Does The Tesla Cybertruck Have A Problem? Broken Tow Hitch!

Can Tesla's Cybertruck Handle Its Rated Tow Load, Or Could The Hitch Fall Off?

How much weight can the Tesla Cybertruck take on its trailer hitch, before something breaks? JerryRigEverything tested exactly this, and the hitch snapped off of the rear casting when the scale was reading 10,400 lbs of force, a number that’s actually less than the Cybertruck’s 11,000 pound tow rating. This leads to five questions:
1. What do regulations say this hitch needs to be able to support, given the 11,000 pound tow rating?
2. Are there any real world scenarios in which we could see the Cybertruck hitch hit 11,000 pounds of vertical load?
3. What are the industry standards for other OEMs? We saw a Dodge Ram 2500 handle close to 11,000 lbs without failing - why didn't it fail?
4. Are there any fatigue life concerns considering the Cybertruck’s hitch is attached to an aluminum casting, rather than a steel frame?
5. Should customers be concerned about towing at rated capacity with a Tesla Cybertruck?

References:

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[EngineeringExplained]

**Great discussion in the comments, let's handle some FAQS:**
*1). In Zack's test, they had to hold down the front of the Cybertruck to reach the 10, 400 lbs. Wouldn't this lift up the Cybertruck if it were to happen in the real world?* In a braking situation, especially heavy braking, the Cybertruck is going to have load transfer to the front axle, pulling it down. This force acts counter to the forces acting at the hitch, and at a high leverage (vehicle wheelbase), where as the hitch force acts at a low leverage (just the distance from hitch to rear wheel). We also demonstrated with lower loads, you can still hit the 10k lbs force with high g impacts (potholes, etc).
*2). What load is only 3 feet back from the hitch (Mad Max Math)?* As mentioned, this is a simplified example to prove a point. If CG is high (high is relative, the closer you are to the hitch, the less high it needs to be), you can have full load transfer to the hitch. If you have a hitch where the numbers are 6 feet back and 7.5 feet high (with hitch height at 1.5 feet), you get the same answer - full weight on the hitch. And as discussed, you'd probably crash in this scenario, it'd be crazy unstable. Realistically, you'd want to do exactly what semi trucks do, and have wheels at both the front and rear of the trailer, so that any load transfer remains on the trailer wheels. Hence why we moved on to other examples with lower hitch loads.
*3). What about suspensions? Won't they reduce g-forces on the casting?* To an extent, yes. But when you're towing, and when you're braking, you're really compressing down the suspension, where the rates have to ramp up significantly, and then you hit the stops (at which point g-forces get really high). Our scenario is talking about very high loading (you can see the truck has the suspension fully squeezed in Zack's video), so while a suspension will reduce peak g's, you're nearing the limits in these examples, and will still have high g-forces at the hitch.
*4). How do we know the 10, 400 lbs number is accurate?* Well, how do we know it's not? It could be higher, it could be lower. We only have one data point here. What leads me to believe it's fine to use that number is that a Cybertruck engineer (tweet shown in video) said that number should inspire confidence, so my analysis is based on a number that has been quoted as inspiring confidence.
*5). What about trailer brakes; wouldn't this alter the Mad Max Math?* The math shown assumes the trailer is braked. How so? As you start to brake (with all three axles, both Tesla axles and the trailer), you start to have load transfer from the trailer wheels to the Cybertruck hitch. This reduces the amount of load on the trailer axle. If you were to reach 1g in braking, all of the trailer's weight would be on the hitch, so the Cybertruck would be responsible for all of the braking, and the trailer brakes would be doing nothing, because they have no load. Again, it'd be unbelievably sketchy, and you'd likely crash, as mentioned. It's a theoretically possible but fairly unrealistic scenario, so we moved on to other examples.
*6). Why did you ask Ram questions, but not Tesla?* First, I did ask a Cybertruck engineer specific questions, and he did reply, but did not answer my questions. Second, Tesla has no PR department, there's no official person you can reach out to with questions.

[SpaceAvaliable]

You really outdid yourself with the drawing of the cybertuck. Such attention to detail for something to inevitably be erased.

[natehoule]

“While the world may be flat, roads are definitely not”

I love these hilarious little Easter eggs in your videos

[LateralTwitlerLT]

Glad to see the Cyber truck is accurately illustrated on the white board :)

[jmso]

I love the saying "code is a floor, not a ceiling".

[freddyhollingsworth]

working in a scrap yard I can say that you can pick up any older truck by grabbing the trailer hitch with the excavator claws and jerk the truck up 30 feet suddenly and drop 10 feet and jerk it back up suddenly with zero failure of the hitch, we tried after watching the CT videos. We jerked an 05 F250 like 20 times up and down and the hitch never broke and that truck still had all the parts on it and the cabin was full of 2ft of dried mud from a flood..

