You may recall seeing a YouTuber named WhistlinDiesel torture a Tesla Cybertruck a few months ago, tearing off the rear section of its cast aluminum “frame” while trying to recover the stuck truck via a strap connected to its trailer hitch. Now another prominent YouTuber, JerryRigEverything — a man who got his start on YouTube fixing Jeep Grand Cherokees, incidentally — has decided to torture a Cybertruck, but instead of just beating the crap out of it like WhistlinDiesel did, JRE is torturing solely the trailer hitch receiver to see how weak it really is. And he’s putting it up against an old Ram 2500.
Straight away, I should note that this test is far from a standardized one. Tongue weight ratings on vehicles are typically relatively low, as Curt — manufacturer of trailer hitches and accessories — writes below:
Tongue weight (TW) is the downward force exerted at a vehicle-trailer coupling point when your trailer is hooked up for towing. The tongue weight should be about 10-15% of the gross trailer weight.
And here are the limits from the Tesla’s owner’s manual:
The Cybertruck is rated to tow 11,000 pounds, so rule-of-thumb tongue weight should be below 2,000 pounds to get a nice, stable, safe tow. The truck’s official max tongue weight, shown above, is actually 10 percent of the max trailer load, or 1,100 pounds. The max load on the rear hitch when being used for cantilevered accessories like bike racks is lower, as shown above.
Still, we all love safety factors, and I don’t know about you, but I’ve overloaded the absolutely shit out of many vehicles. Sometimes you’re towing a nose-heavy vehicle on a U-Haul trailer, and those U-Haul car-haulers sometimes require you to park the nose at the very front of the trailer, yielding a high tongue weight. Plus, you might end up with an impact load due to an uneven roadway or a crash. In any case, you want to make sure that the ultimate tensile strength of that hitch receiver/rear subframe is nowhere near the rated tongue weight.
And indeed, the Cybertruck failed JerryRigEveryThing’s test at just around 10,400 pounds — well above the rated tongue weight.
“That is one improperly loaded trailer away from catastrophic failure,” JerryRigEverything says in the clip. I think that’s the case with pretty much every truck, depending upon how improperly loaded the trailer is.
Whether or not this 10,400 pound failure of the cast aluminum rear section of the Cybertruck is really something to be worried about, I don’t know (I’d have to talk with a bunch of engineers and maybe run some simulations), but someone on Twitter named Bearded Tesla does make a few good points in their thread below:
Let’s talk towing and trailer safety
Unfortunately there are enough people that don’t know enough about towing safety to know what is and is not relevant in this discussion
Lets talk about it – a ???? pic.twitter.com/ebSVVlRns7
— Bearded Tesla (@BeardedTesla) March 11, 2025
Obviously, they’re named “Bearded Tesla,” so keep that in mind. And also, they frequently use the term “lateral” in that thread when it seems like “vertical” or “downward” would work. So read it with some skepticism, but whether or not that cast aluminum rear subframe (held together, in part, by structural adhesive) is an actual problem, I really just know, though we haven’t seen many real-world failures so far.
Still, if this video does anything, it provides entertainment in the form of a comparison between the Cybertruck and a Ram 2500, whose frame appears to hold up quite well in the video, all the way up to 10,700 without failure. Here you can see the hydraulic arm of the Caterpillar machine push straight down on the trailer hitch:
So what’s the takeaway? Well, the Ram seems to have a tougher rear frame section. And I use the term “tougher” intentionally, because that’s really what I think about anytime I see anything cast: Can it absorb energy, especially from cyclical loads? Ductile steel generally can, while cast aluminum can sometimes struggle in this area if not designed properly. Still, cast aluminum has its place, especially when considering strength-to-weight ratio. It can be designed to be quite durable.
Again, I don’t really know what to make of the Cybertruck’s rear casting failing at 10,400 pounds of tongue load in this test, but I do know that Dodge Ram fans now something to brag about other than “HEMI!”
Anyway, this video has been out over a full day now, so you’ve probably already seen it. I’m curious, dear reader, what your thoughts are on it. It certainly looks a bit frightening seeing where the castings broke, but with no significant real-world failures, do we think this is much ado about nothing?
To sound like a broken record, the Tesla Cybertruck is the worst engineered vehicle available on the market today. Prove me wrong.
