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3 Cybertrucks Caught Fire After Underbody Strikes. Tesla Now Sells a $3,500 Battery Shield Upgrade. (fuelarc.com)
submitted 2 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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I mean, I'm glad Tesla built a fix, but it's sort of tacky to ship a $75,000+ truck and then sell the fireproofing separately.

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[–] 105 points 2 months ago (7 children)

In a functioning society, these things would have been recalled a dozen times by now. But the owner of the company is frenemies with the fucking president so we just have to live with fire bomb hazards driving on our streets

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  • [–] [S] 44 points 2 months ago

    I was just thinking... last time this happened, in 2013, the NHTSA investigated 2 fires and Tesla issued a free fix.

    I wonder what changed to make Tesla fear the NHTSA so little? :>

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    But the owner of the company is frenemies with the fucking president

    Enemies? That whole feud was faked to save Tesla. People were boycotting them very successfully. Musk continues to work helping trump including again paying to help in midterms.

    Unfortunately this stunt worked.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 2 months ago

    "this stunt worked" is relative.

    Look at their sales chart. By comparison, Toyota moved 11-12 million.

    Gravity is inevitable. 1.5 million units a year is a unsustainable failure if the stock price is $300+. They need to multiply it by something insane like 20x for the stock price to make sense.

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    • [–] 60 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    3 Cybertrucks Caught Fire

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    • [–] 35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    They said it was built like a tank, now i get what they mean; the underside is a weakpoint

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    • [–] 23 points 2 months ago

    I'm going to propose that they already had this fix in mind, they just didn't make it standard equipment because they tried to save money raise profits by not putting it on them. Didn't Teslas have this issue before and they designed a retrofit for them?

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    [–] 18 points 2 months ago (6 children)

    Kinda funny seeing this and the attached post so close together.

    https://electrek.co/2026/09/06/another-chinese-ev-myth-busted-as-gac-geely-and-leapmotor-ace-euro-ncap/

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (5 children)

    NCAP is rigged I think, Cybertruck scored 5/5 stars: https://www.nhtsa.gov/vehicle/2024/TESLA/CYBERTRUCK/PU%25252FCC/AWD

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  • [–] 11 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    US NHTSA run their own NCAP with their own rules.

    BYD, Geely, and GWM typically go through Euro NCAP. Tesla has refused to submit their vehicles to their tests which tells you everything you need to know and conveniently ensures you will always get the bullshit US rating if you search "NCAP Cybertruck".

    Given the existing safety issues with oversized trucks with low visibility or pedestrian impact survivability, I'm not at all surprised that a low-poly shitbox is somehow considered 'good' in the US which allows these kind of fuckass designs.

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    • [–] 15 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    Tesla never liked strikes

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    • [–] 15 points 2 months ago*

    Our product is shit? Buy more shit, to make the shit less shit!

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    [–] 13 points 2 months ago

    I won't be surprised to hear that the NHTSA is surpressing Tesla accident data.

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    [–] 31 points 2 months ago (26 children)

    A third Cybertruck drove over a highway cable barrier, lost a wheel, and burned for hours despite the fire department’s best efforts on-scene.

    Wha... what... what in the ever-fucking love do you mean it lost a wheel?!

    I... I'm at a loss here, you... cars are not supposed to lose wheels?!

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  • [–] 23 points 2 months ago (8 children)

    His style can be a bit annoying but go watch WhistlingDiesels CyberTruck durability tests.

    Dude had to keep pumping money to the Tesla center for repairs just to get the thing running again for more video content. Tow hitch module fell off after some off roading and the thing couldn't move anymore. Because that's how well it's built.

    He's done this to a bunch of vehicles and nothing is this finicky. The actual king of status symbol trucks, the Mercedes G class, survived everything he threw at it pretty much.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (7 children)

    Isn't that guy a con-man?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

    His videos are all bullshit.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Depends on your definition of con-man. He has been arrested and charged for tax evasion. As far as I know he isn't "conman" as such as having conned/frauded say viewers or so on out of money.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)
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  • [–] 14 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    Youre not supposed to drive over steel poles either. Unintended use cases can result in unexpected behavior

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  • [–] 20 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    My previous EV, an extremely humble (and cheap) Dacia Spring, got hit by a semi on the highway. It was totaled, completely destroyed. It finished upside down and even then, it didn't catch fire and the doors opened. Also didn't lose any of the wheels. I'd say that was the most unintended use case of the car and still, a barely 15k euros car ended in a better shape than a $75k+ monstrosity that is marketed as a truck "for the apocalypse".

