"Popular electric car recalled due to brake pedal problem" [1]
A problem with a "screw connection" (unclear whether this is a mounting screw or it serves some other purpose) can cause the brake pedal to malfunction.
or, in 2024
Audi Q4 e-tron, Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.7:
"Dangerous error in popular electric cars: brakes can cease functioning" [2]
It says that the ABS pump could drop off which would cause brake fluid to leak out which in turn causes the brakes to cease functioning.
Some cars are going with entirely electrically actuated brakes, either inboard on on-hub, compared to the E-Tron which uses traditional hydraulically actuated brakes. One uses an electric motor to wind something to tighten the spring clip by pulling it that then pushes the pads to the rotor and the other uses pressure to overcome the spring by pushing the spring to compress it and push the pads to the rotor. I'm guessing Audi didn't go with entirely electric brakes because they have a reputation for being harsh and difficult to modulate with the pedal, and Audi is supposed to be both a luxury and sport brand where pedal feel is important.
With electrically actuated brakes the default power off state is fully engaged. Meaning if the power dies the brakes lock up. That causes it's own issues, obviously, but a sudden deceleration is better than no deceleration at most road speeds.
edit: as formerlyproven below states, the ones currently for sale also have a hydraulic backup.
Brake by wire passenger car brake systems are still hydraulic... and all of them have a mechanical backup. There is not a single car on the market today using electromechanical brakes.
Unless you're talking about electric parking brakes in a thread about ABS.
The same engineering standards as other Teslas are.
Meanwhile, about 63% of Tesla Model Ys failed their first mandatory inspection in Finland. The Tesla Model 3 did a bit better at 59% of cars failing their first inspection for the same model year. However, they're faring a lot worse than the third worst car, the Dacia Duster, at 23%, or other EVs like the Volkswagen ID.4 at 6%.
Indeed. The insane part is not that Tesla built an absolute dumpster fire of a vehicle, that was something that should have been obvious at every point.
The insane part is the number of people who were somehow able to put up $120k for one, and proudly boast how awesome their new car was even though it spent most of its time in the repair shop or breaking doing very basic things, and failing to do "Truck" things that even my hatchback can manage.
Presumably it's not a coincidence that so many of them were bought by brand new weed shop owners.
It was super delayed and I think that's because they couldn't execute in all the ways they promised they would. The final product is very rushed and pretty different from the initial promises. I think they got into "Let's just ship SOMETHING" mode as the delays were getting insane.
I can't find pictures online but I'm assuming since it only affects the 2wd and it says if the rotor cracks the stud might leave that the rotor is also the hub.
Doing a half baked job on a part for your super low volume "we only make this to advertise a low starting price" model is something just about any OEM would do.
I bet their supplier just took whatever Chevy Van rotor they had that was close and modified it to fit and as a result it got a little thin somewhere.
Edit: Nope, I couldn't find a picture but I found pictures of big brake kits for the 2wd and clearly it's not an old (read: cheap) integrated hub and rotor.
It doesn't even use steel for the frame. It's an aluminum cast. I didn't even know that was legal for trucks. It basically guarantees that these things have an expiration date. I honestly can't believe these are legal to sell
It is a vanity project helmed by a terminally online manchild who wanted cyberpunk blade runner vibes.
Go look back at the original concept art. The actual delivered vehicle dimensions are totally different, so he didn’t even succeed at that part. They couldn’t build what he wanted. It’s way more boxy and looks like shit on the road.
And lol at 173 total affected vehicles. What a failure.
Eh. It's "fine" when you realize that it's not really an F150 competitor. It's the top end of the Ford Maverick, Honda Ridgeline, etc, market segment. But they have to market it like the former because that's what consumers want to hear.
whistlindiesel also discovered this. it's honestly terrifying that these are legal to sell as "trucks" and people believe they can safely tow with them. Aluminum will only get weaker over time and is guaranteed to eventually break unlike steel
Jerry has one of the worst cases of TDS (Tesla Derangement Syndrome).
In his video he applies 10,000 lbs of downward force directly on the hitch point before it breaks, and then says that it "is far too close to the 11,000 pound towing capacity. Yikes."
He's a smart guy, he knows downward pressure at the hitch point (tongue weight) is a much different rating than towing capacity. Tongue weight is usually estimated at 10-15% of towing capacity, so 1100-1650 lbs. The cybertruck clearly exceeded expectations here.
That’s a lot of text for you to not realize these are the exact lateral forces a hitch faces when towing. One pothole and your payload is causing a pileup
Oh, man. I remember that one. He absolutely destroyed that truck. What’s notable about that video is that the other trucks handled the abuse dramatically better than the cybertruck. He was determined to break every single vehicle in ways they would never actually be used, but it was laughable how bad the cybertruck was. If I remember correctly, he made the wheels fall off and had to get it repaired in the middle of the “test”. I think the Ford was still running at the end.
I bought one and its the best car I've ever had. Event though I was never a "truck" buyer it checked off all my needs:
- space for wife, car seats + another adult when needed
- haul around my kids, 4 bikes, skis, camping gear, etc.
- drives itself - we do a ton of road trips
- luxury
- electric, tired of going to gas stations
Wasn't another car on the market that checked those boxes.
Have you ever driven one? They are amazing to drive.
I've owned several luxury SUVs (volvo, mercedes), a porsche 911 and an s class (admittedly a while ago). The cybertruck to me feels in the same league. I know older/cheaper teslas might not be the same but try the Cybertruck - I think you'd be surprised. Its very comfortable.
I currently own 5 luxury vehicles and have ridden in a Cybertruck, and the Cybertruck is so far below in terms of quality it makes me question what luxury features you see in it.
air suspension, heated and air cooled comfortable leather seats, 15 high quality speakers, everything is soft to the touch (minus the window switches), super fast high quality software (that alone is a huge draw for me, most other cars have terrible software)
honestly don't need much more than that - yes it doesn't have a fridge or massaging seats or whatever, but thats usually in cars with a higher price point too
have you used FSD? Have you used the best self driving from other manufacturers? I have. Its no comparison. I turn on FSD and it drives me driveway to driveway to a place in the mountains 4 hours away. I don't touch the wheel.
You "can" put three kids in the back of a Honda Civic. You "can" tow 10k with a Ford Ranger. They're both kind of a sucky experience for all parties involved and it makes perfect sense why people who can afford a vehicle with way more capacity go that route. It makes things that take care and precision and thought as mindless as throwing a light switch. They're not paying for capability, they're paying to make it easy.
I own a station wagon, a minivan, a pickup truck and a hatch (and my spouse drives a boring crossover). I completely understand why "buy a crew cab truck" has become the norm for people who want to just write one check a month to cover every use case.
Additionally, frequent "truck" usage is an absolute menace on wagon/minivan interiors.
The only ones I see in my zip code in Miami-Dade/Broward are (mostly) Russians who aspire to a Kardashian tank, a.k.a G-Wagon. The other ones are wrapped in "re-fi your mortgage" type of nastiness. I am terrified when I am next to one in a car or on a bike (because I know "my people").
I am not a Tesla the car hater, if only this monstrosity wasn't all sharp angles, otherwise to each their own.
And the fact that your purchase is supporting a guy that literally threw two nazi salutes at an inauguration? Is that facsist alignment a feature or a bug for your "best car you've ever had"?
It was pretty funny driving past the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne and seeing the F150s doing all the real work while the CTs sat to the side for press shots.
Bluecruise exists it works, it's generally safe. If you try and kick this back and say it's not Full Self Driving or comparable to Tesla, then I'm going to start posting links to videos of Tesla FSD (All generations, including latest) doing thing like ignoring school buses signs and mowing down children, turning off with no warning at highway speeds, and otherwise dangerously not-working.
You can try and claim Tesla's self-driving features are great and work 100% of the time, I suspect most people here know that is FUD and there is ample evidence that Tesla "FSD" is certainly no better than competitors and is arguably worse.
Blue Cruise on the F150-Lightning is pretty capable, and it also supports a comma.ai, which is better in a practical sense than FSD.
I have a friend with a CyberBeast and a friend with an F150-Lightning. The acceleration on the CyberBeast is absolutely magnificent and FSD is very capable. However as a truck, the frunk on the F150 is way more useful. The F150 is a better truck, but I'd say the Cybertruck is really good big weird car.
for your kids safety, would you rather do 30,000 miles in HW4 FSD in a Tesla or hand driven in any other car of your choosing? doing 30K miles in a waymo isn't an option.
A Cybertruck cannot physically fit 4 bikes, and the truck bed is not long enough to fit skis or snowboards.
