8 ms·
Tesla is recalling its cheaper Cybertruck because the wheels might fall off
- droidjj 5mo agoGift link: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/926741/tesla-cybertruck-cheaper-recall?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6ImtEaXQ0bHNUenoiLCJwIjoiL3RyYW5zcG9ydGF0aW9uLzkyNjc0MS90ZXNsYS1jeWJlcnRydWNrLWNoZWFwZXItcmVjYWxsIiwiZXhwIjoxNzc4NjgwODgxLCJpYXQiOjE3NzgyNDg4ODF9.Shj5I0SvF3ihcJcq-6yoeqaNZ2APWNwXZEEuH8ZphUY&utm_medium=gift-link https://www.theverge.com/transportation/926741/tesla-cybertr...
- SpyCoder77 5mo agoThank you
- LightBug1 5mo ago[flagged]
- tusimi 5mo ago"All 173 of the RWD Cybertrucks sold by Tesla are being recalled" 173...
- vablings 5mo agoThe RWD model was only for sale briefly after launch. I don't know why you would ever want a pure RWD electric truck
- wat10000 5mo agoI probably wouldn't buy a truck, but it's at least a possibility that I'd get one for hauling materials and towing around town. If I did, I'd prefer a RWD model just to save a little money. I find the modern obsession with AWD a bit baffling. AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather, so it feels like an illusory advantage there. RWD can be "interesting" compared to FWD, but modern traction control on an electric drivetrain should make it a non-issue. (In practice, I can abuse the accelerator on my non-truck RWD Teslas pretty badly without any issues with losing traction.)
- creaturemachine 5mo agoYou get better regenerative braking performance out of FWD or AWD. Since typically the front brakes do most of the work, it makes sense to have that energy go into the motor rather than friction braking.
- kgermino 5mo agoThat's true, but if you stay in the regenerative zone it doesn't (seem to) make that much of a difference in practice. All the braking power happens in the rear if you only brake the rear wheels
- wat10000 5mo agoTraction is very rarely the limiting factor with regenerative braking even when it's only on the rear wheels.
- sunshinesnacks 5mo ago> AWD doesn't help you stop in bad weather I frequently think about this when weather gets bad! I already have AWB (all wheel braking?). Seems like AWD could make it too easy to get in a situation where my AWB isn’t sufficient to stop
- saalweachter 5mo agoSnow tires, people! Snow tires! A FWD vehicle with snow tires is frequently better in the snow than an AWD without snow tires. Better control, better stopping, better uphill on snowy roads.
- mingus88 5mo agoYep All cars are “all wheel stop” All wheel drive doesn’t matter when you lose traction and need to stop. When you are sliding on ice all cars perform the same, and the quality of your tires is what matters. AWD just gives people false confidence to drive faster than they can stop. I convinced my wife to stop buying the absolute cheapest tires by telling her it is literally the only part of the car that actually touches the road. Why would you cheap out on that?
- alexjplant 5mo agoWith the weight of the batteries in back it might be fine. The issue with RWD trucks with traditional drivetrains is the lack of traction owing to all of the weight being over the non-drive wheels. Driving my F-150 in the snow or rain was always dicey because of this. That being said I wouldn't touch a Tesla with a barge pole for reasons numerous.
- bluGill 5mo ago2wd is just fine if you keep a load of firewood in back all winter.
- cogman10 5mo agoBatteries and the engine. The engine sits in line with the wheels rather than being under the hood of the car. That puts all the weight right next to the driving tires. But agree, cybertruck is a really silly purchase for numerous reasons. The only reason you'd buy it is to signal your support for Elon. It's a very bad vehicle.
- neogodless 5mo agoWait until you find out how many gas and diesel powered trucks are RWD! At least in the U.S. below a certain ~longitude~ latitude it's quite common.
- discors 5mo ago> neogodless: <snip> At least in the U.S. below a certain longitude is quite common. Latitude.
- neogodless 5mo agoI KNEW I was going to get that wrong.
- bobthepanda 5mo agoThe mnemonic i use is latitude is flat.
