Science fiction movies familiarized us all with the grand trope of the dying spaceship, or the fighter jet in peril. “RED ALERT! DANGER TO MANIFOLD!” goes the warning. Lights flashing, alarms blaring. And yet, in real life, seldom few machines behave this way. Your car might flash up a solitary engine light, while your dishwasher announces failure with a solitary sad bleep.
Tesla, though? America’s most controversial EV manufacturer went hog wild with the Cybertruck. When it dies, you’re gonna know about it. You’d be forgiven for thinking you were in the War Room at the Pentagon with enemy missiles inbound when this thing throws an error message.
Hilariously, Cybertrucks are facing all kinds of failures in the field, so we get videos like the one below.
The video is from Gear Down, a YouTube channel featuring Thomas and his work as a professional pilot. He recently purchased himself a Tesla Cybertruck in the triple-motor Cyberbeast trim. Upon taking delivery, he immediately stuck the thing in Beast mode and went ham on the throttle. Almost immediately, the Tesla erupted in alarms.
The Cybertruck’s screen immediately displayed a huge warning stating, “PULL OVER SAFELY – Critical steering issue detected.” Hilariously, the warning was partially occluded by the rear-view camera, making it look like the computer was having some kind of fit. The whole screen flashed in red to boot. Repeated alarms played over the speakers. Limp mode restricted the vehicle to a top speed of four miles per hour.
Thomas turned to the touch screen to rectify the issue, only to be faced with a wall of text. The screen spewed up paragraphs of instructions too small to read while driving. It’s like something out of a cartoon. The machine throws an error, and then out pops the manual with a few thousand words of instructions on what to do next.
A steering warning is one of the more concerning errors you can get on a Cybertruck, so the drama in the cabin is perhaps warranted. The truck’s steer-by-wire setup uses dual motors to actuate the steering, with no mechanical connection to the steering wheel. This means that any electronic failure could cause a loss of control. Further into the video, we get a hint that the problem was down to a “loss of redundancy.” It suggests the truck may have had trouble talking to one of the truck’s steering motors. Doing a “reset” seemed to fix the issue, but the drastic alarms reoccurred multiple times when the truck was launched hard in Beast mode. It eventually ended up on a tow truck, with Tesla replacing part of the wiring harness to try and fix the issue.
“Fuckin’ Elon, what are you doing bro?” said Thomas. “How’s it already broken?”
Thomas isn’t the only one out there having problems, either. A man named Lamar recently posted his own video to Twitter, showing his Cybertruck bleeping away like a biological weapons lab with a leak in a viral containment chamber. “What’s going on!?” he exclaims in one video. “Help me out!” You half expect those spider monsters from Cloverfield to start pouring over the horizon.
HELP MEEEEE WHAT IS WRONG WITH MY CYBERTRUCK????? ???????????? @wmorrill3 @elonmusk @Tesla @cybertruck pic.twitter.com/hGRkhRyh0J
— Lamar MK (@LamarMK) March 30, 2024
Remind you of anything?
Lamar called out to Elon Musk for help in multiple posts, much as Thomas laid the blame at the feet of the Tesla CEO. It’s akin to Tahoe owners calling out to Mary Barra when their truck breaks down. At the time of writing, it appeared that Lamar was still waiting for Tesla service to solve the issue. As seen in a later post, his Cybertruck reported multiple errors, including steering issues and a problem with the locking differential. Carscoops has also reported on a number of other owners facing similar error messages.
On the one hand, the errors are very fitting for the Cybertruck. Tesla is trying to sell the vehicle based on its futuristic aesthetic, so it makes sense that any errors or warnings would fit that vibe. It’s also important to capture the driver’s attention when there’s a critical error in something like the steering system.
At the same time, you could argue these warnings are so intense as to be distracting to the driver. If your truck is facing major issues on a highway, you need to assess the situation and pull over safely. Having a huge flashing screen paired with a loud, quickly-repeating alarm does take up some of your mental bandwidth. It could also panic an easily-flustered driver. I know a lot of people who would totally freak out if their car started going off like this.
All in all, I’ll give credit to Tesla for bringing a little bit of science fiction to real life. At the same time, I think the Cybertruck has, once again, gone totally overboard. To say nothing of the embarrassment of these early-stage failures. Lewin out.
Image credits: Gear Down via YouTube Screenshot, Lamar MK via Twitter screenshot
Reminds me of old video games where you get this lovely beating heart or constant beep when you are low on health (looking at you Ocarina of Time, you magnificent bastard). Not at all helpful.
I used to teach defensive driving, and people used to get off the brakes due to not knowing what abs was….
A warning like this would definately have people crashing, albeit at 4mph….
The criminally insane part of this is a vehicle that overloads driver attention in an emergency situation. Before the driver has a chance to pull over and stop safely! That warning screen looks to have 200 words of text, which is at least 180 words too much. Twenty words should be enough to tell the driver what to do right now, with a reference to further info after the vehicle is safe.
The worst thing about the EV transition is it’s often ignored ergonomics completely.
Speaking as a subscriber, I’d prefer not to see this kind of stuff (gear down and whatever the other guy’s handle is) featured on this site. It’s lowest common denominator garbage.