Ok, I mean who hasn’t ripped part of a truck off doing something stupid? It happens and sometimes takes fewer beers then you’d expect. The difference to me is that in the cybertruck it’s bricked and you don’t get to keep going. And that’s a shame. Cause the rest of these beers aint gunna drink themselves and we have at least 3-4 more stupid things to do with this truck before I sell it for parts.
It handled almost 10x the rated load (once). I hate this truck, but trying to pull some negative connotation out of this result is idiotic. This is stupider than the original Whistlin Diesel video.
Stop making sense and grab a pitch fork with the rest of the Tesla haters lol
This is technically correct (yes, I know) but misleading. For bumper pull trailers, tongue weight should be in the 10 to 15% range. Which means for an 11000 lb trailer it should be 1100 to 1600-ish lbs. Which is below 2000, but it means the max tongue weight rating is at the bare minimum for safe towing. And for more stable towing you want to be on the high side of that 10 to 15% range since that means your weight is biased closer to the pivot point on the hitch. If you pull an 11000 lb trailer with, say, 500 lbs of tongue weight you’re likely to have a very bad day.
One thing David didn’t mention in this summary is that once the Tesla failed, it failed SPECTACULARLY. Not only did the rear end shear off, but it bricked the entire vehicle. It could no longer drive, as there were something like 30+ error messages on the dash and the high voltage system shut down. If the dodge hitch ripped off, they wouldn’t even know it.
Yeah, 10,000 lbs of tongue weight is unrealistic other than a crash. The difference of ~300 lbs between the two isn’t really a significant difference.
That said, I wouldn’t tow with any electric as the times I would want a trailer, I’m likely driving well over 500 miles in a day. It’s close to 1,000 miles to Burning Man from here and I don’t have time to stop every 100 miles for 40 minutes for a charge.
The 300 lb difference was due to the excavator lifting off the ground and therefore unable to exert any more downward force on the hitch. Unfortunately, we won’t know at what weight the Dodge would have failed but it didn’t look like it was anywhere close to failing when the excavator gave up.
Ah. Still, a 10,000+ tongue weight should be more than sufficient for anyone. Anything even approaching that should be a 5th wheel/gooseneck.
If someone bought a cybertruck to seriously tow that much (I know no one has) I think it’s on them when it fails. At least another one is off the road for a couple weeks
This test is completely unrealistic. There is only one circumstance where I could see nearly 100% of the trailer bearing down on the hitch… and that would be a situation where the tow vehicle crashes into something solid causing the trailer to lift off the ground.
That is the only circumstance I can think of where that much load would be applied. And if you’re in that situation, you’ve got bigger problems than the rear subframe breaking off.
Now in reality, even when braking hard or hitting a bump or something like that, there is nowhere near 100% of the trailer weight bearing down on the hitch because the suspensions on the truck and trailer would absorb a lot of the shock.
Hell… even the sidewalls on the tires would absorb some of the shock.
And let’s get real… Though I’m no fan of Elon Musk or the Cybertruck, the Cybertruck is a lifestyle vehicle, not a serious work vehicle.
Nobody owning one of these is gonna use it to tow a 10,000lb trailer daily or even weekly.
Static load vs. dynamic load. The force is applied to the hitch consistently at a set limit in this test. In actually towing the force is constantly changing and would fatigue the aluminum much faster than steel. Every time the truck accelerates or brakes the force is going to transfer. Take a piece of flat bar aluminum vs. flat bar steel and bend it a few times. The aluminum will snap and the steel will bend but still hold.
Considering I have yet to see a CT towing anything, I’m on the “much ado about nothing” side.
I still abhor Musk, though.
I don’t care about how strong the cybertruck is or isn’t really. It’s still a profoundly ugly looking thing.
I think there are plenty of reasons to bash the brand, it’s owner, and the vehicles without this. It broke when subjected to forces well beyond what it’s rated to handle. So what?
interesting test but without testing other unibody trucks/suvs to see how those fail a similer test it’s very hard to judge the safety or durability aspects of the vehicle. You did not have to even do this test to determine if a body on frame “heavy duty” light truck is going to be able to support more tongue weight than a cybertruck.
I am no Tesla fan but as an engineer the results of this test are just for entertainment and have no value for real world use. So the tongue limit is 1,100 lbs and it lasted to 10,400 lbs which is just 600 lbs less than its maximum towing limit, and just because it was less than the Ram we are supposed to think it is inferior? From an engineering standing it failed a magnitude higher than the set limit. That is actually a significant safety margin. I did not watch the video but your article says nada about the rated tongue load of the Ram for comparison
I was going to say the same thing, but less good.
