Tesla Cybertruck may be unsafe for other road users: Australian safety chief
thedriven.io
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For pedestrians and cyclists, high stanced vehicles ensure they end up underneath the car rather than on the hood of the vehicle (where survival rates are much higher). A person can get hit at 20mph by a Honda Accord and walk away nearly every time, but try that with a Cybertruck and they are much more likely to die: https://usa.streetsblog.org/2016/05/31/3-graphs-that-explain...
I'm surprised a similar point hasn't been made about those models.
Lucky man! Beautiful part of the world that I was lucky enough to visit myself a while back.
As a fellow bike-communter myself I had exactly the same thoughts regarding pedestrian safety though.
Consider that the reason that the windows shattered in the demo was that the dent proof doors transmitted sufficient force to the base of the window to weaken it. I'm sure the insurance industry will price coverage appropriately.
I don't believe that for a second, considering the rear window shattered as well and was not hit by the sledge hammer.
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Elon-Musk-Tesla-s-Cy...
Cybertruck might not need comprehensive or uninsured motorist coverage but it looks like it would annihilate anything it hits. You’ll want plenty of bodily injury, collision, property damage and PIP.
Had "Stealth Bomber" in red on the door panels.
I’m dressed up in high-viz clothing. I have award winning front and rear lights that is approved by various EU road safely groups yet here we have two motorists that just didn’t bother their holes to look and a third that didn’t care if they murdered me.
I had to pick myself up, fix my bike and limp the rest of the way home. While the driver that pulled out under me was apologetic (his wife less so) nobody else stopped to help. Nobody cared that the third car nearly killed me.
A similar situation occurred with bull bars in the UK. They protected the car they were fitted to at the expense of the person you hit. They were banned after public outcry - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bull-bars/bull-ba...
Your link explicitly states they are not banned.
> However, since 25 May 2007, it has been an offence for bull bars that have not been approved as compliant with those safety standards to be sold.
The point of the comment you are replying to is that it would be rather unreasonable to assume that.
Dents are just a minor form of crumpling.
Exterior bodywork work is irrelevant to occupant crash safety performance on unibodies (or space frames, like the Saturn S series), because they’re non structural elements. They’re decorative. Soft metal is chosen because it’s cheap to produce, not because it’s a crumple zone.
Crumple zones on unibody cars today are made of much stronger steel than the body is, and the channels are in the unibody frame which are slightly inboard from the sides of the car.
If you hit the crumple zones of a regular car on the road today with a sledgehammer, they wouldn’t dent. You’d need to hit them with something imparting many thousands of times as much force, like a car.
The only safety benefit to soft body panels is pedestrian safety.
Seriously though, crumple zones in cars and trucks aren't the sheet metal on the body.
I'm sure Tesla thought about safety ratings. My guess is the "cyber truck"'s sheet metal will crumple in an accident. A car wreck has a lot more force than some guy swinging a sledgehammer at medium force.
And I think we're all pretty sure that Elon overrode those designers and demanded a design and materials that wouldn't crumple.
There's a big difference to "stands up to parking lot car doors and shopping carts" and assuming that it doesn't crumple in a collision with another vehicle.
aka "What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyamohn/2019/10/20/starflatio...
"But the once groundbreaking program is now out of date and has not kept pace with safety innovations and advances, and other countries, including Japan and many in Europe, have far surpassed the U.S., motor vehicle safety experts say"
[0] https://spectrum.ieee.org/cars-that-think/transportation/saf...
I think we have to wait for crash tests.
(I am unaware if trucks have the same standards for crash testing)
The only thing they demonstrated is that it doesn't dent easily when hit by a sledge hammer swung horizontally.
Side-impact tests in particular will benefit from the stronger door skin. There's not much space for crumpling in that direction, and your average mild-steel door doesn't do particularly well. They generally throw reinforcement beams inside the door in an effort to help.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out since the Cybertruck is combining unibody+skateboard+pickup+stainless steel. The frunk is a huge crumple zone with no ICE and transmission to get in the way. I don't see the stainless steel "exoskeleton" preventing the frunk from crumpling in a real crash. It might prevent getting dents from stupid people in parking lots and utility work though.
The partial overlap frontal collision has been an especially bad one for pickups historically IIRC. This vehicle might completely change that. Would love to hear from anyone more knowledgeable in this field.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2019/03/21/iihs-gm...
The cybertruck isn't really any more innovative than the Honda Ridgeline in this regard.
Trucks and old cars are body on frame, modern cars and some small trucks (e.g. Ridgeline, Baja, Brat, El Camino, Ranchero, most utes) are unibody. Some like the original Jeep Cherokee are hybrids.
That’s in contrast to trucks and old cars where there is a frame and the interior of the vehicle is separate.
Obviously the truck is going to pass safety tests. Having a soft exterior that gives-in is not all there is to car safety...