When I go biking and snowboarding with my idiot friend that owns a Cybertruck, we have to use my Outback to haul the gear because it won't fit in his lemon.
no no no you have to ignore that people like the product, its more important to mock production manufacturing from the armchair.
I personally don't like the cybertruck and wish they made something much closer to Rivian, but getting upset about a product you don't like is a small man ting
It was never meant for construction workers. It was meant for the owners of small construction companies.
I used to work for a swimming pool contractor. He didn't own a shovel. He made $600k a year. So did his plumber best friend. And his buddy that did concrete work. I actually also worked on their small time NASCAR team, since they had so much money to burn. The cyber truck is perfect for them.
A NASCAR franchise team license is $30 million, and the annual operating cost is $10 million or more (emphasis on the "or more"). If your buddies have a NASCAR team their money didn't come from their day jobs, and the CT is definitely the right truck for people born with silver spoons.
In Minnesota they tend to be (or were) owned by companies in the construction / maintenance industry and plastered with full body advertisements for said services (not actually used by construction workers).
The Cybertruck is over 3 tons, so it's eligible for some specific tax rules that let businesses take the full depreciation immediately instead of over time. Same reason a lot of businesses used to buy Hummers and slap a decal on the side. Idk why we're incentivizing big ass vehicles that put more wear & tear on roads, but it is what it is.
With the weight of the batteries in back it might be fine. The issue with RWD trucks with traditional drivetrains is the lack of traction owing to all of the weight being over the non-drive wheels. Driving my F-150 in the snow or rain was always dicey because of this.
That being said I wouldn't touch a Tesla with a barge pole for reasons numerous.
Batteries and the engine. The engine sits in line with the wheels rather than being under the hood of the car. That puts all the weight right next to the driving tires.
But agree, cybertruck is a really silly purchase for numerous reasons. The only reason you'd buy it is to signal your support for Elon. It's a very bad vehicle.
I don't see why it would be an issue in most cases. Obviously you'd want AWD for proper off-roading, but for just driving around on streets it should be fine. My EV van is RWD and it's totally fine in everything I've dealt with - including deep snow - and I really only even noticed when trying to parallel park on ice.
This has been a question the Slate team has been trying to answer. They claim the weight distribution being more even front-to-back (batteries offsetting motor, I presume), but I don't know whether I believe them. I was interested in a Slate, but the changes at the company lately (new CEO from McKinsey, rather than an engineer), along with decisions like RWD, and the anemic acceleration (0-60 in 8 seconds) gives me pause.
I don’t know how the slate is designed but I have a rivian
The battery pack is by far heavier than the motors. In the r1 they are also positioned with the wheels (quad) or front/back (dual) so weight distribution is great.
If the slate has a single motor and is RWD then I would assume the weight might be biased toward the rear where the drive unit is powering the rear wheels. Either way the motor is relatively small compared to ICE trucks and that’s where you want the weight anyway for a RWD vehicle.
I know little about this, so I suspect you're right. I've mostly been looking for the car version of a "dumb phone", and Slate looked like a nice fit, but it's thrown me into the world of EVs and I'm still pretty new to it.
That said, your explanation makes sense. Slate engineers claimed it would handle well, but it was vague enough that I'd want more detail before I believe them.
My old car is a Honda Civic hybrid from 2008. Your comment sent me checking out the current Civic (ICE) performance, and it's also eight seconds! So I see your point, I guess my expectations have changed since EVs came on the scene.
Autotrader says there are 246,000 used trucks for sale nationwide with AWD/4WD and 38,000 with rear wheel drive. For new it’s 429,000 AWD/4WD vs 51,000 for rear wheel.
Volume wise it’s of course Texas with Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota having the largest ownership share.
The majority in that statistic are selectable 4WD, which isn't the same as AWD. Pushing the two groups together skews the numbers a bit. Most trucks since the 1970s have been 4WD, ever since companies like Muncie and Borg-Warner started selling axles to Ford and their cohorts. AWD trucks are a relatively new phenomenon, with the first one I can think of being the limited production GMC Syclone in 1989, and it being a truck was an emissions loophole. I think the 2005 Honda Ridgeline was the first real mass produced AWD truck, or perhaps the Subaru Baja from 2003 if you consider that a truck rather than an open deck car. Right now I think only the Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruz, and Ford Maverick are sold as AWD, whereas every other truck is selectable 4WD.
Push the goal posts of you want. OP specifically said rear wheel drive.
There’s a whole community that doesn’t consider anything without front and rear lockers, dana 44 axels, frame on body, and 37s with bead lock a real off road rig.
There is a difference between AWD and 4WD, because 4WD trucks are RWD until you manually change the mode. AWD is all on all the time and is FWD biased, usually something like 70:30 F:R. For most of their lives, even when towing, 4WD trucks are used as RWD only. As for specialized off-road vehicles that wasn't what we were talking about, but yes those people split hairs down to the micron for what constitutes what.
There are so many varieties of AWD. Most are wet-clutched (inside or outside of the main transmission), some are lockable or torsen center differentials, Prius adds electric power to the rear wheels to complement the FWD hybrid setup. Traditional 4WD with a transfer case using a manual shifter-actuated gear selector isn't very common any more. My 1999 Suburban had a wet clutch in a standard truck-shaped transfer case, one side of the front differential had a solenoid to lock/unlock one wheel to the side gear to keep the front drive shaft from spinning in RWD mode, and used a motor to mechanically engage or disengage the wet clutch (between the front and rear outputs) and to slide the engagement ring to offer AWD (rear-wheel biased, engaged when front and rear wheel speeds differed anywhere from 0 to 100% torque transfer) or 4WD (clutch fully engaged), and even 4WD-LOW by running the motor the other direction to engage the planetary gearing with the rear drive shaft.
In my mind, the biggest difference is whether front and rear drive shafts turn at exactly the same rate; if so it's "4WD". If clutch slippage or a differential allows different front and rear axle speeds then it's some form of AWD. But many AWD systems have clutches capable of effectively locking the front and rear driveshafts. E.g. the Suburban had tire-hop turning on pavement in 4WD mode which is about the most torque that drive-train would be expected to encounter.
I use Jimmy Buffet’s song “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude”, meaning head south to Key West to change your attitude. Ergo, latitude is north/south.
It's counterintuitive because the prefix refers to the lines, but we're usually describing points along the lines. We know intuitively that "lateral" is side to side, and "long/length" we would expect to be vertical, but that describes where the lines sit, and the measurements are perpendicular to where the lines sit: you choose a horizontal line to describe a height(/length), and a vertical one to describe width.
So just remember that it's opposite to intuition, which will work until you've gotten comfortable enough that your intuition is correct and will then guide you exactly opposite.
I say longitude goes longways, which I know isn't accurate except fairly close to the poles, but I remembered it like that when I was a kid and it stuck.
I probably wouldn't buy a truck, but it's at least a possibility that I'd get one for hauling materials and towing around town. If I did, I'd prefer a RWD model just to save a little money. I find the modern obsession with AWD a bit baffling. AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather, so it feels like an illusory advantage there. RWD can be "interesting" compared to FWD, but modern traction control on an electric drivetrain should make it a non-issue. (In practice, I can abuse the accelerator on my non-truck RWD Teslas pretty badly without any issues with losing traction.)
Basically never? And I live in a deep rural area 30 minutes from the northern border. Where do you live that you drive through unplowed roads? The only time ive ever wanted AWD or 4WD is once or twice knowingly risking getting stuck by pulling off of people's driveway onto their lawn.
Half of my vehicles are RWD only, and my roads are very rarely plowed. No big deal most of the year...
Of course, when it snows, it's diffferent, but local geography means if it's snowing enough to matter and the plows haven't gotten around, it's not worth it to be driving, regardless of drive configuration.
If driving throw unplowed roads with snow and ice is a regular thing for you, sure. But lots of people never drive in those conditions, so AWD adds weight and complexity that's unnecessary. But people like to be prepared for everything.
I used to occasionally drive a V8 with no traction control in Wisconsin winters. It was fine, just took a little care. A modern electric drivetrain is about a million times better.
Unpowered wheels still steer just fine. AWD certainly does better. But I'd rather be cautious and take it slow anyway.
I frequently think about this when weather gets bad! I already have AWB (all wheel braking?). Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop
A FWD vehicle with snow tires is frequently better in the snow than an AWD without snow tires. Better control, better stopping, better uphill on snowy roads.
All wheel drive doesn’t matter when you lose traction and need to stop. When you are sliding on ice all cars perform the same, and the quality of your tires is what matters. AWD just gives people false confidence to drive faster than they can stop.
I convinced my wife to stop buying the absolute cheapest tires by telling her it is literally the only part of the car that actually touches the road. Why would you cheap out on that?
