At the current rate of horrible fiery deaths, FuelArc projects the Cybertruck will have 14.52 fatalities per 100,000 units — far eclipsing the Pinto’s 0.85. (In absolute terms, FuelArc found, 27 Pinto drivers died in fires, while five Cybertruck drivers have suffered the same fate, at least so far.)
I was driving out of a parking lot yesterday just as a Cybertruck started to pull in off the street from the left. The driver was white-knuckling the wheel and was frantically looking around as I assume he could barely see out of the goddamn thing as he swung so wide he nearly clipped my car. He needed almost the entire driveway to make his turn.
I cannot imagine dropping so much money on something so useless and so hideous.
well i hate to say this (really i do), turning is actually one of the only strong points about the CT. It can do a u-turn in the same-ish radius as a model 3, much better than most vehicles in its class.
that driver was just a fucking moron
that driver was just a fucking moron
I mean, he bought a cybertruck lol
Why are we talkaing about this? Who needs this sheet?
The thing is a very obvious death trap to anyone that knows simple physics. There are videos testing what happens when a Cybertruck hits a hard wall at certain speeds. That thing didn’t crumple at all until speeds greater than 35 mph. And even then it only barely crumples at all. The damage it could produce hitting another vehicle would be catastrophic and fatal.
Do they have emergency releases on the outside? I know a locked door of a car with traditional latching mechanisms won’t open. But an unlocked vehicle where a bystander cannot render aid in an emergency seems so… Short sighted.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fUhCCuTto
Not in the outside, but the rear releases are hidden in the door well under a vanity mat
It is on purposes. He wants a cyberpunk fantasy car. You know what you can do in many cyberpunk games? Blow up cars with the slightest of ease. They’re made of explodium in some games, and in Cyberpunk 2077 there is a quickhack (like a magic spell, but cyberpunk) that can cause the car to literally explode.
Can you imagine for one second if someone managed to find a way to consistently connect to Tesla vehicles AND found a way to cause the battery to overheat and burn? The door autolock will cause the passengers to be trapped and be burned alive.
I don’t think this is an accident. No one can be that stupid to make something like that by accident.
I believe 4 of the 5 Cybertruck fatalities were from a single crash. While the truck may indeed be dangerous, there is hardly enough data yet to draw conclusions.
I mean, it’s fatal to my eyes, because it’s so ugly.
yeah certainly not enough to have statistical significance
I’m guessing that some people at the National Transportation Safety Board are about to get fired by Elon Musk.
Safety belts are a waste of precious money!
Won’t someone think of the shareholders!
Safe at any speed!
I was thinking “What’s that red stu—oh…” Yikes.
Melted plastic… right? Yup imma say it’s melted platic
Cybertruck will have 14.52 fatalities per 100,000 units — far eclipsing the Pinto’s 0.85.
Holy shit, that means the Cybertruck fatality rate is around 17 times higher than the Pinto’s!
Do you realize how fucking insane that is? From 1921 to 1951 the rate of auto deaths dropped by around 50%, and from 1921 to 2011 the rate dropped by 90%. This is not just due to regulations on cars and pedestrian travel, but also in very large part due to crash safety in cars that steadily improved. With crash safety becoming a science, and crash test dummies being invented, and crumple zones, and air bags and seatbelts and the laws thereof.
Musk, asshole motherfucker that he is, is trying to destroy all of that.
Absolutely! What’s weird is that Teslas have been top-rated for crash-worthiness in the past, so there are a few possibilities I can think of:
- They need to be top crash-worthy, because of the stupid autopilot trying its best to kill the occupants
- They need to be top crash-worthy, because otherwise any crash at all would result in a fiery death
- The Cybertruck is an outlier and is not as crash-worthy as the previous Teslas
- All of the above
What was that rule of thumb for taking multiple choice tests? If you don’t know the answer, always select “all of the above”?
If you read the article is was specifically died by fire. Not any other cause of death.
Right but the specific issue with the Pinto was that it would explode into flames on a rear impact, so this is the appropriate metric.
Like deaths from other accidents would skew the numbers anyway because 70s cars were death traps compared to today, but even in that context, the Pinto’s explosions were alarming.
Beating it on that isolated metric is a very special kind of achievement.
Wish I could find data on all fatalities/100,000
Tesla #1
…and unlike the Pinto, because we are so deep into fucked-reality-ville, it won’t get recalled.
Nah, he will just get more government grants to “fix” it. (Aren’t they up to like 30% grants at this point?)
Ford’s reasoning was that it was cheaper to pay out for the injuries and deaths than to change the car. Cybertruck has a much better plot armor, a fanbase that refuses to believe it’s crap.
I think that fanbase is staying to wane. But who knows, maybe the gas loving Maga rednecks will start buying…who am I kidding, most of them can’t afford the ridiculous price tag.
