The US Air Force wants to buy Cybertrucks for target practice because they may start showing up on the battlefield
It's looking to buy two of them to use for munitions testing as they will "likely" soon start appearing on the battlefield, per documents posted on a US Government contracting website on Wednesday.
The pickups are part of a larger order of 33 vehicles for "live missile fire testing" at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The contract stipulates that the Cybertrucks need only be towable, not functional, and their batteries must be removed. The procurement documents were first reported by the defense blog The War Zone.
In a separate document justifying why the Tesla vehicles were specifically required, the contracting officer said that US adversaries were "likely" to begin using the stainless steel-clad trucks on the battlefield due to their durability.
"In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact," the document says.
The Air Force and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, said the pickup was built to be "apocalypse proof" when it launched in 2023.
Last year, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov showed off a modified Cybertruck decked out with a machine gun that he said would be sent to the front lines in Ukraine.
Kadyrov later accused Tesla of remotely disabling the would-be war machine, calling Musk "not manly."
Experts previously told Business Insider the Cybertruck would be "useless" on the battlefield. The electric pickup has also faced eight recalls since its launch for issues including parts falling off and the accelerator pedal getting stuck.
Musk predicted Tesla would eventually sell over 250,000 a year in 2023, but the automaker has sold only 10,700 so far this year, per auto industry consultancy Cox Automotive.
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