Upside down Cybertruck recovery video -- "Cyber Truck Turns Into A Teeter Totter After Losing All Its Brakes!"

[bg002h]

I, for one, have not heard much of anything about this story since the initial claims of the owner. If it was anything mechanical that could be blamed on Tesla, the haters and media would have blown this into a raging inferno. So I'm still leaning towards operator error.

From what I could see of the hill itself, it was tricky enough that I would have been coming down at a snail's place. One half m V squared. Build too much kinetic energy and you are going to have a bad day.

I’m not an off-roader, so I don’t quite follow… are you saying there is an angle/velocity combo that render the brakes unable to bring the wheels to a halt? Or that the brakes worked perfectly but just didn’t realize he was skidding downhill? I would think if there is some total brake failure bug out there we’d have lots of dead people by now…

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[BrockN]

I’m not an off-roader, so I don’t quite follow… are you saying there is an angle/velocity combo that render the brakes unable to bring the wheels to a halt? Or that the brakes worked perfectly but just didn’t realize he was skidding downhill? I would think if there is some total brake failure bug out there we’d have lots of dead people by now…

It's more nuanced than that, but I guess in a way that's a reasonable takeaway.

The half m V squared thing is the equation for kinetic energy. Double the V (velocity) and you have 4 times as much energy stored in the mass (truck). In order to stop, you need to shed that energy, via the brakes or regen, both of which require friction between the tires and the ground. So doubling your speed, means you're 4 times as screwed as you were at your original speed!

Now imagine what a higher speed on the rough surface does to your ability to get friction between the tires and the ground. The suspension is bouncing more, meaning it's tougher for the rubber to get friction for braking or regen (essentially the same thing as far as stopping goes). There's going to be a point where the force of gravity exceeds the available braking (friction) forces... and that's when you need to commit to riding your runaway train to the bottom, or attempt to steer into a solid tree...

So crawling down a difficult slope is *generally* going to be the best way to maintain control.