Tesla Cybertruck Earns IIHS Top Safety Pick Plus: The Only Pickup Truck to Achieve This in 2026 | Taha Abbasi

Taha Abbasi has driven a Tesla Cybertruck — nicknamed “Kemosabe” — across the entire United States on Full Self-Driving. He has put this truck through desert heat, mountain passes, and thousands of highway miles. So when the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) announced that the 2026 Cybertruck earned its highest honor, the Top Safety Pick+ award, it was not a surprise to him. It was a confirmation of what the road already proved.

The Cybertruck is now the only pickup truck in 2026 to earn the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ rating. Not the F-150. Not the RAM 1500. Not the Chevy Silverado. The stainless steel wedge that critics said would never make it to production is now, by every measurable standard, the safest pickup truck you can buy.

What the IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Actually Means

The IIHS does not hand out awards lightly. In 2026, they raised the bar significantly. To earn Top Safety Pick+, a vehicle must score “Good” ratings across every crashworthiness test, including the updated moderate overlap front test that now specifically evaluates how well rear-seat passengers are protected. Vehicles must also pass updated crash-avoidance testing, including higher-speed vehicle-to-vehicle scenarios at up to 43 mph and evaluations for motorcycle and semi-trailer detection.

These stricter standards hit the pickup truck category especially hard. Out of every full-size and mid-size pickup truck on the American market, only two earned any IIHS award at all in 2026. The Toyota Tundra crew cab earned the standard Top Safety Pick. The Tesla Cybertruck earned Top Safety Pick+ — the highest possible designation.

That distinction matters. Top Safety Pick+ requires excellence across every single test category with no weak spots. It is the difference between “very good” and “best in class.” Taha Abbasi sees this as a pivotal moment for the entire electric truck segment, and he has the firsthand experience to back that up.

The Numbers Tell the Story

The IIHS test data for the Cybertruck reads like a masterclass in structural engineering. In the driver-side small overlap front crash test, the truck earned “Good” ratings across every metric: structure and safety cage, head and neck protection, chest protection, hip and thigh protection, and lower leg and foot protection. The same results repeated on the passenger side.

Look at the specific injury measurements and the picture becomes even clearer. The Head Injury Criterion (HIC-15) score on the driver side was just 81 — well below thresholds that would indicate concern. The passenger-side HIC-15 was even lower at 45. Neck tension measured 1.0 kN on the driver side and 0.8 kN on the passenger side. Chest compression stayed at 18mm and 21mm respectively, both comfortably within safe limits.

Knee displacement — a measure of how much the dashboard intrudes into the occupant space during a crash — registered at literally zero on both sides. Zero millimeters. The knee-thigh-hip injury risk was 0% across the board. These are not just passing grades. These are numbers that redefine what structural safety looks like in a pickup truck.

For context, many traditional pickups struggle with the updated rear-seat protection criteria. The IIHS specifically noted that back-seat performance in the moderate overlap test remains “a major challenge” for large vehicles. The Cybertruck did not just clear that bar. It set a new one.

Why the Stainless Steel Exoskeleton Matters

When Tesla first unveiled the Cybertruck in 2019, the unconventional design drew mockery. A truck made of ultra-hard 30X cold-rolled stainless steel? With an angular exoskeleton instead of a traditional body-on-frame design? Skeptics called it a publicity stunt. Some automotive journalists predicted it would be a safety nightmare — too rigid, too angular, too different from the established playbook.

Seven years later, those predictions have aged poorly. The exoskeleton design turns out to be a significant advantage in crash protection. Rather than relying on traditional crumple zones alone, the Cybertruck distributes impact forces across its entire structural shell. The stainless steel panels act as an integrated safety cage, maintaining the integrity of the passenger compartment even under extreme deformation scenarios.

Taha Abbasi noticed this engineering philosophy firsthand during his coast-to-coast drive. The Cybertruck feels planted and rigid in a way that communicates structural confidence. Every panel, every joint, every surface is load-bearing. There is no cosmetic bodywork hiding a separate frame underneath. The body IS the frame. And that design philosophy just earned the highest safety rating in the pickup truck category.

NHTSA 5-Star Rating Plus IIHS TSP+: An Unprecedented Combination

Here is what makes this achievement even more remarkable. The Cybertruck does not just hold the IIHS Top Safety Pick+. It also holds a perfect 5-star overall safety rating from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). As Tesla pointed out in their announcement: “Cybertruck is the only pickup with both an IIHS Top Safety Pick+ Award AND NHTSA 5-star safety rating.”

No other pickup truck in 2026 can make that claim. Not a single one. The two most respected vehicle safety organizations in the United States have independently evaluated the Cybertruck and both placed it at the top of the pickup truck category. That is not marketing. That is data.

NHTSA testing focuses on different scenarios than IIHS, including frontal barrier crashes, side crashes, and rollover resistance. Earning top marks from both organizations means the Cybertruck performs at the highest level across the widest possible range of crash scenarios. Whether you hit something head-on, get T-boned at an intersection, or experience a rollover event, this truck is engineered to protect its occupants better than any other pickup on the market.

The Broader EV Safety Picture

The Cybertruck’s achievement did not happen in isolation. Out of the 63 vehicles that qualified for an IIHS award in 2026, 11 were fully electric. The list includes the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Hyundai Ioniq 9, Kia EV9, Rivian R1S, Audi Q6 e-tron, Audi A6 Sportback e-tron, Genesis GV60, Volvo EX90, and of course the Cybertruck. Electric vehicles are earning top safety ratings at a rate that outpaces their market share, which suggests something fundamental about how EVs are built gives them a structural advantage.