Fully agree. I haven’t been a fan of Tesla in years because of the guy who runs it and because of the insistence on touchscreen everything and it only having the single center mounted screen (why would I want to look there for my speed?!) on the entry-level car, but a hitch failing at 10 times its rated weight seems like a roaring success to me as a lay person.
Tesla lost me years ago with the silly gimmicks. Minimalist interiors, gullwing doors, dropping turn signal stalks, putting all the controls on a touchscreen and saying it drives itself when it doesn’t were plenty of reasons for me to not want one long before Elon went full Darth Musk. Making entire frames from cast aluminum seems like a worse idea than all of that put together.
Wonder how well that glue holds up to load cycles, thermal cycles and age
I’m making mental note not to linger behind a towing sillytruck in the future
Lotus Elise chassis are bonded together with adhesive (which isn’t the same a glue) and they seem to be holding together fine after 29 years. They probably see more extreme thermal cycles than an EV too.
I’d be less worried about the actual adhesive and more worried about how Tesla manage design, validation and quality control.
or the total lack there of…
Not so sure about the thermal cycling. Engines get a lot hotter than batteries. The Elise chassis is dealing with drastically less force than the Cybertruck, though. A fraction of the weight, shorter moment arms all around, and (almost) no towing.
It’s less about the absolute force and more about the stress.
The Lotus chassis proves that a well designed bonded joint can be durable.
If another design fails it’s not the fault of the adhesive technology, it’s because that design isn’t good enough.
It’s a bad sign when Lotus quality is being held up as the relative paragon.
(I drove an Elise for years, and I know it’s good by Lotus standards, but it was definitely still a Lotus)
When you have limited resources you have to focus on the things that matter, like the structural integrity of the chassis, and not the things that don’t matter, like why can I see the sky in the gap between the roof and the window? My seat is wet.
I miss my S1 Elise. I do not miss fixing my S1 Elise.
You’ll never see one towing so no problem there
As expressed by other people, I’m not concerned about the specific results of this test but more on what it means for the fatigue life of that rear casting. Can it see 10000lb once, 7500lb 100 times, 5000lb 1000 times etc.
Yes, cyclical loading would be a FAR better and more interesting test, instead of this one where the Youtuber is just advertising his bias and proving himself wrong.
It would be very interesting to see how many cycles of ~1,100lb weight on the hitch would cause it to fail.
Mechanical engineer here who worked in the trailer towing industry designing and testing towing equipment.
Ultimate yield strength of a new part isn’t as much of a deal for towing as fatigue strength over time. Cast aluminum is going to have a much lower fatigue failure resistance vs hydro formed steel. Towing near the max rating of the cyber truck regularly will likely result in this fatigue failure over the course of years/decades of use. The Ram is not likely to have that happen (yes I’m aware of the frame failures on some ram trucks).
I saw and performed tests of aluminum ball mounts vs steel. While the aluminum had a higher rating it failed well before the steel ball mount in the same test.
Edit: the testing was cyclic in the hundreds of thousands range if I remember correctly. The aluminum passed the single load test with a higher rating than the steel, but the steel passed the cycle testing and the aluminum failed.
Steel is real!
Every result is a data point, let’s have some youtubers try dynamic loading a few Cybertrucks around a closed course and see when they break.
The issue here is trying to apply a static load limit to a situation where the peak load will be dynamic (ie moving). For example hitting a pothole will impose a very high shock load as the back of the truck is suddenly dropped and then forced immediately upwards against the inertia of the trailer.
As David points out, a tough/ductile solution is much preferred in this situation to a more brittle mounting. Even if the Ram mounting did fail I would expect it to have a more graceful failure mode where the hitch will deform or displace from its initial location but will hopefully stay at least partially attached long enough for the issue to be noticed.
Oddly enough those impacts aren’t crazy high. The suspension does a really good job of taking those loads. Think of your body when you hit a pothole, you’re not suddenly feeling a 10g load. In my experience the max load is much less than double the tongue weight, which in the case of the cyber truck would be less than 2k lbs.
Fatigue will be the main issue with the cyber truck.
What about when the trailer hits the pothole?
