Jeremy Wright was driving his brand-new Cybertruck at 85 mph on the highway when his truck’s steer-by-wire steering system suddenly failed. The vehicle’s screen started to pulse bright red, and the steering power was almost completely gone.
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When discussing the Cybertruck, the truck’s bare stainless steel exoskeleton grabs all the attention; however, the Cybertruck is full of other more profound first-to-the-automotive-industry breakthroughs.
These include the Cybertruck’s variable gain steer-by-wire steering system, 48-volt architecture, and ground-up design for 4680 cells and structural battery pack.
The Cybertruck’s technological advancements are truly inspiring, but they also bring with them new challenges and, importantly, potential safety concerns that need to be addressed.
Unfortunately, a Tesla Cybertruck owner became the victim of this new technology when his truck’s steer-by-wire system suddenly stopped working, leading to a loss of power and almost complete loss of steering control at high speed.
As alluded to earlier, with the Cybertruck, Tesla literally reinvented the wheel. Almost all other vehicles have a steering wheel, and a steering shaft creates a mechanical link between the steering wheel and the wheels, allowing the vehicle to turn.
However, with the Cybertruck, Tesla completely decoupled the steering wheel from the wheels on the ground. The all-electric truck has sensors and a computer attached to the steering wheel, and the computer translates the steering wheel input to motors attached to the wheels.
The motors then move the wheels, independent of a mechanical linkage between the wheels and the steering wheel.
A steer-by-wire system has several advantages. Most Cybertruck owners testify that the steering system is their vehicle's best feature.
Absent a mechanical linkage, the Cybertruck steering wheel does not need a set steering ratio programmed from the factory.
The issue with normal mechanically linked steering systems is that the steering ratio should be dialed to work for both low-speed and high-speed driving. This causes inherent compromise.
When traveling at high speeds, a small steering input should not cause a large turn on the wheels, potentially making the vehicle jerky and causing accidents.
However, you want small steering inputs at low speeds to cause a large turn on the tires. This eliminates the multiple hand-over-hand steering inputs you have to make on your vehicle while trying to maneuver at low speeds.
With a steer-by-wire variable gain system, since there is no permanent linkage between the steering wheel and the tires, there isn’t a single steering ratio that must work both at high and low speeds.
When traveling fast, the motors can change the steering ratio to make the wheels less jerky. However, the same amount of steering input at low speeds can be programmed to cause greater wheel rotation.
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The Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system allows the vehicle to have a variable steering response based on speed, making it easy to maneuver both at high and low speeds.
This is the main advantage of a steer-by-wire system; however, decoupling the steering wheel from the wheels also presents other advantages.
When your Cybertruck is in park, since there is no mechanical linkage between the two parts, you can turn off the motors that turn the wheels and use the steering wheel as an input device for in-vehicle games.
In addition, eliminating the steering shaft, which is a large metal rod that protrudes into the vehicle cabin, has safety benefits in the event of a high-speed collision. This metal rod can easily get pushed up and transfer the impact onto the passenger.
On paper, a steer-by-wire system makes perfect sense, and Cybertruck owners have expressed their delight with their truck’s steering system. However, eliminating all mechanical linkage between the steering wheel and the tires also presents a new challenge.
This brings us back to the issue at hand. Absent any mechanical linkage and the wheels solely turned using motors, what happens if the Cybertruck loses power? This was the case for Jeremy Wright while he was traveling at 85mph on his brand-new Cybertruck.
Jeremy shared his experience on the Tesla Cybertruck Facebook group. Jermey writes, “Has anyone had success with lemon law on their Cybertruck? Ours, unfortunately, had a steering failure. 85mph, and it lost all power, and steering was almost gone. And it's been at the service center for almost a month.”
Fortunately, despite losing steering capability at a very high speed, Jeremy doesn’t appear to have been involved in an accident.
Having said that, what is the experience like when the steer-by-wire system fails at high speeds? A lot of individuals in the comment section under Jeremy’s post were quick to point out Tesla’s short-sightedness in removing a mechanical link between the wheels and the steering wheel.
Some commenters even gave Jeremy a link to report the problem with his Cybertruck to the National Highway Safety Administration as a critical safety issue. On the other hand, others blamed Jeremy for driving above the speed limit.
This might or might not be the correct course of action; however, it’s important to remember that vehicles using mechanical steering linkage can also fail, as the Cybertruck’s steer-by-wire system did.
Tesla has also fitted the Cybertruck with two redundant motors to control the vehicle’s steering in the event one motor fails.
In Jeremy’s case, he explained that when the issue occurred, the center touch screen on his Cybertruck turned bright red and displayed a message reading, “Proceed with caution, critical steering issue detected.”
Despite the steering system failure, Jeremy says he was still able to turn his Cybertruck wheels; however, doing so became “very slow and hard to turn.”
We can imagine how unnerving it must have been to lose steering capability while traveling at 85 mph. After the issue occurred, Jeremy got his truck towed and sent to Tesla service.
However, the Cybertruck owner had to wait close to a month for Tesla to resolve the issue. Jeremy was considering using lemon law to force Tesla to give him a replacement Cybertruck or a full refund for his non-functional truck.
As Jeremy contacted the Tesla community to figure out how to proceed with his broken Cybertruck, Tesla informed him that the company had finally fixed the steering issue with his Cybertruck. Jeremy wrote, “Update: Tesla called today and said it's fixed. Towing it back tomorrow.”
Overall, it’s nice to see that, despite the ordeal, Jeremy was safe, and his truck is now in working condition. For now, this is all the information we’ve; however, we’ll be sure to keep you posted as the story evolves.
Until then, make sure to visit our site, torquenews.com/Tesla, regularly for the latest updates.
So, what do you think? Are you surprised to see the steer-by-wire system in the Cybertruck suddenly fail at highway speed? Also, do you think the Cybertruck’s unconventional steering mechanism poses a risk? Let us know your thoughts in the comments by clicking the red “Add new comment” button below.
Image: Screenshot from MKBHD’s Cybertruck YouTube video
For more information, check out: Tesla Shares Crash by a Whopping $105 Billion in a Single Day After CNBC Host Jim Cramer Said “Tesla Could be the Next $1 Trillion Company” – Inverse Cramer Strikes Again
Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and the evolution of the EV space daily for several years. He covers everything about Tesla, from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.
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