On September 22, 2025, the Tesla Cybertruck—one of the most buzzed-about electric vehicles in recent memory—came under fresh scrutiny after the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) released results from its latest battery of crash and safety tests. While the Cybertruck has already polarized car enthusiasts and critics alike with its angular design and ambitious promises, these new findings have added another layer to the ongoing debate about the truck’s real-world safety.
The IIHS, a non-profit founded in 1959 and long respected for its rigorous crash simulations, recently put seven electric vehicles (EVs) through their paces, including the Tesla Cybertruck and its chief rival, the Ford F-150 Lightning. These tests, as reported by Supercar Blondie and Autoblog, are designed to push vehicles to their limits in scenarios that mimic real-life accidents—everything from glancing head-on collisions to pedestrian avoidance.
Let’s start with the good news for Tesla. The Cybertruck earned a ‘Good’ rating in the moderate overlap front crashworthiness test, a scenario that simulates a partial head-on collision—a common type of accident on American roads. According to Supercar Blondie, this means the Cybertruck provides a high degree of protection for front occupants in these types of crashes. The IIHS also awarded the Cybertruck a maximum ‘Good’ rating for front crash prevention, specifically when it comes to avoiding collisions with pedestrians. In this regard, the Cybertruck stands shoulder-to-shoulder with the Ford F-150 Lightning, which also earned top marks for front crash prevention.
But here’s where things get complicated. Despite these strong showings in certain areas, neither the Cybertruck nor the F-150 Lightning managed to snag the coveted Top Safety Pick or Top Safety Pick+ awards from the IIHS. Why? For Tesla, the culprit was the truck’s headlights. The IIHS found that the Cybertruck’s standard headlamps produced an “excessive amount of glare,” leading to a downgrade from ‘marginal’ to the lowest possible grade: ‘poor.’ This wasn’t just a minor ding—the poor headlight rating alone disqualified the Cybertruck from any IIHS safety awards. Notably, no vehicle tested in this round received a ‘Good’ rating for headlights, but the Cybertruck’s performance was singled out as particularly problematic. According to Autoblog, the BMW i4 also received similarly poor marks for its headlights.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning, meanwhile, had its own Achilles’ heel. While its headlights fared better than Tesla’s (earning an ‘acceptable’ rating), the Lightning stumbled in the updated moderate overlap front test. Here, testers found a high risk of chest, head, and neck injuries for rear-seat passengers, and the rear dummy’s lap belt positioning suggested a heightened risk of internal injuries. In short, while the Cybertruck’s front-seat safety was solid, it managed to do a better job than the Lightning at protecting rear-seat occupants—at least in the tests completed so far. Both trucks, however, still need to undergo additional IIHS crash-testing scenarios, such as the small overlap front and side tests, before a definitive safety ranking can be assigned.
Beyond the headline-grabbing results for the Cybertruck and Lightning, the IIHS also tested a handful of other electric vehicles, including the BMW i4, Chevrolet Blazer EV, Tesla Model 3, Volkswagen ID.Buzz, and Nissan Ariya. Each vehicle displayed strengths and weaknesses. For instance, all offered excellent driver protection in the moderate overlap test, but the Model 3 received only an ‘acceptable’ rating due to high belt forces that increased the risk of chest injuries for rear-seat passengers. The Nissan Ariya, which is soon to be discontinued, received a ‘marginal’ rating for similar reasons. And, as mentioned, none of the tested EVs managed to secure a ‘good’ rating for headlights—pointing to an industry-wide area for improvement.
While crash tests and official ratings provide one perspective, real-world experiences from owners can paint an even more vivid picture of a vehicle’s safety. Just a day before the IIHS results were published, a Cybertruck owner took to the Tesla Cybertruck Owners Facebook group to share a harrowing experience: her husband was trapped inside their Cybertruck for two hours in broad daylight. According to Torque News, the incident occurred when her husband, exhausted, fell asleep in the truck after they arrived home. She left him to rest while she ran errands. When she returned, she found him frantically pounding on the window, unable to open any of the doors from the inside. The manual door release mechanism, which should have provided an emergency exit, reportedly failed to work—possibly because the vehicle’s electrical system was off.
“No, of course, my husband knows about that manual door opener. He was freaked out because it didn’t work. He pulled on every door, and none of them opened. I think it’s because they are electric, and the car’s electrical system might have been off. I don’t know how it happened, but it was very scary and dangerous,” the owner wrote, as reported by Torque News. Despite her ongoing affection for the vehicle, she urged Tesla to address these safety concerns, noting, “I love my Cybertruck more than anything, but I want to point out that these doors are a bigger issue than we realize. I wish I knew how to report this to Tesla because it’s very concerning.”
This wasn’t an isolated complaint. Other Cybertruck owners chimed in with their own worries about the truck’s thick, laminated ‘liquid metal’ glass—designed to be shatter-resistant. One owner, Salvador Reynoso, raised a chilling question: “I’m starting to worry that we might crash and can't escape because the doors are crushed and won't open. How do we break the windows? Have they made a tool for our Cybertruck’s THICK LAMINATED WINDOWS that other cars don't have? Does anyone know of a special tool?” Another owner, Dmitrij Ponkin, echoed these concerns, especially about the risk of being unable to escape from a submerged Cybertruck: “I raised that question over a year ago because if a Cybertruck ends up in water, you have no chance to escape from a submerged truck. People don’t seem to take that risk seriously—they just reply with things like ‘then don’t drive your Cybertruck into water’. So if you find something that 100% works to break the glass, share it with the community. And it has to be tested, which only Tesla can do.”
These real-world anecdotes, paired with the recent IIHS findings, suggest that while the Tesla Cybertruck is a technological marvel in many respects, it still faces significant safety hurdles—some of which may be unique to its futuristic design. From problematic headlights to concerns about emergency egress and breakable glass, the Cybertruck’s safety credentials are still very much a work in progress. As both official testers and passionate owners continue to raise red flags, the ball is now in Tesla’s court to address these issues head-on—before they become more than just talking points in the EV community.