[thewebmachine]

I rather like when YouTubers check and elaborate on each others work like this.

[bbbf]

We've transferred very delicate = but very heavy (>10T) science instrumentation across Europe. We use special air spring trucks. Shipments are instrumented out with accelerometers that show detailed G data over the whol etrip (sometimes days of travel). 3g shocks happen (a lot) an average pot holey trip - but we have data showing G shocks exceeding (momentariluy) > 10g - and also damaged shipments to prove it wasn't just accelerometer anomalies..

[bobstevenson]

I think we already knew that using an aluminum frame on the cybertruck was a bad idea, but it’s nice to know _why_ it’s a bad idea. Loved the in-depth explanations!

[CharlesBurnsPrime]

Normally your whiteboard drawings are appropriately simple, but in this video I believe you really captured every nuance of the Cybertruck.

[forrest]

I think it’s important to remember that people routinely overshoot on tongue weight. People don’t have scales, loads don’t always fit on trailers

[IHaveNoName]

A half full fluid filled container without baffles would make the issue much much worse. The fluid would first shift forward under breaking increasing the force pushing down on the hitch.

[lggfour]

Industry Mech engineer here and very experienced real world operator who tows 20-30k trailers with a F450 cross country. Nice start. Critical overlook in assumptions here. It's not vertical load, it's moment in multi-axis, and impact moment, across the system which is affected by mass of the truck, and connection geometry, and mass of the trailer, CG (you touched on) and dynamics of the trailer. Think about 24" trailer hitch extensions and high drop or lift receivers - 8 " or more. At 11k these are going to be 2.5" or pintle. And tall connection heights. There is good reason why the industry went to 2.5" and 3" receivers and uses steel. Another thing totally missed is load shift in trailers (water trailers, boats, RV's). 15% to 20+% tongue loads are common and unavoidable towing trailers over 10k lbs (which has substantial regulatory issues). Static failure at 11k means if these are actually used to tow trailers 8k-11k will fail in use in time.. Plus trailer breaking loads and dynamics. We instrument trailers with 3 axis acel - to figure this stuff out. Want to prove this ? Go get a 10 or 11k rated dump or heavy flatbed trailer (ideally one on 17.5 rims, with a pintle hitch, and very stiff suspension required by the rating - a 21k or 30k bumper pull trailer can be loaded to 11k and still be legal in the right situation). Put a water tank in it, or a load of base rock that can shift, or other load which itself can be dynamic. Load it to max rating. Hitch it with a top of the line adjustable height hitch, especially a long one, for a high hitch point trailer (many are up to ~ 36" ring height if rated at above 10K) (required for short tongue trailers). slam on the breaks going over a rail road track (ask why we know). Load shift plus moment plus vertical inversion of load and up to 80G impact, will rip that system apart. Long + High + dynamic. Tesla is banking on the fact that no one will actually tow with these, or didn't consult engineers who actually understand this stuff, or both.

[NumbMonkE]

It's wild that they use steel on the outside but not on the inside where the actual load is handled.

[Jonas_Wirth]

With aluminum, I'm mostly concerned about vibrations. On my Mountain bike I had a 3mm thick piece of aluminum to hold a small lamp, it broke after not even 2 months of normal use. As a quick fix I used a random piece of 1mm scrap metal (some random steel) with a bunch of holes in it. It visibly flexes on each bump, but it has been holding up fine for over 3 years already. I also had an aluminum bike frame just crack in half, aluminum simply has a maximum lifetime. And the most dangerous thing about it cracking is, that when it is worn out, it doesn't even take a high-load situation to break it, it simply suddenly breaks during normal use.

[joeyjoejoejrshabadu]

Jason the type of guy to break a Cybertruck with a whiteboard

[verdatum]

As an educator, this is a FANTASTIC introduction. You start by asking REALLY GOOD questions. I'm hooked immediately. I love it.

[dedomv]

I go down hills breaking and hitting railroad tracks in my 3/4 ton pulling a trailer with an excavator on it. These tests are very real!

[petemiller]

I am a retired structural engineer, and I’m surprised at the low factor of safety prescribed by the code. I can see why legacy pickup manufacturers design for higher loads than what is prescribed in order to address a lifetime of use, corrosion, and degradation of the frame and tow hitch. In structural engineering, connections that can fail under catastrophic failure usually have factors of safety of 3.5 to 5. Obviously the Cybertruck does not meet that standard, even though it meets the minimum standard of the code.

I’m disappointed by the lead Tesla engineer whitewashing the issue and compromising engineering principles in lieu of profit. I am not surprised however, as in the engineering profession we had names for engineers who compromised engineering principles for called them prostitutes.

Your video was extremely well done!

[OsamahBhutta]

As a senior, final semester in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering at Rutgers---you gave me PTSD with the S-N curve but heck, I loved every bit of it. Thanks!