Cybertruck T-Bone accident at high speed - damage photos

[Alto]

My point was that not knowing the specifics of the impact, the speed and mass of the impacting vehicle, the speed of the impacted vehicle, the loads in each vehicle, the angle of impact, etc, it's irrational to draw conclusions based on a photo the damage inflicted. If the impacing vehicle was empty and travelling only 20 mph, that would be terrible crash performance. But, if it was fully loaded and going 50 mph, it would be unheard of side impact protection.

You are proving my other point, that people are jumping to silly conclusions without having even the most basic of facts.

The other silly thing, is you are acting like the lack of a B pillar makes life-threatening damage look good. It's like saying, "Wow, that Cybertruck did really well, considering it doesn't have anti-intrusion door beams".

Let's avoid jumping to silly conclusions, we simply don't know enough.

NHTSA web page

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[Alto]

The crumple zones on the white vehicle worked as intended.


Looks to be a 2011-14 Ford Edge.

https://www.carsized.com/en/cars/compare/ford-edge-2010-suv-vs-tesla-cybertruck-2023-4-door-pickup/




I'm gonna say for a 13 years difference in safety improvements, that ford faired amazing well, compared to the damage on the CT.

NHTSA web page

 

[Alto]

Why do you think door rails would do better than this?

They're a single line of protection, and when crushed, collapse more extremely than a plate of hardened steel. Because they're basically hardened steel in a tube.

Plate > tube in this instance.

There's no crash data because NHTSA doesn't publish or test vehicles until a certain number have been shipped - they only test 'mass market' vehicles... And weirdly are very slow with some, fast with others, because they choose based upon expected deliveries, not actual, while Tesla doesn't publish expected. So for instance Fords tend to get published before they hit the 50K threshold because Ford is always overestimating how many they'll delivery.



-Crissa

Thanks for the information.

I freely admit, I don’t know how the traditional side impact protection in most vehicles compares to side impact protection in the Cybertruck. I haven’t seen that information yet, but it’s important to me.

Passengers in side impact accidents sometimes die . It may be because they are so close to the point of impact. Even small intrusions into the passenger area can contact a person in the vehicle.

If I was responsible for the design and I was deliberately omitting a traditional safety feature, I’d want to be doubly sure my solution was more than marginally superior.

At this point, after the Cybertruck actually can be scrutinized, it seems to me statements made about what it would be, over stated what was delivered. Some of the claims went to the point of being laughable in retrospect. In one post, on this forum, made in 2022,, a statement attributed to EM said that the Cybertruck would deliver itself to its owners.

Now that I’ve actually reviewed some of the information the NHTSA makes available and been told of the procedure for reviewing new vehicles, I think the crash ratings are less helpful to consumers in identifying the safest vehicle to buy then I thought they would be.

 

[Sandman1962]

I hope no one was seriously injured. That looks like a lot of energy absorbed by both vehicles. NOT that it matters, it appears the CT might be drivable still whereas the Tacoma is not.
Like others, I’d love more information and interior pictures as well as other exterior angles

 

[SteelMyHeart]

Count me in the camp of saying the other car did not come out of this well. As others have said the front end crumpled to engine block. What nobody else has said is....look at the pavement below the car: oil and maybe battery acid and and maybe transmission fluid or coolant have spilled out indicating significant damage. I think the amount of intrusion of the cybertruck door seems pretty minimal and if crash speed was 50 mph + I would be super impressed.

 

[sozucom]

We need the Cybertruck camera footage and impact metrics I'm sure Tesla has.

 

[TWRAPS]

I know how to settle this dispute!
We need two people. - who here has a Tacoma and who received a spare Cybertruck?

 

[kbolt]

Confirmation bias is where you seek out things that support your view. What is it called when you see a lot of a thing so you think it happens way more often? Frequency bias?

We see a lot of CT crashes because this is a forum for CTs. I wonder how often the general public see the CT crashes.

 

[Rock5tar]

The door panels flexed in about 8-12 inches. I'd say this held up very well.

 

[Arctic_White]

looks like Cybertruck needs a steel crashbar behind the door panels

Disagree.

The doors are designed to absorb the impact, so the energy doesn't get dissipated around (or worse, inside) the cabin.

Excellent engineering by the Tesla team, once again. Clearly shows that safety is their top priority.

I am impressed.

 

[RonSol]

There was no Tacoma or Tundra involved. The vehicle that hit that CT is/was a Ford Edge.

 

[HaulingAss]

Now that I’ve actually reviewed some of the information the NHTSA makes available and been told of the procedure for reviewing new vehicles, I think the crash ratings are less helpful to consumers in identifying the safest vehicle to buy then I thought they would be.

Not many people know this, but manufacturers tend to design their vehicles to the technical requirements of each crash test, in order to achieve a high star rating. The problem is, the crash test procedures don't replicate all real-world crash scenarios very well. If a manufacturer designs their vehicles only to withstand the specific tests, it will not perform as well in the real world. The other problem is the rating does not go above 5 stars. Not all 5 star rated vehicles offer the same amount of occupant protection, and especially not in the wide variety of real-world crash scenarios.

