It's Official: The Cybertruck is More Explosive Than the Ford Pinto:
We now have a full year of data for the Cybertruck, and a strange preponderance of headlines about Cybertrucks exploding into flames, including several fatalities. That's more than enough data to compare to the Ford Pinto, a car so notoriously combustible that it has become a watchword for corporate greed.
Let's start with the data summary, then we'll do a deep dive.
TL;DR: The CyberTruck is 17 times more likely to have a fire fatality than a Ford Pinto
With that maddening statistic out of the way, let's dive into the numbers.
Here's the table, with all sources linked below.
CyberTruck and Ford Pinto Fire Fatalities
+--------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------------+
| Vehicle Model | Total Units | Reported Fire | Fatality Rate |
| | | Fatalities | (Per 100,000 units) |
+--------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------------+
| Tesla Cybertruck | 34,438 | 5 | 14.52 |
| Ford Pinto (1971-1980) | 3,173,491 | 27 | 0.85 |
+--------------------------+-------------+---------------+-----------------------+
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday March 11, @09:44AM (6 children)
If EV-es cannot be ICE, then they try being ECD (External Combustion Battery). Tesla seems to succeed, but I'm sure others are/will too - after all, 50--100kWh going off in a short ti... umm... circuit is gonna cause quite a bit of heat.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Bentonite on Wednesday March 11, @10:29AM (1 child)
Mere heat and slow release of hydrogen until the battery is discharged from a short is a behavior that LFP batteries have - but 500-2000A@>12V that such low-internal-resistant cells can deliver, will cause the rest of the car to burn - but I would expect a similar result as to what happens when the fuel of an ICE catches fire (in either case, if you leave and come back a few hours later, all the toxic gasses would be released and the fire would be burnt out).
Meanwhile, the "Cybertruck" uses NMC batteries, which are vulnerable to thermal runaway and either burning and releasing toxic gasses for weeks, or exploding.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday March 11, @11:27AM
Depending on the cell enclosure, a punctured LiFePO4 battery can catch fire [youtube.com] and can even explode - fast rupture more precisely [youtube.com] (mainly steam pressure rather than explosive/combustible mixtures). Pouch cells are more prone to it than cylindricals, lower resistance to overpressure due to pure geometry if nothing else.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @02:25PM (1 child)
Put them in the hopper instead of coal for a steam engine.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @09:13PM
Good idea, you've just invented the non-rechargeable lithium battery! Costs just as much as the rechargeable ones, but single use only.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 11, @07:00PM (1 child)
If EV-es cannot be ICE
I have no idea what that means. Why would they want to? The EV is to the PV (piston vehicle) what the Ford Model T was to a Studebaker Izzer Buggy (a horse drawn carriage). If your 350 cubic inch V8 is in the same size automobile as my Ioniq 6, my car is faster, roomier, and handles and brakes better than yours. What's more, it costs you $20-25 to drive 200 miles, it costs me four. I have almost no maintenance; I need a new wiper blade and have filled the fluid twice. Checked the tires yesterday. My car doesn't have to wait for an engine block to heat to 750°F before the heater works like yours. I don't have to stand in the freezing weather babysitting it while it fuels, I plug it into my house and go inside.
Your car is as plainly inferior, as obsolete as cable TV and home landline phones. Today's tech is far superior.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday March 11, @08:50PM
It means "If EV-es don't rely on Internal Combustion engine, they can try an External Combustion battery"
Sorry, dad's joke style. And a representative one in the category, if I needed to explain it. Get it now?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 11, @11:34AM (6 children)
Yet another benefit of a smaller battery in an EV, less volume or surface area (however you want to model it) to be damaged enough to catch fire.
Some impressive EDS however.
(Score: 3, Informative) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 11, @07:04PM (5 children)
You forgot the only bane of the EV: range. My Ioniq 6 has barely the range I need, with a smaller battery it would be a city-only vehicle.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday March 11, @07:25PM (4 children)
Yeah I want to buy one of those. Been awhile since I drove my old toyota more than 20 or so miles. This week my max "road trip" is looking like 7 miles one way tomorrow... big day on the road for me LOL. I drove about 4 miles today had some errands to do downtown.
I will note that the "cybertruck" range is supposedly 340 miles and your Ioniq claims 361 miles for the long range model or only 240 for the shortie. I see insane sounding marketing numbers like 382 miles for your ioniq on wikipedia, maybe thats a former model or just advertising fraud I donno.
I really don't know what to say, if they market a minimum of 240 miles, and I need 7 yet 240 or more is barely enough for you, there has to be some kind of advertising fraud and you're only getting 20, or your battery has failed early, or I just donno what to say.
