Tesla Will Make 4-Wheeling Safe With Its Cyberquad ATV
Whenever southerners use the term “4-wheeling,” an image of someone going down the road in what we call a “4-wheeler” comes to mind. That or off-road driving. My mother would never, ever let me go with friends who owned one of those 4-wheelers due to the dangers — especially since helmets are “optional.”
KidsHealth notes that it’s perfectly legal for older kids to drive them without a license in most states, and these thrills often come with major safety risks. Since all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) can be unstable and accidents happen pretty frequently, injuries often land older children in the emergency room or in the morgue. Due to this, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) discourages youth under 16 from driving or riding on them.
In my neighborhood, we have some kids who use them on the streets. This is not legal, but the law isn’t enforced. They are not meant for city streets, just for off-road driving or dirt roads. ATVs usually weigh over 600 pounds and have large engines that allow them to hit top speeds over 65 mph. They also have a high center of gravity and no safety features whatsoever. There are no seatbelts, safety cages, or roll bars. This means that they can easily injure or kill their riders if not used properly.
Tesla wants to change this a bit by creating the safest ATV ever made. During the annual Tesla meeting this week, Elon Musk emphasized the importance of safety and shared some details as to how Tesla plans to make it as safe as possible.
“We are definitely making Cybertruck here, and so probably the ATV too. The ATV is an interesting design challenge because ATVs are pretty dangerous and we want to make an ATV that is the least dangerous ATV.
“It will have a very low center of gravity because the battery pack is going to be down low.
“I think we can do some things with the suspension to make it really hard to roll this thing. When an ATV is rolling is when bad things happen. It’s going to be the ATV that won’t roll.”
If anyone can make ATVs safer, I think Tesla is the one to do it. In 2019, the National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration admitted that the Tesla Model 3 was the safest car it had ever tested.
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