Please Give Us A Nuke So We Can Test Tesla's Semi Claim

By  Michael Ballaban

Nukes are the most unforgiving, most horrifying specter of death that humanity has ever devised. Virtually nothing can survive their vaporizing combination of heat, blast effects, and gamma-ray radiation. Nothing, that is, except the windshield of a Tesla Semi. We'd sure like to test that.

After the reveal of the Tesla Semi and the Tesla Roadster last night, there was a lot of indignant consternation. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence!" was the general tone of all the tweets.

Tesla certainly did have a lot of extraordinary claims. It could build a carbon fiber truck. It could build a carbon fiber truck that could go from zero to 60 mph in five seconds. It could build a carbon fiber truck that goes from 0 to 60 mph in five seconds and with a 500 mile range. It could build a carbon fiber truck that goes from 0 to 60 mph in five seconds and with a 500 mile range and it would all last for a million miles. It could build a carbon fiber truck that goes from 0 to 60 mph in five seconds and with a 500 mile range and it would all last for a million miles and it could get it into production by 2019.

It could build a carbon fiber truck that goes from 0 to 60 mph in five seconds and with a 500 mile range and it would all last for a million miles and it could get it into production by 2019, and, most importantly, it would have "Tesla Armor Glass," capable of withstanding a nuclear explosion.

And if you don't survive the atomic hellfire, well, you get your money back.

To prove it, they released this video of a tow hitch smacking into some glass:

Now, I know what you're thinking. "This whole blog is definitely not dumb at all. I don't hate myself for clicking on it, let alone reading it this far. Also, there is no way a tow hitch is remotely equivalent to a nuke. And who the hell is running around smacking tow hitches into windshields? Is that a common thing truckers routinely experience? Some lunatic going around, just launching tow hitches into their face? Did I eat breakfast?"

I don't have the answers to all those questions. I don't know if Tesla can really build this wonder-truck at all, let alone at some point in the next 25 months. I don't know if it'll go 500 miles. I don't know if it'll be that quick. I don't know if it'll drive itself.

Frankly, at this point, I don't care to test those things either. Those claims are mere specks, compared to the big one.

I want to test the big one.

I want to nuke the Tesla.

You're probably now thinking that this is stupid, that it's impossible, and that's why Tesla made the claim. Because no one will ever find out if it's true.

But I think you're wrong. For starters, the Tesla Semi will, in all likelihood, be at least somewhat built in Nevada. And for years, dropping nukes on Nevada was apparently all that Nevada was good for. So there's plenty of space to do it.

Getting our hands on a Tesla Semi might also be an issue, but they've given us cars before, and at least the two Tesla Semis that we saw last night exist. So that's not too hard, either.

The real issue will be getting a nuke. They don't just leave the things lying around, and (hopefully) the only people who have them are militaries and governments.

But, nuclear armed madmen of the world, I think you should give us one. It's a noble cause. It's a noble goal. In the apocalyptic world you're surely creating, we need to know if our trucks are A-bomb proof.

It's okay. We're auto journalists. You can Trust Us to handle the nuclear device safely. I even wrote about nukes, at least once.

Pretty sure I got this.

One W88 will do nicely.

Please.

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