By complete coincidence, I happen to have been watching a lot of videos on the Cybertruck over the Christmas holiday. I have been thinking of getting an electric vehicle and have been looking at the options. In doing so I came across the controversy surrounding Tesla’s unusual and distinctive electric truck. It’s quite a story if you like that kind of thing.
So when the news came that a Cybertruck had exploded outside of a Trump hotel I was already aware that bursting into flames was something that electric vehicles do, sometimes spontaneously. I also knew that the Cybertruck has a controversial feature. It is cast from a single piece of stainless steel. This means that it lacks the crumple zone that most cars have. This is a safety feature to ensure that in a crash the front of the car is deliberately weak enough to crumple absorbing the shock of the collision. This makes it safer for the occupants and anyone else involved.
The lack of a crumple zone is one of the reasons the Cybertruck is illegal here in the UK and in most countries around the world.
We don’t and may never know the motivation of the driver of the Cybertruck that ingnited in front of the Las Vegas Trump Hotel. At time of writing it does look like it was intentional. But any terrorist who keeps up with the news in his field can’t have failed to notice what this incident tells us.
The battery in EVs is a large incendiary device that is hard for firefighters to tackle and is easy to trigger. In the Cybertruck it has been built into an autonomous form that can easily be directed into targets – possible without even the need to be in it yourself. And the design is optimised for smashing through barriers.
I think our friends in America might want to consider if this is something they really want to remain legal.
Postscript – this article was written when it was still a live news story. A few days later the details are now clearer and looks like the battery didn’t catch fire in this attack. I stand by my conclusion – batteries could be tampered with and ignited, and so incorporated into a vehicle that can be controlled autonomously and whose design makes it an effective ram is a risky proposition. But this incident doesn’t particularly support my argument.
