Tesla (VP Vehicle Engineering) says Cybertruck likely to not make it to Europe (opens in new tab)

The whole video is a gold mine for "asshole design."

- No door handles, press a button and pull the metal railing to open the door

- No rear-view mirror, use the console to see what's behind you

- Your driving speed is no longer in front of the steering wheel, it's in the console

- Your glove box doesn't have a manual latch, dig into settings to open the glove box

- The gear shifter is in the console or above you

Seems like Elon went full contrarian when designing the car.

> "I just can't see the front of the car".

> Oh yeah, this will work out great.

It seems to me that the Cybertruck has less of a blind spot in front of the hood than F-150. The "not seeing the front" is actually hinting at this, it's below the field of vision. The hood angles down agressively vs. huge

Large trucks/SUVs are infamous for poor pedestrian visibility right in front.

Edit: this graphic (https://cdn.carbuzz.com/gallery-images/1600/1140000/800/1140...) comes to mind.

He also designed the windshield wiper of doom. Which is ridiculous as well.

There's a market, it's tiny compared to the USA but I've seen bigger trucks like the Dodge RAM, Ford F-250, and similar peppered around Stockholm's area more affluent neighbourhoods/municipalities.

When I lived in Huddinge (a higher income municipality with lots of villas/detached houses) it seemed like 1 every 5 houses had at least one of those trucks parked in their garage, some had 2 or more. Same around the Danderyd area...

I've noticed the uptick in larger trucks, and bigger SUVs around the streets here for the past 4-5 years.

I really hope this trend doesn't continue, it sucks.

*)Rich Americans

> I assume they do some testing for vehicle vs. pedestrian

No they don't.

I don't think testing against other cars exists either.

That’s not how crash tests work. To be able to get the vehicle certified, they drive the car into concrete barriers at a variety of angles and evaluate dummies for injuries. If the injuries are too severe, then the car will fail. In addition, there must be mitigations in place for what happens to wheels/engines in a crash scenario. If the engine immediately gets flung out of the engine bay, it will fail. Yes, I understand this is an electric vehicle.

In reality, modern cars are extremely safe (as much as a 2 ton hunk of metal can be).

Now, this calculation may be different for other vehicles involved in an accident with a cybertruck, but in reality, a concrete barrier is much harder than even this ugly slab of steel. The other cars are also engineered to absorb the same impacts.

Arguably the most vulnerable party in a cybertruck accident is a civilian located outside of a vehicle.

I'm really curious how the results of crash tests will turn out here. Crumple zones are a really important safety feature, and I can't imagine the Cybertruck will fare well without them.

He said that it's expressly designed to turn minivans into scrap metal and hamburger meat on the turnpike, then laughed maniacally.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/cars/2023/11/the-tesla-cybertruck-fi...

According to the article he "implied".

Another source and direct quote:

"If you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win,” Musk told his fans at the delivery event in its Texas factory in Austin. “Here at Tesla we have the finest in apocalypse technology."

*https://fortune.com/2023/12/01/cybertruck-elon-musk-tesla-de...

If it sticks out onto the street or the pavement, can you call the non-emergency police number to get that guy a ticket?

Exactly. You don't want pedestrians and cyclists being impaled or decapitated on the sharp and pointy edges of your car in case of accidents.

This isn't Mad Max or a zombie apocalypse to warrant such design choices on the road.

I'm surprised that it's legal in the US.

Yep

That's not that different from my Toyota Sequoia at ~5950 lbs curb weight (I was over 6800 lbs loaded with family, dog, luggage, and tools last time I went over a scale to weigh my 7400 lbs travel trailer).

I drive extremely carefully while using that stupidly large vehicle. Please don't honk at me when I don't jump out into small gaps at an intersection, cut me off when I'm leaving a large gap in front of me, or dart around me when I'm not accelerating like it's a drag race - I'm just trying not to hurt anyone.

My Dad was driving his 6800 lbs Super Duty a few years ago, pulling a trailer with a friend's antique car (a Buick about as long and as heavy as a barge) when a little 2500 lbs Honda Fit pulled out of a driveway to turn left without looking. The truck needed the bumper, radiator, and some trim replaced, the Honda was totaled. He applied the brakes fully on all 8 wheels but basically stayed in the lane unperturbed, the Honda was spun into the ditch and the whole left rear was crushed. If someone had been sitting in the back left seat they'd have been dead. Miraculously, no one was killed.

That arms race is why my wife refuses to downsize. We could get a smaller, lighter, newer travel trailer, and pull it with a Honda Odyssey. But she wants to be as tall as the pickups and as heavy as anything else so she doesn't get killed by some idiot.

It is fun to think that it is very much closing to gross weight where your normal driving license is not enough. As that limit is 3500kg. Meaning that if you have 6 people in it you would be over the limit. And this does not include any cargo...

Sure but thats a feature of all large trucks he's just marketing more aggressively.

What would happen if two Cybertrucks crashed in a head on collision?

Cybertruck uses a different construction technique, one that's been around for decades yet was never adopted by any other car maker. This is probably one of the reasons why.

You have it backwards - you want something significantly thinner than 3.2mm steel to get a bend radius of 3.2mm. That’s why most cars don’t use sheet steel and have exteriors made with materials that are easier to form

I think the whole thing is a kindergartner being rich enough to design his fantasy car, but I wonder if anyone at Tesla is considering a EU version with different materials and more rounded edges.

Bugattis have to have added bumpers to make them legal in the US[1], although they're easily removable by the owner (at their own risk of fines).. it'd be funny if European Teslas had ugly padding around the edges/corners.. or maybe not funny, as I live there I'd loathe to see these ugly things.

1 https://www.carthrottle.com/news/bugatti-chirons-us-spec-bum...

Not by stamping the steel which is what they’re doing