When the Tesla Cybertruck came out, it drew criticism from pretty much every angle, one of which was the fact that it had not been crash tested by an independent entity. Though Tesla said the vehicle was safe, even showing the world some crash test footage — and the government has requirements in place that ensure that an egregiously unsafe vehicle doesn’t hit our streets — people wanted to see the cold, hard data from a third party like the U.S. government or IIHS. We’ve already seen the Cybertruck get five stars by the government; now IIHS data is coming.
The high profile nature of the Cybertruck led the world to realize that not every car on American streets gets crash tested, with many publications digging into the “why” so as to enlighten curious readers. Here’s Consumer Reports‘…report:
Most of the vehicles without ratings are low-volume models, sports cars, luxury vehicles, or large vans. The expense is too great for NHTSA and the IIHS to test all vehicles, so choices are made based on car sales volume and testing budgets. Some untested models are new or redesigned and merely waiting in line to be evaluated. About 97 percent of all new vehicles sold are crash-test rated by one or both of the independent organizations.
[…]
To be certified for sale, every new model sold in the U.S. must be crash-tested internally to ensure minimum federal safety standards are met. But a publicly available rating isn’t required.
[…]
For example, neither NHTSA nor the IIHS have plans to test the Cybertruck. “While it has certainly created a lot of buzz, it’s unlikely we would invest resources to test it unless it were selling in numbers comparable with other popular large pickups,” IIHS spokesperson Joe Young says.
By the way, I didn’t believe that last bit for a second. There was absolutely, positively no way in hell IIHS was going to forego crash testing the Cybertruck. IIHS is an organization that loves publicity; they have a YouTube channel with over 300,000 followers, an Instagram with nearly 130,000, a media arm that is extremely responsive (and honestly, excellent), and they churn out press releases and take interviews like an organization that wants to stay at the forefront of your mind.
Also, remember this amazing publicity stunt?
I’ve been to IIHS a number of times, as I attended college up the street at UVA. They’re a bunch of uber-nerds, but the cool kind. They also love being in front of cameras, so the idea that a high-profile vehicle — especially one whose lack of crash tests the entire world was talking about — was going to avoid entering their Vehicle Research Center in Ruckersville was a bit silly. So I shot an email off to them back in December and heard this back: “We don’t have any current plans to test it. We only plan out a few months in advance, however, so that can always change.”
I knew it would change, and indeed it did. The Tesla Cybertruck truck crash test results are now imminent! IIHS provided a teaser seven weeks ago on its Instagram:
View this post on Instagram
And yesterday, “EV/space/tech news” persona and Twitter investor Sawyer Merritt tweeted this video showing IIHS’s Moderate Overlap frontal crash test (40% of the front hits rigid barrier at 40 mph — much harder than the full-overlap 35 mph frontal and other government crash tests, which have stagnated):
We don’t have any results yet, but from where I sit, things look good. Of course, it’s hard to tell without seeing inside the cabin if there was any intrusion, and more importantly, we’d need to see the forces imparted on the dummies (or, better yet, just let IIHS interpret all that for us, which they will). But outwardly, it sure looks like at least the “structure and safety cage” element of the Moderate Overlap crash test should get good marks.
When the Cybertruck came out, many seemed concerned that it would be so stiff it would lack a crumple zone, and the impulse from the crash would be bad for the occupants; I’m not sure that that appears to be a huge issue based on what I’m seeing above, though the test results will tell us what we need to know, plus it will be cool to see what other tests IIHS puts the truck through. I’d really like to see the Cybertruck put through the gauntlet, specifically the 25%-frontal Small Overlap Rigid Barrier Test (SORB), because that’s the big-dog of the crash-test world.
UPDATE
IIHS just released this statement:
IIHS tested the Cybertruck last month in our updated moderate overlap crash test as well as several of our nondestructive crash avoidance tests. It’s part of a test group that involves other EVs like the F-150 Lightning and Volkswagen ID. Buzz. Tests are still underway for the ID. Buzz, and we plan to release everything together, likely in late August or early September.
