The electric car company, run by Elon Musk, is recalling thousands of what is its latest vehicle.
Tesla, the electric car company owned by Elon Musk, has recalled thousands of its new Cybertrucks over safety concerns.
It is because their accelerator pedals currently risk getting trapped by the interior trim, increasing the possibility of crashes.
The BBC recently spoke to a whistleblower at the company who had raised concerns over the safety of pedals of previous Tesla models.
Tesla has been contacted for comment.
The recall affects 3,878 Cybertrucks, which cost roughly $61,000 (£48,320), made between November 2023 and April 2024.
"A trapped accelerator pedal can cause the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally, increasing the risk of a crash," the US Department of Transportation wrote in a notification of the recall.
I think MKBHD's (follow up?) review was probably the best take on it. He specifically did not review it as "a truck" and pretty much described it like an SUV where the trunk region is on the exterior the entire time.
Which I think is a vehicle a lot of people would want. Me and my buddies are sickos who go on multi day camping/climbing trips and would not want to leave all our crap in the open (stuff is either in a tent or locked in the car at night). But for the average person? Throw little timmy's football pads in the back or put a tarp over your fifty suitcases on the way to a hotel. And make sure you have an empty toolchest so people think you work for a living. Groceries are an issue but basically every truck I have ever had the displeasure of parking near just opens their passenger door all the way (almost always dinging the car next to them) and takes twelve minutes to load three bags.
But as an actual truck? it is dogshit. But also... Simone Giertz kind of created Truckla, the dream vehicle of every single millennial who knows what a Lowe's is: the El Camino. Form factor of a sedan/crossover but with a truckbed so we don't have to hold a hand out to keep the pipe from shooting forward and cracking the windshield when we stop. And it would have let them reuse almost the entire existing assembly line and designs.
Sadly it’s more of a production problem than a demand problem. I believe there are 100s of thousands of preorders pending. They are just hard to build to any decent standard. Or apparently impossible to build to even a basic working standard.
That's more than Ford F150 lighting sold in the same starting period back in 2022,and its more than GM sold of the Silverado EV that started months earlier.
I question whether or not Tesla will be around in 3 years. The Cybertruck has been one giant cash sink that has delivered a giant rusty lemon. They cancelled their latest consumer grade car. Their next product is robo-taxis and that's with a history of driver death from their self-driving tech. And the major car brands have caught up or are at Tesla's heels.
Tesla still has advantages like an extensive charger network and the appearance of FSD on the horizon to general consumers. People that follow EV closely know there are better options, but they're a minority.
Not to mention the fact that places like Lemmy give the company and its CEO never-ending free press and coverage.
People that follow EV closely know there are better options, but they're a minority.
I don't think they're a minority of people that have considered buying an EV and don't impulse spend tens of thousands of dollars on a vehicle though.
It doesn't matter to them if the person who wasn't going to buy an EV doesn't buy a Tesla. It matters if the person who was going to buy an EV doesn't buy a Tesla.
I'd argue the lease business carries them big time. But 2nd hand leases don't generate money for them .. they might get some spare change from subscriptions but their support has to carry over to older vehicles no longer providing profit.
If it was GM or Chrysler, I would also assume the stupid decision to glue a flat piece of metal to another flat piece of metal that people are going to stomp on was because glue is cheap.
This, unfortunately, is a Musk run company, so the real reason was likely hubris. Someone's over engineered solution getting axed for cost is the least likely reason. It's more likely that the man child in charge (or a hand picked manchildlett crony) thought welding / mechanical fasteners were beneath them and that the glue was actually a sufficient and elegant solution to maintain clean design or some other form over function reason.
The Canyonero at least looked like a plausible vehicle.
That episode was from 1998. If you showed someone a picture of a Cybertruck in 1998 and said that was an actual truck in 2024, they'd ask you when the nuclear war happened.
Aren't those things almost double the weight of a typical truck? That and 100% torque from a dead stop (because electric) is horrifying if it accelerates unintentionally. I always see this one guy cruising around every weekend in a dense shopping mall near me just to show it off. I can't imagine if that thing plows into a busy shopping area.
I fell asleep behind the wheel for maybe four seconds one time (the dreaded double clopen) and have had infrequent nightmares of being trapped in a vehicle that is uncontrollably accelerating ever since
The great thing about living in the future is that your dreams are daily becoming a reality