Tank vs Tesla: The Underbody Wins

【PCauto】Recently, a protest organized by the political action group "Led By Donkeys" against Tesla CEO Elon Musk unexpectedly demonstrated the robust structural integrity and safety of the Tesla Model 3 in an unanticipated way.

During the event, a 98-year-old World War II veteran drove a Sherman tank weighing over 30 tons directly over a blue Tesla Model 3. The car's license plate prominently displayed the word "FASCISM," reflecting the group's discontent with Musk.

The scene video showed that when the heavy tank slowly advanced towards Model 3, the tracks cruelly cursh the vehicle, then the panoramic glass roof and windows of Model 3 instantly shatter, and the glass fragments fall like snowflakes.

However, to everyone's surprise, once the tank had passed, the damage to the Model 3 was far less severe than expected. Although the glass roof and windows were completely destroyed, the lower half of the car remained largely intact.

Upon closer inspection, it appeared that the Model 3's doors could still open normally, and the door handles popped out without issue. This was truly shocking, considering the vehicle had withstood the weight of a standard M4 Sherman tank—approximately 30 to 38 tons.

According to reports, judging by the vehicle's ground clearance before the protest, the high-voltage battery of this Model 3 had likely been removed. Even though, various indications suggest its battery pack probably remained largely undamaged during the crushing incident. On social media platform X, numerous users engaged in heated discussions about the event, with many commenting that in a real traffic accident scenario, occupants inside the Model 3 might well have survived such an "extreme encounter" with a tank. What began as a protest against Musk accidently became a powerful demonstration of Tesla's vehicle safety.

Tesla's safety performance has produced several similarly impressive cases in the past. Last year, a Model 3 was crushed by an overturned truck carrying oranges, yet the owner escaped with only minor scratches and soon purchased another Model 3 afterward.

All these incidents undoubtedly convey a clear message: Tesla has invested lots of effort in vehicle safety performance, including meticulous body structure design and material selection.

For the Model 3, its steel-aluminum hybrid cage structure combined with gigacasting technology enables its roof to withstand pressures up to 4 times the vehicle's weight (approximately 6 tons) - far exceeding conventional gasoline vehicle standards.

Furthermore, the door frames utilize 1000MPa hot-formed steel with exceptional compressive strength. Its unique "H-shaped anti-collision structure" and battery longitudinal beam design provide reliable protection for critical components under extreme pressure.

While this protest wasn't intended as a safety test for the Model 3, it unexpectedly served as an excellent advertisement for Tesla. The safety performance of Tesla vehicles were convincingly demonstrated through this unexpected event.