The day of the Cybertruck test we also happened to be hosting about 25 science curriculum supervisors as part of promoting our Crash Science in the Classroom educational website. This event was hosted in collaboration with a company called PocketLab that makes sensors and other classroom tools. PocketLab used the video yesterday as part of a separate virtual event for science teachers to recap the June event. I hadn’t realized the link would be publicly available, so thanks for pointing that out. I’ve asked them to remove it for now since we don’t yet have a rating available, and we would always prefer viewers to have the full story all at once.
Top graphic image via The PocketLab/YouTube
UPDATE:
Video has been deleted, but here it is on Twitter. And, at least for now, here’s one on YouTube from YouTube channel Gear Musk:
They didn’t delete the video, just made it private. Still annoying, but at least there’s a chance it’ll be turned back to public eventually. I’m sure it had a very exciting comment section if they didn’t have the forethought to turn that off.
“When the Tesla Cybertruck came out, it drew criticism from pretty much every angle…”
I don’t read a lot about CT stuff, but with an opening pun like that, I’m going to read the whole thing. Maybe the one improvement would be to change “from” to “to”.
It actually looks better after the crash.
Maybe change the watch part of the headline until video becomes public again
I understand there’s a lot of energy going a lot of places during these crash tests, the the sides of that thing were shaking like a Chihuahua trying to shit a golf ball.
Good! Now do that to the rest of them.
Seeing those videos made me wonder if there would be any benefit to airbags behind the driver and passengers’ heads, maybe deploying a wee bit after the front airbags, to avoid whiplash.
I’m sure that has been tested and proved to be suboptimal, so I’m curious why, as a non engineer whose last physics class was a long time ago.
That’s nice.
Now lets see if it can beat a 10 yo, $23k MSRP Altima in crash safety:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/11/19/washington-woman-survives-car-flattened-semi/8689628002/
So that’s what big altima energy comes from!
Holy cripes! :-O
I wonder what percentage of this incident’s amazingness is due to the accident survivability designed into modern cars vs. what percentage to sheer, miraculous luck.
The fact that she survived w/o serious injury is incredible. It makes me think I probably ought to be driving a more modern car even though most of my driving is local and only at around-town speeds.
“I wonder what percentage of this incident’s amazingness is due to the accident survivability designed into modern cars vs. what percentage to sheer, miraculous luck”
Well had Kitty/Karen been driving a MG she’d in all likelihood been killed outright. Had she been driving a white Chrysler Le Baron her chances of survival would have been somewhat better but still most likely to have been very badly injured, perhaps surviving only a short time. Her luck went up greatly by driving a more modern car with better accident survivability designed in.
That said good luck to Kia in their attempt to crush Nissan:
https://www.theautopian.com/kias-next-step-is-to-crush-nissan-in-the-united-states/
I was listening to a story about how Canadians view Americans and how that’s shifting lately and had this UGLY thought: Americans look to Canadians as Cybertruck drivers look to the rest of us.
Canadians don’t look at Americans anymore.
Because they’d rather stay home or go to Mexico instead
(writing this from Puerto Vallarta)
Remember momma always said don’t worry about what other people think, they probably just jealous? Listen to your momma
That’s not working for the US businesses which depend on foreign tourism. ????
Not a Trump fan, but very much enjoying a mostly Canuck-free summer in Montana! Come back in the off-season (or 2029!).
My mum says she’s probably never going to go to the US again.
Why wasn’t the Malibu vs Bel Air video included in the Autopian article about that Chrysler that got in an accident with minimal damage, and people were saying they don’t build them like they used to?
Because there’s actually a pretty profound difference in early ’70s full size American cars versus early ’60s full size American cars. One big thing that cars like the New Yorker valued was silence. In order to make the interior more silent they did several things, including making the firewalls thicker, including padding inside the dashboards, making the doors thicker, and placing more parts of the car on rubber bushings instead of bolting or welding them to the frame. Incidentally this all meant that there was more material surrounding the front seats, more “give” when the car was impacted thanks to the sound deadening foam and the rubber bushings, and less likelihood of intrusion through the firewall.
Funnily enough the opera window craze, fastback coupes, and formal landau roof styling that required a broad B or C-pillar made it safer to get hit aft of the door compared to an early ’60s car which would fold into a J-shape. Stunt coordinators for TV shows and movies figured this out pretty early on, which is why you started seeing more cars get hit in the sides in shows like Starsky & Hutch and Hawaii 5-0. H.B. Halicki depended on this when he made Gone in 60 Seconds, as quite a few scenes needed to depict the star car being hit side-on.