>A FWD vehicle with snow tires is frequently better in the snow than an AWD without snow tires. Better control, better stopping, better uphill on snowy roads.
Control and stopping of course, but I'd love to see the justification behind "better uphill"
Napkin math says that doubling the contact patch over which the motive force applies still wins because snow tires aren't going to double your friction coefficient. And this is before you consider unloading of the front suspension on a hill (though for most grades it's still probably got more weight than the rear of RWD).
Furthermore, this seems to be corroborated by reality. People in snowy climates tend to go AWD rather than snow tires and snow tire makers typically advertise by comparing stopping/handling rather than acceleration.
Snow tires can actually double your coefficient of friction on snowy pavement!
The coefficient of friction drops fast on snowy ground, with all season dropping as low as 1/3-1/4 of their dry value.
Of course, snow tires plus AWD is even better, but I find snow tires on a FWD vehicle to be plenty to drive up steep hills in snowy weather. (Before learning of the wonders of snow tires, I used to have to take different routes home if it began snowing because I couldn't reliably make it uphill without losing traction.)
>Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop
It's the opposite. You're more likely to carry too much speed into a situation in a FWD/RWD vehicle because doing so improves things a lot of the time. Take for example a highway merge. You can't accelerate well, so you carry more speed through the turn to make the merge more safe. Well that works great and improves safety for all until some moron stops at the end of the ramp. With the AWD vehicle you can come into that situation and many, many more with less speed.
Acceleration is the weakest link in the snow. The sketch factor goes way down once you get AWD. This is why no matter how hard the internet screeches about snow tires the median consumer who drives in a fair bit of snow will choose AWD first.
That's never been the case for me. Acceleration may be the issue I'm most likely to encounter, but the worst thing it'll do is inconvenience me. If traction is bad to the point where I won't be able to accelerate properly on a ramp, then either everybody's going slow enough that it doesn't matter, or I'm going to stay off the highway because it's too dangerous.
Trouble accelerating in snow is common and a non-issue. Trouble stopping is uncommon but a potential disaster.
It's not the highway that gets you (typically). It's all the stupid little roads that are built to substantially lesser standards. Steeper grades, tighter curve, hard 90 junctions, etc, etc.
You carry just a hair too much speed into a curve because you're anticipating not wanting to have to use any gas pedal on the rise just beyond and you wind up in the ditch. Or you go wide into a curb because you took a less optimal gap in traffic at a ~5 roll when taking a left turn because that way makes you less likely to get T-boned than coming to a stop and trying to find an even bigger gap in traffic. Or you slide backwards down some stupid driveway or bump something in a parking lot (ask any delivery, parking lots and driveways are the worst).
I've never driven an AWD, but having a 4x4 in a snow storm is wonderful. Waking up and driving through the pile of snow from the plow to go to wawa before I even think about shoveling is an absolute luxury. Plus, driving on the beach is pretty fun too.
You get better regenerative braking performance out of FWD or AWD. Since typically the front brakes do most of the work, it makes sense to have that energy go into the motor rather than friction braking.
Specifically, this only affected red-edged premium alloy rims that were OEM made but not installed unless you bought them separately. Not an engineering issue with the vehicle so much as those rims may have had a manufacturing defect in certain batches.
The overly cautious recall announcement was promptly clarified to owners by dealerships, and impacted a small subset. (I have a Civic.)
That I can't tell whether "the wheels coming off," is literal or figurative when it comes to Tesla is an indictment about their product quality at this point.
What a disaster. I don't really know anyone who is voluntarily buying Teslas when there are so many other viable options in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
I see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them.
I don't know why, I buy trucks to haul stuff. (and I really wish there was an affordable truck to haul stuff with - everything I can find is 12+ years old and showing age)
> I see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them.
Two counterpoints: for all the opinionated criticisms, the cybertruck is at least quite noticeable, and thusly you may think that they are a higher proportion of trucks than they really are.
Also, you're far more likely to see them drive around in certain locales due to the cost, so that may introduce additional biases.
They're the new tax fraud vehicle, replacing the Escalade: a luxury vehicle over a certain weight that gets reported as a "business expense" even when it's for personal use. That's also why a lot of them have shitty decals or stencil-paint advertising local businesses.
Fun fact, for Tesla's FSD/AI reporting, it doesn't consider any incident where airbags didn't deploy to count for accident stats. This includes situations where the airbag system cannot deploy because of catastrophic damage.
It also, strangely, doesn't count fatality incidents.
I saw one at a car show. They look even more shit in real life, than they do in photos. Probably quite good for killing pedestrians and cyclists though.
When I was around 12 years old in USSR, my family took a vacation to Georgia to ski in a lovely resort of Gudauri. A big group of us skiers were riding a soviet made PAZ (or PAZik as it was often called) bus. It wobbled a bit since the airport, and about 100km into the ride as we were finally entering the mountains, it vibrated very badly. At some point the driver yelled really really loud - "everyone, to the left side of the bus, NOW", and we all moved to the left, and then we saw the rear wheel of the bus separate and roll forward past the bus. The pin holding the wheel in broke. Quality engineering, that pin design! I wonder if Cybertruck inherited some of that stuff.
I have a 2022 Rivian and I don't remember any recalls for brake rotors or wheels falling off. There was one about a year after they made the first R1T where they had forgotten to record the torque of a bolt for the upper control arm during assembly, but the recall just involved having the torque checked, they didn't have to replace anything. Is that the recall you're thinking of?
They told everyone who owned a rivian at that time to stop driving it immediately until the guy could come out and put the wheels back on. That is a recall.
I don't think that's true. I owned my Rivian at that time. There was a recall but I never received any instructions similar to that. They had everyone drive to the nearest service center to have the bolt torque checked, or you could book a mobile service appointment.
I think you are giving them too generous of a reading. The notice was that a subset of vehicles had loose bolts in the front end. They did not know how many, and there was no way to identify the subset. If you could be in this subset, stop driving the vehicle. This applies to everyone, on a rational reading.
It was weeks before the guy drove out and checked mine.
Where did they say "stop driving the vehicle"? I don't think that happened. The instructions were to drive the vehicle to a service center for a drop-in check (or wait for mobile service) which obviously wouldn't be possible if you couldn't drive it.
Lest folks get too carried away, the headline is a lie. The failure is "brake rotor stud separating from wheel hub". Now, sure, that's a serious failure. It's not "wh33lz f411 oFF!".
Everything about this company is cursed at this point. The jeering masses are just as bad as the CEO.
The cars themselves though continue to be really pretty great. Though maybe not the truck.
I'm actually really confused about the language used in the recall; I looked at the Cybertruck manual and the brakes look like a "conventional" design where the studs are set into the hub and go through the rotor, so this failure seems somewhat unrelated to the brake rotors, and the "brake rotor stud" is also the wheel stud: https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ServiceManual/en-u...
I'm assuming it's a misphrasing or typo and the issue is that the stud holes in the wheel hub rotor can elongate, leading to the studs coming out. This can and likely would absolutely cascade into a wheel falling off; I've seen it many times in cheapo endurance racing series - once one stud is loose, the adjacent studs gradually loosen and eventually the wheel separates. If the issue is longitudinal (slotting) it's even more likely to lead to a rapid separation event.
The design used to be futuristic-novel. But novelty passes - it now looks like a car pressed to pieces in a shredder. And it is very expensive. But most importantly, after Elon did his right-arm raise gesture twice, even aside from mass-firing people at DOGE or elsewhere ... does anyone still want to give more money to a very strange oligarch, who uses money to buy more influence and opinions here? Or buys a platform to turn it into a propaganda amplifier for his strange remarks about race and ethnicity?
If you're reading this thinking "wow, a recall! tesla must suck at building cars!" then you probably don't know anything about how the automotive industry works and you should refrain from commenting
Even people who know about building cars think Tesla sucks at building cars. Which is why in an interview about speeding up the production line, the head of Volkswagen's production lines thought that a duration that was still almost twice as long as a Tesla spent on the line was about their lower floor and that anything less would be problematic.
Maybe that's why their cars ship with their windshields glued on, all the time, or all of their brake pads, all of the time, or secured body panels, all the time.
Or maybe he should have refrained from commenting?
It's worth noting that crack formation is affected by more than just the design - variation in material and manufacturing steps could also contribute. A more robust design can potentially compensate for material or process variability, but those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage. We should not boo companies for acknowledging and correcting issues which may not have been reasonably foreseeable.
Yes, absolutely. The Cybertruck was indeed the first of its kind to have 4 wheels attached to its structure. No car company before Tesla had ever done this before and as such, it was impossible to gauge what kind of material was best suited to handle stress over long period of time.
> those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage.
