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splunk.com/resilience. We

0:46

have a car here that experts

0:48

said was impossible, that experts said would

0:51

never be made. Back

0:53

in November, Elon Musk gathered in front

0:55

of a crowd in Austin, Texas to

0:57

unveil Tesla's latest vehicle, the Cybertruck. It's

0:59

a new electric pickup that looks like

1:02

no other truck on the road today.

1:04

At the event, the first models were

1:06

delivered to a handful of overjoyed customers. I

1:09

think it's our best product. I think it's the most unique

1:12

thing on the road. And

1:14

finally, the future will look

1:16

like the future. Well,

1:20

I've watched a lot of these kinds of events

1:22

over the years following Tesla. Events like this have

1:24

become really an important part of who Tesla

1:27

is as a company, right? Bringing the faithful

1:29

together and having Elon get up on stage

1:31

and kind of hold a revival of some

1:33

kind. It's a really important part of how

1:36

this company operates. Edward

1:40

Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous, the

1:42

Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. He's

1:45

been following Tesla for years and he's gotten

1:47

used to events like this. But

1:50

the Cybertruck in particular was highly anticipated.

1:52

The truck was first announced four years

1:54

ago and people have been mocking it

1:57

ever since. We have some

1:59

footage of the pavement. Princess of the Teacher.

2:01

It turns out the Tesla cyber drug

2:03

works just as bad in matte black

2:05

as it doesn't it's normal still color

2:07

thing. Left. Flank something out of Blade

2:09

Runner. Musk says it's bulletproof. It

2:12

seems to ride lower on the ground than what you'd expect

2:14

that the pick that. Is a stainless

2:16

steel exterior and a lot of sharp.

2:18

Vertical edges. You know

2:20

in in some ways it's a it's

2:23

a throwback to a sort of nineteen

2:25

eighties wedge design style and a the

2:27

Cyber Truck is this very triangular shaped

2:29

and it's got these really long straight

2:31

lines and is really flat surfaces. It

2:33

looks in a lot of ways. It's

2:35

a design that looks like people compared

2:37

to a low polygon model in a

2:40

video game and very sort of. he

2:42

was. Sharp angles, But.

2:46

I saw someone a car designer

2:48

say the cyber attack is a

2:50

cool low poly done joke that

2:53

only exists in the seaver dreams

2:55

of Tesla fans that stands high

2:57

on the smell of the line

2:59

masks. Flatulent, says. I

3:01

mean that's that's a good way to put

3:03

it fundamentally to. The design is distinctive and

3:06

I see what the same or trust design

3:08

shows is that Tesla is a company that

3:10

makes things that a cool and like for

3:12

a long time. I think he won't Must

3:14

have sort of had his finger on the

3:16

pulse of of what was cool what people

3:18

were going to think was course. With

3:20

this you know season posing this very extreme

3:22

version of what's cool and I think look

3:24

like if you're a guy in your early

3:26

twenties who was just soldier tech startup for

3:28

billions of dollars you know it's like. There's

3:31

There's definitely a market for this

3:33

vehicle. There are people who like

3:35

the extremists of the designs, but.

3:38

He really is where I would put it.

3:40

It's it's it's great mean, but it's kind

3:42

of a terrible vehicle for. Criticism as a

3:45

cyberattack is more than just means now

3:47

that is sex or actually on the

3:49

road People have raised serious questions about

3:51

safety. Some experts worry that a number

3:53

of the car seats are is to

3:55

the measure hazards. Like it's hard exterior

3:57

and sharp as his destiny monsieur. Based

4:00

on what you know, what we know, is the

4:02

Cybertruck safe? I'll say for

4:04

whom, right? That's sort of the question,

4:06

and this is sort of always the question with vehicles,

4:08

right? Occupant safety is one

4:10

thing, but then pedestrian

4:12

safety, the safety of people outside the vehicle is another

4:15

question. So

4:18

today on the show, after years of

4:20

anticipation, the Cybertruck is finally here.

