spoiler
A Tesla owner said he crashed his new Cybertruck into a neighbor’s yard within the first few hours of driving it — and he said it’s because the vehicle’s brakes didn’t work.
The owner, Bruce Freshwater, told BI that the crash happened on April 27 after he picked up the Cybertruck. He said he pumped the accelerator when his daughter asked him to, but that nothing happened when he hit the brakes.
“I held the brakes down, and the vehicle really wasn’t slowing down,” Freshwater said.
Freshwater said he went to make a turn and “the back wheels locked up.” According to a report from the North Fayette Township Police Department in Pennsylvania, Freshwater stated that his vehicle went forward 50 feet and crashed into his neighbor’s yard. The Cybetruck then barreled into one of his neighbor’s cars. That car then ran into a second vehicle, Freshwater told the police in the report, which BI has viewed.
Freshwater’s Cybertruck, along with one of the neighbor’s vehicles, sustained “disabling damage,” according to the police report. The second vehicle had “moderate damage,” the report said.
Freshwater said no one was hurt in the crash, but also said a fuse was blown when the airbags deployed, so the Cybertruck can’t be driven.
Freshwater said a Tesla-recommended body shop gave him an estimate of between $16,000 and $30,000 to repair the vehicle. He paid around $109,000 after taxes for the Cybertruck, which he bought new from Tesla. He said he’s now working with his insurance company to determine what happens next.
Meanwhile, Freshwater said he called Tesla’s service line after the incident and heard back on April 29, two days after the crash, and again a week later.
He said a Tesla manager told him that due to the terrain, the accelerator may or may not disengage, and they’re looking into the braking issue. He said that was the last he heard from Tesla.
Tesla didn’t respond to BI’s request to verify Freshwater’s account or to comment on the situation.
The Tesla owner posted about the incident on X and said Tesla “needs to take some responsibility.” Freshwater told BI that he still makes car payments every month on a vehicle he isn’t using.
He said no other Tesla owners have contacted him regarding a similar experience, but the issue he experienced may not be an isolated case.
Tesla voluntarily recalled 2024 Cybertrucks in April for an “unintended acceleration from trapped pedal.” The situation may occur when the accelerator pedal pad dislodges and causes the pedal to become trapped by the interior trim, increasing risk of crashing, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
The report said the issue occurred because of an “unapproved change” during the vehicle’s production in which soap had been added to the assembly. Residual soap “reduced the retention of the pad to the pedal,” it said.
The recall covered 3,878 Cybertrucks, the NHTSA recall report said. As of April 15, there were no known related injuries, and by April 17, the vehicles in production were apparently equipped with a new accelerator pedal component, the report said.
Freshwater said he was initially a big fan of Cybertruck and ordered it the first day it became available. But while he initially wanted a Cybertruck replacement, he now isn’t sure what he hopes will come out of the situation.
“With the wife and the kids, I’m not sure they would ever get in it with me,” Freshwater said. “So it comes down to that, too.”
This was driver error, not a malfunction. Multiple reasons for this. First, the brake always overrides the accelerator. If you hit both, the brake turns off the accelerator. If somehow the car still tries to accelerate while the brake is pressed then the brake is strong enough to overcome the motors and stop the vehicle. Second, he talked to a service center manager, not some higher up at Tesla. They don’t know everything and we don’t even know if his recollection of the conversation is accurate. Third, there is security camera footage from him showing him take off down the driveway towards his neighbor. In the footage the brake lights never turn on and he perfectly follows the very curved road. No skid marks are visible. If his back wheels actually locked up like he claimed he wouldn’t have been able to follow the road like that. Fourth, why did he hit the neighbor’s stuff instead of going into the big empty field on either side of his house? He clearly had steering control but didn’t try to avoid hitting things. Conclusion: he hit the wrong pedal and doubled down on it like many other people across every model of car has.
This guy: “the brakes didn’t work!”
Your arguments: “brakes normally do work; he didn’t speak to a higher up; the brake lights didn’t come on; he may not be correct about what his back wheels did; he didn’t steer the way I would have”. None of which are contrary to the possibility that the brakes didn’t work. I’m not sure how you jump from A to B here.
It’s definitely impossible to know at this stage whether this incident was caused by the truck or the driver. But there are a concerning number of claims about the failure of cybertrucks’ brakes considering how few of them are actually out there.
Considering this was in the article, and Tesla did not disavow the comments, tells me there is likely credence to this. Maybe this specific guy is full of shit, but an automaker stating ‘the accelerator may or may not work’ and ‘the brakes have an issue we are looking into’ tells me the thing is a piece of garbage.
Where is that security footage?
https://x.com/bfreshwa/status/1803823968547217903
He titles it “skid marks are 50 feet.” But then never shows any evidence of skid marks.
but you can clearly hear the car skidding?
Notice that the sound doesn’t start until he goes around the corner, then it stops, then starts again, then he hits. That’s not brake skid, that’s I’m going to fast around a corner skid.
Are you 100% sure the brake lights never turn on? They look somewhat bright as soon as they’re visible to me, but the car is pretty far away.
You can tell from some of the pixels
Yes I’m sure. That rear light is always on while driving and gets much much brighter while braking.
The house was on the side of the 90ish degree curve he was already following right? Seems like if you felt like you were going out of control you’re instinct would be to keep following the curve instead of trying to cut the wheel 180 degrees to the opposite direction.
(Also, damn, you’re eyes are amazing. I can’t make out any of the lights on the back of the Cybertruck while its in frame)
holy shit how’d you get off x or reddit, aren’t those platforms like, catering to you and only you now?
pack it up folks, the reddit NHTSA investigator has investigated the footage and cleared his fascist god of all wrongdoing
I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say he probably was being somewhat reckless and might not be telling the truth about all the details, but none of the provided evidence is definitive at all to support your conclusion, and the rash of similar stories and prior recalls definitely make the guy’s story much more plausible than it would be in a Camry.
sure man
Still love the truck.