But they could have included an error factor in the designing process. I thought this was standard for manufacturing. And they could have done more robust testing which, again, I thought was pretty standard for manufacturing.
> But they could have included an error factor in the designing process.
They almost certainly did. But that error factor is a guess based on limited testing. You never know your true variability until you're building at scale. Waterfall development doesn't work in the real world any better than it does in software.
> We should not boo companies for acknowledging and correcting issues
Nobody is booing the recall, they’re booing a company that makes the bad choices that lead to recalls like this. E.g. doorhandleless firetrap trashcan car with sharp corners and a high front for extra pedestrian-murder.
And if engineers were all knowing that is how it would work. Unfortunately the real world is complex and there are limits to how variability can be constrained.
What sort of engineering standards are these Cybertrucks built to?
Oh, very rigorous engineering standards. The wheels aren't supposed to fall off for a start.
Can’t be made out of cardboard either.
The Front Fell Off: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM?si=DprOulmmDK-H76LX
I saw the title of the post, and I knew somebody would have referenced it.
We’ve taken it *outside* the environment
Same standards as e.g.
2026
Audi Q8 e-tron:
"Popular electric car recalled due to brake pedal problem" [1]
A problem with a "screw connection" (unclear whether this is a mounting screw or it serves some other purpose) can cause the brake pedal to malfunction.
or, in 2024
Audi Q4 e-tron, Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.7:
"Dangerous error in popular electric cars: brakes can cease functioning" [2]
It says that the ABS pump could drop off which would cause brake fluid to leak out which in turn causes the brakes to cease functioning.
[1] https://carup.se/popular-elbil-aterkallas-for-fel-pa-bromspe... (Swedish)
[2] https://nyheter24.se/nyheter/motor/1296418-farliga-felet-i-p... (Swedish)
Don't forget the doors opening by themselves...
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/vw-id4-recalled-over-door...
> Audi Q4 e-tron, Volkswagen ID.3, ID.4, ID.5 and ID.7:
> "Dangerous error in popular electric cars: brakes can cease functioning" [2]
> It says that the ABS pump could drop off
Using a mechanical ABS in an electric car might be part of the problem
As opposed to thoughts and prayers-based ABS?
Some cars are going with entirely electrically actuated brakes, either inboard on on-hub, compared to the E-Tron which uses traditional hydraulically actuated brakes. One uses an electric motor to wind something to tighten the spring clip by pulling it that then pushes the pads to the rotor and the other uses pressure to overcome the spring by pushing the spring to compress it and push the pads to the rotor. I'm guessing Audi didn't go with entirely electric brakes because they have a reputation for being harsh and difficult to modulate with the pedal, and Audi is supposed to be both a luxury and sport brand where pedal feel is important.
Which cars?
Are talking about brake-by-wire? Where brakes are controlled by electric only, and if electrics die, no brakes?
These are dangerous. Cars are not maintained to aircraft standards and will never be.
With electrically actuated brakes the default power off state is fully engaged. Meaning if the power dies the brakes lock up. That causes it's own issues, obviously, but a sudden deceleration is better than no deceleration at most road speeds.
edit: as formerlyproven below states, the ones currently for sale also have a hydraulic backup.
Insane take. They will be vastly more reliable than hydraulics.
Just remember to pack a bottle of spare magic smoke incase something leaks!
Brake by wire passenger car brake systems are still hydraulic... and all of them have a mechanical backup. There is not a single car on the market today using electromechanical brakes.
Unless you're talking about electric parking brakes in a thread about ABS.
Look up cybercab. Their new disassembled manufacturing method cannot support hydraulic lines.
No, just any combination of electric regenerative braking combined with electrically controlled brakes.
It is an electric car after all
Well, the wheels may fall off, the body panels may fall off (weak glue), but the rest of it is OK right? Well, apart from the bulletproof glass?
So worst case you're rolling down the road on a chassis with no body panels, except you're not really rolling if the wheels fall off.
Hmm.. good job we're not letting in those cheap Chinese EV's and sticking to this top quality homemade stuff.
And the hitch might fall off when towing over a pot hole.
Rush of Australians to the comments section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
> What sort of engineering standards are these Cybertrucks built to?
'Vibe-Engineering'
The original vibe engineering
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48064334
The same engineering standards as other Teslas are.
Meanwhile, about 63% of Tesla Model Ys failed their first mandatory inspection in Finland. The Tesla Model 3 did a bit better at 59% of cars failing their first inspection for the same model year. However, they're faring a lot worse than the third worst car, the Dacia Duster, at 23%, or other EVs like the Volkswagen ID.4 at 6%.
https://www.hs.fi/visio/art-2000011988306.html
To the ones of people who like to move fast and break things.
At least they aren’t using Full Self Engineering (yet).
And they’ll probably just tow the recalled trucks outside the environment.
Into another environment?
No, no, no. it’s been towed beyond the environment, it’s not in the environment
Tesla standards?
IDK but millions of other vehicles are recalled every year and never mentioned here.
Blame it on a loose nut behind the steering wheel.
Indeed. The insane part is not that Tesla built an absolute dumpster fire of a vehicle, that was something that should have been obvious at every point.
The insane part is the number of people who were somehow able to put up $120k for one, and proudly boast how awesome their new car was even though it spent most of its time in the repair shop or breaking doing very basic things, and failing to do "Truck" things that even my hatchback can manage.
Presumably it's not a coincidence that so many of them were bought by brand new weed shop owners.
I once saw a Ferrari trying to negotiate speed bumps and a roundabout. On a road that has a 30 kilometre speed limit.
For me a car is essentially a tool so it needs to be practical. But for others it's a hobby.
It looks like they were designed by a disruptive startup unburdened by the history and experience of designing and building cars.
It was super delayed and I think that's because they couldn't execute in all the ways they promised they would. The final product is very rushed and pretty different from the initial promises. I think they got into "Let's just ship SOMETHING" mode as the delays were getting insane.
‘We threw the rule book out of the window’
Also worked very well for the Oceangate Titan submersible.
A 23 year old startup.
> “brake rotor stud holes may crack and allow the stud to separate from the wheel hub.”
Possible
While mechanical failures can happen in all companies, that do sounds like an inexperienced design (maybe from Tesla, maybe from a partner?)
I can't find pictures online but I'm assuming since it only affects the 2wd and it says if the rotor cracks the stud might leave that the rotor is also the hub.
Doing a half baked job on a part for your super low volume "we only make this to advertise a low starting price" model is something just about any OEM would do.
I bet their supplier just took whatever Chevy Van rotor they had that was close and modified it to fit and as a result it got a little thin somewhere.
Edit: Nope, I couldn't find a picture but I found pictures of big brake kits for the 2wd and clearly it's not an old (read: cheap) integrated hub and rotor.
Cheap ass studs, not surprised. Don’t tow with a cybertruck either, you can literally total it by ripping the frame out with the hitch.
It’s the most poorly engineered “truck” there is. Can’t tow. Can’t haul (stupid bed design). It’s just a glorified pavement machine.
It doesn't even use steel for the frame. It's an aluminum cast. I didn't even know that was legal for trucks. It basically guarantees that these things have an expiration date. I honestly can't believe these are legal to sell
It is a vanity project helmed by a terminally online manchild who wanted cyberpunk blade runner vibes.
Go look back at the original concept art. The actual delivered vehicle dimensions are totally different, so he didn’t even succeed at that part. They couldn’t build what he wanted. It’s way more boxy and looks like shit on the road.
And lol at 173 total affected vehicles. What a failure.
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Eh. It's "fine" when you realize that it's not really an F150 competitor. It's the top end of the Ford Maverick, Honda Ridgeline, etc, market segment. But they have to market it like the former because that's what consumers want to hear.
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Wow, that would be wild to see. Where can I see a Cybertruck owner "literally ripping the frame out with the hitch?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubUXNSWGth0
whistlindiesel also discovered this. it's honestly terrifying that these are legal to sell as "trucks" and people believe they can safely tow with them. Aluminum will only get weaker over time and is guaranteed to eventually break unlike steel
Jerry has one of the worst cases of TDS (Tesla Derangement Syndrome). In his video he applies 10,000 lbs of downward force directly on the hitch point before it breaks, and then says that it "is far too close to the 11,000 pound towing capacity. Yikes." He's a smart guy, he knows downward pressure at the hitch point (tongue weight) is a much different rating than towing capacity. Tongue weight is usually estimated at 10-15% of towing capacity, so 1100-1650 lbs. The cybertruck clearly exceeded expectations here.
That’s a lot of text for you to not realize these are the exact lateral forces a hitch faces when towing. One pothole and your payload is causing a pileup
He explained why you're wrong in the video that you just proved you did not watch.
static*
Thanks, that is absolutely crazy!
