this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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The thing the Pinto was famous for, its fuel tank being in the rear and exploring, only killed 27 people according to the NHTSA. So pretty low bar.
All cars out of Detroit were designed like that. They only went after Ford because Pinto sold well.
Ford also voluntarily recalled 1.5 million of them and addressed the fuel tank issue that caused the problem.
"Fixing" the cybertruck would involve offering refunds scrapping them.
All that lithium sitting in storage lots, wasted. Tesla could save the CT with some sort of body kit conversion that tears it down to the frame and rebuilds it as a more traditional truck. It’ll still not be a great truck, but better than letting all those batteries rot.
The frame is unfortunately a piece of poorly designed garbage too, even ignoring the Whistling Diesel torture test. And you can't make something that isn't a cybertruck using it, because:
It's not a traditional frame with a body built on top. It essentially is the cybertruck.
They could (but won't) design a vehicle that isn't ridiculous and offer cybertruck owners a rebate on trade in. Yank the batteries, motors, and anything else that can be reused and scrap the rest.
If my fuel tank went exploring I'd be worried too
We used to have standards for our vehicles
This is actually really funny, because Ralph Nader literally started his activist career pointing out that they didn’t in 1965.
Auto manufacturers were eventually forced to add seatbelts and protection for roll-overs.
Nader’s book was cited as the reason to create what became the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
When the original bill was passed,
GMs president Alfred Sloane refused to install safety glass and boasted to investors: "GM doesn't make cars, it makes money".
He also had to modify the corvair he claimed was unsafe to cause it to do unsafe things... Nader is a piece of shit.
Oh totally, Nader is the piece of shit here…
Nader, on the other hand, literally took the money he won for GM’s harassment and intimidation and put it into a consumer protection organization.
Then
You’re fucking delusional to pretend he was the bad guy in this situation.
Whoa, dude, personal attack much?
Two things can be true. The car manufacturers are massive pieces of shit as most corporations are, but also Nader is a piece of shit...
He picked a target and fudged the data until it said what he wanted. Just because he was doing it to promote something good doesn't make it right.
https://www.nytimes.com/1972/07/21/archives/us-car-study-disputes-nader-on-corvair-safety-charge-in-65-us-car.html