Not only that, it’s not even a proper truck. They could have come up with a standard truck design and used tech and EV to create a new niche that was usable. But no one can tell Elon no, so his 5-year-old self’s vision had to be made because it’s different. Sometimes different doesn’t mean better.
The kind of car Blade Runner would have driven.
Blade Runner vehicles were more aligned with 1960s coupes
You mean he drew the design with a crayon?
What often happens in cases like that is people on the edge leave, but those who remain are now distilled insanity.
the maga crowd has diesel truck attached to their very masculinity, thats never happening.
The MAGA crowd mostly needs to give their truck gender-affirming care by giving them truck nuts.
They can just buy a used one since the value of these fucking hunks of junk drops dramatically once its driven at all.
I read a reddit post recently by a guy who had bought one for $135K after shelling out $50K to a broker to find him one. He was wanting to sell but couldn’t get more than $70K for it lol.
According to the article there are already five less of them than there used to be.
The very real origin of the Fight Club joke about not doing a recall
“joke”
Fight Club - The Recall Coordinator’s Formula
I don’t know. I’m not sure I’ve seen or encountered strong pro cyber truck sentiment. Maybe a bit of online excitement for like a day when they were first rolling out but now it’s been a laughing stock.
IRL owners are something else to deal with. they get mad when you point and laugh at their rolling dumpster
I sped up and passed one on the freeway just to give him the finger. He even looked like pre-gender affirming surgery Elon. Who looks a lot like Andrew Tate.
There’s 3-4 Wankpazers around here and I see them around once a week. I flip them off every chance I get.
I’m a school bus driver - kids love the things and go apeshit whenever they see one. Fortunately, not many elementary school kids can afford one.
Nah. The Ford Pinto laid the groundwork for the NHTSA’s regulatory control of forced recalls. The only way this thing doesn’t get recalled for being dangerous is if Musk’s D. o. g. e manages to undercut or defund the NHTSA.
Additionally, other countries with better regulatory bodies won’t even allow it to be sold or will require mandatory recall of these vehicles which means the end of the cyber truck. They can’t even sell them because people don’t want them.
The other thing is that insurance companies can absolutely refuse to insure them and if I’m honest, they may be the main reason that the NHTSA doesn’t back down from regulating them (insurance companies are a powerful lobby, and they absolutely can countermand the automotive lobby in some cases).
My point is, it’s more complicated than just “Musk is a government official now, and historically dangerous cars weren’t recalled”.
It will take Leon 20 minutes to shut down the whole agency claiming that they actually eat babies and people will just go with it.
I don’t know why you keep saying intentionally inflammatory things that don’t take into account the full list of factors and facts we have about how the real world works, but you do you, I guess.
Because the way the world worked changed a few months ago. Trump is immune and has pardon powers.
You’d be surprised at how little it’s changed. Oligarchs are still oligarchs. You think the Ford and GMC CEOs are just gonna let Musk come in and eat their lunch when they have a whole swathe of legal teams just waiting for the government to breach a contract?
NHTSA
Project 2025 has explicit targets for reforming NHTSA. It is unambiguously in their sights, just lower on the priority list.
Agreed. And that’s where consumer choice comes in. People don’t want them. Tesla is having to rework their entire plant to use the assembly lines that produce cybertrucks because they can’t sell the ones they’ve already made. They projected and prepared to manufacturer and sell 500,000 and they’ve sold something like 40,000 and the rest are just sitting in retail lots or holding lots collecting dust. The best estimate seems to be that they might be able to sell another 30,000 in 2025. But with tax credits for EV’s going away and other regulations going into effect world wide, that is probably a pipe dream.
On a scale from 0 to 3 (out of 10), how surprised would you be to read that the DHS decided to purchase 250.000 cybertrucks, because they are bulletproof? Before you go to Google it - I made it up, but there is a 50% chance of it coming in the next weeks.
I would be surprised for a lot of reasons. The main one being, they’d have to be dirt cheap and have an exceptional warranty agreement attached in order to compete with other automakers who make bulletproof vehicles. And, further there’s too many other problems with the amount of information they collect that the DHS would not have full and direct control over. Tesla’s are well known for recording anything and everything. We learned when they blew one up outside that Trump Hotel that they can be remotely locked by Tesla the company. A private company should not have that kind of direct access to government vehicles of any kind.
I think that really underestimates how corruption would work. Tesla might make a show of a “government edition” software loadout, whether because they had to or even as theater to pretend they catered to government requirements when in actuality it’s largely the same but maybe with some branding.
In terms of pricing, I’m sure that any actually “bulletproof” vehicles cost plenty. Which is why even departments like the DHS have largely unarmored fleets. Tesla wouldn’t meet those standards, but the marketing might be sufficient to serve as a bullet point over the current non-armored vehicles they use.