4:23

Now what? I'm Emily Peck,

4:26

filling in for Lizzie O'Leary, and you're listening

4:28

to What Next TBD, a show about tech,

4:30

power, and how the future will be determined.

4:32

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Bank USA Member FDIC. Terms apply. The

5:39

Cybershoke was initially scheduled for a 2021

5:41

release date, but the first

5:43

models didn't start going out to customers

5:45

until that event last November. The

5:47

price of the truck has also crept up in the

5:49

year since it was announced. I

5:51

Think, you know, part of it is that

5:53

it's an extreme design. Part of it is that

5:56

it uses manufacturing methods that are not standard.

5:58

COVID may well have been a factor. After,

6:00

Yes, I'm split. But Tesla is always

6:02

a company that is operating on high

6:04

wire. You know? Ah, they're they're They're

6:06

always juggling a million plates, and they're

6:08

always on the brink of bankruptcy. But

6:10

also on the brink of. You know,

6:13

Dominated industry people who their stock price oaks

6:15

is a million possible explanations for why does

6:17

the taken so long but I do think

6:19

that you know to some extent what we're

6:21

seeing is is sort of this legend. But.

6:24

That has the does everything better and faster all

6:26

the time. Always is sort of hitting the wall

6:28

with this vehicle. And do

6:30

we know like to passively speaking? Like.

6:32

How many tests have been released so far? Do you

6:35

have like a sense of timeline for how many. Moral

6:37

be released He I was so and

6:39

this is the trick that Tesla pulls

6:41

up every time they they insist new

6:43

vehicle right is is he know you

6:45

do. You have you invest in the

6:47

fixed costs tooling to build these things

6:50

and as a huge upfront investment and

6:52

then you have to get production up

6:54

and running and ordered start amortizing that

6:56

costs right. And and this is why

6:58

automakers spend time. You know during

7:00

pre production runs and valid a sense

7:02

and spend you know months and months

7:04

since you producing vehicles. Are and

7:06

and do not start releasing him to

7:08

customers until until they are actually at.

7:10

You know they they. They validated their from

7:13

their manufacturing, the production process and they

7:15

can build these vehicles both high quality but

7:17

then also efficiently cost effectively. Stuff doesn't

7:19

do that first. Prove that the machine that

7:21

build the machine in their words are

7:23

actually works for for the start producing it.

7:26

Be kind of. Build. The

7:28

airplane as it's as its flying

7:30

and so A makes these production

7:32

ramps incredibly unpredictable. It kind

7:35

of reminds me of it. It's

7:37

less like and carmaker more like

7:39

to software maker releasing cards in

7:41

beta format basically limited release beta

7:43

as of cars which is really

7:45

unusual of me. Neither things people

7:47

have to drive and be season

7:49

and. You. Know you could die, Can't

7:51

Die On the latest release of Apple, I

7:53

owe us. It's. It's

7:56

it's really unusual and he creates all

7:58

kinds of other. Founded on the safety

8:01

regulation side and it's an inequality is service

8:03

What party at their costly above in the

8:05

design you know how to the stock the

8:07

parts arm and when you making a car,

8:09

new building a production system in particular you

8:11

talk about big investments and robots and welders

8:14

and and a thousand and all kinds of

8:16

other things on that. That. You just

8:18

you. You will never be as nimble as as

8:20

you can be in software. And I think that

8:22

that's one of the big lessons that again like

8:24

capital Markets eventually are gonna have to learn about

8:26

Tesla is that he our cars no matter how

8:28

much he wanted to be. Software that never to

8:30

be software is always be one of the hardest

8:32

forms of hardware. Yeah, so let's

8:34

get into the hardware. Can you walk

8:37

through some of the mean safety concerns

8:39

that both pedestrians and. Drivers

8:41

maybe starting with. The.

8:43

Cyberattack is made out ads really hard

8:45

stainless steel as sharp as is that

8:47

seems to be one of maybe like

8:49

three top. Safety concerns that.