- triceratops 5mo agoLatitude is the only one that matters between the two.
- rkomorn 5mo agoI was going to ask if you were making a joke or just too tired to spell mnemonic correctly, but they would've been pneumatic, not pneumonic. Edit: oh, boo, you fixed it.
- bobthepanda 5mo agoHadn’t had the morning coffee yet.
- neogodless 5mo agoI usually say to myself "ladder" and that helps. But this time I slipped. Rough morning. Wheels fell off on the way to work.
- kgermino 5mo agoI don't see why it would be an issue in most cases. Obviously you'd want AWD for proper off-roading, but for just driving around on streets it should be fine. My EV van is RWD and it's totally fine in everything I've dealt with - including deep snow - and I really only even noticed when trying to parallel park on ice.
- vablings 5mo agoThe biggest difference in AWD vs RWD cars to the average consumer is usually gas milage. In the case of electric cars this is largely unaffected because there is no active driveline components just an electric motor
- rpdillon 5mo agoThis has been a question the Slate team has been trying to answer. They claim the weight distribution being more even front-to-back (batteries offsetting motor, I presume), but I don't know whether I believe them. I was interested in a Slate, but the changes at the company lately (new CEO from McKinsey, rather than an engineer), along with decisions like RWD, and the anemic acceleration (0-60 in 8 seconds) gives me pause.
- mingus88 5mo agoI don’t know how the slate is designed but I have a rivian The battery pack is by far heavier than the motors. In the r1 they are also positioned with the wheels (quad) or front/back (dual) so weight distribution is great. If the slate has a single motor and is RWD then I would assume the weight might be biased toward the rear where the drive unit is powering the rear wheels. Either way the motor is relatively small compared to ICE trucks and that’s where you want the weight anyway for a RWD vehicle. Am I mistaken?
- rpdillon 5mo agoI know little about this, so I suspect you're right. I've mostly been looking for the car version of a "dumb phone", and Slate looked like a nice fit, but it's thrown me into the world of EVs and I'm still pretty new to it. That said, your explanation makes sense. Slate engineers claimed it would handle well, but it was vague enough that I'd want more detail before I believe them.
- wesleyd 5mo agoOh man, I love that we live in a world where an eight second 0-60 is considered anemic! For a truck! (Not digging at you, I feel the same way you do. I just think it’s weird and amazing!)
- rpdillon 5mo agoMy old car is a Honda Civic hybrid from 2008. Your comment sent me checking out the current Civic (ICE) performance, and it's also eight seconds! So I see your point, I guess my expectations have changed since EVs came on the scene.
- mohamedkoubaa 5mo agoCollectors item
- gangstead 5mo agoI didn't even realize there was a RWD model. The website shows 3 options for sale and they are all AWD.
- jeffbee 5mo agoRivian had to recall all of theirs for the same reason. Turns out a 3-ton car is hard to engineer.
- edaemon 5mo agoI have a 2022 Rivian and I don't remember any recalls for brake rotors or wheels falling off. There was one about a year after they made the first R1T where they had forgotten to record the torque of a bolt for the upper control arm during assembly, but the recall just involved having the torque checked, they didn't have to replace anything. Is that the recall you're thinking of?
- jeffbee 5mo agoThey told everyone who owned a rivian at that time to stop driving it immediately until the guy could come out and put the wheels back on. That is a recall.
- edaemon 5mo agoI don't think that's true. I owned my Rivian at that time. There was a recall but I never received any instructions similar to that. They had everyone drive to the nearest service center to have the bolt torque checked, or you could book a mobile service appointment. You can see the Oct 6 2022 recall information here, including what they instructed people to do: https://rivian.com/support/article/recall-information https://rivian.com/support/article/recall-information
- jeffbee 5mo agoI think you are giving them too generous of a reading. The notice was that a subset of vehicles had loose bolts in the front end. They did not know how many, and there was no way to identify the subset. If you could be in this subset, stop driving the vehicle. This applies to everyone, on a rational reading. It was weeks before the guy drove out and checked mine.