Albeit this is like comparing running through a tiger cage versus jogging through a tiger cage. One’s safer relative to the other, but it’s still monumentally dangerous compared to the safety we enjoy otherwise.
Don’t forget, Chryslers were also unibody, not body-on-frame. That would also provide a margin of safety as well.
Because that “accident” didn’t happen like most people thought it did. They even covered it here.
https://www.theautopian.com/no-that-old-chryslers-rear-bumper-didnt-demolish-that-new-kia/
The sad part for Tesla is that they could have done a Maverick+ sized pickup with normal layout but cool features off the Y platform and be selling a quarter million a year (if Musk hadn’t gone into politics). And done it for pretty low tooling and development costs. Instead they spent a ton of money on this turkey that’s depreciating as fast as the Model X blimps.
Very true and that is just the start of missed opportunities. They started with a crossover “coupe” profile with the Model Y but should have followed that up a year later with a more traditional shaped crossover. Everything from the Model 3 on should be on a shared and modular platform.
Instead Musk wasted 5 years and lots of resources on the Semi and Cybertruck.
Once there was this guy who had a bunch of cash and then he plowed it into Paypal.
And when he finally cashed out, he had…fat stacks to spend on his projects.
We couldn’t quite explain them, like tunnels under L….A….
And then, there was this time he took a Lotus car and then he shoved it full of batt’ries.
And when it went to market, no one really cared until he made a big sedan so
Then he was the favorite of everyone from greenies and also for the techbros.
Mmmm mmmm mmm mmm, mmm mmm mm mmm
Then SpaceX flews some objects reeeeal far, then landed just a little too hard.
And now, he has this truck thing, and Donald was his friend and now their bromance is all over. But all his former clients, they got, all mad that Musk was the alt-right.
They never quite acknowledged we’d not seen all this coooming.
You know he had buckets of money way before paypal right? His family owns emerald mines. He was a spoiled rich arsehole all long.
I knew he had some Old Money, but I had no idea it was emerald mines because the internet memeverse has really failed to capitalize on the Wizard of Oz references here.
You forgot the part about how he fled South Africa as soon as white supremacist rule ended, only to come back decades later with the help of the US government to grant “refuge” to the white supremacists remaining there.
“Help, I’m being oppressed!”
Yeah, the tie-up with Trump’s short-lived pet project for SA relocations was one of the weirdest things I’ve seen in any presidency. For a country with much more widespread violent crime, it felt like a really weird gesture and it was almost funny to watch them defend it. Especially that fake photo op claiming all the graves of white farmers (using a roadside art installation and calling it a graveyard).
No one else got your Crash Test Dummies reference.
Pity, the rest of their songs are good and unique too.
I’ll save Peter Pumpkinhead for Halloween!
It took me longer than it should have to realize that this was the song “Mmmmm” by Crash Test Dummies.
Bravo, good sir/madam, BRAVO!!!!
I’d delete this article and repost it when the video isn’t private.
I think that unlikely. I might be wrong, but I think David’s and possibly the site’s most clicked story was his CT review. As an owner of the site, that’s some hard crack to resist. Stories have been a bit slow lately because they are busy enjoying the lives of an auto journos, so even delaying a seemingly hot story may mean many lost clicks and momentum. It’s probably easier just to delete the video rather than the whole story.
The article is meaningless without the video.
But your true colors are showing, its more aboutnthe clicks than actual journalistic integrity……What a shame because I thought thats why this site was created.
My true colors? Dude, I’m Ponyboy, not a Soc.
Please do not take shots at my journalistic integrity for literally no reason. Not cool!
Bleed over
Please refrain from making things up about us.
Here was a video showing the Cybertruck being crash tested in IIHS’s new updated moderate-overlap test, and since everyone has been anticipating this test, I shared it with you, dear readers. IIHS asked the YouTuber to pull the clip until they have a rating, so I’ve added a Twitter link for those of you still curious.
