First reported Tesla Cybertruck accident results in only 'minor' injury

First reported Tesla Cybertruck accident results in only 'minor' injury(theverge.com)

11 points by annabyrd 2 years ago | 6 comments

twiss 2 years ago |

Impacted side of the Cybertruck: https://www.reddit.com/r/cybertruck/comments/18tmhia/the_dri...

It's good that nobody suffered major injuries, but another car driving into the side of a Cybertruck doesn't say much about what would happen if a Cybertruck drove into a pedestrian, for example - I assume the result wouldn't be good. So this headline strikes me as strange, or at least the article doesn't really address that concern.

calciphus 2 years ago | |

Last thing I want to do is make excuses for tesla, but the front doesn't look particularly different from any other truck for sale in the US. What is your question / suspicion exactly? That it is substantially worse than similar vehicles?

twiss 2 years ago | | |

You're right of course that all trucks are dangerous. But in https://topgear.nl/autonieuws/techneut-van-tesla-legt-uit-wa... (in Dutch), the Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla says that the Cybertruck won't come to Europe partly because:

> European regulations require a rounding of 3.2 millimeters on protruding parts. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make a rounding of 3.2 millimeters on a sheet of stainless steel of 1.4 millimeters

(and I assume most other trucks meet this requirement, at least the ones that are also sold in the EU). I don't know how much of a difference that makes if you're driving very fast, of course, but at lower speeds it might make a difference?

TheAlchemist 2 years ago | |

We actually don't see the impacted front of the Cybertruck. And I guess there is a reason for that...

xnx 2 years ago |

High mass of the Cybertruck seems to have benefited it here. Side impact to a lighter vehicle would've meant more acceleration/trauma to the passengers and thrown the vehicle further off course. If you're a safe driver, a heavy vehicle seems like a good one to be in.

bastard_op 2 years ago |

The really interesting bit of this will be what the repair costs look like. Since that thing is all stainless, it's going to make repairs nearly impossible. Having done body and pain vehicular repair at a time in my life, I presume these cars are simply disposable in any major accident that isn't a bolt-on panel, or at best it'll need a paint job after to hide the repairs (and bondo).

See the DeLorean wiki how that worked out for his all-stainless vehicle in the 80's, but short answer: it didn't.

But hey, maybe a body shop can fix those bad factory gaps now!