- stephencanon 5mo agoWhat sort of engineering standards are these Cybertrucks built to? Oh, very rigorous engineering standards. The wheels aren't supposed to fall off for a start.
- DarkNova6 5mo agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI_Jl5WFQkA
- janderson215 5mo agoCan’t be made out of cardboard either. The Front Fell Off: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM?si=DprOulmmDK-H76LX https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM?si=DprOulmmDK-H76LX
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- ryanschaefer 5mo agoWe’ve taken it *outside* the environment
- ClikeX 5mo agoI saw the title of the post, and I knew somebody would have referenced it.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- mentalgear 5mo ago> What sort of engineering standards are these Cybertrucks built to? 'Vibe-Engineering'
- jeffwask 5mo agoThe original vibe engineering
- colechristensen 5mo ago
- dnemmers 5mo agoPlease tell me they had the wheels studs mounted into a steel hub, and not aluminum…
- garyfirestorm 5mo agoYes and yes
- DarkNova6 5mo agoSorry, but every time I read news about the Cybertruck I have to think of the Simpsons Canyonero song: Can you name the truck that's been recalled twelve times, Costs less each month 'cause nobody's buying mine? Cybertruck! Cybertruck! (Whip crack!) Her trim falls off when you drive through rain, The steering locks up on the highway lane! Cybertruck! Cybertruck! Top of the line in utility trucks! Started at a hundred, now they're slashing bucks! She's got a price that drops faster than her resale value, And a windshield wiper motor that'll surely fail you! Cybertruck! Cybertruck! (Whip crack!) Twelve recalls in a single year! Drive-by-wire that fills your heart with fear! The accelerator pedal pops right off the floor, But Elon says it's you who doesn't love her more! Cybertruck! She rusts if you look at her wrong in the dew, The tonneau cover works... for a week or two! She's marked down like a Kmart blue-light special now, A stainless steel disaster and a broken vow! Cybertruck! Cybertruck! (Whip crack!) Whoaaa, Cybertruck! CYBERTRUCK!
- baggachipz 5mo agoThis is amazing. I don't know if you stole it or you're a poetic genius, but rest assured that I'm stealing it.
- ceejayoz 5mo ago> the Simpsons
- baggachipz 5mo agoI know the Canyonero bit, but repurposing it to Cybertruck is high art.
- DarkNova6 5mo agoI asked Claude Opus 4.6 to take the Canyonero lyrics and mix it with all the controversies and this one in particular. Spread the love!
- ryandrake 5mo agoMassively underrated post. To the 500ms drive-by voters, look at it closely, it's not just a copy/paste from the Simpsons.
- kevin_thibedeau 5mo agoThey're replacing both front and rear rotors. Is there a reason the rears are different than the AWD models?
- lelanthran 5mo agoRelated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
- jpalawaga 5mo agoThat I can't tell whether "the wheels coming off," is literal or figurative when it comes to Tesla is an indictment about their product quality at this point. What a disaster. I don't really know anyone who is voluntarily buying Teslas when there are so many other viable options in an increasingly crowded marketplace.
- dmix 5mo agoFrom the article > but it’s “not aware of any collisions, fatalities, or injuries” related to the recall.
- FireBeyond 5mo agoFun fact, for Tesla's FSD/AI reporting, it doesn't consider any incident where airbags didn't deploy to count for accident stats. This includes situations where the airbag system cannot deploy because of catastrophic damage. It also, strangely, doesn't count fatality incidents.
- bluGill 5mo agoI see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them. I don't know why, I buy trucks to haul stuff. (and I really wish there was an affordable truck to haul stuff with - everything I can find is 12+ years old and showing age)
- Octoth0rpe 5mo ago> I see a lot of them on the road so somebody must be buying them. Two counterpoints: for all the opinionated criticisms, the cybertruck is at least quite noticeable, and thusly you may think that they are a higher proportion of trucks than they really are. Also, you're far more likely to see them drive around in certain locales due to the cost, so that may introduce additional biases.