I don’t know what any of this has to do with crack or clicks or the CT review or what you mean by enjoying lives of auto journos or momentum…
But anyway, I’m still gonna write a follow-up when IIHS’s ratings hit. Will it be for the clix? No, it’s because I find it interesting!
Okay David.
Journalists gotta eat and I’m totally okay with wanting clicks, but you go ahead and manufacture offense where none was intended. You told me the CT review generated lots of traffic. That was all. Auto journos sometimes live an enviable life of which I personally am often jealous. If that’s wrong, then a sinner I am and probably will continue to be.
IDK what that stalker did to you’s guys mindsets, but don’t apply your siege mentality to me. I’ve never tried to be anything but a friend to you guys. I’m allowed to have thoughts and feelings and say stupid shit and be completely wrong, or at least I thought I was. However, I didn’t make up a thing and I clearly stated I could be wrong right from the get go.
If you’re this angry with me, either call me so we can have an awkward stilted disagreement conversation or ask me to leave the site. This feels like the worst way for you to have responded.
I was not anticipating the test.
I’m not angry with you :). This was somewhat of a misunderstanding, because I didn’t realize who you were. A random person making your comment could come off as someone implying I’m writing less-than-optimal stories solely for “clicks” (which appears to be how RunFlat interpreted it as well), but given that you wrote this comment… I now interpret it differently, as I know you have good intentions! Apologies Mr. Shaft!
Okay, fair enough. I do sometimes change my username because as you know, I’m a loon and RunFlat required a response.
And just so you and the world know, I am of the belief that the CT review did generate lots of traffic and that it was a good thing for the site. Furthermore, that such traffic should have made you happy and that as a site owner clicks do appeal to you as well as feed the staff. As such, I believe it possible for you take such into account when making editorial decisions. That is not an insult.
I view most human decisions to be based on a constellation of sometimes conflicting motivations and almost never a single impetus. This includes you. Do I think you would ever, ever write or post anything just for clicks? Absolutely not. As I am on record as saying, you are one of the most earnest and sincere people I’ve come across, so I am perfectly positive you couldn’t ever do something like that. I am not, was not, and almost certainly will not ever question your journalistic or personal integrity. Know that. However, do I think subject matter can also have an influence on your decisions? Yes I do, and I don’t think that’s incorrect about or offensive to you.
Love and rockets. CTs suck. 😀 Call me maybe?
Always nothing but class
The crash test dummies exited the car and did a nazi salute, crazy!
Hopefully not the band…
Mmm mmm mmm mmm
Modern cars are all so safe anymore. Daughter was t-boned in her – 09′ Vibe in April. That car gave it’s life to save her, nothing more than a bit rattled. Side airbags went off and she didn’t even have a bruise.
I’m genuinely relieved to hear she’s OK regardless of the fact that I don’t know either of you. People are so fragile and car accidents so horribly common. Also, it’s nice to know that a 15-year-old Pontiac/Toyota has some of that modern protective goodness designed into it, especially in a t-bone collision.
Only tangentially related: I was never a fan of Pontiac butching up the Matrix with their silly/ubiquitous ribbed lower body cladding, but once in a while I spot a Vibe in this uncommon metallic greenish/brownish color w/the excessive cladding trying to make it look tough/off-roady and TBH, it’s not that bad. At all. 🙂
I searched briefly to find an image of it in that color to link, but oddly couldn’t. IIRC, it really looked good in that color, even w/all the extra plastic. Maybe it had a slight lift (compared to base Vibes and Matrixes) too?
Anyone know that version of the Vibe in that color that I’m talking about, or did I just imagine it?
Thanks for writing a cybertruck article that’s not just a bunch of sweaty angst and juvenile frustration. I like it when that stays in the comment section.
Most reviews of the Cybertruck on this site have been pretty objective
After having driven it, I actually mostly like the Cybertruck!
But what about the ensuring conflagration that immediately follows the crash test???
Ensuing. 🙂
Spellcheck!!!!
I do, I do. Everyone’s spelling but my own. 😀
Okay that’s funny. I’m going to use it in the future
Or insuring. Or both.
Ha, no need to mind the quibbles about spelling, as it’s still correct in that the battery indeed ensures that a conflagration will happen.