I would like to buy a BYD Dolphin, imported from Australia, except with a battery 1/3 the size (and cost) The full size one is $19K in Aus, and I expect my smaller model would be $17K or so.
Once in awhile I need to go 25 miles but I could just take the wife's (gas) van or we'd trade cars I guess. Both my wife and I needing to go more than 25 miles at the same time in opposite directions probably hasn't happened in the last quarter century, but it could happen, I guess, in theory. I'm not sure how.
I realize for rural folks who have to drive 75 miles to the nearest grocery store they'll probably never get off gas and diesel. Technically, if the advertising isn't fraudulent (which it probably is) they could make a couple trips back and forth on a single charge.
There are a LOT of chargers within 10 miles of my house, mostly at legacy brick and mortar retail and at restaurant nightlife type areas. I could live pretty well with 20 mile range.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Undefined on Wednesday March 11, @09:28PM (2 children)
I have to drive 280 miles — one way — for medical treatment and some construction shopping. There are no chargers between here and there. I have an ICE gas pickup, because there's no bad-weather-capable, high-cargo-capacity, wildlife/cow/horse-impact-safe EV that can do that as yet.
But the EV for around my rural town? Absolutely. It's the only sane choice. Charged with solar, fueling costs are very near zero other than maintaining my solar installation.
I use a dedicated preprocessor to elaborate abbreviations.
Hover to reveal elaborations.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 11, @10:20PM (1 child)
Outback Australia?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by Undefined on Thursday March 12, @04:58AM
No. USA. The midwest.
I use a dedicated preprocessor to elaborate abbreviations.
Hover to reveal elaborations.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday March 16, @08:53PM
On my Ioniq, Hyundai and the EPA claim 340 miles. 100% charged before traveling it says I have 270 miles.
I suspect EPA estimates are as bogus as their mpg for burners; sure, it might go 340 miles at 40 mph under perfect conditions, but charging it to 100% makes its life shorter and running below 20% is bad for it, so all the numbers are nonsense.
Kind of like when the weatherman gives wind chill; the wind is unlikely to be blowing the same speed at your house and the airport. It's accurate but meaningless.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 0, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday March 11, @11:45AM (17 children)
"TL;DR: The CyberTruck is 17 times more likely to have a fire fatality than a Ford Pinto"
The Pinto has actually killed over 500% more people than the Cybertruck.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @11:58AM (2 children)
The concept of per capita is very useful when comparing things like this.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @03:16PM
That guy's a loony. The clue is in the name.
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Friday March 13, @01:24PM
Yeah, I ignored the phoney "fatality rate". There were 59,202 Cybertrucks sold from 2024-2025. That works out to 8.4 per 100,000.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @11:58AM (7 children)
> ... killed over 500% more people than the Cybertruck.
... killed over 500% more people than the Cybertruck so far.
ftfy
Just wait, the Cybertruck is still in production.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11, @12:58PM (6 children)
The Pinto had 9 years of production, many of those with (totally lame and inadequate, but still somewhat effective) fire safety mitigations added.
These stats are from year 1 of CT sales, projecting (optimistically) flat sales numbers, the CT will sell about 10% as many units as Pinto over a 9 year period. With 310,000 units fielded over a 9 year period, that would project out to 5.8 million vehicle-years on the road, for a crispy count of 825, or: over 30x the Pinto's total body count.
Of course, CT is likely to drop off the market before 9 years.
Current reporting suggests sales numbers are falling off a cliff, so 310,000 units total is grossly optimistic given today's position.
But, unlike gas tanks which age relatively slowly and don't gain a whole lot of hazard as they do in the first 10 years (boom is boom), I'm guessing the rate of CT fires per mile driven will increase somewhat dramatically by year 9, as will rates of door failure to open events... CT may well rack up a body count higher than 825 before it's completely off the roads, even with dwindling sales.
The real competition in my book is: house fires! How many homes can Tesla take down - they've got a long way to go to catch up with the Flaming Fords, and a big disadvantage because it's hard to fit a CT in a normal garage, but I have confidence, St. Elmo's fires can surpass Ford's long before Tesla declares bankruptcy. Shoddy installation of home charging stations alone are probably going to outstrip Ford's fire rates soon.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @03:20PM (5 children)
is not something unique to Nazimobiles
(Score: 4, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11, @04:23PM (4 children)
Oh yea of little faith, St. Elmo's chargers will no doubt burn hotter than those weak imitations.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Touché) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 11, @07:17PM (3 children)
That's what they get for buying a car from a damned Nazi. My car came with a charger, as all cars that come from sane manufacturers do. It's plugged into my house right now, had a 230 mile trip yesterday.