The answer is physics. Electric vehicles carry their heaviest component — the battery pack — in the floor of the vehicle. This creates a low center of gravity that dramatically reduces rollover risk. It also means the floor itself becomes a rigid structural element. In the Cybertruck, the battery pack spans nearly the entire wheelbase, creating what is essentially a flat armored plate running underneath the passenger compartment. Combined with the stainless steel exoskeleton above, occupants sit inside a protective shell that has few equals in automotive engineering.

Taha Abbasi has written extensively about EVs and their real-world performance. This IIHS result validates a thesis he has been articulating for years: electric trucks are not just cleaner alternatives to gas-powered pickups. They are fundamentally better-engineered vehicles across nearly every performance metric, including the one that matters most — keeping people alive in a crash.

What This Means for Cybertruck Owners and Buyers

For the roughly 100,000+ Cybertruck owners already on the road, this news has immediate practical implications. Insurance companies use IIHS and NHTSA ratings when calculating premiums. A Top Safety Pick+ designation typically correlates with lower insurance costs because the data shows these vehicles result in fewer injury claims and lower medical payouts.

For prospective buyers who have been sitting on the fence, this removes one of the most common objections. “Is the Cybertruck safe?” was a question that lingered partly because the vehicle looks so different from conventional trucks. Angular stainless steel panels and a wedge-shaped profile do not match what most people associate with safety. But the IIHS does not care what a vehicle looks like. They care what happens when it hits a wall at highway speed. And the answer, definitively, is that the Cybertruck protects its occupants better than every other pickup truck tested.

It is also worth noting that several TSP+ winners for 2026 start under $30,000, including the Kia K4 at just $22,290. This shows that top-tier safety engineering is not exclusive to premium vehicles. But in the pickup truck category specifically, only one vehicle reached the top — and it happens to be the one made of stainless steel by the company that a significant portion of the internet was convinced could not build a safe truck.

IIHS Raises the Bar: The “30 by 30” Initiative

IIHS president David Harkey framed the 2026 results within the organization’s “30 by 30” goal: reducing road deaths by 30% by the year 2030. Harkey emphasized that stronger crash structures alone are not enough. “We’re asking automakers to make excellent protection for back-seat passengers the norm,” he stated, while adding that the Institute maintains the philosophy that “the safest crash is the one that never happens.”

That last point connects directly to another Cybertruck advantage: Tesla’s crash avoidance technology. The TSP+ requirements now include a high-speed vehicle-to-vehicle front crash prevention evaluation that mimics collisions at speeds up to 43 mph. Vehicles must also demonstrate the ability to detect and avoid motorcycles and semi-trailers — two of the most dangerous scenarios on public roads.

The Cybertruck passed all of these with flying colors. Its camera-based Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems provide 360-degree awareness, automatic emergency braking, and forward collision warnings that operate continuously. Taha Abbasi experienced this system across thousands of miles on his FSD cross-country trip, and can confirm that the crash avoidance technology is not just a checkbox feature. It is an active, always-on safety net that intervenes faster than human reflexes allow.

The Critics Were Wrong

Let us take a moment to address the elephant in the room. When the Cybertruck was unveiled, mainstream automotive media predicted a laundry list of failures. It would never pass pedestrian safety standards. The angular design would create dangerous impact zones. The stainless steel would be too brittle or too rigid. The truck would be illegal in Europe. It would never achieve meaningful safety ratings.

Every one of those predictions was wrong. Not partially wrong. Completely wrong. The Cybertruck did not just squeak past safety standards — it earned the single highest safety rating available from the most demanding testing organization in the country. It did this while being the most unconventional pickup truck design in half a century.

There is a lesson here about the difference between confident analysis and premature dismissal. The critics who wrote the Cybertruck off based on how it looked were making aesthetic judgments, not engineering ones. The IIHS makes engineering judgments. And those judgments say this truck is the safest pickup on the road.

A Personal Perspective from Behind the Wheel

Taha Abbasi has spent more time behind the wheel of a Cybertruck than most automotive journalists. He has charged at Superchargers, camped in the bed, navigated FSD through complex urban intersections, and pushed the truck through conditions that test both driver and machine. The safety rating confirms what the driving experience already communicated: this is a truck built with margins. Every system has headroom. Every structure has redundancy.

When you drive a Cybertruck long enough, you start to notice how it manages unexpected situations. The automatic emergency braking engages with startling speed. The lane-keeping system provides firm corrections when drift occurs. The structural rigidity means the truck responds predictably to sudden maneuvers — no body roll sway, no flex, no uncertainty. It drives like a vehicle that was designed by engineers who assumed the worst and built for it.

The IIHS Top Safety Pick+ is not just an award for the Cybertruck. It is a validation of a design philosophy that prioritizes physics over tradition. Tesla built a truck that looks like nothing else on the road because they were solving engineering problems, not following styling trends. The safety data proves that approach works.

What Comes Next

IIHS testing is ongoing throughout the year, so additional vehicles may earn awards as 2026 progresses. But for now, the Cybertruck stands alone at the top of the pickup truck category. No other truck has earned TSP+. No other truck holds both TSP+ and a 5-star NHTSA rating simultaneously.

For Taha Abbasi, this result adds another data point to the case he has been building through his writing and his YouTube channel: that Tesla is building vehicles which outperform conventional automakers on safety, efficiency, technology, and real-world capability. The Cybertruck is not just the safest pickup truck. It is a proof of concept that unconventional engineering, when executed with rigor, produces results that conventional approaches cannot match.

The stainless steel wedge that everyone laughed at just earned the highest safety rating in its class. That is not luck. That is engineering. And Kemosabe has the miles to prove it.