8:52

Yeah. So so it's Aussies actually sort of

8:54

that one of the main once you have that

8:57

your the angular design as itself sort of a

8:59

you know creates the sharp edges and and things

9:01

like that but I think fundamentally it's it's somebody

9:03

that angular design with with is really hard medals

9:06

in on the mosque this is about you know

9:08

spectacle right and and having these hard metals is

9:10

always the same mature were using on the starship

9:12

rocket ships on that's a is a sightseeing spray

9:15

is is also really suited with a Tommy gun

9:17

and I will go through. We have all these

9:19

like demonstrations the have nothing to do with how

9:21

people actually use these vehicles. rights. But they look

9:23

cool. They make of for good spectacle. And

9:26

I said modern vehicle design. It

9:28

does actually a lot of mix metal

9:30

construction because when you engineer a car

9:33

for for crashing spoofer, crashing into another

9:35

vehicle but also into pedestrians, you want

9:37

to use different materials because you want

9:39

to essentially engineer how the car is

9:41

going to sort of crumple. And essentially

9:43

what happens is is that by creating

9:45

sections of the car that are designed

9:47

to deform, a takes the energy of

9:50

the crash and sort of disperse as

9:52

it. rights and by having

9:54

this really super hard as he

9:56

was your our eggs exterior panels

9:58

essentially and we seen some crash

10:00

test footage from the Cybertruck. And you can

10:03

tell it doesn't do that. So for example,

10:05

the hood of a vehicle is usually engineered

10:07

to crumple very, very easily,

10:09

right? Because especially for pedestrians, you really

10:11

want that to give way because if

10:13

it doesn't give way and disperse energy,

10:15

right, the energy just transfers directly into

10:17

the pedestrian. Right.

10:19

You want the hood to take the brunt

10:22

of the damage. That's right. And in

10:24

the first footage that we've seen of the

10:26

Cybertruck crash testing, we've seen something I've never

10:28

seen in a vehicle before, which is that

10:30

instead of crumpling, the hood sort of bows.

10:32

And what that's doing is it's storing the

10:34

energy. Right. So the vehicle

10:37

hits the wall, the

10:39

hood comes up and it bows in a

10:41

sort of rounded bow form. And so it's

10:43

like a spring and then it releases. And

10:45

what that means is that if it hits

10:47

something that is not heavy

10:50

enough, like a pedestrian, it just goes

10:52

right through essentially all the mass,

10:54

all of the energy transfers directly to the

10:56

pedestrian, probably on that sort

10:58

of sharp edge or corner. And

11:02

that's not good for the pedestrian. The other

11:04

thing though, too, is that for the interior,

11:07

you also want to have

11:09

some give in the structure of

11:11

the vehicle to protect the interior

11:13

occupants as well, because it's about

11:15

absorbing the energy. And when

11:17

you optimize your design for just

11:19

pure strength, you're no longer absorbing

11:21

the energy. And so it's a little bit different.

11:23

It's more that the interior occupants

11:25

get shaken around a lot more. So there's

11:28

more of a risk of whiplash and things

11:30

like that. I don't think there's, I think

11:32

the hardness protects

11:35

the occupants from

11:37

infusions. I mean, you made the truck

11:40

bulletproof. Yes. Yes. And

11:42

so I think what this speaks

11:44

to is sort of the whole design philosophy

11:47

of Cybertruck, which is engineering

11:49

for spectacle rather than for actual

11:51

use. And then of course, and

11:54

this is where I'm like, is Cybertruck any worse

11:56

than any other big truck? There's the size and

11:58

the weight of the thing. thing, which

12:00

makes it kind of a menace as well.

