the vehicle and leaking them to the public.
On August 18th a company memo was distributed to employees stating that anyone found taking photos or videos on-site would be immediately escorted off site by security and will be investigated by the company’s HR department.
And looking at the last couple months of leaks, we have to wonder what took them so long to do this.
Setting aside opportunistic photographers and drone operators - who Tesla could not hope to stop - there have been so many leaks coming from inside company facilities, that it almost seemed like a deliberate tactic by Tesla to drum up hype organically before the big delivery event.
The most recent example from August 4th showed leaked video from the GigaTexas production floor - but that was only the most blatant. We’ve had blurry images of Cybertrucks on the testing track, of calibration instruments being tested, the muddy tires from an all-terrain test, frames and casts from inside the factory - we even saw up close pictures of a Cybertruck’s suspension from a vehicle that was simply left by the side of the road last week.
You can see why Tesla had to do something.
It’s not clear just how tight this security is going to be with non-employees, but it definitely seems like the point is to close off a lot of these vectors to the general public - especially since it seems things are escalating as the delivery event date gets closer.
It seems a little rude to the new security team to discuss leaked photos immediately after we sympathised with them - but this stuff is too interesting to pass up - especially if these might be the last we’ll be seeing for a bit.
We happened to get two very different shots of Cybertrucks being moved around.
The first are a couple of units that have quite obviously been prepped for use in crash testing. The vehicles were spotted on a flatbed trailer heading north on the I-55 in Missouri - which is the route this hauler would have to take in order to bring the vehicles to a crash testing facility in Ohio which is run by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
We know that the Cybertruck is in the process of getting certified in several countries - the US included - so it seems these vehicles are destined to be investigated and measured by the NHTSA before being declared safe for the road.
But these trucks found in Hayward, California have apparently already been crashed. Tesla maintains their own crash test facility in their Fremont facility, along with other independent crash-test labs in the area, so that’s likely where these came from.
This is also the first time anyone has caught so much as a glimpse of a crash-tested Cybertruck. We can’t see much under those tarps, but it looks like they’ve held up pretty well.
But speaking of Fremont, a bunch of Cybertrucks were spotted being moved there on August 17th, which is odd. Nine Cybertrucks is a little too many for them all to be used in crash testing - and these models look too polished for use as crash testers.
There hasn’t been any permits for a large event at the facility, either - like they’ve needed to have in the past. Besides, the Delivery Event will almost certainly take place at GigaTexas, where the trucks are made - so what’s going on at Fremont?
Some people have suggested that these trucks are destined for showrooms in the California Tesla locations - which is a pretty good thought.
More importantly, all of these events paint a pretty clear picture - The increased security, the movement of showroom-quality models, and the crash testing all tell us that Tesla is getting quite close to having a date for their Delivery Event - and they don’t want it spoiled.
Fair enough Tesla - but we’re still going to try and get shots of the Cybertruck until then!