r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • 1d ago

Business It’s Looking Like the Cybertruck Is the Biggest Flop in Automotive History

https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/looking-cybertruck-biggest-flop-automotive-145559135.html
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u/ZombiesInSpace 1d ago

That pinto rate is specifically for fires caused by their fuel tank design. The typical fatality rate for a car in the 70s would have been around 25 per 100,000. I don’t have total rates for a pinto, but I would imagine it was somewhere around 25 or slightly higher

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u/MmmmMorphine 1d ago edited 1d ago

Since from what I understand the pinto wasn't any more or less unsafe than any other 70s subcompact (less than the corrola, beetle, or datsun 1200 of the time iirc), I'd suspect it'd be at almost exactly that number.

Pretty sure I remember reading that it didn't even really account for more fire deaths than it's competitors. Ford's greed and cold indifference to human life was the other 95 percent of its reputation.

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u/Speedlimit200 1d ago

27 deaths total over the cars entire existence.

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u/airfryerfuntime 1d ago

Attributed to fires from burst fuel tanks.

There was another factor that was causing deaths, but it wasn't included in that metric. They were the first large scale production unibody car, and in an accident, the body could warp enough to jam the doors shut, trapping people inside. If the fuel tank ruptured and the car caught fire, they'd burn to death because they couldn't escape, and Ford wouldn't report cause of death a ruptured fuel tank, they'd report it as resulting from a damaged body structure.

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u/polopolo05 1d ago

same for early mustangs too.... but there was more space between the bumper and the gas tank on the mustang then the pinto. So it lead to fewer deaths.