TL; DR: He bricked the Cybertruck but the F-150 lived
I saw an edit of this video on here earlier and immediately had to go watch it for myself. It's a pretty good video and this guy has enough wild-eyed crazy in him that watching him destroy a vehicle is very entertaining.
The gist of the video is that he pits the Cybertruck against an F-150 in an extreme durability test. Obviously, this is for entertainment mostly and not necessarily a product review, so I felt compelled to add come context to the "flaws" and flaws the vehicles demonstrate.
Disclaimer: I am not a mechanic or an automotive engineer. I do have enough knowledge, however, to add some information to what the video shows. That said, let's go.
Rolling off the flatbed truck without ramps.
The major difference between combustion/"regular" and electric vehicles is not necessarily what fuel they use, but how the engine is composed.
Combustion engines feed fuel into into pistons which allow in a small amount of air in to combine with the ignition flame to begin and maintain the combustion process. These pistons then compress, driving the pressure into the rest of the engine and using the force to create motion. This is why a vehicle, if left in neutral with the brakes off, will drift forward - if the engine is running, combustion is taking place and that forward momentum will be used. These pistons are what mark out a vehicle's V classication - eg. V-4, V-6 and V-8. This V number represents how many of these pistons there are and therefore how much power they can output. V-4s are usually economy cars, mini vans or very small SUVs (think a Ford Fiesta, a Honda Odyssey or a Honda CR-V). V-6s are for more robust cars, SUVs, and light pickup trucks (think a Chrysler 300, a Kia Sorento or a Toyota Tundra). V-8s are the strongest type, and can be put towards speed or hauling, depending on thr design of the vehicle. A Ford Escape, for example, is very fast for an SUV because it is built light and spacious - intended to carry its load inside the body of the vehicle. A Chevrolet Silverado, by comparison, is meant to haul and puts its strength into pulling and torque instead of speed.
Due to the fact that combustion engines have to generate their own energy through the combustion process, these engines are very reliant on "hardware" - ei. physical parts that operate based on physical imput and interaction. The gearbox in your transmission, for example, is made up of actual gears that have to turn and lock into place for the transmission to turn and thus power the axels which spin the wheels.
Electric vehicles have none of this. Since they have no power generation requirement, that space is taken up by batteries and motherboards which fulfil all the roles of various hardware. Why would you need a transmission to turn when the motherboard can command the axels to turn on its own? The trade off is that EVs almost exclusively run on "software" - ei. the onboard computer. This means that their undercarriage has no dangling parts to get snagged or damaged like a CV.
Neither of these things are inherently bad. On one hand, EVs have nothing down there to snag when it rolls off the back of the flatbed. Downside, the high toxic, flammable and delicate batteries are in the undercarriage. Damaged motherboards are also much harder and trickier to replace and repair. CVs have a vulnerable undercarriage, but they're easy parts to replace or can be fixed quickly. Most of the undercarriage of a CV is also not flammable - it's just running hardware and exhaust.
Suspension and ride comfortability.
Suspension refers to the metal coils and hydraulics that take and displace the impact from tires hitting and running over things. Suspension exists on a spectrum from "soft" to "hard", and most vehicles fall somewhere in the middle.
"Soft" suspension is meant for ride comfort - the suspension coil is kept less tense and absorbs more impact, keeping the ride more level and smooth. This is common in luxury cars or brands like Cadillac or Lexus. The downside of this is that it wears your suspension down much faster. They need to be replaced more frequently and it can also be harder on the axels, depending on what you do with it. Speed bumps, if taken unevenly, really fuck soft suspension.
"Hard" suspension is meant for durability - the suspension coil is kept very tense and rigid, displacing the impact more into the body of the vehicle and back into the ground. This makes the ride a lot rockier, but the vehicle itself a lot more stable. Most vehicles with 4 Wheel Drive or offroading capability lean towards hard suspension to preserve the vehicle's integrity and power output.
In the video, the Cybertruck clearly has softer suspension than the hard suspension F-150. This is why the Ford had a rockier ride but the phone didn't go flying when they landed. The Ford is much more resistant to hard impact than the Cybertruck.
Towing and frame construction.
Towing capacity is in part from the horsepower put out by the engine, but also by the integrity of the frame.
Most vehicle's frames are one solid aluminum skeleton, sometimes welded in places but often cast all at once. Trucks, specifically, usually use the "unibody" design with a built-in trailer hitch. This allows the entirety of the frame to carry the weight of the towed object as it would if it were in the bed of the truck. This is what the Ford is doing when it pulls the Cybertruck out of the mud - the entirety of the body is being used to pull.
The Cybertruck's hitch, in contrast, is attached only to the bumpers and not the frame of the vehicle. The bumper was attached to the frame, however, and when it tore off, it caused structural damage to the frame.
Frame damage is critical damage. It destabilizes the entire structure and can actually tear the vehicle apart from within. That metal needs to be reinforced or wholly replaced to be servicable again.
Aluminum vs steel frame.
Most trucks have aluminum frames ans for good reason.
