Tesla's Cybertruck may not be so stainless after all It's only been a few months since Tesla's long-awaited Cybertruck made its way to those at the front of the queue, but the arrival has been tarnished for some. CEO Elon Musk first unveiled the electric pickup model back in 2019, claiming that its "ultra-hard stainless steel" body and "transparent metal" glass were "literally …
Same (well, not even that, intentionally). I never wash my car, what's the point? It will rain, or in winter time, it will snow some days and rain other days, in current times. If the roads are salty and slushy, washing the car is pointless because it's still salty and slushy etc.
The body shouldn't rust, unless compromised. I drive my cars for 10+ years, too. There may be some scratches, gouges and rust when I take it to the wreckers at the end of its life, but it got there. That is a very unusual instruction in the manual for these vehicles. The kind of thing you'd skim over and then a few seconds later.... "what?!?
P.S. I'd have to say the underside takes more of a beating, if not undercoated.
Cant be used off road.
Cant go up hills.
Cant be used in the rain.
Cant handle a little bird poop.
Clearly this is the ultimate American All Terrain Vehicle...
I'm beginning to feel like calling Musk a Snakeoil Salesman is being unnecessarily insulting to Snakeoil Salesmen...
Did hesitate a bit, but this is actually true as those Italian cars didn't show a sign of rust after a couple of days in the rain.
Mind you, what you see on the Tesla is merely cosmetical and the structural integrity of it might (!) be more resistant than a 70s Alfa Rusteo. While I can't recall the model (maybe Alfasud Sprint) but do remember that the car jack would go higher and higher through the cassis without lifting the car a bit - it was held together by paint and faith.
I'd be more worried about what's going on with the steel chassis. Dissimilar metals in contact with each other in water, especially water that contains ionic solutes, will result in galvanic action. And one metal will corrode at the expense of the other, usually the steel in the case of SS and non-SS steels in contact with each other. Given how Musk has a reality distorion field problem like Steve Job's, it would not a big surprise if the chassis rust out from under these cars.
https://www.appmfg.com/blog/how-to-prevent-galvanic-corrosion-between-carbon-and-stainless-steel
We always use large 500 gram blocks of ZINC placed at vulnerable points to ensure the SACRIFICIAL ANODE gets truly sacrificed FIRST when Galvanic Corrosion aka Bi-Metallic Corrosion has a chance of happening between two metals of differing electrical current carrying potential! Usually at the joints and seams, you place your sacrificial anode at the point where the shorter distance electrically is between the ZINC block and the metal most vulnerable to the corrosion. You want the pitting to happen on the ZINC block first.
Every few months (or even years sometimes!), just replace the ZINC blocks and you have solved your issue!
For the Tesla Cybertruck, our parent aerospace company (i.e. NCA - North Canadian Aerospace) already bought a few of them and when they arrived at our main Vancouver facility, we dumped the tires and wheels and went with 40 inch diameter TWEEL technology (i.e. polymer springy wheels invented by Michelin in the 1980's!) that do not use pneumatic technology to support the truck but rather cross-weave springy polymer wheels and a solid rubber tire grip-strip that is truly 4x4 off-road worthy AND is puncture proof!
We put on some Liquid Springs Suspension systems to improve the ride and got a higher lift and then coated the trucks body with Line-X brand truck bed liner EVERYWHERE to rust and corrode proof the body. Some of our Cybertrucks have a Mossy Oak or Evergreen Coastal Forest cammouflage pattern fully-body vinyl wrap on them instead of the Line-X!
We will also eventually get around to replacing the Lithium batteries with higher-charge-density Al-S (Aluminum-Sulfur) and changing the motors over to Cobalt-Samarium which is far more cold and heat resistant so can accept higher currents from far more powerful batteries. The Cybertruck is quite well-behaved off-road and on-road so I don't really see the issues that are currently being ranted about online. I do have an issue with the A-pillar restricted viewing angles leave large blind spots but the back seats are quite roomy (at 6'2, 270 lbs) for a guy of my size. It is, of course, WICKEDLY FAST! Feels like a fighter jet on a steam-assist takeoff from a carrier deck and kicks you back into the seat like no tomorrow! Only thing missing now is the combined-Refrigerator/Freezer compartment, an on-board combined microwave/convection oven and built-in Nespresso Cappucino/Coffee maker!