> [safety standards] may be something the Tesla Cybertruck needs to put more focus on, according to the head of the Australasian New Car Assessment Program, which is Australia's equivalent of the US-based Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
> Cybertruck's "exoskeleton" body material caused some alarm as well. ANCAP looks for vehicles to absorb some of the energy in an impact because, if it doesn't, passengers will bear the brunt of the force.
> While this material may be perfect to keep out dents ... it could put passengers at risk.
By the way,
> Having a soft exterior that gives-in is not all there is to car safety...
I totally agree[1]:
> Obviously, the Cybertruck cannot enter production in its current form. It's missing windshield wipers, traditional mirrors that are, right now, required for the US market and the pickup also lacks turn signals. The challenge will be turning this trapezoidal design into something approved for sale in markets around the world
[1] https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/tesla-cybertruck-design-s...
I think this crumple b.s. is made-up non-sense by car manufacturers (it might have minimal marginal impact and would like to be proven wrong). By making my car front bumper a weak piece of plastic that gets scratched and damaged very easily, they can sell it later for $1.000 a piece.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1180877114226008064
Though, the first time I hear a Tesla making the coconut noise from Monty Python I will no doubt laugh. The second time? Yeah, it'll get old fast.
I'm not sure that "coconut noises" would be allowed, however, as the rules require continuous tones (modulated according to speed and acceleration) that must be recognisable as an engine noise.
Perhaps the coconut noise will be a manually-activated alert/horn feature rather than the mandatory pedestrian warning sound.
The intro to "The Final Countdown" in a continuous loop would be swell.
Or rather, lifts beyond a few inches require special certification. Same goes for larger tires and after market bullbars.
But the article points out that this one may also be unsafe for passengers, if it lacks an effective way to absorb energy in a collision.
Quoting from the link:
"Because the cold-rolled steel is undentable it does not allow for crumple zones that reduce the impact of the force of an accident for occupants."
I'm not sure how one thing logically follows from the other. The physics of an impact from a hang-swung sledgehammer versus a car impacting another car or a large stationary barrier are basically incomparable.
In Euro NCAP testing, the Fiat 500 has a 3 star rating[1], and the Smart fortwo has a 4 star rating[2]. So while not among the safest cars on the market, they are certainly not the deathtraps you suggest. The Smart in particular offers very respectable occupant protection for its size.
That's reassuring
> for its size.
That's not. Passengers risk rises with the size of the incoming car, not the car they are riding in.
There are much larger cars that perform worse on occupant protection tests than the Smart does. For example, the Jeep Wrangler:
“Basically die instantly” does anyone actually believe that?
If an opposing car pushes a part of your car into your body, that's like you being hit by a car while standing in front of a wall. Once the pressure wave hits your body, where is it going to go? You can't be "thrown clear" through the back of your own car.
If I agreed/believed that, this could be a part 2 to that plan. I bet a discussion will come up how government regulations don't allow the public to have bullet-RESISTANT vehicles (no such thing as "bulletproof", especially if you don't get 3rd party standardized testing to back up your claim). Along with trying to rewrite vehicle laws/standards to benefit Tesla.
Personally, don't care either way. But I always get this uneasy feeling whenever Musk does anything.
Also, claiming something is "resistant to 9mm" doesn't really mean "bullet proof". A lot of things are inherently impervious to pistol rounds, I can just about grantee 7.62x39 or 5.56x45 would sail right through the cybertruck.
This sounds like the same argument about Autopilot (both the aircraft and Tesla version of it). Pilots know you have to monitor the aircraft constantly while the various autopilot systems are active, however the general public have this "Oh, you just press a button and it flies itself" thing (and apply that assumption to the Tesla Autopilot system).
But to be fair, PR stunt dynamics are better understood these past two decades compared to the 80s. The last decade alone, you can see the reaction of the public to news instantly, react to it and see the public reaction-reaction instantly, with well formatted analytics. That's the only reason I don't immediately dismiss the idea like it was a flat-earther conspiracy theory. There's plenty of analytics to try making a solid plan to do something like that. At the same time, I have zero proof that it's ever been done intentionally.
There's a book called Weapons of Math-destruction. In it the author talks about Facebook's potential ability of swaying public discourse and increasing the chances of certain votes using their analytics knowledge. While the author said it's a scary thought, it could never happen and there's no evidence it has been done or would be done. This book came out 2016 (books are typically published about 6-12 months after manuscript is accepted, so written roughly 2015). So... yea.
I have a water resistant watch and I understand I can’t go diving with it, but I feel like maybe this glass is more than resistant enough to qualify as “proof”?
I don't think Australia has any issue banning things, it did guns and cracked open encryption. You're reaching for a conspiracy.
To my ears, it is like someone exclaiming how it is so much better to stand up in the movie theater because the view is better that way.
You can have trucks that are safer than others.