Tesla is different from other manufacturers in that they are not blindly focused on achieving 5 stars, they don't stop improving their vehicles when they know it will achieve 5 stars. They use the data they collect from every impact of their vehicles in the real world to reduce injury and increase survivability of the most common types accidents. They expand their crash safety engineering to include crash scenarios that are common in the real world, but not well represented by the specified laboratory crash scenarios.

Tesla will not release a vehicle until they are confident it will achieve 5 stars in every category, and they continue to improve the crash safety engineering after that, based upon the data coming back from the field. Tesla will be studying the data from this T-bone incident, they analyze the kinetics data collected during the crash event, the camera data, and, if possible, more detailed photos of the damage aftermath to see if attachment points would benefit from being more robust, if changing the shape of the stampings will provide more crash protection, etc. The refreshed Model 3 has new features to increase crash safety far beyond 5 stars.

It's a shame the specified crash tests do not recognize protection that exceeds 5 stars, or vehicles that can handle higher speed impacts than the tests are designed to replicate. It's too bad that legacy auto games the tests by designing specifically for the tested scenarios, and neglects common crash scenarios that are not well represented by the prescribed tests.

 

[Arctic_White]

Not many people know this, but manufacturers tend to design their vehicles to the technical requirements of each crash test, in order to achieve a high star rating. The problem is, the crash test procedures don't replicate all real-world crash scenarios very well. If a manufacturer designs their vehicles only to withstand the specific tests, it will not perform as well in the real world. The other problem is the rating does not go above 5 stars. Not all 5 star rated vehicles offer the same amount of occupant protection, and especially not in the wide variety of real-world crash scenarios.

Tesla is different from other manufacturers in that they are not blindly focused on achieving 5 stars, they don't stop improving their vehicles when they know it will achieve 5 stars. They use the data they collect from every impact of their vehicles in the real world to reduce injury and increase survivability of the most common types accidents. They expand their crash safety engineering to include crash scenarios that are common in the real world, but not well represented by the specified laboratory crash scenarios.

Tesla will not release a vehicle until they are confident it will achieve 5 stars in every category, and they continue to improve the crash safety engineering after that, based upon the data coming back from the field. Tesla will be studying the data from this T-bone incident, they analyze the kinetics data collected during the crash event, the camera data, and, if possible, more detailed photos of the damage aftermath to see if attachment points would benefit from being more robust, if changing the shape of the stampings will provide more crash protection, etc. The refreshed Model 3 has new features to increase crash safety far beyond 5 stars.

It's a shame the specified crash tests do not recognize protection that exceeds 5 stars, or vehicles that can handle higher speed impacts than the tests are designed to replicate. It's too bad that legacy auto games the tests by designing specifically for the tested scenarios, and neglects common crash scenarios that are not well represented by the prescribed tests.

Building up from your post, it should be noted that amongst all car manufacturers, Tesla is the only one that has the best quality of data, not just from its telemetrics but also actual video data from the standard 8 cameras that all Tesla's (from 2016) are equipped with.

This data is the main reason why Tesla is able (and willing) to continue to improve its vehicles safety.

No other manufacturer places as much emphasis and attention on safety as Tesla. As a parent, safety is of paramount importance and I wouldn't buy any other vehicle other than Tesla simply because of this.

 

[HaulingAss]

when the shit happens-do the haters working overtime?

The haters work overtime to try to prevent accident results like this from making the Cybertruck look good. They try to take any potential positive and turn it into a negative, if they can. The last thing they want is for anyone to walk away with a positive impression of the Cybertruck.

 

[HaulingAss]

Building up from your post, it should be noted that amongst all car manufacturers, Tesla is the only one that has the best quality of data, not just from its telemetrics but also actual video data from the standard 8 cameras that all Tesla's (from 2016) are equipped with.

This data is the main reason why Tesla is able (and willing) to continue to improve its vehicles safety.

No other manufacturer places as much emphasis and attention on safety as Tesla. As a parent, safety is of paramount importance and I wouldn't buy any other vehicle other than Tesla simply because of this.

True, it's shame traditional manufacturers care so little about safety (while spending literally billions of dollars on advertising to convince you they really do care). All they really care about is squeaking by with 5 stars to boost their sales, after that, it simply doesn't matter.

The whole reason the crash safety ratings exist was give manufacturers an incentive to care. Ironically, crash safety testing was pushed by the insurance industry, who only cared about lowering their payouts. For many companies it really is all about the money, not your family's safety.

The number of completely horrific Tesla accidents that people have walked away from with only minor injuries is astounding. That doesn't stop the haters from trying to position Tesla as a company that doesn't care about your safety. Tesla would never make a pickup truck with a high, "masculine" hoodline because the pedestrian injury data shows the number one characteristic of vehicle design that correlates with the severity of pedestrian injuries is the height of the hoodline.

Lower hoodlines lead to better pedestrian impact outcomes, primarily by flipping the struck pedestrian up onto the hood, rather than creating an impact that could be described more as a "splat". Yet we have an army of Tesla haters saying the Cybertruck is MORE dangerous than a traditional pickup because a traditional pickup has rounded corners.

Walk in front of a Dodge Ram 1500 or 2500 with a five foot tall hoodline, travelling at 35 mph and tell me how nice those "rounded" corners feel! "Splat" is never good.

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