12:02

Is that worse than your

12:05

typical electric truck

12:07

or sort of in line with the dangers

12:09

these vehicles now present to people? Yeah,

12:11

I think the weight and mass are pretty

12:14

comparable to other electric trucks. A lot of

12:16

safety issues are not monocosable. In fact, it's

12:18

very rare for a safety problem to have

12:20

one sort of singular cause. It's usually, it's

12:22

the combination of factors. And so in this

12:24

case, it's a combination of, yes, it's large,

12:26

it's heavy. So you have that mass problem

12:29

that you have with other trucks of all

12:31

kinds, electric or not. It's the wedge, the

12:33

sharp wedge shape design, and then it's a

12:35

super hard material. It's that combination. Any

12:38

one of these things on their own with maybe with the exception

12:40

of the super hard steel, you know,

12:42

is probably not going to create as much of a

12:44

risk. But when you bring all of these things together,

12:46

I do think it presents a pretty unique risk. The

12:50

first reported cyber truck accident happened at

12:52

the end of December in California when

12:55

a Toyota Corolla crossed lanes and hit

12:57

a cyber truck. Highway Patrol

12:59

said the only injury, a minor one,

13:01

was to the Tesla driver. What

13:06

does that say to you? Does it say anything to you about

13:08

the safety of the trucks? It does at

13:10

first glance seem to confirm my feeling that

13:12

the safety issues are not just about, you

13:14

know, pedestrians getting hit by this vehicle, that

13:16

also this super hard approach

13:19

to engineering the body structure, because

13:21

the structure itself doesn't absorb the impact,

13:25

and it will bounce off things. And

13:27

essentially that energy, it's not

13:29

being transferred directly into the occupants of the

13:31

vehicle, but you can think of them as

13:33

sort of more like dice and you know,

13:35

in a box or something being shaken up.

13:38

And so I think it makes sense to

13:40

me that you will see in cyber truck

13:42

crashes that the occupants will have more issues

13:44

with whiplash and things like that. Whereas the

13:46

danger to, of course, pedestrians is much more,

13:48

I think, sort of grave and kind of grisly

13:51

potentially. When

13:55

we come back, can regulators make the cyber

13:57

truck safer? This

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tepper to learn more. concerns

16:00

you sort of think to yourself like, well

16:02

surely regulators or someone

16:05

who cares about car safety wouldn't

16:07

have let this cyber truck come to

16:10

market if there are these many issues. Can you

16:12

kind of like explain how safety

16:16

regulations play into the release and development of

16:18

a new vehicle like this? I

16:20

mean hardly at all. We have what's

16:24

called a self-certification system in this

16:26

country, so that's part of

16:28

it, right? So essentially the automaker

16:30

designs and develops this vehicle, they

16:32

self-certify that it passes all the

16:34

relevant safety standards and

16:36

the regulators only check a certain

16:38

percentage of vehicles after they've already

16:40

been released. So there's

16:43

a certain element of, you know, our regulators

16:45

are kind of always chasing the horse

16:47

that's already out the barn door to this.

16:51

There also are no pedestrian crash safety

16:53

regulations in this country. We also strange

16:56

situation in this country where the bigger and

16:58

heavier the trucks, certainly getting up into you

17:00

know sort of delivery vehicles and some of

17:02

these more sort of commercial oriented, there's

17:05

actually less regulation the bigger and heavier these

17:07

trucks get and even

17:09

safety regulation which is counterintuitive.

17:11

I don't think most Americans understand that,

17:15

but this is also one of these things where if

17:17

you make a truck heavy enough

17:19

the standard for safety is actually slightly lower.

17:21

Just to like underline this,

17:23

it's completely the opposite of how we

17:25

treat airplanes in the United States which

17:28

have to be cleared by regulators before

17:30

they can fly and that's part of

17:32

the reason there was like only two

17:34

deaths from airplane crashes I think for

17:36

like a 10, maybe longer

17:39

year stretch in the U.S. and

17:41

meanwhile people are dying all the time from

17:43

car crashes. It's

17:47

sort of mind-boggling. I mean will regulators now be

17:49

looking at the cyber truck? Are they now looking

17:51

at the cyber truck? I don't know

17:53

that they are. I think that a lot of things that

17:56

Tesla has done over the years have been things

17:58

that regulators have, I

18:00

think, failed to step up

18:03

to. I certainly want to think about

18:05

autopilot. Autopilot is a driver-assistant system that

18:07

Tesla offers. It's one that is

18:09

highly automated, and so it kind of fools

18:12

people into thinking the car is driving itself.