The Cybertruck is just fine as-is! So enjoy it if you have it! Change the tires over to 37 inch Goodyear Duratracs or Nitto EXO Grapplers if you want TRUE off-road performance! You need to do some finangling to get 37's to fit BUT it can be done! We CNC-machined some custom metal wheels for some and made inhouse-made TWEEL wheels for others because that was the only way to fit the new Liquid Springs suspension onto the Cybertruck.
V
We can CNC-machine an all-Titanium Alloy, Thick-film Corundum-Ceramic-coated 3000 HP engine in less than 6 hours! We also put TWIN 70,000 lbs of Thrust in-house designed and built turbojet engines into 100+ foot long Deep V-Hull Ocean race boats! We can make, build and modify ANYTHING we want! Be it a V12 3000 HP engine, an 80 Million Square foot underground supercomputer data centre, a 50 PetaFLOP 2 THz combined-CPU/GPU/DSP-superchip or an entire SSTO Spaceplane! There isn't ANYTHING we cannot design, engineer, build and test in-house!
So YES! We can and DO modify the Tesla Cybertruck to our heart's delight! You should see it when we finally put in our 8x the energy-density multi-megawatt/hour Aluminum-Sulfur battery packs into the thing that can drive 1600 miles (2400+ km) on a single charge WHILE towing 25,000 lbs!
V
Hey man, I still haven't seen anything about your super-duper mega AI chips that are going to make everything redundant. When are we going to see them again? Or is it all a smelly load of stinky mess like everything else you spend worryingly large amounts of time writing...
When it was first shown, my immediate thought was there was no *way* you could ever imagine a builder chucking dusty bags of cement onto the back of that "truck" before he heads off to his next job.
Because it was so obviously never meant for real work like that. It's purely an image vehicle, and the type of people who would pay its inflated price would never risk damaging that expensive stainless steel body by using it for actual pick-up-truck-like things. (Much like people who never risk actually taking their expensive 4x4s off-road.)
But the fact that it couldn't do half these things even if you wanted it to, and that the pretty, wannabe-macho stainless steel finish will corrode if a pigeon craps on it? That sums it all up.
When it was first shown, my immediate thought was there was no *way* you could ever imagine a builder chucking dusty bags of cement onto the back of that "truck" before he heads off to his next job.
No - they'd use a van, so that their cement and tools don't get soaked before they even get to their next job.
> No - they'd use a van, so that their cement and tools don't get soaked before they even get to their next job.
Well, since we're nitpicking... :-)
If you live in a climate/country where that's a regular occurrence/risk, then yeah. You'd probably have bought a van rather than a pick-up truck in the first place. (Indeed, now that I think about it, that'd explain perfectly why vans are generally used for that sort of thing in the UK and pick-up trucks are comparatively rare compared to the US.) (*)
But the fact remains that pick-up trucks do seem to be quite common for work/professional usage in the US (where I'd assume they'd use a tarpaulin if rain is only an occasional risk?). They also seem to be quite common for suburbanites who use massive, expensive image-focused models as little more than oversized replacements for cars because they like the hardworking All-American macho associations while they drive them to and from their desk job.
I'd say that the Cybertruck was obviously in the latter category, but in its defence(!), it's *so* obviously in the latter category that it's not really pretending not to be. Or maybe I'm cutting it too much slack.
(*) Are pickup trucks still common in damper/wetter areas of the US, and is this because the pan-American culture that pickup trucks are so embedded in overrides any issues of practicality? Or are there other issues that make pickup trucks a more practical choice for the US regardless?
Are pickup trucks still common in damper/wetter areas of the US, and is this because the pan-American culture that pickup trucks are so embedded in overrides any issues of practicality? Or are there other issues that make pickup trucks a more practical choice for the US regardless?
They're pretty common everywhere regardless of the weather. The "expensive image-focused models" in the suburbs will often have a soft or hard bed cover that all-but permanently attached to make it like a huge, inconvenient trunk (boot, in Legacy English (I'm kidding now, lol)). Some people that actually do work with them will put a "cap" on, which is a roof-line height cover. To be honest, if you're regularly moving around dirty/dusty stuff a cap makes a ton of sense since it's separated from the passengers unlike a van.