I did have a Chevy catch fire [mcgrewbooks.com] once.
My dad's three big brothers fought a world war against people like Musk and Trump.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Friday March 13, @01:53PM (2 children)
Perhaps you should educate yourself before you start throwing around the n-word.
https://medium.com/exploring-history/henry-ford-actually-aided-the-nazis-as-much-as-he-could-564f2c039173 [medium.com]
https://malevus.com/ford-and-nazis/#google_vignette [malevus.com]
https://allthatsinteresting.com/henry-ford-nazi [allthatsinteresting.com]
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/11/henry-ford-anti-semitism/675911/ [theatlantic.com]
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/henry-ford-grand-cross-1938/ [rarehistoricalphotos.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by mcgrew on Monday March 16, @08:58PM (1 child)
I knew that history. IBM was also run by Nazis. in fact, "America first" was coined by 1930s American Nazis. They're all dead now.
Musk isn't the first Nazi with money by a long shot, but he's the most prominent today.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 18, @05:32PM
Thank you for moderating a truthful warning comment "troll" and reminding me that not everyone here is intelligent, although most are very much so.
Now mod this one troll, too, whoever you are, because you'll hate today's journal [soylentnews.org], an apologies to the world for your electing a monster.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 5, Funny) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11, @12:37PM (1 child)
>The Pinto has actually killed over 500% more people than the Cybertruck.
Just because Elmo is an impotent poseur who can't even sell pickup trucks to hillbillies. If he was half the wizard he pretends to be he'd have burned twice as many people as the Pinto ever did by now.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 11, @04:03PM
"an impotent poseur who can't even sell pickup trucks to hillbillies"
Even a hillbilly is smart enough to realize a useless Nazimobile with no open
bed or tailgate isn't a "pickup truck"
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Username on Wednesday March 11, @04:50PM (3 children)
The five deaths are from two crashes and one act of terrorism. Was any actually the trucks fault?
(Score: 1, Troll) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday March 11, @06:43PM
An astute observation, but you are unlikely to be rewarded. The MDS is strong here and they are very protective of their anti-Musk narratives.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 11, @10:21PM
Perhaps in a more roundabout way. I think of the CT as the vehicle that dethroned the Hummer for the most obnoxious, toxically masculine production vehicle available. It is therefore more attractive to the sort of malcontents who are more likely to commit mass murder. Still, that doesn't make it the CT's fault. Driving a CT is more of a signal than an inciting factor.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Wednesday March 11, @10:23PM
"The five deaths are from two crashes and one act of terrorism. Was any actually the trucks fault?"
The Pinto did not just spontaneously combust, it was crashes that done them in too, nobody cared about old Henry Ford's nazi leaning support at the time for a terrorism angle on them....
"Cervantes definitely was prescient in describing a senile Don fighting against windmills." -- larryjoe on /.
(Score: 5, Funny) by SemperOSS on Wednesday March 11, @04:18PM (1 child)
The Cybertruck seems to be as the Tesla CEO, easily inflamed!
────────────────────
Sorry, couldn't help myself 🤪
Open Source Solutions and Digital Sovereignty is the new black
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday March 11, @04:26PM
That apparent suicide by fireworks in front of the Trump building was not the kind of thing you'd catch a Pinto rider doing.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 11, @06:42PM (5 children)
More anti-EV misleading propaganda. How many of those fires involved accidents? How did they start? Pintos caught fire when rear ended; I'm old enough to remember the news reports, as are some of you.
Here are some non-propaganda numbers I quoted in a journal: [soylentnews.org] in 2024, for every hundred thousand piston cars, 1,530 caught fire, while out of every hundred thousand electric cars, 25 caught fire. Gasoline is dangerous! EV fires are a myth.
Hubie, you disappoint me. The article you submitted is a FUEL INDUSTRY SITE "Fuel Arc" that reads "Car news with a sense of humor". Its numbers are accurate but meaningless; the data are too small for any meaning; i.e., five total Nazitruck deaths out of how many Eloi Musk sold that year?
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 2) by DadaDoofy on Wednesday March 11, @06:55PM (3 children)
"EV fires are a myth."
That would be news to the authors of this paper describing the unique requirements for extinguishing EV fires and the unique threat EV fires pose to the environment.
https://bridgehill.com/news-insights/global-fire-safety-notice/ [bridgehill.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by mcgrew on Wednesday March 11, @07:37PM (2 children)
Reading comprehension problems, or are you the oil worker or ICE mechanic who modded me "troll"? Look at the numbers I posted, you can look the data up yourself.
