Tesla Cybertruck Drives Itself Into a Pole, Owner Says ‘Thank You Tesla’

A Tesla Cybertruck owner is praising the automaker for the performance of his electric pickup after its Full Self-Driving system drove it into a utility pole in Reno, Nevada. According to the driver, the Cybertruck ignored the fact that its travel lane was ending and plowed straight into a pedestrian crossing, which was fortunately empty. Then, the owner (going by @MrChallinger) took to Elon Musk’s X to praise Tesla for the vehicle’s performance in the crash, which did not cause him any injuries.

Soooooo my @Tesla @cybertruck crashed into a curb and then a light post on v13.2.4.

Thank you @Tesla for engineering the best passive safety in the world. I walked away without a scratch.

It failed to merge out of a lane that was ending (there was no one on my left) and made… pic.twitter.com/vpT4AGz8jZ— Jonathan Challinger (@MrChallinger) February 9, 2025

“It failed to merge out of a lane that was ending (there was no one on my left) and made no attempt to slow down or turn until it had already hit the curb. Big fail on my part, obviously,” he said.

It’s a far bigger failure on the part of a “Full” Self-Driving system, we’d argue. Per one of the user’s replies, the incident occurred on Stead Boulevard near the Sierra Sage Golf Course in northwest Reno. The Cybertruck was headed northbound in the far right lane, which merges into the center lane to make way for a signaled crosswalk. The Cybertruck failed to merge and simply drove up onto the curb island, striking the pole.

“Don’t make the same mistake I did. Pay attention. It can happen. I follow Tesla and FSD pretty closely and haven’t heard of any accident on V13 at all before this happened. It is easy to get complacent now – don’t,” he said.

So, to recap, this AI-based system failed to perform a basic merge while driving straight along a multi-lane road with no other traffic, and managed to hit the only two solid objects anywhere in its path—both of which were built on a separate curb island engineered to isolate pedestrians from vehicular traffic. And all of that happened without any intervention from the Cybertruck’s suite of active safety systems.

And rather than being upset with Tesla for selling him a smart dumpster on wheels, the driver took blame for the incident, saying he should have been paying attention. Maybe the average Cybertruck owner is too young to remember, but we’ve seen something like this before…

Why? Well, MrChallinger is on team Tesla, and you gotta protect the team, right? (Emphasis added)

“@Tesla_AI how do I make sure you have the data you need from this incident? Service center etc has been less than responsive on this. I do have the dashcam footage. I want to get it out there as a PSA that it can happen, even on v13, but I’m hesitant because I don’t want the attention and I don’t want to give the bears/haters any material.”

Per the owner, the Tesla had Full Self-Driving build v13.2.4 installed when the crash happened. MrChallinger praised the company for “engineering the best passive safety in the world,” but what is truly impressive here is just how efficiently Tesla has molded its owner base into an unpaid PR firm. Please, won’t somebody think of the investors?

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