this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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We now have a full year of data for the Cybertruck, and a strange preponderance of headlines about Cybertrucks exploding into flames, including several fatalities. That’s more than enough data to compare to the Ford Pinto, a car so notoriously combustible that it has become a watchword for corporate greed. Let’s start with the data...

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You’re back! I’ve seen this article posted a couple different places (not by me), and you keep finding it! And posting an image of one of the many data tables from the same study.

  1. I'm posting this response because shitty analyses like this keep feeding people's confirmation biases while making us dumbder given the poor bases in reality.
  2. I'm referring to this table because that's the main data table this very "analysis" refers to.

You should also include a screen grab of the page of the report that specifies the 27 deaths due to the notoriously fatal design flaw in the Pinto that is included in my article.

That's not how a real analysis is done. On the Pinto's end you're OK with them selecting 1.6% of the deaths that occurred due to evidently passive accidents (rear-ending), deflate the rates of these by using clearly false production numbers (60% less than counted) and timeframes within these events happened (4x shorter than counted).

If you read my article, I’m specifically comparing the fire death rate due to the notoriously fatal design flaw. It’s specified in plain English in the methodology section. If you don’t like the clearly stated methodology, re-run the study with a methodology you do like, IDGAF.

So on the CT's end you find it acceptable to include ALL causes and further inflate the death rate by 20% with the inclusion of the suicide guy?! Seriously?:)

The reason for that methodology: 100% of the Cybertruck fires involved ONLY the Cybertruck. Which is weird, single car fire accidents are not common. The Ford Pintos, I could only verify that SOME of the fires were caused ONLY by the Ford Pinto. I wanted an apples-to-apples comparison as best as I could make it. If you don’t like any aspect of this, like the vehicle totals or whatever, you can always re-run the numbers like I told you to in the original article.

**No, if you want a real "apples-to-apples" analysis and not meme-shit like this, you compare the fire rates to a contemporary vehicle of a comparable class. Either a gasoline/diesel F150 or even better, a Ford Lightning. Now that would be something we could learn from. **

Like, I’m a comedian who tells pickup truck jokes most the time.

This definitely makes a good joke, but people confusing jokes and reality is the issue.

I’ve linked in the original article to a very credible scientist who re-ran my numbers more rigorously and they came to the same conclusions, with the added benefit of confirming the sample sizes were statistically significant.

The first step in a real analysis is formulating a relevant question. One can make ANYTHING "statistically significant" For example, I can guarantee you that I can find a singular metric for most cars from the 70s in which would make them look safer than a modern EV. What would we learn from that other than making memes?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Alright, boss.

If you can't believe a PHD holder on their subject of expertise, and you won't run your own analysis, I guess you'll believe whatever you like no matter what anybody else says. Ok! I'm fine with that if you're fine with that.

I should probably explain: I do find it acceptable to include all the deaths in the Cybertruck... simply because 100% of the fatalities have been in Cybertrucks that burned. Isn't that absolutely AGGRAVATINGLY ridiculous? That alone is worth the headline. Car fires are not common in 2025. Every single car built in 2025 should be safer than the Ford fucking Pinto!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If you can’t believe a PHD holder on their subject of expertise, and you won’t run your own analysis...

...When you have such low numbers of cases you need to individually review each case because the risk of bias is exorbitant.

Car fires are not common in 2025.

They seem to be more common in EVs, so if you want to make a statement on the CT youcompare it to other EV trucks and if you spot a difference, THEN you can make the case about the CT being unsafe.

Every single car built in 2025 should be safer than the Ford fucking Pinto!

Perhaps excluding 99.7% of Pinto deaths makes this conclusion slightly less valid...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They seem to be more common in EVs, so if you want to make a statement on the CT youcompare it to other EV trucks and if you spot a difference, THEN you can make the case about the CT being unsafe.

You literally couldn't be more wrong.

https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/environment-energy-coordination/climate-matters/EV-less-fire-risk

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

I know people just google stuff without looking into references, but let me do it for you:

Reference: Kelly Blue Book, Study: Electric Vehicles Involved in Fewest Car Fires by Sean Tucker, January 28, 2022 Points to AutoInsuranceEZ.com which appears like the worst kind of EV slop: https://www.autoinsuranceez.com/gas-vs-electric-car-fires/?_cl=aC559XZjJUWkUEucak9lPfNY

To find the rate of car fires by vehicle type, we collected the latest data on car fires from the NTSB and calculated the rate of fires from sales data from the BTS. Take a look at what we found below.

  1. Nothing on the time frame and the specific date range of the data.
  2. NTSB DOES not collect car accident data, NTHS does...

I.e. this reference is useless and surprisingly low quality for a .gov site.

Your best data is from Sweden and that also doesn't provide rate of fatalities so this whole thing isn't settled when it comes to fires with injuries (the rate for that is about 0.6%)in ICEV dominated data: https://www.nfpa.org/education-and-research/research/nfpa-research/fire-statistical-reports/vehicle-fires)

I do think that EVs are safer, this is why I drive one (not a tesla...), but if an EV burns, that a huge issue. And again, drawing conclusions from 2 accidents over a year vs. 10 years of pinto data is well...not a good comparison.