In 2024 (typo in the original post) for every hundred thousand piston cars, 1,530 caught fire, while out of every hundred thousand electric cars, 25 caught fire. Now mod me redundant, too.
In other words, for ever EV fire there are sixty one gasoline vehicle fires. A piston car is sixty one times as likely to catch fire regardless of how hard it is to put out.
Sorry about your doomed industry. The oat farmers and blacksmiths were in your predicament a century ago. Today there's an auto repair shop on 5th and Cook here, a century ago it was a blacksmith shop according to the book The Golden Book of Springfield, a fantasy about 2018 written from 1904 to 1918. I've had my gasoline cars serviced there.
Are the Republicans really in favor of genocide, or are they just cowards terrified of terrorist twit Trump?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday March 11, @11:05PM (1 child)
I have personally experienced one vehicle fire, in the 1990s. Think the fuel line came loose from the carburetor. The hose clamp didn't fail. Instead, the brass fitting where the hose attaches came loose. Popped out of the carburetor housing. That's the sort of thing that should never happen, but when you put 300k miles on a 1960s car over a 30 year period, the damnedest things can fail. I was near downtown when it happened. First, I heard a pop followed by a strange sizzling noise. Then I smelled gasoline. Thought it was just the gas station I was passing at that moment. Then black smoke came pouring out from under the hood! I threw the car into neutral, shut the engine off, then braked to a stop and put it in 1st gear. Leapt out of the car and ran around to the front to open the hood. Too late. Flames were already shooting out through the grill. Cell phones were still rather uncommon in those days, but one passing driver had one and called it in. Meanwhile, I found out I should not have put the car in gear. The engine fire reached the wiring to the starter, making an electrical connection that caused the starter to engage and start moving the car. I reached into the passenger compartment to put the car in neutral to stop that. A fire truck arrived just 5 minutes later-- lucky I was only 4 blocks from the fire station. The firemen extinguished the fire before it could spread out of the engine bay.
One of the things about a misfortune of that sort are the opportunistic folks who exploit such a situation. In this case, the tow truck operator. Getting a tow is expensive. They hustled me into accepting a tow while I was still in shock over the car having caught on fire. Ought to have pushed it into a nearby parking spot. Cracked a few jokes that now my father would have to buy me a decent car instead of that antique fire trap. Jeez, do car dealerships pay tow truck drivers to say that kind of stuff? Mind, I would've liked a newer car. But, $. Them holding our car hostage delayed us a day towing our car back home ourselves. Had to wait for them to open the next morning. We fixed the car ourselves. Quite a mess to clean up the engine bay. Rewired everything, and put in all new hoses. Installed a spare carburetor, the fire having slagged the installed one. The distributor was also destroyed. Likewise the battery. But everything else survived. Once all was ready, starting the car took some effort. Put it in gear and dragged it around and around the block until the engine finally stayed on. An engine fire tends to dump crud into the combustion chambers, and if you don't want to tear the engine apart to clean that out, have to crank it for a while. And you don't want to use the starter to do that.
(Score: 4, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 12, @03:00AM
I once had a fuel injector with a mis-seated O-ring start spraying fuel underhood - luckily I caught it before it ignited, although it's very likely I drove from San Antonio to Miami like that. Reseated all the injectors and drove another 100,000 miles over the next 25 years with no incidents, however - I did think long and hard about putting an under-hood extinguisher in, and probably would have if the fuel situation recurred. Under-hood fire extinguishers are remarkably effective due to the relatively enclosed and small volume of air.
Then there was the high pressure line at the fuel tank that a squirrel chewed through - smell gas??? switch off, walk around, see nothing. Key in ignition, not yet starting, fountain of atomized gasoline visible coming from the left rear wheel well - nice view in the side rearview mirror. Yeah, that one got flat-bedded to the shop, not gonna mess around with that. And, it illustrated the futility of preventing your last close call from becoming a real problem, your next close call is most likely going to be different.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 12, @02:52AM
> I'm old enough to remember
I'm old enough to remember friends buying Pintos on the cheap as their first cars because of the bad rap they got on the news. In the sub $1200 1983 used car market, the Pintos were by far the nicest cars you could buy for that money.
🌻🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Wednesday March 11, @07:29PM
Prayer request stories are boring.
(Score: 1) by JamesWebb on Thursday March 12, @03:06AM
could have done this with one prompt in vscreen and more... lol todays internet is gone, everyone is in the past