Cybertrucks armed with extra armor and kitted out with machine guns are here.
Ramzan Kadyrov, the brutal dictator of Chechnya and prominent Putin ally, has invited Elon Musk to visit him in Grozny. Kadyrov wrote the invitation in a Telegram post where he praised the Cybertruck below a video of him driving the stainless steel monstrosity around Chechen city streets.
Kadyrov smiled like a child while driving the Cybertruck. “We received a Tesla Cybertruck from the respected Elon Musk,” the post said. “I was pleased to test the new technology and was personally convinced that it is called the ‘Cyberbeast’. A real invulnerable and fast animal.”
The bed of the Cybertruck was open and someone had mounted a Russian PK machine gun in the bed. Kadyrov said the car was a dream to drive and that they may soon send it to his soldiers. “I express my sincere gratitude to Elon Musk! He is, of course, the strongest genius of our time…a great man!” He said on Telegram.
Kadyrov stood in the back of the truck behind the machine gun, draped in a belt of bullets, grinning like a fool. The barrel of the machine gun looked like it would only just barely fire over the arched roof of the car. In the post, Kadyrov extended his invitation. “I don’t think the Russian Foreign Ministry would mind such a trip,” he said. “And, of course, we’re waiting for your new developments that will help us finish our special military operation,” a reference to the “official” name for Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Musk has long been a critic of the West’s role in the war. He’s also made a lot of money from it. SpaceX is a major military contractor and its Starlink terminals are instrumental to the war. Kyiv uses more than 42,000 of Musk’s Starlink terminals to keep communications open and drones in the air and has said Russian forces use them too.
It’s not clear where Kadyrov got the Cybertruck and there’s no evidence that Musk sent it to him directly, despite what the dictator implied in his Telegram post. Adding the PK was, presumably, an after-market modification.
Those kinds of modifications are increasingly popular for Cybertrucks. Cops love Cybertrucks and there’s a race between various departments across the country to see who will deploy one first. But making a Cybertruck safe for military operations requires some modification. Claims about their bulletproof nature are exaggerated.
You don’t need to be a client state of Russia or a U.S. police department to get a Cybertruck kitted out for war. A company called Archimedes Defense is advertising just such a service. Called STING, the company is promising the service will upgrade Cybertrucks with “extensive modifications to suit the most demanding applications.”
Right now, the up-armored Cybertrucks are more a dream than a reality. The site has several mock-ups of Cybertrucks sporting rugged wheels and extra armor plating. “STING™ is currently in active development with industry-leading EV modification and propulsion system partners,” its website says. “On-road & civilian operation may be subject to regulatory restrictions in your region.”
A representative for Archimedes Defense told Gizmodo that it had partnered with Unplugged Performance, one of the companies working on cop-oriented Cybertrucks. The company said it couldn’t share information about what it costs to up-armor a Cybertruck. “We expect many orders to be highly customized, so price will vary depending on options selected by customers,” a spokesperson told us.
The company wants to sell these things to government and defense customers. “These include police SWAT roles replacing extremely fuel inefficient legacy military vehicles currently being used by many departments (such as donated MRAPs), border patrol tactical and off-road use, VIP protection, and various military roles,” it said.
But civilians can buy them too. “The primary civilian market is as a personal or corporate armored car, which are typically used for high value goods and VIP transport. Unlike fuel hungry legacy armored cars, STING will be quiet, efficient, and capable of all-terrain transport,” the company said.
According to Archimedes Defense, an unarmored variant of Cybertruck called the STING Baja could be used “as a mobile generator and charging station for off-grid use in remote areas.
The unarmored STING Baja variant will primarily be used by civilian and government customers. This includes applications like safaris, forest service, and firefighting, where Baja can also support charging other EVs.”
Update 8/19/24 at 2:00 p.m.: This story was updated to include details from Archimedes Defense.