Watch WhistlinDiesel cybertruck video.
And if you hate WD, here’s another with them bouncing the skid steer on the actual trucks hitch haha before the cybertruck fails 2k before its advertise rating https://youtube.com/shorts/9yLzs5SzaxQ?si=nXElRpuLY_l-DbB4
Oh, man. I remember that one. He absolutely destroyed that truck. What’s notable about that video is that the other trucks handled the abuse dramatically better than the cybertruck. He was determined to break every single vehicle in ways they would never actually be used, but it was laughable how bad the cybertruck was. If I remember correctly, he made the wheels fall off and had to get it repaired in the middle of the “test”. I think the Ford was still running at the end.
The F150 was actually pretty impressive, for all the shit Ford gets
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Dang you nailed my profile perfect.
I bought one and its the best car I've ever had. Event though I was never a "truck" buyer it checked off all my needs: - space for wife, car seats + another adult when needed - haul around my kids, 4 bikes, skis, camping gear, etc. - drives itself - we do a ton of road trips - luxury - electric, tired of going to gas stations
Wasn't another car on the market that checked those boxes.
Have you ever driven one? They are amazing to drive.
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Have you ridden in a cybertruck?
I've owned several luxury SUVs (volvo, mercedes), a porsche 911 and an s class (admittedly a while ago). The cybertruck to me feels in the same league. I know older/cheaper teslas might not be the same but try the Cybertruck - I think you'd be surprised. Its very comfortable.
I currently own 5 luxury vehicles and have ridden in a Cybertruck, and the Cybertruck is so far below in terms of quality it makes me question what luxury features you see in it.
air suspension, heated and air cooled comfortable leather seats, 15 high quality speakers, everything is soft to the touch (minus the window switches), super fast high quality software (that alone is a huge draw for me, most other cars have terrible software)
honestly don't need much more than that - yes it doesn't have a fridge or massaging seats or whatever, but thats usually in cars with a higher price point too
You can't argue it has a price tag of a luxury vehicle.
Literally everything you listed can be done with any SUV.
Or, better yet, a minivan.
People think they want a pickup truck, or an SUV, or a Cybertruck, but what they really want is a hybrid Toyota Sienna.
can't fit 4 bikes in a minivan . on my previous SUV I had a rear rack and its such a PITA
You cannot be serious.
It was trivial to do this back before foldable seats were standard.
You can fit at least two bikes in just the shitty "trunk" space of your average minivan.
Every van ever made has more cargo space than the Cybertruck.
maybe this is an HN thing, but how would you bring your kids/wife and 4 bikes inside a minivan?
have you used FSD? Have you used the best self driving from other manufacturers? I have. Its no comparison. I turn on FSD and it drives me driveway to driveway to a place in the mountains 4 hours away. I don't touch the wheel.
You "can" put three kids in the back of a Honda Civic. You "can" tow 10k with a Ford Ranger. They're both kind of a sucky experience for all parties involved and it makes perfect sense why people who can afford a vehicle with way more capacity go that route. It makes things that take care and precision and thought as mindless as throwing a light switch. They're not paying for capability, they're paying to make it easy.
I own a station wagon, a minivan, a pickup truck and a hatch (and my spouse drives a boring crossover). I completely understand why "buy a crew cab truck" has become the norm for people who want to just write one check a month to cover every use case.
Additionally, frequent "truck" usage is an absolute menace on wagon/minivan interiors.
How is the Cybertruck luxury? The electric motors feel nice....but the car is so far from luxury. Have you ever been in an S class? A 7 series?
Literally most SUVs will tick most of these boxes at a significant discount.
I have owned a S class, a porsche 911 and several luxury SUVs.
"most of these boxes" - I need all.
>Wasn't another car on the market that checked those boxes.
Outside of "drives itself", I fail to see how much of what you described is unique. Seems very ordinary.
I have another box on my checklist:
[x] $94K and $52K deprecation in the first 5 years.
Nothing fits in this category, it's revolutionary (if you ignore every electric SUV on the market) !!
Buyers who got an expensive and gaudy pile of shit will never want to admit their pile of shit doesn't smell to themselves.
i didnt care about looks. i just cared that it did the things I needed
FSD was a big draw for me. have you used the latest on hw4 cars?
As crazy as this might sound to some people these days, I actually like driving.
i do too but not when hauling kids and bikes and stuff. i'll buy a separate sports car to take on country roads or the track
The only ones I see in my zip code in Miami-Dade/Broward are (mostly) Russians who aspire to a Kardashian tank, a.k.a G-Wagon. The other ones are wrapped in "re-fi your mortgage" type of nastiness. I am terrified when I am next to one in a car or on a bike (because I know "my people").
I am not a Tesla the car hater, if only this monstrosity wasn't all sharp angles, otherwise to each their own.
And the fact that your purchase is supporting a guy that literally threw two nazi salutes at an inauguration? Is that facsist alignment a feature or a bug for your "best car you've ever had"?
Did you breathe into a paper bag after typing that out in a fury?
still the best car
the fact that there are only 173 RWD Cybertrucks sold tells another story.
i have the awd drive one not the stripped down one, maybe thats a big difference. I havent driven the rwd one
F150 Lightning checked all those boxes and also isn’t a complete piece of shit that sheds parts on the road.
As an owner of the f150 lightning, I get a chuckle whenever SpaceX uses them to do something a cybertruck can't.
It was pretty funny driving past the SpaceX facility in Hawthorne and seeing the F150s doing all the real work while the CTs sat to the side for press shots.
also, the lighting is discontinued
cant drive it self
Blue Cruise is far more upfront about its abilities than whatever deadly beta garbage Tesla keeps tossing out there.
ok so? my point was no other car can drive itself door to door, blue cruise included.
Yes, it can
no it cant
Bluecruise exists it works, it's generally safe. If you try and kick this back and say it's not Full Self Driving or comparable to Tesla, then I'm going to start posting links to videos of Tesla FSD (All generations, including latest) doing thing like ignoring school buses signs and mowing down children, turning off with no warning at highway speeds, and otherwise dangerously not-working.
You can try and claim Tesla's self-driving features are great and work 100% of the time, I suspect most people here know that is FUD and there is ample evidence that Tesla "FSD" is certainly no better than competitors and is arguably worse.
Blue Cruise on the F150-Lightning is pretty capable, and it also supports a comma.ai, which is better in a practical sense than FSD.
I have a friend with a CyberBeast and a friend with an F150-Lightning. The acceleration on the CyberBeast is absolutely magnificent and FSD is very capable. However as a truck, the frunk on the F150 is way more useful. The F150 is a better truck, but I'd say the Cybertruck is really good big weird car.
also is comma.ai legit - like would you put your kids in a car driven by it? do they publish safety stats like waymo and fsd
It’s wild to me that you trust the vague bullshit safety data that Tesla puts out enough to trust your kids lives to it.
From my perspective, the only self-driving system I trust my kids with is Waymo.
for your kids safety, would you rather do 30,000 miles in HW4 FSD in a Tesla or hand driven in any other car of your choosing? doing 30K miles in a waymo isn't an option.
good way to describe it - a really good big weird car
A Cybertruck cannot physically fit 4 bikes, and the truck bed is not long enough to fit skis or snowboards.
When I go biking and snowboarding with my idiot friend that owns a Cybertruck, we have to use my Outback to haul the gear because it won't fit in his lemon.
yes it does. i do it. as do surfboards. you just toss it all in the back and let shit hang out.
In a real truck, the surfboards and bikes fit without having to "hang out."
The CT has less usable space than the average crossover SUV.
what!?!? you're completely wrong.
https://chatgpt.com/share/69fe71ad-7f48-83e8-8633-d628632c71...
And you def need to hang surfboards and bikes out the back in other trucks.
no no no you have to ignore that people like the product, its more important to mock production manufacturing from the armchair.
I personally don't like the cybertruck and wish they made something much closer to Rivian, but getting upset about a product you don't like is a small man ting
This surely must be sarcasm.
Right...?
nope. i'm literally the guy the GP is referring to :)
It was never meant for construction workers. It was meant for the owners of small construction companies. I used to work for a swimming pool contractor. He didn't own a shovel. He made $600k a year. So did his plumber best friend. And his buddy that did concrete work. I actually also worked on their small time NASCAR team, since they had so much money to burn. The cyber truck is perfect for them.
I race cars, I have never seen one at the track, they’re a toy.
But you’re exactly right. They’re for the polished shoes folks, not the steel toes
A NASCAR franchise team license is $30 million, and the annual operating cost is $10 million or more (emphasis on the "or more"). If your buddies have a NASCAR team their money didn't come from their day jobs, and the CT is definitely the right truck for people born with silver spoons.