- redwall_hp 5mo agoThey're the new tax fraud vehicle, replacing the Escalade: a luxury vehicle over a certain weight that gets reported as a "business expense" even when it's for personal use. That's also why a lot of them have shitty decals or stencil-paint advertising local businesses.
- almost_usual 5mo agoJunk
- sourcegrift 5mo ago[flagged]
- kennywinker 5mo agoRocket man has been bad for a lot longer than that
- xiphias2 5mo agoI don't understand the problem, my new car had like 8 recalls in 2 years for problems that might happen, it's just normal
- nullstyle 5mo agoYour car had a recall because the wheels might fall off? Which one?
- 1970-01-01 5mo ago406,000 Civics were recalled https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-recall-over-406000-us-vehicles-over-wheel-detachment-issue-nhtsa-says-2025-11-07/ https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/honda-...
- redwall_hp 5mo agoSpecifically, this only affected red-edged premium alloy rims that were OEM made but not installed unless you bought them separately. Not an engineering issue with the vehicle so much as those rims may have had a manufacturing defect in certain batches. The overly cautious recall announcement was promptly clarified to owners by dealerships, and impacted a small subset. (I have a Civic.)
- flutas 5mo ago[flagged]
- GJim 5mo ago> According to Claude Please don't do this. Quote an authoritative source. Not some AI bot known for ~~hallucinating~~ bullshitting.
- hoppyhoppy2 5mo agoPosting AI-generated comments is against HN's guidelines.
- Finnucane 5mo agoJeez, "wheels not falling off car" has been a solved problem since at least the 1965 Corvair.
- allears 5mo agoNo problem, that'll buff right out
- stathibus 5mo agoIf you're reading this thinking "wow, a recall! tesla must suck at building cars!" then you probably don't know anything about how the automotive industry works and you should refrain from commenting
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- alphax314 5mo agoIts not about the recall. Every car manufacturer has many per model. Its about the wheels about to fall off
- kibwen 5mo agoStop being mean to the poor car company worth 1.6 trillion dollars, they're doing their best. :(
- fckgw 5mo ago3 verified failures out of 173 total cars is an extremely bad rate for the automotive industry.
- CAPSLOCKSSTUCK 5mo ago[flagged]
- 5mo ago
- ajross 5mo agoLest folks get too carried away, the headline is a lie. The failure is "brake rotor stud separating from wheel hub". Now, sure, that's a serious failure. It's not "wh33lz f411 oFF!". Everything about this company is cursed at this point. The jeering masses are just as bad as the CEO. The cars themselves though continue to be really pretty great. Though maybe not the truck.
- bri3d 5mo agoI'm actually really confused about the language used in the recall; I looked at the Cybertruck manual and the brakes look like a "conventional" design where the studs are set into the hub and go through the rotor, so this failure seems somewhat unrelated to the brake rotors, and the "brake rotor stud" is also the wheel stud: https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ServiceManual/en-us/GUID-A122A921-BF45-4A89-B5D2-41364B38779D.html https://service.tesla.com/docs/Cybertruck/ServiceManual/en-u... I'm assuming it's a misphrasing or typo and the issue is that the stud holes in the wheel hub rotor can elongate, leading to the studs coming out. This can and likely would absolutely cascade into a wheel falling off; I've seen it many times in cheapo endurance racing series - once one stud is loose, the adjacent studs gradually loosen and eventually the wheel separates. If the issue is longitudinal (slotting) it's even more likely to lead to a rapid separation event.
- mvid 5mo agoThe masses may be annoying, and even sometimes hyperbolic, but they are nowhere near as bad as the CEO
- nzealand 5mo ago“If cracking propagates with continued use and strain, the wheel stud could eventually separate from the wheel hub.” That quote is from Tesla, in the linked article. That says the wheel can fall off.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- cubefox 5mo ago173 cars are being recalled. The Verge always tries to make anything remotely involving Musk sound as bad as possible.
