Computers turn math into objects and images. Jason Fenske, known as the maestro at YouTube channel Engineering Explained, turns objects and images back into math to help us understand how things work, what they mean, and, in this case, whether things are true. When it comes to the boast about the Tesla Cybertruck that’s towing a Porsche 911 beating a Porsche 911 over the quarter-mile or eighth-mile, Fenske’s math shows that no, those images weren’t true. So he made a video about it. And we all know what happens with these kinds of Tesla encounters: The Sharks and The Jets show up to battle it out in the comments. At the time of writing, Fenske’s vid has 2.3 million views and 8,275 comments Plus a postscript that Fenske added on X to clarify some of the math aspects to the Tesla-no-matter-what gang has another 10,000 views.
Even a Tesla engineer wrote in to comment on the vid, and not just any engineer, but lead Cybertruck engineer Wes Morrill. Morrill’s thread on X — which has a further 861,000 views at the time of writing — stuck to the topic, put context to the video, and tried to explain why Tesla phrased the contest in the manner it did. In other words, it was the beginning of the best kind of discussion. As Fenske wrote, “A lot of folks, myself included, could learn from Wes’s professionalism.”
Still didn’t change the results of Fenske’s analysis, the comical recap of the re-analysis being, “Based on my math, I don’t think the Cybertruck beats the Porsche 911 in the 1/4 mile, if it’s also towing said Porsche. Hence, the title is what the title is, based on the contents of the video.”
Now that we’ve heard from Tesla, we’re waiting to find out if Porsche wrote Fenske to comment about the green 911 rendering, “You think you’re funny? Stick to the math.”