I think we can count on the corruption and legal rights of other companies more than you think apparently. Tesla’s not the only car company. They certainly don’t have the same pull in the government as Ford and GMC and Dodge. Tesla is a brand new player who cannot be trusted to follow the rules and deactivate or unequip any sensors and components for tracking that the government would require (on trucks they have already manufactured for the civilian market - which would be the case because Tesla already has significant stock it can’t sell). The government don’t have the qualified personnel to upkeep these vehicles, and that’s assuming they even have a place to store a fleet of them that’s covered parking.
A government software load out is not going to be enough. When the government buys vehicles they specifically have them manufactured to a spec and that spec would have to involve the removal and or lack of installation of most of the sensors and capabilities the vehicle comes with stock. So they either have to buy them as is and modify them (which requires personnel with a specific set of training and qualifications), or they have to be manufactured to that spec at the Tesla factory (or retrofitted to remove the unwanted components).
DHS’s armored and unarmored fleets can be washed, can be parked in an uncovered lot, can be maintenanced by the personnel they already have. There’s way more to buying a fleet of vehicles than just the price tag for individual units.
I work on planes for a living including government planes when we get the contract for those and let me tell you, they differ quite a lot from conventional civilian planes even when the base plane is the same. Tesla doesn’t already have a contract, and even if they get one that money isn’t allocated to them in the budget. There’s plenty of other reasons why I think this is a BS take, but man even corruption has a shelf life. Trump may be out of office in a couple of years but the entire government won’t just up and retire with him. Their corruption will definitely conflict with his because these are career politicians and Trump is liable to die in office.
The skin is literally handgun resistant not anything more than that. And the windows aren’t bullet proof. They’d have to modify each door to take bulletproof glass. It’s prohibitively expensive on a vehicle that wasn’t engineered for that.
It’s the kind of thing I’ll believe when I see it and not a moment before.
You mean that dog killer lady and Nazi weirdo care about competition and data security?
They aren’t the only people who have a say in what happens. It’s funny to me that y’all clearly don’t know how the government works or how much red tape there is. Tesla is an overvalued and under performing company that barely deserves to be called an automotive manufacturer.
The government has already signed contracts with other car manufacturers for the purposes of armored vehicles. Those manufacturers will absolutely sue for breach of contract in the event that the government doesn’t pay them and utilize their vehicles. Further, there are still regulations and specifications that are required to be met. They can’t fire everyone no matter how much they think they can. And Congress will not jeopardize their cash cows.
It’s a lot of different echelons of the government that this type of thing has to go through and it’s definitely not going to happen overnight. I’m not saying it can’t happen. I’m saying that it’ll take time and the other automotive companies will fight back against anything they see as a conflict of interest.
I can understand that people think things look bleak. But like half of what’s going on right now is scare tactics to make the general populace capitulate without a fight. The people who know how things work are very rarely ever at the top of anything. The people who get shit done are rarely at the top.
The budget is already signed sealed and delivered. Where’s DHS gonna get this money? Because I would bet other car manufacturers have already bid for the contract for new vehicles. So unless you’ve got something that says Tesla won the bid, quit playing with me.
Look, all I’m asking is that Tesla investors lose all their goddamn money.
Lol. You’re getting your wish. They basically would be in the red if it weren’t for some credits and Bitcoin they sold.
I would love it if the board voted Elon out. I know it won’t happen because they’re a bunch of sycophants, but “Elons antics and poor decisions are causing us to lose money” is a great reason to do so.
Let me simplify it for you… Musk has been targeting agencies that stood in the way of SpaceX. Did you hear he started targeting OSHA this week because of the spotlight on Musk’s intentional dismissal of safety regulations? Or that he is also targeting the consumer protection agency? Everything that protects regular citizens is being shut down as “wasteful”, and his only criteria is anything that costs him money or prevents him from exploiting workers.
Don’t forget the revelation that USAID was looking into Starlink in a critical way…
Yeah I’ve seen some bits about that, they were looking into how Musk was interfering with the Ukraine war I think?
I’d like to thank you for this measured take in response to my unbridled cynicism.
To be fair, you made a good point. In the article it states pretty definitively that the NHTSA hasn’t been allowed to have the Cybertruck independently crash tested which is bogus as hell.
The fact that it can’t force that from any car manufacturer doesn’t really make sense. They haven’t even received relevant data related to Tesla’s in house crash testing and I can’t even begin to understand how that’s legal.
They will be neutered even further soon, they’re on the project 2025 list.
I mean, the thing is already outright illegal in most countries where pedestrian safety is taken into account. An EU version would have to look completely different.
Probably why he’s closed the CFPB.
These are cybertruck owners…
The Pinto got well known for a couple of reasons.