18:14

And Tesla's been sort of concealing this with

18:16

a bunch of really misleading safety claims, statistical

18:18

safety claims, that when you go through them,

18:20

turn out to be not true at all.

18:23

And by 2018, the NTSB had investigated three

18:25

separate crashes, fatal crashes, and concluded that autopilot

18:27

was a direct contributor. The design of autopilot

18:29

was a direct contributor to those crashes. And

18:32

regulators have done nothing. NHTSA or Safety

18:34

Regular has done nothing. And so I

18:36

think Tesla's unique high-tech Silicon Valley approach

18:39

is one that's really popular with the

18:42

public. And I think that conceals the

18:44

fact that it also allows them to

18:46

essentially evade a

18:48

lot of regulation or just simply get

18:50

into areas that regulators aren't even prepared

18:52

to step in and intervene on. So

18:54

I wouldn't expect any kind of action soon

18:57

on the Cybertruck safety issues. As a whole, I

18:59

would say one of the things that I've learned

19:02

following Tesla is just how

19:05

vulnerable our auto safety regulatory system is.

19:08

And NHTSA, by the way, is the

19:10

National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. That's right.

19:12

And it sounds like even if they

19:14

did start investigating the Cybertruck, it could

19:16

be years before anything actually

19:19

happens. That's right. And as far

19:21

as the pedestrian safety issue goes,

19:23

there's no standard to hold them to.

19:25

So I think what we need to

19:27

see is either rulemaking from NHTSA or

19:29

legislation from Congress. And luckily, in Europe,

19:32

they've had these measures in place

19:35

at least a decade, I think. They've had

19:37

these pedestrian crash standards in place.

19:39

So we know how to do it. It's not

19:41

a mystery what these standards would

19:43

look like. And so I think it would be

19:45

relatively easy to put them in place. But that

19:48

would require a rulemaking process at NHTSA or legislation.

19:52

We reached out to Tesla for comment but

19:54

didn't hear back by recording time. So,

20:00

I mean, to push back a little bit, because we've been

20:02

really hard on this Cybertruck, is it

20:05

really any worse than, say, other

20:07

electric trucks? I mean, the electric

20:09

Ford F-150 is also really,

20:11

really heavy. Also, you're very high

20:14

off the ground. It's very dangerous.

20:17

This has been discussed on other

20:20

WetNex TBD episodes. You know, these

20:22

giant cars out on the road, these

20:24

big trucks, electric or not, are

20:27

causing more deaths right now

20:29

as the Cybertruck. Is it

20:31

just on trend, Ed? Well,

20:33

I mean, in a way, yes. I mean, I

20:35

think, you know, there's so much media coverage about the

20:38

EV transition. It's amazing. We've got to, you

20:40

know, almost 10% of the market to see these now, and that is

20:42

really great progress. But the

20:44

trend away from cars and towards larger and

20:46

larger SUVs and trucks has been much, much,

20:48

much, much bigger. And the media

20:50

really tends to ignore that. And I think that these

20:53

trends actually are very much kind of happening

20:55

hand in hand. And I think that's one

20:57

of my concerns about how we're pursuing electrification

20:59

in this country. I mean, Elon

21:02

Musk is talking about at this event, like,

21:04

this is the most revolutionary, futuristic

21:08

Cybertruck ever. I mean, is it

21:11

revolutionary? It's revolutionary in the sense

21:13

that nobody else would do it. Okay.

21:18

And for good reason. And again, you

21:20

know, when you talk about developing, designing,

21:22

developing, and producing a new vehicle, you're

21:24

talking about billions of dollars in investment.

