New owners of Tesla‘s sleek, stainless-steel Cybertruck may want to watch their fingers closing the electric vehicles doors and its front-facing trunk.
Reviewers have conducted a now viral ‘carrot test,’ and other experiments with hot dogs, bananas, and other suitable stand-ins for soft human appendages — discovering a gruesome ‘guillotine effect’ in the process.
‘I’m just going to shut the door like a normal person shuts the door. Nothing too hard,’ one reviewer said just before gently showing the Cybertruck’s driver’s side door chop the ends off two large, hearty carrots.
The angular new vehicle’s slicing and dicing made a stark contrast beside some of its rival electrics, like Rivian’s R1T, Ford’s F-150 Lightning and even Tesla’s own Model X.
Unlike the Cybertruck, in fact, Rivian’s R1T comes with anti-pinch sensors embedded along its front trunk, designed to present just this kind of amputation horror.
Owners of Tesla ‘s sleek, stainless-steel Cybertruck may want to watch their fingers closing the electric vehicle’s doors and its front-facing trunk. Reviewers have conducted a ‘carrot test,’ for soft human appendages — discovering a gruesome ‘guillotine effect’ in the process
The tests, conducted by the team at Out of Spec reviews (above), showed that many electric vehicles can be risky for people’s appendages, and their food products, when caught between the closing tailgate and the body of the vehicle
‘You might want to watch your fingers around the Cybertruck,’ as TikTok user @molesrcool put it. ‘You could end up losing them.’
The tests, conducted by the team at Out of Spec reviews, showed that many electric vehicles can be risky for people’s appendages, and their food products, when caught between the closing tailgate and the body of the vehicle.
But, the same could not be said about other closures, like car doors, truck tailgates, and so-called ‘frunks’ (front trucks), where Rivian R1T proved to be safest of the current class of EV trucks.
Anti-pinch sensors, and sensorless anti-pitch catches have been a increasingly common feature of vehicles since the early 2000s, particularly with automatic windows, making the features abensce on the Cybertruck unusual.
Infamously, an August 2016 Tesla software update cut out pinch sensor functionality on the Model X’s futuristic gull-wing doors, to prevent ‘phantom detections.’
‘Some Model X owners worried that rear-seat passengers, especially children, could be injured if they get their hands and arms caught between the heavy doors and the body,’ as Automotive News noted at the time.
But what has made the Cybertruck uniquely more dangerous is that, as reviewers have noted, the vehicles stylish steel body lacks a radius on the edges of its panels.
‘Tesla ultimately decided to make the Cybertruck’s body panels out of 1.8 mm thick stainless steel sheets, which are not folded over into a hem at the edges,’ one tech writer for Notebook Check noted, ‘leaving a sharper edge than normal.’
‘When two of these thin, relatively sharp panels come together so closely, they could present trouble for anything that gets in the way.’
What has made the Cybertruck uniquely more dangerous is that, as reviewers have noted, the vehicles stylish steel body lacks a radius on the edges of its panels. Cybertruck’s body panels are made of 1.8 mm thick stainless-steel sheets, which are not folded or hemmed at the edges
‘When this front trunk is open you get this basically perfectly cut stainless steel sharp corner and then the trunk does not have proper pinch detection,’ TikTok user @molesrcool explained in his assessment of the new ‘carrot test’ video.
Musk handed the first Cybertruck keys to owners on November 30 during livestreamed event hosted at Tesla’s Gigafactory in Austin, Texas.
The CEO appeared in good spirits as he watched the steel-plated electric vehicles roll onto a stage before inviting each person to sit in their new truck – despite launching into an expletive-filled outburst aimed at advertisers pulling out of X the day before.
Moments after the live stream ended, Tesla updated its website with new pricing, showing the Cybertuck has nearly doubled in price from $39,999 to $60,990.
The steel-plated vehicle features a six-foot-long, four-foot-wide bed that can carry up to 2,5000 pounds, 11,000 pounds towing capacity and a 17-inch ground clearance.
Musk said the Cybertruck’s body is made of a stainless steel alloy developed by Tesla.
Stainless steel, Musk said, has no corrosion and does not need paint but can still be mass-produced.
The starting price was not the only one to increase – all-wheel drive is now $79,990, and the Cyberbeast is $99,990.
DailyMail.com has reached out for comment to Tesla, which dissolved its US media relations team in October 2020.
This article will be amended if the company responds.
