Its said that cars are “weaker” because they’re now made from a softer material proper to receive impact, thus providing safety to the driver. How will safety work with cybertruck’s 30x ‘ultrahard’ stainless steel when crashing?

Question

Its said that cars are “weaker” because they’re now made from a softer material proper to receive impact, thus providing safety to the driver. How will safety work with cybertruck’s 30x ‘ultrahard’ stainless steel when crashing?

In: Engineering

Answer 1

When a car hits something, it’s coming to a very sudden stop and all that energy has to go somewhere. In older vehicles made mostly from steel, that energy usually ended up going into the passengers and cargo, which would cause serious injury. Gradually, cars began to be designed to crumple on impact instead, so the car would absorb most of the energy and the passengers would be less likely to get seriously hurt.

I don’t know how the Cybertruck is constructed but crumpling is only one of the possible ways to get the car to absorb the impact energy. It is possible to use a sturdier material while still achieving the same goal through different physics.