Does that play out in reality?
This effectively is a subsidy to car driving (and bad drivers). But politically, it seems impossible to fix this. Red states want less government intervention, and blue states don't want to "penalize" poor people.
Further the insurance minimums does not limit a person liability just the amount the insurance company will pay, if you are stupid and dont have enough insurance then your other assets (like your home) can be seized and your wages garnished to recover the liability
This is also why one should have good Uninsured and Under insured coverage
However saying all of that, one of the reasons for the Low Minimums on Liability in some states as they have gone to a "No Fault" system so your insurance would pay your costs so it is up to you to buy the amount you want to be covered for, it does not matter what the "other guy" has
Some negative externalities can never really be covered by money.
So a Cybertruck owner would probably be up for some spectacular liability premiums, presuming that the vehicle was approved for registration in Germany in the first place.
I have no doubt it will do all the things you listed, likely exceeding some of them. I won't be at all surprised if it looks a little different - you can google the original Model S prototype compared to the actual, and the Model 3.
They tweak some things, but overall I strongly believe you'll get what you ordered.
When you go to https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck the advertised figure in "300+MI". I don't know where one finds 500 but that's not the top line figure that appears on front page of the official site...
The structural frame will not extend all the way to the front but end earlier (about above the front wheel well).
Tesla will want a five star safety rating for this thing, and you can not get that without also taking pedestrian safety into account.
Edit: About the raised front: the front is not any more raised that my current main car, a Volkswagen T5 Bus, which is a very common car in europe. So I don't see why it should have a worse pedestrian safety rating.
I would guess that the bonnet will move backwards and slide over the windshield, and the other part of the front (up to the front wheel wells) will be designed to crumple.
And yes they are indeed part of a global conspiracy to take down Tesla which they see as a threat to the petro world order. Not those other EV makers like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Kia etc who sell more than Tesla in quite a few countries. Only Tesla.
In which few countries Mercedes, BMW, Audi, Kia sell more EVs than Tesla? Do you have the number?
Their job is to look after the interests of the general public not any one company.
Though it is a fun game:
"Famous president may have syphilis".
Who's goal is that? Not mine
>>People who want to drive 5000lb cars should have their danger to others health baked into their insurance premiums.
it already is...
Nor am I concerned with what is "responsible" for society.
a) Not driven by the general public.
b) Niche and not as common on the road as the Cybertruck is planned to be.
c) Slow to accelerate meaning it's much harder to drive them dangerously.
Collision detection is far more important than body construction in terms of risk to pedestrians and other vehicles.
This reads like regulatory overreach to me, and cherry picking.
Since the panels of the cybertruck are "scored on the inside and bent", and the body is the "exoskeleton" in place of a frame, the physics of this oragami-like interaction seem predictable...
And in my head, I see a grotesque rendition of the ketschup-packet-under-the-chair prank from middle school.
The VW Tarok concept truck is a far better looking pickup than the Tesla monstrosity. The Neuron T/One looks more futuristic and usable. The Lordstown Endurance looks more standard (and has a bloody expensive sounding name). The Atlis XT looks as conventional as it gets (but still way better than the Tesla).
I think the Tesla is going to be another Humvee, if it goes to market: more about wasted money and contrarian looks than being actually useful. A toy for the uselessly rich.
There are certainly reasonable alternatives to things like wing mirrors. For example, it's not hard to imagine a camera-and-screen arrangement in a vehicle from Tesla.
However, giving the vehicle a solid shell pretty much implies that the full force of any impact is transmitted to the occupants on one side and the impactee on the other because physics, which is going to be a concern given the great emphasis on the materials used.
Then there's the angular styling, which appears to have edges practically designed to cause serious injury to anyone vulnerable that might be hit by the vehicle, not to mention the potential to act as a ramp sending the victim of a frontal collision up the front or even over the top of the vehicle.
It definitely looks like a case of form-over-function so far, but it's hard to believe no-one at Tesla has considered these kinds of issues, so surely they must have something up their sleeves to deal with them (unless <conspiracy theory>it's all been a very successful publicity stunt and they never really intended to bring a vehicle like this to market</conspiracy-theory>).
Cybertruck is a product designed squarely for this North American market and isn't going to have mass appeal in any other global markets beyond novelty factor for a small number of people with excessive disposable wealth.
Yes, the Cybertruck looks like a safety nightmare in many respects—especially for pedestrians—but I would dare guess that it'd still be safer across the board compared to its established competitors like the F-150.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-r...
I strongly suspect that on both a trip-miles and passenger-miles basis, the US far outstrips any european country.
*edit
If you sort that table on 'road fatalities per billion vehicle KM' you'll see the US at 7.3, same as Belgium. The UK is doing better at 3.4
Fatalities per distance is fine for a technical comparison of road safety regulations.
Fatalities per population is more useful when comparing the safety of roads as they are used.