Conflagration? Is that like car farts?
This is just so reminiscent of 1902, when all the stans of Twyford Motor Car Company’s Stanhope would post bill in the town plaza about how forward-thinking it was that the vehicle used of a power steering system with a solid shaft that lacked steering knuckles, connected to the front axle by a worm gear.
Then all the haters would post bills about how the Twyford Stanhope was hideously ugly and that Robert Twyford was nothing but a fascist snake oil salesman.
By golly if ol’ Twyford didn’t end up in bankruptcy. The Stanhope could have been the next Pierce Arrow.
would be fun if the impact would make that atrocious window angle nice a smooth.
Just here for the measured and reserved comment section that accompanies every Cybertruck article.
Suprisingly it was mostly well behaved comment section. A few crazies but way less than the rest of the internet.
Nah just a little oversteer but they were able to correct course without going totally off the track
Test all you want, but nothing makes you safe from looking like a tool in a Cybertruck.
I’ve been seeing some really good looking wraps on the local cybertrucks. One is a sort of mid century wood grain, the other is is sort of Klein International Blue. There’s also white with pink and gold highlights one that’s impressive. The flat surfaces really make the color pop.
So as an art canvas the cybertruuck works.
I suspect if it was a one off concept car people wouldn’t be as unhinged by it. Imagine thousands of Stratos Zeros on the road or Lamborghini Marzals , well I would love to see Marzals rather than the crap Lamborghini is selling now.
Interesting IKB blue story
https://youtu.be/0cuZ8g8Sw7g?si=7r3737Jf55TI_65S
What are trucks for if not carrying tools?
Or a…dummy…
Still doesn’t pass the smell test.
BTW, saw your cameo in “The Last Independent Automaker.” Looking good daddy-o.
But how embarrassed were the dummies to be seen in it?
The cybertruck was the sole root cause of the Dummy 2025 strike that lasted 27 days. Fortunately, no scabs crossed the picket line during that time.
It’s ok because the airbags covered them all up.
I’m curious to see how the IIHS rates this. I’ll preface this with that I’m an engineer, but I do NOT work is structures like this, for an Automaker (or OEM), and do not work regularly in crash safety or analysis, but have a bit of research background in OEM including minor crash safety simulation, but it was minor.
I don’t see this as an overwhelmingly positive result, while overall the occupant volume seems free of intrusion of wheel/suspension/brake components, and the front quarter seems to absorb the impact, the cabin is clearly deforming. The junction of A-Pillar to roof is clearly beginning to fail, the roof glass cracks, the trim panel is visibly bowed, and the doors are no longer aligned because the chassis has deformed in a meaningful way. What this tells me is the doors may be hard to open, which is heavily frowned upon.
This is not at all surprising, with the profile of the roof/windshield making a point at the top, it is incredibly hard to make this profile a strong place. A junction at an abrupt angle, rather than gradual curve, creates an utterly massive stress concentration at this point. The larger the radius of that transition, the less concentrated the stress is. So while I have no doubt the demonstrably skilled crash-safety engineers at Tesla did their damndest to minimize this hazard, the design of the truck is incredibly hard to surmount. It’s really just another textbook example of Musk’s ego taking the company away from what makes sense.
Other speculation: How the vehicles electronics systems operate or no longer operate post crash, as has been seen in other higher profile Tesla incidents. If the electronics fail, and the emergency release is hard to get to, and the door opening is deformed, this could be an utter nightmare for extrication especially of injured occupants. I’m also curious to see what potential issues the tough stainless steel would make on use of things like the Jaws of Life, although I would bet the jaws can shrug it off and cut through just fine.
I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the full IIHS report, but I don’t expect it to make a lick of difference in anyone’s purchasing decisions around the CT.
I don’t know if they do this already, but with so many cars now featuring electronic door handles, I wonder if they’ll start including post-accident functionality in their testing? Especially with EVs, since thermal runaway events are a very real possibility after an accident. I know most (all?) cars with electric handles have a manual release, I’d like to see how those function after a crash and how accessible they are. If there’s any cabin deformation, does that make it harder to access the manual backup? I say that because some cars have them all the way down on the floor and I could see damage/airbags impeding access.
