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First Tesla Cybertruck Crash Kills Driver In Baytown Area, Electric Pick-up Bursts Into Flames

www.ibtimes.co.uk First Tesla Cybertruck Crash Kills Driver In Baytown Area, Electric Pick-up Bursts Into Flames

Tesla's Cybertruck has been involved in its first fatal crash in Baytown, Texas, where the vehicle lost control and caught fire, killing the driver.

A Tesla Cybertruck driver was killed in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving the electric pickup truck, which has yet to undergo third-party crash testing.

76 comments

How do you even get a vehicle past safety regulations and up for sale without third party crash testing?
- Deregulation.
  
  There's miles of safety regulations for cars in the US,
- You have a car company owned by one of the richest (and thus one of the most powerful) people in the world.
  
  When you're famous they let you do it.
- I found this article informative.
  
  https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-safety/some-cars-will-never-be-crash-tested-crash-test-ratings-a9250800738/
  
  In order to sell a new vehicle in the U.S., manufacturers must provide information from their own company crash tests to NHTSA to ensure compliance with federal standards.
  
  Yup, regulatory capture at work. You see this a lot in EPA and OSHA as well - "we'll take your word for it until serious shit starts happening a lot."
- Money
- Boeing did it.
- I don't know about Cybertruck but other Teslas rank high up in the safest cars ever tested. Would be surprising if this wouldn't apply to cybertruck too though who knows.
  
  Edit: also, 15 to 20k units sold and this is the first fatal crash involving one
  
  other Teslas rank high up in the safest cars ever tested.
  
  I’ve heard that, but now I kinda think they probably just made those up.
  
  Watch that crash test video and tell me that's safe...it crashes like a 72 Impala.
  
  Numbers skewed by time spent out of service waiting for something.
- I suspect nhtsa is facing pressure to push through EVs as part of the larger effort to promote move to carbon emissions reduction.
  
  What an incredibly bold claim with zero evidence to back it up.
Recent data indicates that Cybertruck may have achieved the highest sales among electric pickup trucks in the U.S. during the second quarter of 2024. With an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 units already on the road and a reported sales rate of 1,754 units per month, the Cybertruck is increasingly visible on roadways.

Well... say hello to a lot more fatal crashes. Involving pedestrians.
- The cybertruck front is actually lower than a lot of other comparable trucks, and has a slanted hood, both things that will reduce pedestrian fatalities compared to some of the other flat neck high bricks out there.
  
  It's just a matter of does the truck cut them in half or not with that front edge of which we don't have any data on yet.
  
  Eg. This is beside a f150 raptor
  
  Unfortunately the materials really matters with pedestrian motor vehicle accidents. When I first started working in orthopedics and rehabilitation, metal fenders and bumpers were still regularly on the roads and causing very specific injuries.
  
  When a metal bumper hits you, it doesn't just cause blunt force trauma, it tends to shear muscle away from the bone. There was a specific ankle foot orthosis that was widely produced up until the early 2000s that was meant to replace calf muscles that were scooped off by metal bumpers.
  
  This truck is basically a giant flying wedge of stainless steel, I don't see any pedestrian walking away from an accident with this monstrosity.
  
  That's not entirely accurate, a cyber truck has adaptive suspension that can lift the truck as much as what you'd get on a 6" lift. In the Pic you are showing it's at it's lowest position.
  
  It also has sharp corners that will ruin your day- instead of Bouncing off fairly flexible body panels, that are round and blunt, you’re getting nailed by rigid, sharp corners.
  
  Which concentrate what force is there.
  
  That Ford grill is made out of ABS plastic, like a big Lego.
  
  The Cybertruck is made out of steel, like an anvil.
  
  Ridiculous.
- On the bright side, this was a single vehicle, single person crash.
I sleep well knowing this thing will never be street legal in the EU.
Cybertruck, built Fraud tough
DPS confirmed the driver was fatally injured at the scene, but his identity remains unknown due to severe burns. The intense fire also prevented authorities from identifying the vehicle's license plate or VIN.

Holy shit, it straight up cremated him in a lithium fire. Teslas are a fucking abomination.
There is a video of the cybertruck crash test and the thing is very stiff with very little no crumple zone - so most of the energy of the impact goes directly to the driver and passengers.

And the edges are sharp like a knife in a crash. Incredibly dangerous.
- It's almost like you should follow the lessons of the past and... Who am I kidding, muskrat is a billionaire therefore he's a super genius who knows better than the decades of research into collisions...
  
  I mean it was a cool idea on first glance because it does things differently. But then you should think about it for a moment and listen to the engineers to realize there is a reason why no cars look like that.
- Tesla Cybertruck Cuisinart Edition.
  
  emergency rooms going to have a name for crispy filleted cybertruck crash victims.
- The driver was too high-poly to survive the collision.
Wait, first?
That was the first crash?

Huh. I thought for sure people who buy those crash on the way home from the dealership. Of in their garage if "car" is delivered.
- From the article:
  
  appears to be the first reported fatal crash
  
  (emphasis mine)
  
  And they say people can't read anymore. It's hidden there in the very first sentence of the article. Who would think to look there?
- The first fatal crash.
Only 19999 more.
The crazy part about all that steel and those difficult to break windows means its going to be a hard vehicle to escape in a fire or underwater. He may have bought a tesla but nobody deserves to die for that decision.
- If you choose a car with an unproven safety record, you accept the high likelihood you will die in the event of a crash.
A few years ago the fightfighters in my town had to undergo new training because there was a tesla car fire at an accident scene that they had a very hard time putting out. Shit just wouldn't stop burning.
- Lithium fires need to be doused in salt to put out. Or, technically you can put out a metal fire with gasoline.
  
  You go from a class D fire to a class B fire, and then you can put that out as normal. But yeah, salt is better.
  
  Water is the last thing you want to use on class D fires, followed by CO2. Both have the oxygen ripped off by the burning metal, making the fire burn hotter.
  
  A dump truck of sand also does the trick...but it better be very dry sand
- It does. New tech has new problems, but nothing we can't work with
  
  Hopefully a more responsible company can figure out how to make those batteries safer since I'm not counting on tesla to do it.
  
  And it's not because I think their r&d teams are bad. It's more like their narcissistic CEO will probably fire anyone who points out any problems or he'll just straight up ignore them and keep selling his mobile single use crematoriums.
I just realized that this is my first time seeing "First fatal crash" reported for a car model (I don't pay much attention to cars)
I realize that with the number of car accidents that happen daily, every model is bound to have a fatal one eventually, but huh.. witnessing "the first one" feels weird. Morbid.
I was about to call bullshit but it appears I missremembered Angela Chao had a Model X

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