The Tesla Cybertruck has been one of the biggest vehicle releases of 2023. Now that they are trickling out to eager deposit holders and Tesla continues to test them, it was only a matter of time until one was crashed on public roads. The first one happened yesterday, and it appears it held up rather well.
The California Highway Patrol reported that the incident happened on December 28 at around 2:05 PM local time on State Route 35, also known as Skyline Boulevard, outside San Jose. A driver in a Toyota Corolla went off the road and came back across the double yellow line to strike the Cybertruck going the other direction.
The Cybertruck driver suffered minor injuries but didn’t require an ambulance to go to the hospital, the California Highway Patrol told The Autopian. The two passengers in the pickup were not hurt. The Corolla driver was unharmed.
Photos of the incident (above) suggest the Corolla sideswiped the Cybertruck. There are deep scratches along the pickup’s driver’s side, and the fender cladding around the wheels is missing. The impact was hard enough to cause the EV’s side curtain airbag to deploy.
The Corolla incurred much more significant damage. However, it’s unclear how much of the destruction came from initially leaving the road and what amount the impact with the Cybertruck caused. The Toyota’s driver side took the brunt of the harm, suggesting this was from sideswiping the Tesla.
A dashcam video (below) from the crash scene provides another look at the crash scene. The Corolla ended up with its nose pointing towards the road. The Cybertruck was blocking a traffic lane with its nose off the shoulder.
There’s not a good enough look at the Cybertruck to know whether the pickup is repairable. According to the Tesla parts catalog, a front fender costs $550 plus installation. The front fascia and powered frunk are a total of $2,845.75.
When Tesla launched the production-spec Cybertruck, Elon Musk touted it as “much safer per mile” than the other trucks in the class. “Because the center of gravity is so low, it doesn’t roll over,” he said.
However, critics pushed back because a crash test video indicated the Cybertruck didn’t have sufficient crumple zones to be safe in a head-on collision. There has been no independent testing from groups like the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety to evaluate the EV’s safety at this time.
