Tesla Cybertruck Gets Top Safety Score in NHTSA Tests

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requires that vehicles be tested for safety after they hit the market, so Tesla’s Cybertruck electric pickup waited more than a year after it went on sale to undergo the agency’s tests. It received a top safety rating, but the existing testing methodology does not account for the vehicle’s impact on pedestrians.

Image source: NHTSA

Let us recall that it was the presence of angular stainless steel body panels that was considered the main source of danger for Cybertruck to other road users. The NCAP vehicle testing methodology contains a corresponding section regarding pedestrian safety, but this happened Cybertruck was tested according to its own NHTSA methodology, which does not take this aspect into account. Thus, this issue remained unsolved.

The pickup truck was subjected to a full-overlap frontal impact into a non-crushable barrier at 56 km/h. The impact deployed the front and side airbags on both the driver and passenger sides, but the knee airbags were not supposed to deploy, so they did not deploy in this type of collision. The body structure remained more or less intact, although the front pillars were torn off at the base. The Cybertruck received the highest 5 points for driver protection and 4 points for passenger protection.

What is characteristic is that the traction electric motor with the gearbox and the traction battery housing under the bottom of the vehicle were not damaged at all, although this does not mean that they are absolutely invulnerable – of course, everything will depend on the nature of the impact.

The side impact also earned the Tesla Cybertruck a top NHTSA safety rating. It was conducted using two methods: a crumple barrier in the driver’s door area at 40 mph (62 km/h) and a stationary pole at 20 mph (32 km/h).

The Cybertruck also earned a 4.0 in the rollover safety assessment. It passed the dynamic rollover test with flying colors, but the probability of a rollover still reached 12.4%. The Cybertruck also received the highest score in the NHTSA overall rating because it has all the active safety systems that are inherent in other Tesla models.