“The Cybertruck's weight, rigid structure and sharp design have raised legitimate concerns,” she tells WIRED. “Any loophole that allows these vehicles access [UK] streets must be closed quickly.”
“It would be hugely disappointing if a loophole were opened that puts vehicles at increased risk of damage to British streets and roads,” agrees Margaret Winchcomb, deputy executive director of PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, an expert body for over 100 UK transport organisations.
“Allowing vehicles where the safety of others appears to be an afterthought would be a major step backwards,” she adds.
Although Tesla has made bold safety claims about the Cybertruck and released its own dummy crash test footage, no independent bodies have crash tested the vehicle. U.S. regulators rely on automakers to self-test and certify whether they adhere to safety standards.
The federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the insurance industry-backed Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) conduct crash tests on only a few vehicles. The costs are too high for these organizations to test all vehicles, so choices are made based on sales volumes.
“While [the Cybertruck] has created a lot of buzz, it's unlikely we would invest resources into testing it unless it sold in numbers comparable to other popular full-size pickups,” said IIHS media director Joe Young.
“Without testing the Cybertruck, I cannot comment on the effectiveness of the crumple zones,” he emphasizes. “For now, our design concerns are limited to the issues we've raised with other EVs. It is very heavy and very fast.”
Due to what it calls the Cybertruck's 'unusual design', the UK Department for Transport (DfT) tells WIRED it would be 'reluctant to predict' whether the pick-up would receive a DfT-administered IVA pass.
“That is what the IVA scheme was designed for [small- and medium-sized businesses] involved in the conversion or import of specialist vehicles,” the statement to WIRED continues, “and was created long before the Cybertruck was conceived.”
Extrapolating the DfT's carefully calibrated comments, Charalambous could be wasting his time and money trying to pass the IVA test. “The vehicle incorporates advanced technology which may not be designed to comply with the regulations applicable in Great Britain,” the DfT statement warns.
In his videos, Charalambous drives around South East England in his Albanian Cybertruck. If caught by an expert police officer, Charalambous could be fined. “A resident of Great Britain cannot drive a vehicle in Great Britain with foreign number plates,” the DfT statement confirmed, saying that an “imported car by a resident of Great Britain must not be driven on foreign number plates, except from and Unpleasant [an annual safety check and a] pre-booked IVA [appointment].”
In his third video, Charalambous said he was allowed to legally drive his Cybertruck in Britain because the Albanian seller had given him a green card, an international insurance certificate issued in Albania. Again, this is a no-no, says the DfT: “Driving an unregistered vehicle would invalidate any insurance.”
Only time – and a lot of money – will determine whether Charalambous succeeds in legalizing its British Cybertruck, but the chances are slim.
