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submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Context

A new analysis by independent automotive blog FuelArc suggests that fire fatalities are 17 times more likely in a Cybertruck than in the infamous Ford Pinto — the posterchild of deadly cars if ever there was one.

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[-] [email protected] 66 points 4 months ago

It's specifically 17x more fire fatalities per car on the road - 5/35000 for the cyberturd, something like 30/3000000 for the pinto.

Notably the Pinto's design was placing the gas tank behind the rear bumper, so getting rear-ended badly enough could cause a fireball. The big scandal was that Ford did the math on the cost of settlements vs recalls and found settlements would be cheaper, so they didn't fix the issue.

Cyberturd on the other hand has big lithium batteries strapped to the bottom, notably locks occupants in the vehicle in the event of power failure (e.g. bad crash or battery failure, explosive or otherwise) AND its "apocalypse proof" design means it takes first responders a long time to smash through the windows to rescue you before you're barbecued.

[-] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

IIRC, there were a couple additional issues with the Pinto. There was a problem with the filler tube that connected to the fuel tank (I think it was welded to the body or something), and this could cause a rupture and subsequent conflagration. The fuel tank was much too close to the bumper, and there wasn't enough of a buffer zone around it; there were lots of structural items nearby that could cause punctures. Ford actually had the option to license a self-sealing "fuel bladder", a design that came from the aviation industry, but the bean counters nixed that. The doors tended to bind and jam in a collision, trapping occupants in a burning vehicle. And finally, '70s-era Ford was really making some lousy cars, especially small ones. The Pinto is yet another case of "the hard way is the easiest to learn". (I think there was an episode of Engineering Disasters that covered the Pinto fiasco in great detail).

The diagram you posted below shows what a defective design it really was. It's almost as if they shoehorned in the fuel tank wherever they could, like it was an afterthought.

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this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2025
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