Tesla Cybertruck may be unsafe for other road users: Australian safety chief

[rasz]

"unsafe for other road users" might be one of the best truck advertising slogans for US market one could imagine.

[StudentStuff]

All raised vehicles are a danger to other road users. Most have bumpers significantly higher than other vehicles on the road, resulting in trunks and hoods on closer to the ground vehicles (Honda Odysseys, Toyota Camrys, etc) getting severely damaged in low speed impacts.

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...

[dwd]

I was in Maroochydore, Australia this morning (I don't normally go near the shops there) and the number of big American trucks in the carpark surprised me. In just the section of parking I as in there was a Dodge Ram and two F250s, all hanging a couple of feet into the road being too long for your standard car park. A 4x4 Pajaro next to one of the Fords looked small.

I'm surprised a similar point hasn't been made about those models.

[knolan]

As someone who commutes by bike and has been hit twice by cars, the first thought that crossed my mind when seeing the CyberTruck was ‘ouch’.

[empath75]

The fact that the body is undentable and glass is unbreakable makes it sound worse for occupants, too. If it doesn’t crumple, you’re going to be in for a bad time in a car accident.

[27182818284]

Do you actually think that Tesla's engineers aren't aware of crumple zones and car safety?

[dreamcompiler]

Tesla cars don't have engine compartments, so pretty much everything forward of the driver is one giant crumple zone. I'd assume this to be true for the truck as well.

[smrr723]

It'll still crumple. There's a difference between a guy hitting the door with a sledgehammer and a vehicle driving full force into the side of the truck.

[ninjinxo]

The other car is the crumple zone

[nyolfen]

presumably it must pass the same crash safety tests as every other car sold in the US

[kube-system]

The door is not a crumple zone. Crumple zones should be outside of the passenger compartment. Regardless, the sledgehammer demonstration is demonstrating the result of an impact at least several orders of magnitude smaller than a vehicle accident where crumple zones are effective.

[bluedino]

We make items out of that same thickness stainless steel and they are very dentable

[newnewpdro]

It's still sheet metal, it's going to crumple in a collision with another vehicle.

The only thing they demonstrated is that it doesn't dent easily when hit by a sledge hammer swung horizontally.

[jolmg]

I don't know why you got downvoted. It the exact same thought I had when I saw the comparison about how one door dented and the other didn't. A car that crumples will cushion the sudden stop in case of a crash.

[gberger]

All trucks are unsafe for pedestrians, period.

[ramenmeal]

Don't forget the lifted trucks. If one of those runs into the side of my car, it's bumper directly hitting my face.

[jka]

That may unfortunately be true (and to some extent, is likely a problem with large & weighty road vehicles in general).

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."

[baddox]

Cars too.

[corodra]

I wonder... some people claim the "negative press" of the glass shattering was by design because it creates a larger narrative, that if they handle properly, keeps the truck in the public's ears and eyes everyday (which is has) and if they "fix it" makes them look like they care about their customer bases voice.

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.

[algaeontoast]

In the U.S. it's completely legal in most states to purchase armored vehicles. Most people can't afford them since even used decade old vehicles are $300k+ . This is very similar to why it's 100% legal to purchase soft body armor even level 4 (resistant to armor piercing rifle rounds) plates. Personally, banning items like this seems backwards, since politicians and rich people can afford to hire dozens of people with assault weapons and body armor while common folk can't.

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.

[Veedrac]

There are often conspiracies like this around high-profile mistakes. There's a similar one that says New Coke was a PR stunt to increase sales of the original Coca-Cola. “The truth is we are not that dumb, and we are not that smart.” Occam's Razor is your friend.

[modoc]

Since when can the public not have bullet resistant vehicles? There are several companies that armor civilian vehicles.

[generatorguy]

Here is a piece of bulletproof glass used on bullet proof cars that takes 18 rounds and isn’t pierced. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_FN5xzeVluc

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”?