My family, other than my brother-in-law, hasn't owned pickups. We've had a number of vans, some mini some not, and my parents have moved towards large-ish but not giant SUVs. The pickup truck is 90% image, and 10% cost since being "trucks" they can skirt of bunch of the safety and emissions regulations.
"To be honest, if you're regularly moving around dirty/dusty stuff a cap makes a ton of sense since it's separated from the passengers unlike a van."
You can get split vans as well, though they are more common in box formation than plain van.
"they can skirt of bunch of the safety and emissions regulations"
Perverse incentives ahoy.
Trucks are (or at least became) common due to to perverse incentives in the US if I recall correctly - being unconstrained by requirements like "get more than a mile per gallon"
There are very few things for which a pickup is actually better than a van - ridiculously high load bay for one immediate negative point, no protection from weather, wind, sun, rain, debris or theft is another.
Vans can also be commercial vehicles in the US, same rules applied, so that's not the issue. And there are plenty of work vans in the US, they're just used for different things.
Pickups are better for hauling stuff that isn't hurt by moisture and can be loaded in bulk. Stuff like loads of mulch, loads of rocks, loads of firewood (it'll dry once it gets where it's going).
And since it doesn't rain all the time in the US, they're also good for transporting stuff like bags of concrete mix.
The big advantage over a van is that they can easily be washed out, so stuff that's messy isn't a problem. Vans suck for hauling dirty loads.
Actual work trucks aren't typically lifted. And the higher load floor than a van is actually nice if loading docks are involved.
Cant be used off road.
Cant go up hills.
Cant be used in the rain ....
But it has really, really amazing acceleration. Something you might really appreciate if you find yourself pursued by a large prehistoric reptile. And the bullet resistant skin would certainly come in handy if said reptile is armed.
"immediately remove corrosive substances (such as grease, oil, bird droppings, tree resin, dead insects, tar spots, road salt, industrial fallout, etc.)"
Bird droppings, road salt and (some) industrial fallout -- OK, these are known to be corrosive, but grease, oil, resin and dead insects?
"Stainless" steel is a rust resistant alloy by virtue of containing chromium among other constituents (in some cases, molybdenum), resulting in a surface that's highly reactive with atmospheric oxygen, rapidly forming molecular scale impervious barrier of oxide on the surface. Corrosion resistance depends to a great extent on the composition of the alloy. So "stainless" is a term without real meaning unless qualified. Standard alloys include 301, 302, 303, 304, 316, each of which has different properties including resistance to corrosion. The lower grades are (obviously) cheaper, so there's something to think about if the grade is not mentioned.
"corrosion resistance varies inversely with the strength of the steel"
Not quite as simple as that, There's a very informative set of data sheets on stainless steels here.
It rains like shit here but stainless exterior fittings remain remarkably unblemished. This really shouldn't be happening. I'd suggest there is some less corrosion resistant material around there that's happy to form a circuit with the steel. If that's the case, pretty much anything will corrode.
I'd suggest there is some less corrosion resistant material around there that's happy to form a circuit with the steel. If that's the case, pretty much anything will corrode.
That's what I was just wondering, ie using the chassis/body as ground and maybe increasing the voltage. Not sure if the latter would make galvanic corrosion issues worse or not. If it does, then I guess it'll manifest where there are dissimilar metals. Watching a video about restoring a flooded Maclaren made me wonder about this given the amount of corrosion on fastenings. A very expensive car let down by maybe some cheap fasteners instead of 'marine grade' stainless ones.
Rivets and whatever it's mounted to spring to mind. There are reasons why stainless steel isn't used for car bodywork and cost isn't the main one. We'll have to wait and see whether the damage is purely cosmetic, though rust rarely is, or whether it's back to th advanced metallurgy course.
A good pint. Or to point out what I was told asking the question as a child - Stainless is two words. It doesn't mean that it will be stain free, rather that it will Stain Less than normal steel and other materials. But it will still stain (and corrode depending on how it is composed. handled, used, what it comes into contact with, etc.).
