Context
A new analysis by independent automotive blog FuelArc suggests that fire fatalities are 17 times more likely in a Cybertruck than in the infamous Ford Pinto — the posterchild of deadly cars if ever there was one.
Context
A new analysis by independent automotive blog FuelArc suggests that fire fatalities are 17 times more likely in a Cybertruck than in the infamous Ford Pinto — the posterchild of deadly cars if ever there was one.
It’s specifically 17x more fire fatalities per car on the road - 5/35000 for the cyberturd, something like 30/3000000 for the pinto.
Notably the Pinto’s design was placing the gas tank behind the rear bumper, so getting rear-ended badly enough could cause a fireball. The big scandal was that Ford did the math on the cost of settlements vs recalls and found settlements would be cheaper, so they didn’t fix the issue.
Cyberturd on the other hand has big lithium batteries strapped to the bottom, notably locks occupants in the vehicle in the event of power failure (e.g. bad crash or battery failure, explosive or otherwise) AND its “apocalypse proof” design means it takes first responders a long time to smash through the windows to rescue you before you’re barbecued.
I support having the death penalty but only for use against people with power that do shit like this.
China stays winning on this sort of thing fr
The 1993-2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee had the same issue, with higher fatality rate per fire crash
I believe the recall fix was to install a trailer hitch that would deform the tank in such a way that it was less likely to cause a fire.
this used to be a country about engineering catastrophe on purpose to save a buck
the result of this is that now this is a country that engineers catastrophes out of complete and utter incompetence.
Oh yeah, the whole cybertruck is an engineering disaster I really want to hear a good deep dive on. There are so many systemic issues with its production, and it really is the exact shit you’d end up with by running a car manufacturer like a software company.
It genuinely suffers from trying to reinvent the wheel for like literally every part of the car - most automakers purchase parts from specialized manufacturers that serve a bunch of different automakers, Tesla builds nearly everything in-house and as a result suffers from issues that every other manufacturer solved many decades ago (like auto glass that doesn’t spontaneously shatter, functional windshield wipers, wheels that don’t rip off at the lug nuts, basic waterproofing, etc)
IIRC, there were a couple additional issues with the Pinto. There was a problem with the filler tube that connected to the fuel tank (I think it was welded to the body or something), and this could cause a rupture and subsequent conflagration. The fuel tank was much too close to the bumper, and there wasn’t enough of a buffer zone around it; there were lots of structural items nearby that could cause punctures. Ford actually had the option to license a self-sealing “fuel bladder”, a design that came from the aviation industry, but the bean counters nixed that. The doors tended to bind and jam in a collision, trapping occupants in a burning vehicle. And finally, '70s-era Ford was really making some lousy cars, especially small ones. The Pinto is yet another case of “the hard way is the easiest to learn”. (I think there was an episode of Engineering Disasters that covered the Pinto fiasco in great detail).
The diagram you posted below shows what a defective design it really was. It’s almost as if they shoehorned in the fuel tank wherever they could, like it was an afterthought.
Panicked tweet: “Help us, Daddy Elon! We’re stuck in our Cybertruck and there’s a fire! Something’s burning and it smells like bacon. W” and it ends there.
funny(?) morbid anecdote
Bacon smell is real lol. When I was a kid, my dad and I were stopped at an intersection on our way to get lunch. We started talking about how good the nearby barbecue smelled, until he realized there wasn’t any barbecue place nearby… then I noticed smoke coming out of the chimney at the funeral home across the way — they were doing a cremation
CW: cannibalism
I wonder if there have been any at least fairly notable death metal bands with that name. A band that did one EP and existed in Liverpool for 8 months in 1983 doesn’t really count to me.
Measuring the data in this way actually skews it in favor of the cybertruck, because the ford Pintos have each had a lot more road-time and thus more fire likelihood. So likely more than 17x worse
I think you meant the gas tank was behind the rear axle, it was definitely ahead of the bumper. Subsequent studies had shown that the pinto wasn’t uniquely unsafe compared to other subcompacts from the era.
yeah, between the rear axel and the bumper. “just behind” the bumper if you’re coming from the back of the car, e.g., rear-ending it
edit: diagram to clarify: