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Comment by throw49sjwo1 | Hacker News Reader

It can be registered in Europe, many countries allow individual car import from the US. I have seen a few around; not on public streets (car shows), but with local plates.

You also won't have any issue getting third-party damage insurance in Europe, as the insurance companies are required to make an offer.

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I'm aware of single/custom car special procedures, but last I checked the Cybertruck can't get a type approval in any EU country. Individual registering them vs. not being able to register them doesn't really make a difference for the argument, does it?

Honestly I might even have bought a nice electric truck, but that weird box on wheels just ain't it :(

I actually would consider an EV pickup truck. My uses for a truck are almost entirely local, so range concerns would be much less. EVs are still too expensive for me however. For now when I need to haul something that won't fit in my car, I rent a trailer.

Where do you check if it can get a type approval? I don't think that's something you can easily determine just by looking at it and saying "yeah too big, doesn't look right, not european enough". There are very weird things with type approvals in Europe. Don't mistake it for some super rational land. Note that even mega-trucks can be street legal in Europe, and most traditional American big pickups like Dodge RAM are type approved - why not a Cybertruck then?

Europe will type approve anything that proves it's safe and follows basic conventions. That will most likely include the Cybertruck, as the question really isn't "is this car a good idea?" - even bad products that nobody needs or wants get type approved, and Cybertruck really will not be the worst thing that happened to European roads.

Tesla knows very well how to get a US car type approved in EU with minimal adjustments. It was very curious to watch with previous models. They are quick, too.

Well you can have a look at the rules and see for yourself, they are not that weird but very complicated. But I assume that if it would be possible, Tesla would try to get it approved.

> most of the traditional American big pickups like Dodge RAM are type approved - why not a Cybertruck then?

I'd guess pedestrian safety would be one of the main issues.

I know the rules very well, special cars are kind of my hobby. There is nothing that couldn't be minimally adjusted to meet European regulations. Pedestrian safety is definitely not an issue. There are much more unsafe vehicles than Cybertruck in that regard.

Every model Tesla introduced was US only first few years. People individually imported the first hundreds of cars during these initial years. Tesla then introduced an European version of the car with technically minimal adjustments.

> Pedestrian safety is definitely not an issue. There are much more unsafe vehicles than Cybertruck in that regard.

Purely out of curiosity — can you name one or two such vehicles? I'm really interested how they are so unsafe, or rather, which byzantine (non-?)regulation deems them so unsafe :D

My point is that there is no such regulation. But anything that used to be military and sold to civilian usage would qualify. Very common in Eastern Europe, though most of the vehicles of the Cold War have rusted by now.

Are you sure there is no such regulation? We are talking about type approval, not individual registration, and the EU Reg 2019/2144 says:

Regulation (EC) No 78/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council (9) sets out requirements for the protection of pedestrians, cyclists and other vulnerable road users in the form of compliance tests and limit values for the type-approval of vehicles with regard to their front structure and for the type-approval of frontal protection systems (for example, bull-bars). Since the adoption of Regulation (EC) No 78/2009, technical requirements and test procedures for vehicles have developed further at UN level to take account of technical progress. UN Regulation No 127 laying down uniform provisions concerning the approval of motor vehicles with regard to their pedestrian safety performance (‘UN Regulation No 127’) currently also applies in the Union in respect to type-approval of motor vehicles.

https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2019/2144/oj

As your own quote implies, even bull bars can be type approved. There is no reason why a Cybertruck couldn't.

As you are fully aware, it does not imply any bull bars can be type approved (and there are a lot less such new cars as there were in the 90's and 00's in our country).

So: 1) the regulation you said does not exist does in fact exist,

    2) it may be one of the reasons the Cybertruck is not yet type approved.

Time will tell, if and when Tesla manages to register it, possibly with some changes to the construction. Or it will deem the EU market too small for that.

Do you genuinely believe that if there were any way to get this thing type approved in an EU country, no one would have done so by now?

What do you mean, by now? The only one who can do so is Tesla. Cybertruck is barely being sold in the US. It always took a few years before Tesla introduced an European version of a car. It's way too early to tell.

> My point is that there is no such regulation.

Yeah, Sorry, I worded that poorly. Can you give an example of a car that is more unsafe (by some generic reasoning) than the Cybertruck, but still type approved?

Have you been able to find safety statistics for pedestrian collisions? I tried looking them up, but was unable to find any.

Naive comparisons like "the hood is lower" are not enough to make this kind of statement, as the remaining differences (sharp angles and a very different material) are too large to make this determination without actual testing.

Try to look into national government statistics agencies, these might track it. European-wide aggregate that you could trust is probably available only for money.

I haven't been able to find any. What absolutely shocked me is that even in America, apparently there has been no such test done by anyone besides Tesla.

How did you come to your earlier assessment? Did you ignore the differences in material and sharp angles? I'm not well-versed in the area, but it seems more than reasonable that they have an impact on the outcome of pedestrian collisions.

If the car model has CoC number, it has been type approved. EU keeps approval register. The CoC is not limited to EU It works in every European country.

Tesla has announced that they are in process of making Cybertruck version that complies with EU regulation, but Cybertruck is hard to adjust. Lack of crumple zones is a big issue.

Getting it approved as commercial vehicle should not be a problem, but nobody wants that. Not Tesla, and not the consumers.

> Where do you check if it can get a type approval?

There's an abundance of news articles about Tesla's VP of Vehicle Engineering, Lars Moravy, saying they can't get it due to some 3.2mm exterior radius requirement that is impossible to do on the 1.4mm stainless steel they use:

https://www.topgear.com/car-reviews/tesla/cybertruck/buying

https://motortrends.net/news/tesla-cybertruck-wont-enter-eur...

Rivian’s are kind of nice, but I don’t know if they will survive as a company. Ford EV trucks are fine as well, I’ve driven both. I personally own a hybrid plug-in SUV which lets me go as far as I like on vacation while also letting me be pure EV for all my local driving which is probably 90% of it and I really don’t drive that much tbh

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