Same thing, the suspension takes most of the hit. When lightly loaded the difference is bigger as trailer suspension can be really stiff when light, but then actual peak loads aren’t crazy high. When heavily loaded the suspension eats most of it. I never tested with the suspension bottomed out, but I’m guessing with proper static tongue weight there will still be minimal change on the impulse tongue weight (at least minimal for this discussion, in the 1.5x range)
Assuming the trailer has an actual suspension and isn’t something welded together from scrap. (Of course they probably wouldn’t be driving a Cybertruck then)
Torsion suspension is far easier on tow vehicles than old style buggy spring trailers.
The potholes in Nashville feel like the world is ending even with large tires.
Small cars are routinely crippled by the roads.
The trailer would have its own suspension absorb some of that shock. Hell the tire sidewalls will also absorb some of it.
Came here to say the same. Well done.
All this proves is that you won’t get very far towing a heavy trailer with a Cybertruck. Whether you run out of charge, or something breaks.
Well, as long as you’re phrasing it that way, same here.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53279073650_a6d22436d6_c.jpg
That tong ta tong tong tong!
I watched it and while it’s definitely not a standard test I don’t think it should have done that. The ram really showed that. Castings are light and easy and make manufacturing better and less labor. But that casting doesn’t have the strength it looks like the back was bolted and possibility plug or spot welded too. 10k tounge weight is quite a lot for a 1/2 ton but I bet there are some people out there that have done it especially with an enclosed trailer. You can have all the static weight arguments you want but I’m not sure it makes much difference. My impression of Mr Tesla beard guy from when he is on out of spec is he likes to hear his own voice. I guess if some kind of structural engineer can say it wouldn’t be a problem because of some kind of principle they can demonstrate then I guess that’s that.
I mean, obviously, the frame isn’t quite as stout as the Ram’s for this particular test case, but I don’t see this as something for anyone to worry about, since I really can’t forsee any real world scenario where a Cybertruck would be subjected to a 10,000+ lb tongue weight
My concern would be trying to tug someone out of a mudpit. I could see that creating a spike load that would crack that casting.
I, personally, want some ductility at my tow points.
That could be, but I think we know the only off roading a Cybertruck will see is if maybe the landscaping crew spills some mulch in the honeygrow parking lot
Perhaps they could add a zip tie?
I once moved a car on a trailer pulled by a car I mounted the hitch on just for the trip.
Seemed the mounting points were damaged by backing into something and could not be snugged up.
I used some high end hardware which kept loosening, but never failed and made it home.
Not ideal of course.
Based on what I’ve seen of the CT off-roading, the CT will be the one getting tugged out of the mud pit, not the one doing the tugging. So no problem! Unless, of course, the tow points shatter…
Seems the Cybertruck is actually quite good off-road (now that the locker software update came through), though whether anyone actually takes it there…?
Is this literal, or are all of these crude double entendres?
A lot of receivers are rated for straight pulling, as in an extraction.
With Curt it’s usually 9000 lbs.
Older receivers were much more conservatively rated, often a third of similar new ones.
A lot of excellent American companies have folded, and their quality was superior.
2 inch receivers for the Dodge are rated as high as 17000 lbs from curt, with 2400 lb tongue weight.
They offer 2 and 1/2 and 3 inch receivers that can be rated much higher.
Note they warn that using a leveling hitch can stress the receiver by feeding more load through it, so worth making sure receiver and hardware are adequate.
You can often upgrade the hardware too.
An older Quality S receiver is rated at 7500 lbs without an equalizing hitch, but is as heavy as the new curt.
I think in this case, WD’s test was more relevant. I can totally see that case happening in the real world whether the CT is the recovery vehicle, or the one being recovered. Especially considering that CT owners in that situation are likely to not be seasoned off-roaders with proper vehicle recovery skills.
That feels like the slogan for the next Autopian t-shirt “I want some ductility at my tow points”
I would hope you are right.
But this is America. Reading is hard, as is comprehension of the material read, as such I fully expect to see more “broken” Tesla trucks soon. Especially once they hit the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th owner.
Some idiot will break the cast subframe, etc. doing something asinine. Like towing the surplus army tank they scored home… It’s inevitable.
Or if Tesla weakens the casting to save a bit of money.
I was going to say “what with the likely tariffs on aluminum” but we all know Musk’s companies will get a waiver on paying those, while his competitors will not.
I think Ford was buying used 7000 grade aluminum for blocks.