In Minnesota they tend to be (or were) owned by companies in the construction / maintenance industry and plastered with full body advertisements for said services (not actually used by construction workers).
The Cybertruck is over 3 tons, so it's eligible for some specific tax rules that let businesses take the full depreciation immediately instead of over time. Same reason a lot of businesses used to buy Hummers and slap a decal on the side. Idk why we're incentivizing big ass vehicles that put more wear & tear on roads, but it is what it is.
"All 173 of the RWD Cybertrucks sold by Tesla are being recalled"
173...
The RWD model was only for sale briefly after launch. I don't know why you would ever want a pure RWD electric truck
With the weight of the batteries in back it might be fine. The issue with RWD trucks with traditional drivetrains is the lack of traction owing to all of the weight being over the non-drive wheels. Driving my F-150 in the snow or rain was always dicey because of this.
That being said I wouldn't touch a Tesla with a barge pole for reasons numerous.
Batteries and the engine. The engine sits in line with the wheels rather than being under the hood of the car. That puts all the weight right next to the driving tires.
But agree, cybertruck is a really silly purchase for numerous reasons. The only reason you'd buy it is to signal your support for Elon. It's a very bad vehicle.
2wd is just fine if you keep a load of firewood in back all winter.
I don't see why it would be an issue in most cases. Obviously you'd want AWD for proper off-roading, but for just driving around on streets it should be fine. My EV van is RWD and it's totally fine in everything I've dealt with - including deep snow - and I really only even noticed when trying to parallel park on ice.
This has been a question the Slate team has been trying to answer. They claim the weight distribution being more even front-to-back (batteries offsetting motor, I presume), but I don't know whether I believe them. I was interested in a Slate, but the changes at the company lately (new CEO from McKinsey, rather than an engineer), along with decisions like RWD, and the anemic acceleration (0-60 in 8 seconds) gives me pause.
I don’t know how the slate is designed but I have a rivian
The battery pack is by far heavier than the motors. In the r1 they are also positioned with the wheels (quad) or front/back (dual) so weight distribution is great.
If the slate has a single motor and is RWD then I would assume the weight might be biased toward the rear where the drive unit is powering the rear wheels. Either way the motor is relatively small compared to ICE trucks and that’s where you want the weight anyway for a RWD vehicle.
Am I mistaken?
I know little about this, so I suspect you're right. I've mostly been looking for the car version of a "dumb phone", and Slate looked like a nice fit, but it's thrown me into the world of EVs and I'm still pretty new to it.
That said, your explanation makes sense. Slate engineers claimed it would handle well, but it was vague enough that I'd want more detail before I believe them.
Oh man, I love that we live in a world where an eight second 0-60 is considered anemic! For a truck!
(Not digging at you, I feel the same way you do. I just think it’s weird and amazing!)
My old car is a Honda Civic hybrid from 2008. Your comment sent me checking out the current Civic (ICE) performance, and it's also eight seconds! So I see your point, I guess my expectations have changed since EVs came on the scene.
Wait until you find out how many gas and diesel powered trucks are RWD!
At least in the U.S. below a certain ~longitude~ latitude it's quite common.
Autotrader says there are 246,000 used trucks for sale nationwide with AWD/4WD and 38,000 with rear wheel drive. For new it’s 429,000 AWD/4WD vs 51,000 for rear wheel.
Volume wise it’s of course Texas with Wyoming, Montana, and North Dakota having the largest ownership share.
The majority in that statistic are selectable 4WD, which isn't the same as AWD. Pushing the two groups together skews the numbers a bit. Most trucks since the 1970s have been 4WD, ever since companies like Muncie and Borg-Warner started selling axles to Ford and their cohorts. AWD trucks are a relatively new phenomenon, with the first one I can think of being the limited production GMC Syclone in 1989, and it being a truck was an emissions loophole. I think the 2005 Honda Ridgeline was the first real mass produced AWD truck, or perhaps the Subaru Baja from 2003 if you consider that a truck rather than an open deck car. Right now I think only the Ridgeline, Hyundai Santa Cruz, and Ford Maverick are sold as AWD, whereas every other truck is selectable 4WD.
Push the goal posts of you want. OP specifically said rear wheel drive.
There’s a whole community that doesn’t consider anything without front and rear lockers, dana 44 axels, frame on body, and 37s with bead lock a real off road rig.
There is a difference between AWD and 4WD, because 4WD trucks are RWD until you manually change the mode. AWD is all on all the time and is FWD biased, usually something like 70:30 F:R. For most of their lives, even when towing, 4WD trucks are used as RWD only. As for specialized off-road vehicles that wasn't what we were talking about, but yes those people split hairs down to the micron for what constitutes what.
There are so many varieties of AWD. Most are wet-clutched (inside or outside of the main transmission), some are lockable or torsen center differentials, Prius adds electric power to the rear wheels to complement the FWD hybrid setup. Traditional 4WD with a transfer case using a manual shifter-actuated gear selector isn't very common any more. My 1999 Suburban had a wet clutch in a standard truck-shaped transfer case, one side of the front differential had a solenoid to lock/unlock one wheel to the side gear to keep the front drive shaft from spinning in RWD mode, and used a motor to mechanically engage or disengage the wet clutch (between the front and rear outputs) and to slide the engagement ring to offer AWD (rear-wheel biased, engaged when front and rear wheel speeds differed anywhere from 0 to 100% torque transfer) or 4WD (clutch fully engaged), and even 4WD-LOW by running the motor the other direction to engage the planetary gearing with the rear drive shaft.
In my mind, the biggest difference is whether front and rear drive shafts turn at exactly the same rate; if so it's "4WD". If clutch slippage or a differential allows different front and rear axle speeds then it's some form of AWD. But many AWD systems have clutches capable of effectively locking the front and rear driveshafts. E.g. the Suburban had tire-hop turning on pavement in 4WD mode which is about the most torque that drive-train would be expected to encounter.
I KNEW I was going to get that wrong.
I use Jimmy Buffet’s song “Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitude”, meaning head south to Key West to change your attitude. Ergo, latitude is north/south.
EDIT: ninja’ed https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48065792
It's counterintuitive because the prefix refers to the lines, but we're usually describing points along the lines. We know intuitively that "lateral" is side to side, and "long/length" we would expect to be vertical, but that describes where the lines sit, and the measurements are perpendicular to where the lines sit: you choose a horizontal line to describe a height(/length), and a vertical one to describe width.
So just remember that it's opposite to intuition, which will work until you've gotten comfortable enough that your intuition is correct and will then guide you exactly opposite.
The mnemonic i use is latitude is flat.
I usually say to myself "ladder" and that helps. But this time I slipped. Rough morning. Wheels fell off on the way to work.
I say longitude goes longways, which I know isn't accurate except fairly close to the poles, but I remembered it like that when I was a kid and it stuck.
Longitude is also twice as long - 360 vs 180 degrees
Latitude is the only one that matters between the two.
I was going to ask if you were making a joke or just too tired to spell mnemonic correctly, but they would've been pneumatic, not pneumonic.
Edit: oh, boo, you fixed it.
Hadn’t had the morning coffee yet.
latitude -> flatitude
I hate to admit it, but the Corona "Change your Latitude" ads are what locked it in for me.
As they say, if it works it’s not stupid.
Ha! Mine is the Jimmy Buffett song.
Easier mnemonic:
Lots of wines advertise their latitude of origin
Longitudes are meaningless for wines
Collectors item
I probably wouldn't buy a truck, but it's at least a possibility that I'd get one for hauling materials and towing around town. If I did, I'd prefer a RWD model just to save a little money. I find the modern obsession with AWD a bit baffling. AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather, so it feels like an illusory advantage there. RWD can be "interesting" compared to FWD, but modern traction control on an electric drivetrain should make it a non-issue. (In practice, I can abuse the accelerator on my non-truck RWD Teslas pretty badly without any issues with losing traction.)
When was the last time you drove on an unplowed road with only rear wheel drive?
Unpowered wheels become uni-directional skis, regardless of their ability to turn left and right.
Basically never? And I live in a deep rural area 30 minutes from the northern border. Where do you live that you drive through unplowed roads? The only time ive ever wanted AWD or 4WD is once or twice knowingly risking getting stuck by pulling off of people's driveway onto their lawn.
Half of my vehicles are RWD only, and my roads are very rarely plowed. No big deal most of the year...
Of course, when it snows, it's diffferent, but local geography means if it's snowing enough to matter and the plows haven't gotten around, it's not worth it to be driving, regardless of drive configuration.
If driving throw unplowed roads with snow and ice is a regular thing for you, sure. But lots of people never drive in those conditions, so AWD adds weight and complexity that's unnecessary. But people like to be prepared for everything.