The interior door handles should always be 100% mechanical. Electric buttons to open is STUPID and people unfamiliar with the car won’t know how to get out.
Fun Fact: My 2005 Corvette had and electric opener from the interior. I always showed EVERY new passenger where the mechanical release was on the floor their first time in the car.
I immediately noticed the exact same thing about the cabin deformation. I suspect the battery tray is so stiff that it communicates all it’s stress to the upper structure. It would absolutely cause problems with door function, possibly on both sides. Passengers may have been protected from the impact, but escaping may be a real problem. I can see some real issues if there were any subsequent fire.
Don’t forget about the ballistic glass. A regular car you can break the glass easily. The CT is much, much, much harder to break and will require a lot of force to remove the glass to get out.
Oh Yeah! I wasn’t even thinking about that.
Perhaps they should include a bag of carrots, onions, and potatoes with each new CT. You know, so that as you burn alive you make a nice stew smell for the firefighters to enjoy.
Joking! (for the sick humor impaired)
Ease of door opening following an impact is not, and never has been part of the Moderate Overlap Ratings. Very few cars will have doors that easily open following the test, and this is arguably a good thing. Once you have dealt with cabin intrusion, the next most deadly hazard in an accident is occupant ejection- that’s the reason we have seatbelt laws, and it’s the reason door locks are automatic on new cars. A door that stays and gets jammed closed is statistically going to be much safer than one that preserves function following a violent collision, because if you can open it normally afterwards, then odds are it’s probably susceptible to opening during the accident sequence.
Also, chassis deformation is not a negative, its a universally used energy-absorption crash strategy. All the energy that is deforming the chassis is energy not deforming the passengers, which is exactly what you want.
Now I am 100% on board with the stupid electronic door handles thing, every brand that uses them (not just Tesla) should be smacked hard for it.
Edit: Here’s the 2025 Volvo XC90 PHEV, it’s doors ain’t working after that either.
You make excellent points, however, I personally feel that EV fire behavior is something which complicates some of these considerations considerably. I simply don’t want to burn alive after the chassis and airbags perfectly protected me so I can sense every last bit of my flesh burning. I am not saying it’s a rational response, just saying that’s my reaction.
It’s very much a concern of mine too, that’s why all of my front doors have a window-breaker/seatbelt cutter combo tool in them. Frankly I think those should be mandated equipment as well.
Sorry to tell you this but I agree with you
I’m not sorry. 🙂
My grandparents got involved in a 30 car pileup in a Mercedes-Benz W123 240 diesel or a fully loaded, semi trailer rear ended them shoved them into the truck in front of them, and then when the crumple zones had finished crumbling and continued on over the top and ended up parked on the roof of their car. Three of the doors still opened after all that. My grandfather was so impressed that he had the tow company put the wreck in the center of his front lawn for a couple months.
I don’t know why Mercedes stopped using those door locks. They seemed to be one of the best features in the car. For one thing they made the doors part of the structure of the car so they could actually resist twisting, but wouldn’t jam.
Their car didn’t catch fire, but other cars did and they were glad to be able to open the doors.
Interesting story I used to work for a Florida Newspaper. Two of my coworkers were out in a company stepvan delivery newspapers to our carriers so fully loaded with bundles of newspapers. They were at a red light and some drunk plowed into them. Demolished the Bronco but the coworkers said they barely felt the crash.
In NYC the newsstands in Times Square and a few other places like city hall and bowling alley green would always have eight inch deep depressions in the pavement from the newspaper delivery trucks making their first stops there. The Times’s printing plant was just off Times Square, they used the biggest trucks they could get and were at the legal limit for load. On a warm day the pavement would visibly move out from under the tires. If they braked hard the asphalt acted like mud. Don’t get hit by a newspaper truck, they are really heavy. They must have had massive engines because they accelerated almost as fast as regular traffic.
The Post would use stepvan bodies on what looked like semi tractor frames. Not at all like a breadvan.
Asphalt is known in civil engineering/road building circles as flexible pavement for a reason. It was really brought home to me when I watched a garbage truck go down an asphalt street in Phoenix when it was 110° one day. The pavement literally deflected 1”+ as that truck rolled down the street. That is why bus stops are made of Portland Cement Concrete (PCC).
