Summary
Tesla has been quietly replacing battery packs in Cybertrucks due to issues with “side-dented cells” causing potential battery core collapse.
Reports date back to September 2024, with owners learning of battery replacements during unrelated service visits.
Tesla describes the replacements as proactive but has not issued an official recall, raising questions about transparency and regulatory compliance.
Critics suggest Tesla’s approach avoids negative press and high costs.
Concerns persist about the scope of the issue, potential safety risks, and Tesla’s lack of formal communication with owners or regulatory bodies.
I do appreciate how we heard a cybertruck exploded and caught fire and most people were like “yup, that happens.”
People going “yup, that confirms my existing preconceptions” doesn’t say much. Regular cars catch fire too, it just doesn’t make headlines every time one of them does.
Cars are dangerous in general. They’re explosive, fires, impacts, poisoning, dementia-causing, environmentally disastrous, and the #3 reason US adults die (direct causes, with many other indirect contributions to other categories). But Tesla has done a pretty good job of mediocre build quality across the board so extending that experience to their batteries isn’t unreasonable.
Given time they’ll either disabuse us all of the impression or not.