The Tesla fan who went viral after taking his Cybertruck through a car wash is back. This time he nearly lost a finger after a “test” of the Cybertruck’s frunk sensors.
Tesla enthusiast Jeremy Judkins (@jeremyjudkins2), posted the video on May 5. It quickly went viral, amassing over 6.7 million views. The video is a sequel to a previous experiment in which Judkins tests the Cybertruck’s frunk (a front trunk) closure capabilities against various fruits and vegetables both before and after a software update that’s supposed to improve safety.
In his latest video, posted on May 5, he says, “With just a software update the Tesla Cybertruck frunk is way safer. We witnessed it destroy a ton of vegetables and then post-update did nothing. But, it did cut off the tip of a carrot.”
One TikTok user speculated that the updated frunk could still potentially slice through a finger if it cut through a carrot. Judkins decided to respond to this comment by putting his own finger on the line—literally.
He warms up with his arm, which the frunk detects and avoids. He then moves on to his hand. Finally, he puts his index finger in the way of the frunk.
“Everybody’s been waiting for this—the finger,” he comments before pressing the frunk button once more. The result? Judkins’ finger gets caught in a pinch, and he looks to be in serious pain.
@jeremyjudkins2 Replying to @Jay11629 My finger versus the Tesla Cybertruck frunk #tesla #teslacybertruck #cybertruck ♬ original sound – Jeremy Judkins | Tesla Videos
After an agonizing few seconds, the frunk finally releases its grip, sparing Judkins from serious injury but leaving him shaken.
“As soon as it closed on my finger, I feared for my finger for a second, not gonna lie,” Judkins remarks in the video. “That’s kind of bad. And you can see my finger is shaking. It kind of locked down on it, and I was a little bit freaked out because I didn’t know how to open it up. I was kind of trapped.”
Cybertruck lead engineer weighs in
In response to the video, Cybertruck lead engineer Wes Morrill weighed in on X (formerly Twitter), revealing the complexities behind the frunk’s algorithm. “Frunk pinch detection is a learning algorithm which will increase the closing force each time it’s cycled back to back without successfully latching,” Morrill wrote.
He added, “Imagine there is a big bag inside the frunk it might also trigger the pinch detection. Then you might try closing it again, and again… exactly as you are doing in this video. The algorithm assumes that if you are repeatedly trying to close the frunk it’s because you, as the human in loop know better and believe it should close.”
Judkins posted another follow-up video, in which he retests the frunk’s behavior using only bananas. In line with Morrill’s explanation, the third banana gets sliced through. This also explains why his finger got clamped on the unfortunate third attempt to close the frunk in his previous video.
In the comments, viewers were far from impressed with the design of the algorithm.
“So still dangerous got it,” one commenter wrote.
“You have two warnings and then it’s going to amputate,” a second added.
“Why not just close it softly every time, instead of working up to finger crunch mode?” a third wrote.
The Cybertruck has had its fair share of design flaws and issues, as highlighted in another recently viral video. The video exposed a critical malfunction in the vehicle’s gas pedal design, which can result in uncontrollable acceleration.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Judkins via TikTok comment and to Tesla by press email.
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