[ianai]

Maybe he wants to make this be the first colony grade vehicle. It might not be legal here, but the steel thing fits a mould with the stainless steel Starship. We’re further off with that than the truck, probably, but they seem sort of pieced together.

[caconym_]

News flash: all trucks and large SUVs are unsafe for other road users.

[Marsymars]

In an idealized economy, the owner of a dangerous-to-others truck would be paying enough for liability insurance to cover their negative safety externalities.

Does that play out in reality?

[ananonymoususer]

I ordered one last week. I wonder how many of the specifications advertised will actually be met by the production version. 500 mile range, faster than a vette, 100cu feet of storage, seats 6, sledgehammer proof body, bullet proof glass, etc. It all sounds too good to be true for only $70k.

[rklaehn]

This is just silly. There were not many pictures of it, but the truck has a massive frunk. This frunk will just be designed to crumple and adsorb the impact from a front collision.

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.

[cardinalfang]

The T5 scored 1 NCAP star for pedestrian safety.

[sschueller]

To crumble for pedestrians it can't be made completely out of unbreakable stainless steel. It's one of the other.

[growlist]

So happy to see everyone not jumping to conclusions over what is just a concept car and will no doubt - like all concept cars - be considerably different to the retail version /s

[baby]

Is it me or this feels like the automobile mafia at play? They obviously feel threatened by the introduction of this véhicule.

[threeseed]

I have heard from an industry insider that ANCAP has for the last 30 years been pretending to review car's safety records just so that they could short Tesla stock and take down the Cybertruck.

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.

[askvictor]

No, just standards and regulations that are enacted to ensure the general safety of the population. They're relatively common in the developed world outside of US.

[grecy]

Agree. It's hilarious when the word "May" can be in the title and it's still a headline.

Though it is a fun game:

"Famous president may have syphilis".

[nickpeterson]

I think instead of a focus on mpg (which electrics make murky anyway), we should restrict weight. Eventually the goal is lightweight cars with reasonable safety features. People who want to drive 5000lb cars should have their danger to others health baked into their insurance premiums.

[torgian]

lol what? This is like complaining for the sake of complaining. It's obviously a prototype and i have no doubt that there will be some redesigns.

[_notdan_]

I've definitely been thinking the same thing. It's super heavy and has a massive battery..

[tus88]

I was thinking about this the other day. Will they let a armored tank on the road?

[willmadden]

Will Australia also be banning semi trucks?

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.

[analbumcover]

That's Australia for you. We're the prototypical "big government nanny state" that conservative Americans fear. This could also be motivated by the Australian government's radical opposition to clean tech.

[elif]

Ever since the reveal, all I can think about is the instance where a Tesla ran into the broad side of a tractor-trailer.

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.

[drivingmenuts]

It’s just plain ass-ugly, to my eyes. I grew up around pickups and owned one until it became a pita in a parking garage.

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.

[Mountain_Skies]

When I lived in a midrise in the middle of town we had a Hummer driver move into the building. He started parking in the handicap space on the ground level because the Hummer's turning radius was too large to be able to make the corners in the parking deck to his leased parking spot. So much for being able to go anywhere in the Hummer. It never was a very practical vehicle. Other than the low polygon looks, the Cybertruck seems inline with the functionality of trucks in the F150 to F250 range. Probably won't be a problem performing tasks that those trucks already perform.

[Silhouette]

This was my immediate reaction when I first saw it: how is anything remotely like that design ever going to be road-legal here in the UK, unless it has some innovative ways to do better than standard, possibly even legally-required safety features that don't seem to have been mentioned?

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>).

[sjwright]

The Ford F-150 is the most popular vehicle in the USA. Despite this, new car sales of the F-150 outside of North America appears to be negligible. This disparity is instructive.

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.

[sansnomme]

Cars are supposed to send people over in the event of collision, not under.

[lrem]

For a good start, it's over the weight limit of the regular driving license in Europe.