Comment on Tesla Cybertruck's stiff structure, sharp design raise safety concerns - experts
Gigan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The angular design of Tesla’s Cybertruck has safety experts concerned that the electric pickup truck’s stiff stainless-steel exoskeleton could hurt pedestrians and cyclists.
If anyone actually cared about this they’d be going after Ford and Chevy, not a vehicle that isn’t even available to the public yet.
why not both?
Although being fair, the other day just out of curiosity I was taking a look at electric cars in my country and almost every single one of them was a needlessly huge SUV.
There were a few exceptions, but I was not expecting that maybe 25 out of 30 cars were in the bigger size.
why not both?
Because cyber trucks aren’t killing people. Trucks made by Ford and Chevy are. Why put effort into solving a problem that doesn’t exist yet when there is a real problem right now, and if you solve that one it will also solve the cyber-truck problem.
You’re able to do both, you have a massive country with a massive government with a lot of funding.
99% of the time it’s not one or the other, and your argument literally works the same if they handle the dystopian car first.
Because cyber trucks aren’t killing people.
They haven’t even been on sale for two weeks and those sales have been limited. Maybe give it the well over a century that Ford and Chevy have had before making that claim.
Bigger size = bigger profit margin. We’d be a lot further towards carbon neutral if cars hadn’t grown to ridiculous average sizes while engine efficiency improved a lot.
A bit of a straw man argument, but also based. They should go after all production vehicles and require that they meet pedestrian safety standards or that ownership requires additional licensing/training.
In the EU they do, and the Cybertruck has already failed the pedestrian safety requirements there.
The NHTSA is just now starting to talk about “rating” vehicles for pedestrian safety in the US, but to my knowledge there is no actual rule or mandate yet. We just inherit whatever is designed into vehicles that are also sold in the EU, if those vehicles happen to be sold here.
the_q@lemmy.world 9 months ago
While Chevy and Ford have giant trucks too, they also crumple where the stainless steel Tesla doesn’t. Crumpling makes the vehicle dissipate the force of a crash in case you weren’t aware.
Regardless, no one needs this Tesla monstrosity just like no one needs the giant vehicles Americans seem to be obsessed with.
Gigan@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Unless I’m mistaken, crumpling is meant to protect the driver and passengers. Not pedestrians, cyclists, or anyone else outside the vehicle.
yamsham@lemm.ee 9 months ago
To an extent it’s both. I mean intent-wise it’s all about the occupants of the car, but as a side effect it also slightly reduces the impact on the pedestrian. The way I would think about it is that crumple zones on their own aren’t nearly enough to protect pedestrians, but removing them would be going completely in the wrong direction
BearOfaTime@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Crumple zones don’t crumple when hitting anything as soft as a person. I had a car run into me while stopped. They were doing about 45, it was the worst-case impact, driver corner to driver corner. My airbags didn’t go off. I lost the left front fender and headlight. No crumple zone changes (that’s part of the unit body, when it gets bent, it often totals the vehicle). A pedestrian would’ve bounced off that car with broken bones and a concussion, minimum.
They’re for occupants.
Plastic bumpers are the only thing that compresses easily enough to not injure a pedestrian. And even those are pointless, at a speed where a pedestrian impact would compress a bumper, is fast enough to transfer a lot of momentum into a human body, and compress the bumper into the harder parts of the car.
chitak166@lemmy.world 9 months ago
No, not to an extent.
Crumpling does nothing for a person getting hit by a car. Please stop spreading bullshit.
hardcoreufo@lemmy.world 9 months ago
None of these monster trucks are going to crumple from a fleshy pedestrian. Crumple zones are for when you hit another vehicle or tree or something
filister@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Even with the crumple, the mass of those vehicles is enormous hence the force a pedestrian or a cyclist will experience.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 9 months ago
Crumple zones are for vehicle to vehicle impacts. They have nothing to do with pedestrian safety.