| This is really, really bad. The Ford Pinto number is the total number of deaths that the NHTSA found to have occurred between 1970 and mid-1977 (so not the full 9-year period) in rear-impact crashes that resulted in a fire. This is not comparable to the total number of fatalities involving fire and a Cybertruck (regardless of the impact type, or lack thereof, e.g. the Las Vegas fatality was due to the guy shooting himself in the head). Not a single one of the three Cybertruck incidents would have been included in the Ford Pinto statistic because none of them were rear-impact crashes that resulted in a fire. According to the Wikipedia article about the Pinto: > At the time only 1% of automobile crashes would result in fire and only 4% of fatal accidents involved fire, and only 15% of fatal fire crashes are the result of rear-end collisions. So we'd expect the total fire fatality rate to be about 6.5x the fatality rate specific to rear-end collisions that resulted in fire. And of course, saying "Teslas are more dangerous than Ford Pintos" is very different than saying "the Tesla Cybertruck has a higher rate of fire fatalities than the Ford Pinto." Even the latter statement would be incorrect but the former is simply absurd. |
But the Pinto was prone to rear end collisions causing fires. So the correct ratio is unknown, and presumably wouldn't be close to 15%.
I agree in general that the linked article is junk.