- shevy-java 5mo agoAnyone still wants to buy a Tesla though? The design used to be futuristic-novel. But novelty passes - it now looks like a car pressed to pieces in a shredder. And it is very expensive. But most importantly, after Elon did his right-arm raise gesture twice, even aside from mass-firing people at DOGE or elsewhere ... does anyone still want to give more money to a very strange oligarch, who uses money to buy more influence and opinions here? Or buys a platform to turn it into a propaganda amplifier for his strange remarks about race and ethnicity?
- jgalt212 5mo agoWhy should they do anything correctly? The stock trades at 400 PE. The market is telling them to keep doing whatever is they are doing. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/ https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/TSLA/
- jjk166 5mo agoIt's worth noting that crack formation is affected by more than just the design - variation in material and manufacturing steps could also contribute. A more robust design can potentially compensate for material or process variability, but those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage. We should not boo companies for acknowledging and correcting issues which may not have been reasonably foreseeable.
- teucris 5mo ago> those variables were likely not known nor knowable during the design stage. But they could have included an error factor in the designing process. I thought this was standard for manufacturing. And they could have done more robust testing which, again, I thought was pretty standard for manufacturing.
- jjk166 5mo ago> But they could have included an error factor in the designing process. They almost certainly did. But that error factor is a guess based on limited testing. You never know your true variability until you're building at scale. Waterfall development doesn't work in the real world any better than it does in software.
- p-o 5mo agoYes, absolutely. The Cybertruck was indeed the first of its kind to have 4 wheels attached to its structure. No car company before Tesla had ever done this before and as such, it was impossible to gauge what kind of material was best suited to handle stress over long period of time. It's just ridiculous.
- jjk166 5mo agoTell me you're not an engineer without saying you're not an engineer.
- dghlsakjg 5mo agoI would have thought that material and process variability would be one of the primary design constraints in physical engineering?
- thelastgallon 5mo agoFully self driving wheels! People have been waiting for this feature.
- Robdel12 5mo agoCheap ass studs, not surprised. Don’t tow with a cybertruck either, you can literally total it by ripping the frame out with the hitch. It’s the most poorly engineered “truck” there is. Can’t tow. Can’t haul (stupid bed design). It’s just a glorified pavement machine.
- mrcwinn 5mo agoWow, that would be wild to see. Where can I see a Cybertruck owner "literally ripping the frame out with the hitch?"
- loandbehold 5mo agoWatch WhistlinDiesel cybertruck video.
- Robdel12 5mo agoAnd if you hate WD, here’s another with them bouncing the skid steer on the actual trucks hitch haha before the cybertruck fails 2k before its advertise rating https://youtube.com/shorts/9yLzs5SzaxQ?si=nXElRpuLY_l-DbB4 https://youtube.com/shorts/9yLzs5SzaxQ?si=nXElRpuLY_l-DbB4
- jm4 5mo agoOh, man. I remember that one. He absolutely destroyed that truck. What’s notable about that video is that the other trucks handled the abuse dramatically better than the cybertruck. He was determined to break every single vehicle in ways they would never actually be used, but it was laughable how bad the cybertruck was. If I remember correctly, he made the wheels fall off and had to get it repaired in the middle of the “test”. I think the Ford was still running at the end.
- dlev_pika 5mo agoThe F150 was actually pretty impressive, for all the shit Ford gets
- 5mo ago
- mrcwinn 5mo agoThe wheels really came off this project.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- iqihs 5mo agoPatently false headline, paywalled article, and blatantly left leaning source. Loving the state of media in 2026.
- throw1234567891 5mo agoStick a political agenda in. Are you a tesla employee?
- kennywinker 5mo agoIf you’d like another source, by all means you can type “cybertruck recall” into your search engine of choice.
- tinyplanets 5mo agoLOL, yeah, it's the all the liberals fault!
- tinyplanets 5mo agoAlso, feel free to plug into the vast ecosystem of right-wing media if you need an alternative view of reality.
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- moogly 5mo agoxXxTeslaSpaceAIxXx could just solve this and their future orbital payload oversupply problem by launching them into orbit. "Where we're going, we're not going to need wheels." Did they glue on these wheels too, like the pedals that fell off?
