Tesla patents ‘unbreakable’ Armour Glass

Tesla has filed a patent for ‘unbreakable’ glass, which it may offer on all its vehicles after its famous gaffe at the 2019 Cybertruck reveal.

The unveiling of the Tesla Cybertruck – an electric pick-up with 3mm thick stainless-steel bulletproof panels – also introduced ‘Tesla Armour Glass’.

During the live-streamed Cybertruck reveal, the resilience of Amour Glass was demonstrated with a metal ball dropped on it from increasing heights – withstanding the multiple impacts after the same steel ball shattered what Tesla CEO Elon Musk called ‘regular car glass’.

Yet the demonstration didn’t go as planned when the metal ball was thrown directly at the electric pick-up’s windows – smashing them both.

“There’s a little room for improvement,” Musk joked while standing in front of the Cybertuck’s shattered side windows.

That improvement may have arrived with the filing of a patent for "a multilayer glass stack for a vehicle windshield with improved durability," as uncovered by CarBuzz.

While gains have been made on the production Cybertruck’s window strength since 2019 – the company even making light of the issue by selling window stickers to make its glass appear broken – significant work has stepped up the quest for potentially bulletproof glass.

The patent describes a laminated windscreen, common in new vehicles, which essentially sees three layers – an outer, inner, and top layer – in a sandwich designed to increase strength and resist damage.

While typical car windscreens have an outer layer around 2.5 mm thick, Tesla’s patent describes its outer layer as between 2mm and 5mm.

That could make the glass bulletproof, in line with the Cybertruck’s 301 stainless steel panels – which were also shot with a crossbow by podcast host Joe Rogan after a bet with Musk.

Speaking to US magazine Motor Trend after the Cybertruck was launched in November 2023, Iain Harrison, editor-in-chief of Recoil said: “Conventional auto glass is one of the hardest media to consistently defeat with handgun projectiles.

“I've shot windshields with 9mm hollow points, which barely made it through to the other side, so simply adding another layer to the sandwich would probably stop them.

Tesla’s drawings for the patent show the glass on a Model Y SUV, suggesting it may be offered beyond the Cybertruck.

The patent also states Armor Glass is made of borosilicate glass, known for its ability to maintain its shape in extreme temperatures, instead of the soda-lime glass more commonly used in windscreens.

However, the patented Armour Glass raises questions about the ability of occupants to easily and quickly escape a vehicle after a car accident – with doors often crushed to the point of being unable to be opened.

Apple was the first to introduce strengthened scratch-resistant glass on its iPhone – since used by Samsung and other smartphone makers – known initially as ‘Gorilla Glass’ before being renamed ‘Gorilla Amour’.

Manufactured by US company Corning, Apple has reportedly invested more than $US500 million ($AU761 million) on the latest version of the technology which, like a car windscreen, needs to offer clear vision as well as strength.