“The Cybertruck’s weight, stiff structure, and sharp design have raised valid concerns,” she tells WIRED. “Any loophole allowing these vehicles onto [UK] streets needs to be quickly closed.”
“It would be hugely disappointing if a backdoor were to be opened which allowed vehicles bringing an increased risk of harm to UK streets and roads,” agrees Margaret Winchcomb, deputy executive director of PACTS, the Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety, an expert body for more than 100 UK transport organizations.
“Allowing vehicles for which the safety of others appears to be an afterthought would be a large step backward,” she adds.
Although Tesla has made bold safety claims about the Cybertruck and released its own crash-test-dummy footage, no independent bodies have crash-tested the vehicle. US regulators rely on auto makers to self-test and certify their adherence to safety norms.
The federal National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the insurance industry-backed Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) carry out crash tests on only some vehicles. The expense is too great 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 to test it unless it were selling in numbers comparable with other popular large pickups,” says IIHS media director Joe Young.
“Without testing the Cybertruck, I can’t comment on the effectiveness of its crumple zones,” he stresses. “For now, our concerns around its design are limited to the issues we’ve raised with other EVs. It’s very heavy, and it’s very quick.”
Because of what it calls the Cybertruck’s “unusual design,” the UK’s Department for Transport (DfT) tells WIRED that it “would not like to predict” whether the pickup would get a DfT-administered IVA pass.
“The IVA scheme was designed for [small- and medium-sized businesses] involved in specialist vehicle conversion or importation,” continues the statement to WIRED, “and was created long before the Cybertruck was conceived.”
Extrapolating from the DfT’s carefully calibrated comments, Charalambous might be wasting his time and money trying to pass the IVA test. “The vehicle has advanced technology which may not be designed to meet the rules that apply in the UK,” warns the DfT statement.
In his videos, Charalambous drives through southeast England in his Albanian-plated Cybertruck. If he’s caught doing this by a knowledgeable police officer, Charalambous could be fined. “A UK resident cannot drive a vehicle displaying foreign number plates in the UK,” confirmed the DfT statement, saying that an “imported car must not be driven on foreign number plates by a UK resident, except to and from [an annual safety check and a] pre-booked IVA [appointment].”
In his third video, Charalambous said he was legally allowed to drive his Cybertruck in the UK because the Albanian seller had provided him with a green card, an international certificate of insurance issued in Albania. Again, this is a no-no says the DfT: “Driving an unregistered vehicle would render any insurance invalid.”
Only time—and a lot of money—will determine whether Charalambous succeeds at legalizing his UK-based Cybertruck, but the odds are against it.