The US Air Force is planning to buy two Cybertrucks with the sole intention of blowing them up.
The government is procuring two of the Tesla vehicles along with 31 other cars and trucks ‘to be used as targets for live missile fire testing’.
While the procurement list does have some specifications for the other vehicles, such as their colour and whether they have a sun roof, only the Cybertrucks and Mazda Bongo trucks are specifically asked for.
In its research the US Air Force suggested Cybertrucks didn’t ‘receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact’, citing its stainless steel exoskeleton and ’48V electrical architecture’.
In its justification for procuring the vehicles, published on a government website, the Air Force said: ‘In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks.
‘Testing needs to mirror real world situation. The intent of the training is to prep the units for operations by simulating scenarios as closely as possible to the real world situations.’
In its specification, the US Air Force is asking for six sedans with full panoramic glass roofs (six white, six black, and six blue or green in colour), three Bongo trucks with a two-passenger cab, five pickup trucks without sunroofs, five SUVs without sunroofs, and two Cybertrucks.
It asks for whoever wins the contract to prepare the contracts for testing by draining all fluids and removing their batteries – and while the vehicle bodies and all glass and mirrors should be intact, the vehicles don’t need to run, their wheels just need to roll.
This analysis of the Cybertruck could well be a boost to the ego Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of Tesla, who has been touting the Cybertruck’s toughness since the divisive vehicle’s prototype was first unveiled to the public in 2019.
According to the website it has an ‘ultra-hard’ stainless steel exoskeleton to ‘reduce dents, damage and long-term corrosion’, with glass that can ‘resist the impact of a baseball at 70mph’.
Since that first display, toughness has been one of the main selling points of the truck, with demonstrations showing the vehicle stand up to sledgehammer hits and even bullets with apparently less damage than other cars would suffer.
Tesla began production of Cybertrucks in 2023, and they’ve started to appear on roads in the US, Canada and Mexico since then.
They’re currently not legal to drive in the UK or EU over safety concerns, and in January one of the trucks was seized by police outside a Morrison’s Daily in Bury, Greater Manchester.
Despite the US Air Force’s fears it seems the Cybertruck’s popularity has been dropping in recent months.
Deliveries dropped from almost 13,000 in the last quarter of 2024 to just over 6,400 in the first quarter of 2025, Forbes reports, leading to discounts on the Tesla website and a drop in the trade-in value.
The company has also been forced to recall Cybertrucks seven times since launch, for problems relating to its tyre pressure monitoring system and accelerator pedals which would stick and ’cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally’.
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