A few months ago when it snowed last time.
I used to occasionally drive a V8 with no traction control in Wisconsin winters. It was fine, just took a little care. A modern electric drivetrain is about a million times better.
Unpowered wheels still steer just fine. AWD certainly does better. But I'd rather be cautious and take it slow anyway.
> AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather
I frequently think about this when weather gets bad! I already have AWB (all wheel braking?). Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop
Snow tires, people! Snow tires!
A FWD vehicle with snow tires is frequently better in the snow than an AWD without snow tires. Better control, better stopping, better uphill on snowy roads.
Yep
All cars are “all wheel stop”
All wheel drive doesn’t matter when you lose traction and need to stop. When you are sliding on ice all cars perform the same, and the quality of your tires is what matters. AWD just gives people false confidence to drive faster than they can stop.
I convinced my wife to stop buying the absolute cheapest tires by telling her it is literally the only part of the car that actually touches the road. Why would you cheap out on that?
>A FWD vehicle with snow tires is frequently better in the snow than an AWD without snow tires. Better control, better stopping, better uphill on snowy roads.
Control and stopping of course, but I'd love to see the justification behind "better uphill"
Napkin math says that doubling the contact patch over which the motive force applies still wins because snow tires aren't going to double your friction coefficient. And this is before you consider unloading of the front suspension on a hill (though for most grades it's still probably got more weight than the rear of RWD).
Furthermore, this seems to be corroborated by reality. People in snowy climates tend to go AWD rather than snow tires and snow tire makers typically advertise by comparing stopping/handling rather than acceleration.
Snow tires can actually double your coefficient of friction on snowy pavement!
The coefficient of friction drops fast on snowy ground, with all season dropping as low as 1/3-1/4 of their dry value.
Of course, snow tires plus AWD is even better, but I find snow tires on a FWD vehicle to be plenty to drive up steep hills in snowy weather. (Before learning of the wonders of snow tires, I used to have to take different routes home if it began snowing because I couldn't reliably make it uphill without losing traction.)
Yup. Growing up in Colorado you realize that AWD is frequently the cause of the trouble in bad weather rather than the solution.
>Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop
It's the opposite. You're more likely to carry too much speed into a situation in a FWD/RWD vehicle because doing so improves things a lot of the time. Take for example a highway merge. You can't accelerate well, so you carry more speed through the turn to make the merge more safe. Well that works great and improves safety for all until some moron stops at the end of the ramp. With the AWD vehicle you can come into that situation and many, many more with less speed.
Acceleration is the weakest link in the snow. The sketch factor goes way down once you get AWD. This is why no matter how hard the internet screeches about snow tires the median consumer who drives in a fair bit of snow will choose AWD first.
That's never been the case for me. Acceleration may be the issue I'm most likely to encounter, but the worst thing it'll do is inconvenience me. If traction is bad to the point where I won't be able to accelerate properly on a ramp, then either everybody's going slow enough that it doesn't matter, or I'm going to stay off the highway because it's too dangerous.
Trouble accelerating in snow is common and a non-issue. Trouble stopping is uncommon but a potential disaster.
It's not the highway that gets you (typically). It's all the stupid little roads that are built to substantially lesser standards. Steeper grades, tighter curve, hard 90 junctions, etc, etc.
You carry just a hair too much speed into a curve because you're anticipating not wanting to have to use any gas pedal on the rise just beyond and you wind up in the ditch. Or you go wide into a curb because you took a less optimal gap in traffic at a ~5 roll when taking a left turn because that way makes you less likely to get T-boned than coming to a stop and trying to find an even bigger gap in traffic. Or you slide backwards down some stupid driveway or bump something in a parking lot (ask any delivery, parking lots and driveways are the worst).
Sounds like a skill issue, as the kids say. If you go too fast, you'll be sad. I don't buy it that 2WD makes you more likely to go fast.
I've never driven an AWD, but having a 4x4 in a snow storm is wonderful. Waking up and driving through the pile of snow from the plow to go to wawa before I even think about shoveling is an absolute luxury. Plus, driving on the beach is pretty fun too.
You get better regenerative braking performance out of FWD or AWD. Since typically the front brakes do most of the work, it makes sense to have that energy go into the motor rather than friction braking.
That's true, but if you stay in the regenerative zone it doesn't (seem to) make that much of a difference in practice.
All the braking power happens in the rear if you only brake the rear wheels
Traction is very rarely the limiting factor with regenerative braking even when it's only on the rear wheels.
I didn't even realize there was a RWD model. The website shows 3 options for sale and they are all AWD.
Gift link: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/926741/tesla-cybertr...
Thank you
I don't understand the problem, my new car had like 8 recalls in 2 years for problems that might happen, it's just normal
Your car had a recall because the wheels might fall off? Which one?
406,000 Civics were recalled
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-...
Specifically, this only affected red-edged premium alloy rims that were OEM made but not installed unless you bought them separately. Not an engineering issue with the vehicle so much as those rims may have had a manufacturing defect in certain batches.
The overly cautious recall announcement was promptly clarified to owners by dealerships, and impacted a small subset. (I have a Civic.)
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> According to Claude
Please don't do this.
Quote an authoritative source. Not some AI bot known for ~~hallucinating~~ bullshitting.
Posting AI-generated comments is against HN's guidelines.
That I can't tell whether "the wheels coming off," is literal or figurative when it comes to Tesla is an indictment about their product quality at this point.
What a disaster. I don't really know anyone who is voluntarily buying Teslas when there are so many other viable options in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
I see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them.
I don't know why, I buy trucks to haul stuff. (and I really wish there was an affordable truck to haul stuff with - everything I can find is 12+ years old and showing age)
> I see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them.
Two counterpoints: for all the opinionated criticisms, the cybertruck is at least quite noticeable, and thusly you may think that they are a higher proportion of trucks than they really are.
Also, you're far more likely to see them drive around in certain locales due to the cost, so that may introduce additional biases.
They're the new tax fraud vehicle, replacing the Escalade: a luxury vehicle over a certain weight that gets reported as a "business expense" even when it's for personal use. That's also why a lot of them have shitty decals or stencil-paint advertising local businesses.
There are so many cars that even a fraction of a percent will be seen a lot. I never see a Rolls Royce by comparison.
From the article
> but it’s “not aware of any collisions, fatalities, or injuries” related to the recall.
Fun fact, for Tesla's FSD/AI reporting, it doesn't consider any incident where airbags didn't deploy to count for accident stats. This includes situations where the airbag system cannot deploy because of catastrophic damage.
It also, strangely, doesn't count fatality incidents.
Teslas or cyber trucks? If you mean teslas in general then you’re being willfully ignorant because model Ys are the best selling car in the US.
Only if you don't count trucks. Which are wildly more popular, though I wish they weren't.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48064334
Hey just FYI, this kind of behavior is super annoying.
Right back at ya
I saw one at a car show. They look even more shit in real life, than they do in photos. Probably quite good for killing pedestrians and cyclists though.
All 173 RWD Long Range Cybertrucks have a defect that may potentially lead to wheel separation.
No crashes, injuries or fatalities have occurred. Much bigger recalls from other auto-makers in the past:
Toyota: 8-9 million worldwide recalled for "sticking" accelerator pedals and floor mats that would trap pedals, and a $1.2B DOJ penalty.
Kia 2015: also sticky pedals in various models.
Ford (1970's): 1.5 million vehicles recalled due to read-end collision fires from the fuel tank placement.
Are you comparing Toyota’s reliability and recall record to Tesla’s Cybertruck?
Lmao
Did you just compare a manufacturer to a specific model from a new-ish company and then laugh?
Seems the focus group guy's idea was good after all, kinda fair to just want a wheel that doesn't fall off while I'm driving [0].
0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YDpvMYk5jA
Reminds me of this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2024/04/22/cyberyuck
Fully self driving wheels! People have been waiting for this feature.
Related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
Sorry, but every time I read news about the Cybertruck I have to think of the Simpsons Canyonero song:
Can you name the truck that's been recalled twelve times, Costs less each month 'cause nobody's buying mine?
Cybertruck! Cybertruck!
(Whip crack!)
Her trim falls off when you drive through rain, The steering locks up on the highway lane!
Cybertruck! Cybertruck!
Top of the line in utility trucks! Started at a hundred, now they're slashing bucks!
She's got a price that drops faster than her resale value, And a windshield wiper motor that'll surely fail you!
Cybertruck! Cybertruck!
(Whip crack!)
Twelve recalls in a single year! Drive-by-wire that fills your heart with fear!
The accelerator pedal pops right off the floor, But Elon says it's you who doesn't love her more!
Cybertruck!