Aluminum has the highest strength to weight ratio second only to titanium, meaning that for how light it is, it is incredibly strong. An F-150 made of aluminum is thousands of pounds lighter than one made of steel and is more durable.
Steel also goes brittle in the cold faster than aluminum, meaning it is more prone to tearing or rending under force when its's cold. (There's a test to determine this called the Charpy Test - go look them up, they're really cool.) Aluminum also rusts slower and less catastrophically than steel. You can see how this would be in issue in the cold or if your vehicle is left outside regularly.
Fibre glass vs steel body.
In the C-4 test, it blew a hole right through the F-150, because obviously. The Cybertruck remained intact, but jammed the door. This is more damning for the Cybertruck than the Ford.
The Ford is designed with safety in mind. The body of the truck is meant to take the impact in the event of a crash instead if the occupants. These manifest as "crumple zones", where the vehicle will let itself be crushed instead of the passengers. Fibre glass is very good at that, so that's what most exterior bodies are made from.
Crucially, they are also intended to be destroyable by first responders. A firefighter responding to a crash can cut through the door of that Ford with a saw pretty easily and extract the occupants. Alternatively, an occupant can force the doors open from the inside too, if necessary.
The Cybertruck is made of sheet steel and therefore much harder to cut through than fibre glass. The impact also jams the door lock, making it impossible to open from the inside. If your truck is on fire after an accident, you better hope the other door still works or you're dying in there. On that note ...
Slamming the doors and breakable windows.
The integrity of the Cybertruck's interior is a joke. What the actual fuck is that. Granted, neither of these vehicles are meant to be slammed like that, but the Ford's doors held together very well in comparison.
That means that even small impacts like slamming the door are being transferred into all the soft, squishy parts of the inside of the Cybertruck whereas the Ford is dispersing it immediately.
He calls out Ford's windows for cracking during this test, but again, that's an intentional design.
You'll notice he was able to grab and wiggle the glass without it breaking apart. That's because the glass is also, like the crumple zones, intended to take an impact on behalf of the occupant. It is designed to crack and spiderweb out BUT NOT shatter. Shattering glass can cause a lot of harm, especially to the eyes and face. Instead, even if it does break apart, it stays in larger chunks.
The Cybertruck, by contrast, does not spiderweb nearly as efficiently as the Ford and does, in fact, shatter in the driver's side window when they're throwing weights at it. It doesn't disperse the impact, it shatters under pressure (despite putting up with a lot of abuse) and it loses integrity in localized spots quite quickly.
If you're in a crash, the Ford's windows won't rupture your eyes with tiny razors.
Pulling strips off the Cybertruck.
This got me. This was the worst part.
When he pulls the strips off the top edge of the body, over the doors, you'll notice that it was glued on.
GLUED.
You do not glue metal together. You weld, rivet or bracket metal to itself (preferably like metal to like metal). Metal is usually not a porous surface, meaning it has nothing for the glue to hold onto. Do you have any idea how dangerous this barely-adhered strip of sheet metal would be if it flew off in a car crash? It's a huge metal boomerang - it's gonna kill someone. Temu-ass materials indeed.
How the fuck do you half-ass something so hard that you start whole-ass fucking it up? Lawnmowers have better structural and safety integrity.
The uh, the Ford doesn't have glued on body parts. If you were wondering.
Drive by wire and bricking.
Drive by wire is a cool invention and I'm sure it's pretty useful. In EVs, it cuts further down on weight and mades the steering more responsive.
In my opinion, though, it's a hazard on its own.
In CVs, the wheels are controlled by your steering column, which is attached to your wheel. The operation of the wheel is aided by hydraulic systems which assist you in the actual effort of turning the wheels. When your engine dies or the steering assistants take a hit, you can still control the vehicle directly (though it is much harder).
Drive by wire without a backup steering column (like the Cybertruck has) means that if the vehicle dies while you're in motion, you have no control over the vehicle at all anymore. You're fucked. God forbid your truck bricks because you drove though a puddle on the highway and you lose control entirely.
On that note too, I am firmly of the belief that none of your driving essentials should be controlled via screen. Physical buttons and shifters allow physical feedback, letting the driver keep their eyes on the road and move by muscle memory and touch alone. Touch screens are hazardous to the driver and those around them by forcing them to look at what they're pressing as opposed to the road. The Cybertruck's control screen being in the centre console also cuts down the driver's capability to use peripheral vision to monitor the traffic around them.
Now, most EVs put out by real companies do have a steering column and manual sticks still in place for these reasons, so it's not an EV problem, it's a Tesla one.
Driving off the lot.
I don't give a shit. Every vehicle you buy should come as advertised and drivable off the lot. You shouldn't have to get an app, set up an account and register your vehicle in order to charge the damn thing.
No one should be able to steal my car by stealing my phone. I draw the line. Fuck off.
So, yeah. The Cybertruck sucks even worse than we already thought it did. If you want an EV, buy it from a company that actually makes vehicles and not a billionaire's vanity toy company.