- vitaut 5mo agoInterviewer: Mr. Musk, I understand the wheels fell off the Cybertruck. Musk: Well, that’s not very typical. Most vehicles are designed so the wheels don’t fall off. Interviewer: But these ones did. Musk: Well obviously. That’s why we recalled them. But wheel retention remains a very high priority at Tesla. Interviewer: What caused it? Musk: A minor component interaction that generated maximum freedom. Interviewer: Freedom? Musk: For the wheel.
- UltraSane 5mo agoThe cybertruck is such a disaster it should have gotten Elon fired but that is impossible.
- fnoef 5mo ago“At this point, I think a know more about manufacturing than anyone currently alive on earth” - Elon Musk [0] [0] https://m.youtube.com/shorts/S2Bo3S99Tas https://m.youtube.com/shorts/S2Bo3S99Tas
- jihadjihad 5mo agoSeems the focus group guy's idea was good after all, kinda fair to just want a wheel that doesn't fall off while I'm driving [0]. 0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YDpvMYk5jA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YDpvMYk5jA
- hermitcrab 5mo agoI saw one at a car show. They look even more shit in real life, than they do in photos. Probably quite good for killing pedestrians and cyclists though.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5mo agoReminds me of this: https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2024/04/22/cyberyuck https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2024/04/22/cyberyuck
- hereme888 5mo agoAll 173 RWD Long Range Cybertrucks have a defect that may potentially lead to wheel separation. No crashes, injuries or fatalities have occurred. Much bigger recalls from other auto-makers in the past: Toyota: 8-9 million worldwide recalled for "sticking" accelerator pedals and floor mats that would trap pedals, and a $1.2B DOJ penalty. Kia 2015: also sticky pedals in various models. Ford (1970's): 1.5 million vehicles recalled due to read-end collision fires from the fuel tank placement.
- dlev_pika 5mo agoAre you comparing Toyota’s reliability and recall record to Tesla’s Cybertruck? Lmao
- hereme888 5mo agoDid you just compare a manufacturer to a specific model from a new-ish company and then laugh?
- bigtones 5mo agoToyota recalled ALL the bZ4X electric SUV's because the wheels fell off. https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/wheels-falling-off-toyotas-first-ev-136259/ https://www.carsales.com.au/editorial/details/wheels-falling...
- misiti3780 5mo agoAnti-elon fud incoming....
- danielodievich 5mo agoWhen I was around 12 years old in USSR, my family took a vacation to Georgia to ski in a lovely resort of Gudauri. A big group of us skiers were riding a soviet made PAZ (or PAZik as it was often called) bus. It wobbled a bit since the airport, and about 100km into the ride as we were finally entering the mountains, it vibrated very badly. At some point the driver yelled really really loud - "everyone, to the left side of the bus, NOW", and we all moved to the left, and then we saw the rear wheel of the bus separate and roll forward past the bus. The pin holding the wheel in broke. Quality engineering, that pin design! I wonder if Cybertruck inherited some of that stuff.
- hermitcrab 5mo agoI hear Teslas have a bad habit of veering to the right.
- louiereederson 5mo agoThe extension of Full Self Destruct mode
- Royce-CMR 5mo agoYou know, this comments page saddens me. I came to hacker news years ago because every single post had careful, intelligent discussion. Countless times people clearly put their emotions aside and carefully followed the guidelines - be kind, don’t be snarky, be substantive, and when refuting a position don’t say that’s idiotic; say 1+1 does not equal 3. Shock about the standards that led to cybertruck wheels falling off? Totally right. Discussion about Tesla engineering practices, servicing and business operations, and the influence of their leader on product - absolutely. But statements like “No one is hauling anything in these anyway. The Cybertruck is a midlife crisis car for white-collar Indian dudes with money.” (Which, to be fair, was flagged so 100% thank you to the community)… or another user I won’t name who has multiple 3-4 word replies like “no it can’t” which is totally helpful in a discussion, are growing. I know this is a messy topic; hate on the cybertruck and Tesla overall is high and we are all in a different headspace vs pre-covid. And I still come to hacker news because this is the best discussion forum left… but I’m sad about what we’ve lost along the way.