She rusts if you look at her wrong in the dew, The tonneau cover works... for a week or two!
She's marked down like a Kmart blue-light special now, A stainless steel disaster and a broken vow!
Cybertruck! Cybertruck!
(Whip crack!)
Whoaaa, Cybertruck!
CYBERTRUCK!
This is amazing. I don't know if you stole it or you're a poetic genius, but rest assured that I'm stealing it.
I asked Claude Opus 4.6 to take the Canyonero lyrics and mix it with all the controversies and this one in particular.
Spread the love!
> the Simpsons
I know the Canyonero bit, but repurposing it to Cybertruck is high art.
Massively underrated post. To the 500ms drive-by voters, look at it closely, it's not just a copy/paste from the Simpsons.
They're replacing both front and rear rotors. Is there a reason the rears are different than the AWD models?
Interviewer: Mr. Musk, I understand the wheels fell off the Cybertruck.
Musk: Well, that’s not very typical. Most vehicles are designed so the wheels don’t fall off.
Interviewer: But these ones did.
Musk: Well obviously. That’s why we recalled them. But wheel retention remains a very high priority at Tesla.
Interviewer: What caused it?
Musk: A minor component interaction that generated maximum freedom.
Interviewer: Freedom?
Musk: For the wheel.
No problem, that'll buff right out
When I was around 12 years old in USSR, my family took a vacation to Georgia to ski in a lovely resort of Gudauri. A big group of us skiers were riding a soviet made PAZ (or PAZik as it was often called) bus. It wobbled a bit since the airport, and about 100km into the ride as we were finally entering the mountains, it vibrated very badly. At some point the driver yelled really really loud - "everyone, to the left side of the bus, NOW", and we all moved to the left, and then we saw the rear wheel of the bus separate and roll forward past the bus. The pin holding the wheel in broke. Quality engineering, that pin design! I wonder if Cybertruck inherited some of that stuff.
The extension of Full Self Destruct mode
“At this point, I think a know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on earth” - Elon Musk [0]
[0] https://m.youtube.com/shorts/S2Bo3S99Tas
I hear Teslas have a bad habit of veering to the right.
The wheels really came off this project.
Why should they do anything correctly? The stock trades at 400 PE. The market is telling them to keep doing whatever is they are doing.
https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/
Jeez, "wheels not falling off car" has been a solved problem since at least the 1965 Corvair.
Rivian had to recall all of theirs for the same reason. Turns out a 3-ton car is hard to engineer.
I have a 2022 Rivian and I don't remember any recalls for brake rotors or wheels falling off. There was one about a year after they made the first R1T where they had forgotten to record the torque of a bolt for the upper control arm during assembly, but the recall just involved having the torque checked, they didn't have to replace anything. Is that the recall you're thinking of?
They told everyone who owned a rivian at that time to stop driving it immediately until the guy could come out and put the wheels back on. That is a recall.
I don't think that's true. I owned my Rivian at that time. There was a recall but I never received any instructions similar to that. They had everyone drive to the nearest service center to have the bolt torque checked, or you could book a mobile service appointment.
You can see the Oct 6 2022 recall information here, including what they instructed people to do: https://rivian.com/support/article/recall-information
I think you are giving them too generous of a reading. The notice was that a subset of vehicles had loose bolts in the front end. They did not know how many, and there was no way to identify the subset. If you could be in this subset, stop driving the vehicle. This applies to everyone, on a rational reading.
It was weeks before the guy drove out and checked mine.
Where did they say "stop driving the vehicle"? I don't think that happened. The instructions were to drive the vehicle to a service center for a drop-in check (or wait for mobile service) which obviously wouldn't be possible if you couldn't drive it.
xXxTeslaSpaceAIxXx could just solve this and their future orbital payload oversupply problem by launching them into orbit.
"Where we're going, we're not going to need wheels."
Did they glue on these wheels too, like the pedals that fell off?
The cybertruck is such a disaster it should have gotten Elon fired but that is impossible.
Lest folks get too carried away, the headline is a lie. The failure is "brake rotor stud separating from wheel hub". Now, sure, that's a serious failure. It's not "wh33lz f411 oFF!".
Everything about this company is cursed at this point. The jeering masses are just as bad as the CEO.
The cars themselves though continue to be really pretty great. Though maybe not the truck.
I'm actually really confused about the language used in the recall; I looked at the Cybertruck manual and the brakes look like a "conventional" design where the studs are set into the hub and go through the rotor, so this failure seems somewhat unrelated to the brake rotors, and the "brake rotor stud" is also the wheel stud: https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ServiceManual/en-u...
I'm assuming it's a misphrasing or typo and the issue is that the stud holes in the wheel hub rotor can elongate, leading to the studs coming out. This can and likely would absolutely cascade into a wheel falling off; I've seen it many times in cheapo endurance racing series - once one stud is loose, the adjacent studs gradually loosen and eventually the wheel separates. If the issue is longitudinal (slotting) it's even more likely to lead to a rapid separation event.
“If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.”
That quote is from Tesla, in the linked article. That says the wheel can fall off.
The masses may be annoying, and even sometimes hyperbolic, but they are nowhere near as bad as the CEO
Please tell me they had the wheels studs mounted into a steel hub, and not aluminum…
Yes and yes
Anti-elon fud incoming....
Anyone still wants to buy a Tesla though?
The design used to be futuristic-novel. But novelty passes - it now looks like a car pressed to pieces in a shredder. And it is very expensive. But most importantly, after Elon did his right-arm raise gesture twice, even aside from mass-firing people at DOGE or elsewhere ... does anyone still want to give more money to a very strange oligarch, who uses money to buy more influence and opinions here? Or buys a platform to turn it into a propaganda amplifier for his strange remarks about race and ethnicity?
Patently false headline, paywalled article, and blatantly left leaning source. Loving the state of media in 2026.
If you’d like another source, by all means you can type “cybertruck recall” into your search engine of choice.
Stick a political agenda in. Are you a tesla employee?
Also, feel free to plug into the vast ecosystem of right-wing media if you need an alternative view of reality.
LOL, yeah, it's the all the liberals fault!
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Rocket man has been bad for a lot longer than that
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Junk
173 cars are being recalled. The Verge always tries to make anything remotely involving Musk sound as bad as possible.
Those 173 were all that were sold ...
Exactly, very few of the potentially affected cars were sold, but their headline makes it sound way worse than it is.
If you're reading this thinking "wow, a recall! tesla must suck at building cars!" then you probably don't know anything about how the automotive industry works and you should refrain from commenting
3 verified failures out of 173 total cars is an extremely bad rate for the automotive industry.
Sounds like the parent comment probably doesn’t know much about how the auto industry works and should refrain from commenting.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48064334
Its not about the recall. Every car manufacturer has many per model. Its about the wheels about to fall off
Stop being mean to the poor car company worth 1.6 trillion dollars, they're doing their best. :(
Even people who know about building cars think Tesla sucks at building cars. Which is why in an interview about speeding up the production line, the head of Volkswagen's production lines thought that a duration that was still almost twice as long as a Tesla spent on the line was about their lower floor and that anything less would be problematic.
Maybe that's why their cars ship with their windshields glued on, all the time, or all of their brake pads, all of the time, or secured body panels, all the time.
Or maybe he should have refrained from commenting?
Do you think these cars are well engineered and reliable?!
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We've banned this account.
It's worth noting that crack formation is affected by more than just the design - variation in material and manufacturing steps could also contribute. A more robust design can potentially compensate for material or process variability, but those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage. We should not boo companies for acknowledging and correcting issues which may not have been reasonably foreseeable.
Yes, absolutely. The Cybertruck was indeed the first of its kind to have 4 wheels attached to its structure. No car company before Tesla had ever done this before and as such, it was impossible to gauge what kind of material was best suited to handle stress over long period of time.
It's just ridiculous.
Tell me you're not an engineer without saying you're not an engineer.
> those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage.
But they could have included an error factor in the designing process. I thought this was standard for manufacturing. And they could have done more robust testing which, again, I thought was pretty standard for manufacturing.
> But they could have included an error factor in the designing process.
They almost certainly did. But that error factor is a guess based on limited testing. You never know your true variability until you're building at scale. Waterfall development doesn't work in the real world any better than it does in software.
> We should not boo companies for acknowledging and correcting issues
Nobody is booing the recall, they’re booing a company that makes the bad choices that lead to recalls like this. E.g. doorhandleless firetrap trashcan car with sharp corners and a high front for extra pedestrian-murder.
I would have thought that material and process variability would be one of the primary design constraints in physical engineering?
And if engineers were all knowing that is how it would work. Unfortunately the real world is complex and there are limits to how variability can be constrained.