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  • [–] [S] 4 points 2 months ago* (1 child)

    The fact that "it didn't catch fire and the doors opened" is the measure of success means that the bar is really on the floor for Teslas.

    For real though don't run over the bar with a Tesla, if it goes through the battery, you're toast

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    It's an unintended use, but an expected condition. A vehicle should never add to the danger in an expected condition except in ways necessary for an expected function (reaching highway speeds for example is inherently dangerous)

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  • [–] 12 points 2 months ago

    EM: Well, there are a lot of these cars going around the world all the time, and very seldom does anything like this happen … I just don’t want people thinking that Cybertrucks aren’t safe.

    R: Was this Cybertruck safe?

    EM: Well I was thinking more about the other ones…

    R: The ones that are safe...

    EM: Yeah... the ones the wheel doesn’t fall off.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    I saw a video of a guy how had an accident in his cybertruck. He lost a wheel and filmed the aftermath and talked about it. The wheel at the breaking points looked like it was melted together out of old monster cans. You could see millions of pretty sizable pores. So i'm kinda shocked that it's not happening more frequently to be honest

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    [–] 10 points 2 months ago

    A mere strike to the underbody, you say?

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago*

    Folks, please stop kicking Cybertrucks in the balls

    And if you own a Cybertruck, please purchase our new jockstrap

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago (1 child)

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    • [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    I mean short of directly funding a powerful Nazi, there appears to be a lot of other reasons not to own one of these things.

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    [–] 6 points 2 months ago

    It's a lot more than tacky.

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    [–] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

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    • [–] 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

    Its an ev version of the pinto

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    • [–] 8 points 2 months ago

    Any other company would have been sued into nonexistence if they released a car that;

    Lied in its marketing

    Can't tow for shit - aluminium frame holding tow bar collapses under 'rated' strain

    Can't be driven in water - electronics fail

    Can't offroad

    Breaks when treated as anything but a soccermom suv

    Stuck the accelerator on full blast during one user's drive

    Autopilot feature was stuck behind and update for the first year

    And now denonstrably sets fire to itself if damaged from the underside (but dont worry, the company now sells a product to bandaid that open chest wound)

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    [–] 4 points 2 months ago

    Ah yes, the Boeing school of transport safety. Part of the vehicle keeps exploding? Just put some metal sheet around it.

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago

    There are many other EVa that don't have this problem

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    [–] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (11 children)

    A shield upgrade? My racecar has that. Made out of 1/4" steel to give extra perfection protection to the oil pan. It was free. Left over metal on the shop floor. Also my racecar isn't prone to catching on fire like a Tesla but, I still have a fire extinguisher in it.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago (1 child)

    I feel like you just wanted to tell people about your racecar, but I respect that. May I see a photo?

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  • [–] 5 points 2 months ago

    I'm only going to say no cause I don't wanna give out my name that's on it lol. I will however give you the guy who won our divisions feature last weekend. Our car is similar under the hood, we just have an 80s Monte Carlo body kit.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

    A fire extinguisher ain’t gonna touch a battery fire. There really isn’t much you can do besides keep things away from it while it burns itself out.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 months ago* (3 children)

    You can drop the whole thing into a tank of water. Cooling it down is basically the only way to stop an EV fire because it's an exothermic, often self oxidizing reaction.

    Fire departments are starting to deploy mobile water containers for it.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (3 children)

    Extra perfection?

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  • [–] 1 point 2 months ago (2 children)

    Clearly I didn't double check my swipe text again 🙃 I failed.

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    • [–] 2 points 2 months ago

    I would just buy a used MRAP, at least it looks cool and futuristic.

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    17 comments in c/Cyberstuck@lemmy.ca view that post
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