Yes but if a fire starts chances of getting BBQ is far more likely if you can’t open the door
I noticed that too, but couldn’t decide if it was actually caused by the crash? I kinda assumed it left the factory that way.
I’m not an engineer, but that’s about what I expected it to look like. It’s got a lot more weight and heavily built structure down low and a major stress riser on the top, so the roof line buckling like that was pretty much guaranteed, the question was by how much and how much that actually matters to the dummies inside. That and how it performs in the small overlap are what I’m interested in seeing, not because I need another reason to rip on this thing or want to clutch pearls about safety, I’m merely curious about how this form-over-function actually does. That door looks pretty locked in, too. It’s one thing to be more difficult to open and another to be impossible to open without serious mechanical intervention and a lack of real door handles is no help, either. MB used to design their door handles to be able to withstand being pulled by a cable or other large force so doors could be opened for passenger extraction in event of a major crash. This doesn’t even have substandard door handles to try that with, so a passenger might be inside for quite a while awaiting assistance from emergency personnel with serious equipment, assuming they can’t be removed through another door.
I’ve read the same thing (door handles that can be yanked to open deformed doors) about most VW models as well. I’m glad that didn’t have to be tested while I owned a Mk IV Jetta.
The good news is that CT electronics don’t need a violent crash to stop functioning.
Also, with a minor fender-bender they will have so much relatively minor but expensive-to-repair damage that they will get totalled and be off the roads forever. Or so we hope.
Good point about power getting cut and the inability to get out. I believe that there have been at least two CT crashes where the vehicle caught on fire and the occupants could not get out and they died. Here is what I found:
1) November 2024 Piedmont, CA. 3 college students died, the 4th was pulled out by a passerby from the back.
2) August 2024 Texas, man crashed and died in the fire. He reportedly could not get out.
That Tesla would NOT make the Cybertruck at least as safe in a crash as other pickup trucks out there was absolutely absurd. As much as I loathe the company, reality is that their precious cars are at the forefront of modern *occupant* crash safety, and there is no reason to think that this one would be any different, even if it looks weird and is a death sentence for anything else it hits. Lots to hate here, but occupant safety is unlikely to be one of them.
Pedestrian safety is another matter…
No doubt about that, but even there – is it really THAT much worse getting hit by a CyberTurd than getting hit by an F-One-Fiddy? I think not, you are just as dead either way, though maybe a slightly prettier corpse if hit by the Frod.
While there’s going to be a speed where it doesn’t matter what vehicle hits you, the Cybertruck is probably the only one that could send you to the ER in a 1 MPH impact thanks to its actively hazardous body panels. I mean, technically it already sent someone to the ER for a 0 MPH impact.
You would have to be damned unlucky to have any damage done to you in a 1mph impact. Get real. Same with slicing yourself open on the thing. Hell, I managed to do that on a sharp edge of one of my BMWs once.
I think the things should be banned, but ultimately I think you should need a CDL to drive any of the Canyoneros of today.
That’s a good point, I just got a RAM assigned as a company vehicle, its basically like driving a two story building around everywhere, anyone that gets hit is having a bad day
Yes, actually. I think it was the head of Tesla Europe that said that not being able to pass Euro pedestrian safety is why the Cybertruck isn’t sold there.
Indeed – and in some countries, weight, as it’s heavy enough to need a CDL equivalent. It mostly fails on technicalities of having too small radiuses on edges. As I said, getting hit by ANY large vehicle is going to ruin your day, whether it has sharp edges or not. The prettiness of your corpse really only matters if you want an open casket.
As a cyclist, I try to stay out of the way of multi-ton vehicles, sharp edged or not. They always win. Thankfully, the one time I got hit by a car it was a Renault LeCar, and I managed to slide down the bumper without even falling over. I was coasting with my left leg up, the driver turned into a driveway and hit me, the bumper went under my pedal and I slid along it as she came to a stop – only damage a skuff on my crank. Had I been coast leg down on that side I imagine I would be setting off airport metal detectors today at best.
It is great to shoot for safety but the laws are all backwards. The smaller, slower, more maneuverable object should always cede the right of way like on the water.