Tesla’s troubled Cybertruck flunked a safety test on its front-facing trunk — slamming shut on the finger of one driver who tested the vehicle’s hatch sensor.
Jeremy Judkins, a YouTube personality who reviews Tesla products, had his pointer finger jammed under the stainless steel “frunk” — the front storage space under the hood — resulting in a nasty indentation on his delicate digit, according to a video he posted to his 170,000 subscribers.
Judkins, who has more than 170,000 subscribers on YouTube, wanted to test an update that Tesla released which was designed to make the frunk safer.
He was able to pry his finger free and escape more serious injury.
Elon Musk’s long-delayed and pricey Cybertruck has come under fire after Tesla last month recalled 3,878 vehicles because of a potential fatal flaw with the gas pedal.
The company had to fix an issue that caused the pedal to get stuck, causing the vehicle to accelerate unintentionally and increase the risk of a crash.
Tesla also released a safety update to the frunk after other drivers posted viral videos in recent weeks that showed the hatch crushing inanimate objects like vegetables.
Judkins decided to put the software update to the test. He found that when he put bananas, cucumbers and carrots on the edge of the compartment, the frunk’s sensor managed to detect them.
He then tried to test the sensor with the tip of the carrot, which ended up being sliced off by the frunk door.
Judkins was then asked by YouTube viewers to test his finger. So he first tried to have the door close on his arm and his hand, though the sensor detected both limbs and the “frunk” door opened without incident.
But when he stuck his finger into the space between the “frunk” door and the compartment, the door pressed down hard, causing him obvious discomfort.
“I feared for my finger for a second, not gonna lie,” Judkins told his viewers.
He then showed a dark mark on his finger that indicates the spot at which the “frunk” door latched onto it.
“My finger is shaking,” Judkins said in the video.
He said the “frunk” door “kind of locked down on it and I was a little bit freaked out because I didn’t know how to open it.”
“I was kind of trapped,” Judkins said. “Luckily, it detected resistance and opened.”
“While your new Cybertruck does protect your banana, your finger is still at risk,” he said. “They have some work to do.”
The Post has sought comment from Tesla.
Judkins said that Wes Morrill, a lead Cybertruck engineer, told him that the reason the “frunk” door clamped down hard on his finger was that the algorithm was designed in a way so that the door pushed down hard on the third try.
According to Judkins, the sensor was programmed so that the “frunk” door applied more resistance when detecting an object the third time because it assumed it was a shopping bag that was preventing it from closing.
Judkins posted another video, this time using his toes. The frunk briefly latched shut before it reopened and he said he didn’t suffer any harm.
With Post wires
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