21:27

Right. And there's sort of

21:29

two schools of thought to product at

21:32

a high level. And one is you study

21:34

what people actually buy and you give the

21:36

market what it's telling you it wants. And

21:39

then the other one is you come up with

21:41

a bold vision of something that the market doesn't

21:43

even know it wants, and they all come to

21:45

you. And Elon Musk very clearly has this

21:48

deep need and desire to

21:50

step into sort of that Steve Jobs tradition

21:53

of that second approach, right? Of, I'm

21:55

never, he never does market research. He never goes out

21:57

and talks to people in the market segments. The

22:00

balcony be a source for see have a He

22:02

relies on his innate sense of what is it,

22:04

what makes a good products and I think to

22:07

me the big question out of all this is.

22:09

Is. This the point finally were swear

22:12

inside tesla. Probably. The board level

22:14

I would have to happen where people start to say you know

22:16

what are you on. You. Taking this

22:18

company real far he the a lot of good

22:20

for us but as some point we have to

22:23

step in and and and has are growing up

22:25

a little bit. increasingly.

22:27

People are talking about how these new.

22:30

Figure. Vehicles. These big trucks are

22:32

safety hazards. What does it mean

22:35

that Tesla, This revolutionary, supposedly revolutionary

22:37

car Company is coming out with

22:39

another one of these. Big,

22:41

hulking. Safety hazards.

22:44

But as the say about Tessa and

22:46

about this moment. He has reveals

22:48

that Tesla. You must confess I have

22:50

a spouse various core values of the

22:52

years whether it's you know, pushing the

22:54

limits of technology or or environmentalism was

22:56

sort of the early one but I

22:58

think what it shows his that's. Really,

23:01

what else is about making things that you want? Things

23:03

that. Are cool right? and as I

23:05

think like a big. Flashy.

23:08

Unique looking, cool truck like. His:

23:11

it's it's it's easy, that's cool. He wants

23:13

to do it, then it's can we go

23:15

forward. Any Safety Is is one of his

23:17

other things that that has last sort of

23:19

picked up over the years and it's interesting.

23:21

Historically Tussle really only started talking about safety

23:23

after people started dying and autopilot and Bob

23:25

crashes. I'm as so I see like there's

23:27

always been a cynical elements to Tesla as.

23:30

For. professed you look for vows like safety

23:32

been a core value that's like a lot

23:34

of their purpose core values i think there's

23:36

always been element of cynicism to it as

23:39

cybershot really reveals that night he that's what's

23:41

fascinating about seven second gen is that there's

23:43

nowhere to hide with it it's like it's

23:45

like tesla and elon musk released their it

23:48

on the world and like you can't really

23:50

sugar coat any of a both whether it's

23:52

the design and the quality problems like the

23:54

the miss that that must understand the market

23:57

in was poor people want better than anyone

23:59

else there nowhere for that myth to hide.

24:01

It's sort of revealing the truth that I've

24:03

sort of seen all along at Tesla, which

24:06

is it's a hype train, you know, and

24:08

this is sort of the hype train being

24:10

taken to its logical conclusion. And I think

24:12

it's no surprise that safety is one of

24:14

the big losers along the way. Ed,

24:21

thank you. Oh, it was a pleasure. Edward

24:27

Niedermeyer is the author of Ludicrous, the

24:29

unvarnished story of Tesla Motors. And that's

24:31

it for the show today. What Next

24:33

TBD is produced by Evan Campbell, Patrick

24:35

Fort, and Anna Phillips. Our

24:37

show is edited by Mia Armstrong Lopez.

24:40

Alicia Montgomery is vice president of audio

24:42

for Slate. TBD is part

24:44

of the larger What Next family. TBD

24:46

is also part of Future Tense, a

24:48

partnership of Slate, Arizona State

24:50

University, and New America. If

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you're a fan of the show, I have

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a request for you. Become a Slate Plus

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member. Just head on over to slate.com/what next

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plus to sign up. We'll be

25:01

back next week with more episodes. I'm

25:03

Emily Peck filling in for Lizzie O'Leary. You

25:06

can catch me on Slate Money every Saturday.

25:08

Thanks for listening.