Here’s a story you all saw coming. If a new model pickup truck is on the road for any amount of time, somebody is going to ram a deer with it!
What makes this collision unique is the pickup truck in question: a 2024 Tesla CyberTruck, the Cyberbeast edition.
The headline tells much of the story here, and leaves us with plenty of uncomfortable questions. The poor buck was struck at 75MPH, and cut in half.
I was tempted to write “cut clean in half,” but apparently it was a total mess, the driver won’t share the dashcam footage for that very reason.
Bambi Didn’t Make It (but seriously, what about pedestrians?)
Sounds like the deer impacted the CyberTruck where the hood and the A Pillar meet. This is the “sharpest” part of the truck, it looks like a child drew it with a protractor.
Of course, it’s one thing for a deer to suddenly become two deers. That’s just more venison for everybody.
It doesn’t take SpaceX rocket scientist to wonder, though, how this thing will fare in crash testing and two-legged pedestrian collisions if it is sharp enough to bisect a 400 pound buck.
Cybertruck Will be “Much Safer” Per Mile Than Other Trucks – Elon
A quote from Elon Musk on the question:
“Yes, we are highly confident that Cybertruck will be much safer per mile than other trucks, both for occupants and pedestrians.”
You’ll have to take his word for it. The NHTSA looks to be on DOGE’s chopping block. Crash test ratings just dropped and the truck performed well in lab conditions, but real-world results paint an entirely different picture.
One thing is certain: It didn’t work out great for Bambi in this case.
Footage of the Aftermath of Hitting a Deer with a CyberTruck… and the Repair Bill
Here’s the driver’s “post mortem” report on the collision. They report an updated repair bill of $11,000, and that the truck was driveable after the crash but that the closest door was jammed shut.
Also… listen to the driver, read the comments… and then see our Million Dollar Question below.
Take a look, the video is perfectly SFW, they washed up the truck before showing off the damage:
The Million Dollar Question: Was FSD Driving the CyberTruck?
The man in the driver seat is strangely coy about one question on Twitter: was FSD enabled when he struck the deer. He reports that FSD was “not on due to camera obstructed notification a couple miles before.” He does report that he activated FSD and that it functioned as intended for the remaining 60 miles of his drive (!!!).
That’s… certainly a possibility. Like, “I autonomously drove my truck for several hours and hit a deer. Before and after striking the deer, autonomous mode was active, but I turned it off a few miles before the impact.”
Hm. OK. If you say so.
Of course, this wouldn’t be the first time FSD missed a major obstacle in the road. A tester discovered his CyberTruck’s FSD could not see child-size mannequins in the road, and another Tesla driver killed a deer without the FSD system realizing the deer was there or even braking AFTER the impact.