One, the classic “exploding in a rear end collision.” The design flaw here was that in certain rear collisions, the fuel tank would be pushed into the rear differential. Not only could this rupture the fuel tank, it could also produce a spark. Boom. Lots of cars had this same design in the 70s, with the fuel tank low in the rear, right behind the rear differential.
Two, the infamous Pinto Memo, which did a cost benefit analysis that determined it would be cheaper for Ford to not fix the problem, and just settle whatever cases came up. This very clearly inspired the Fight Club recall formula scene. Take note that the car used in that scene is a Lincoln Town Car, produced by Ford Motor Company.
The kicker for the Pinto recall? What they did to fix it:
- Two sheets of 1/8" plastic, each about 18" square
- Some long zip ties
- Layer the two sheets over the rear diff, zip tie them to the axle
That’s it. My dad pointed this out to me in his shop some time in the late 80s or early 90s. He had a Pinto in for an oil change or something, “Hey, let me show you this.” It was such a hacky “repair.”
Curious: how effective was that “repair”? Did it actually make a difference at all?
It would have prevented the “spark” part of the failure condition, but not the tank rupturing part.
Stopping the explosions seems like a good enough sort of solution to me
A more appropriate solution would be a plastic shield designed to fit around the whole front of the gas tank, and then appropriately fixed to the vehicle, as opposed to “some hardware store shit.”
Leaking fuel is generally a bad thing. It may not hit the differential but let’s say the exhaust or muffler is banged up and pointed downwards – still gonna have a nasty fire
Nasty fire still sounds better than instant explosion! Haha
The bolts on the back of the diff would puncture the fuel tank, so it would help with both.
That’s not how Pinto axles were. The differential assembly bolts in from the front.
Lots of cars had this same design in the 70s, with the fuel tank low in the rear, right behind the rear differential.
Jeep Grand Cherokees were this way between 1993 and 2004 and Jeep Libertys were this way between 2002 and 2007.
I do believe they were plastic though.
But they are jeeps. Quality was never an expectation
I love my Jeep. Why make it unbreakable, when you can make it easy to fix!
Hackey, but I guess some plastic would be enough to stop metal on metal contact and prevent sparks?
Not that my Miata “temporarily” has cardboard wrapped in tape wrapped around the cold air intake pipe to prevent it from rubbing against the frame. Nope, definitely not.
My challenger’s whole plastic front end is connected with zip ties at this point. Those pathetic plastic clips they use just break apart if you try to work on them. I realize my solution to preventing plastic dragging on the road is less important than preventing metal on metal contact though.
Is it me or are there guts in this picture?
Hard to tell. The picture was widely used in the media, and they’re usually quite careful about that kind of thing. There’s something reddish in it, but it could be material from the truck or its contents. One of the photos the police released of his guns had some red foamy material in it, another photo had some stringy red material (plastic?) lying in the road, and there were various red items in the bed too. I’ll mark it NSFW just in case.
The driver was inside the vehicle at the time, so I’m sure some of that is his remains. But a lot is probably burned seat material and such. It’s hard to say for sure.
Apparently it’s a photo from “Cybertruck explosion outside Trump international hotel investigated for terror ties”
Looks like it 🤢
But at least its bulletproof!
To bb guns
Really took the wind out of my satirical comment that Musk wanted to bring back the Pinto.
Who needs satire when you have reality?
No shit, it’s literally just a big bullet. Or a wrecking ball on wheels.
The only thing that makes the cyberfuck safe is it’s pricetag and it’s virgin protector looks
And some people wonder why the cybertruck is barely sold outside the US.
Everything I hear about this thing is bad.
It’s barely sold in the US as well.
Might have something to do with it looking fucking stupid.
I have no problem with something looking stupid. The problem for me is not just that it looks stupid, but that it is stupid. It’s a stupid thing that shouldn’t exist.
keep in mind that while the cybertruck might seem like a bad vehicle, it also is a bad vehicle
It’s barely sold outside the US because other places (like the EU) also care about the safety of people outside the vehicle. That’s why European and Asian cars (except the models explicitly for the US market like the Tacoma) are designed for pedestrians to be deflected, while US cars are a moving brick wall which will squish them like a bug.
Also, I suspect you’d need commercial plates and a special license to drive it most other places, due to the weight.
Do you have a reasonable alternative solution to teach pedestrians lessons?
Edit: (/s)
Pedestrians would probably learn more from the experience if they don’t die.
(sorry dropped /s)
It’s only available in North America / Mexico. It won’t fly with many vehicle regulations outside of the US.
I imagine the sharp edges are more than enough to keep it out of Europe forever. Pedestrians need to be able to roll onto a vehicle in an EU pedestrian collision. The Cybertruck will lop you in half.