That's down to the combination of hard water and the salt used to soften it: sodium and calcium with an electroylte is not a good combination. You've probably got the water set as too hard, try and reduce and see how that works – it will take a few washes to become noticeable.
Mine's the one with the pH meter in the pocket.
Also very weird, there are magnetic and non-magnetic in the sense of will a magnet stick to it versions.
Austenitic stainless steel is non-magnetic.
There are five basic families of "stainless steel" and without a proper description and specification "stainless steel" on its own means very little. All kinds rust. At least it's less stupid than the DeLorean, which was an under-powered fibreglass body sports car with a dangerous door design that only had a stainless steel skin. That would come loose with vibration. So the only thing the DeLorean was any good for was as a film prop in "Back to the Future".
I wonder is the Cybertruck also a bit of a gimmick?
> I wonder is the Cybertruck also a bit of a gimmick?
You think? ;-)
Personally, I'd be fare more likely to wonder whether it *isn't* a gimmick.
Anyway, chill out, all you Testla fanboys- I was only joking there. I've never had less than 100% faith that the Cybertruck is a complete gimmick.
But it is not as if rain is pure, de-ionised water. I remember the scares ages ago about 'acid rain'. Just wondering who thought that an untreated metal body shell would be fine in an industrialised country's atmosphere, with all that sulphur in the atmosphere. In any case just your own fingerprints and hand prints will be slightly corrosive, so whatever you do, Don't Touch It!
Oh well, I haven't have the space for one anyway.
They were hardy "just scares" at the time when power stations were burning lots of sulphur-containing* coal. Sulphur dioxide reacts readily with atmospheric moisture to form sulphurous acid / oxidises further to sulphur trioxide and reacts with moisture to form sulphuric acid. Neither of those things are good for arboreal forests, or indeed, for uncoated steel vanity-wagons.
*I'll call it sulfur when Americans can spell aluminium.
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> I remember the scares ages ago about 'acid rain'
which was still so pure that it was perfectly acceptable as drinking water. The issue was that it was _just_ acidic enough to kill plantlife (CO2 in sufficient concentrations has a similar effect and a few methane clathrate blowouts can do the trick - it's what happened in the last few years of the Permian extinction and what turned things from "mass extinction - 70% or so" to "96-97%". It's also showing signs of beginning to happen in arctic deposits. Laptev Sea seeps are a aerious warning siren)
The internal juices from dead insects are highly corrosive in some species, especially the "love bugs" we have here in Florida, who die by the hundreds of millions because they congregate above the warm roadways in summer, and form a nice paste on the front of everyone's grille. (though in recent years, they've actually evolved away from that)
Even hedgehogs these days run rather than balling up in response to a car.
Oh! Citation needed! How this works is something that's always fascinated me, ie nature vs nurture and general Darwinian natural selection. So Hedgehogs that ball instead of bail don't get to pass their genes on. But I've also recently read a paper from some bat biologists. Previously it was though that bats were good at collision avoidance. This group used high speed cameras to show that they're not.
Why stainless steel? I'd have thought that it would make the vehicle very heavy compared to, say. Al or composite - or is the weight of the body small in comparison to the battery?
It sounds like a pretty shonky stainless, whatever the case. My knives and forks don't go "rusty". I've been camping and diving with both my penknife and my watch and neither are showing any signs of corrosion in spite of never getting anything other than a cursory wipe with whatever rag is to hand. Is there some trade off between structural performance and corrosion resistance?
I sometimes used to work on a shipyard and they had a quarantine area for stainless parts so they'd never come into contact with mild steel. If they did the mild would contaminate the stainless with rust, and then once started it would spread and make the part useless.
>Yeah if corrosion resistance is required using same tools and working area for regular steel and stainless is absolutely forbidden.
What would happen if someone chucked one of those 4 quid bags of atomised black iron (magnetite?) powder offa eBay over it?
It started with Starship. The first concepts of starship were going to be made from composite materials. They got as far as pressure testing a 9m diameter liquid oxygen tank to destruction and taking delivery of a 9m diameter mandrill to wrap fibres around. Then they worked out that they could cut the weight be switching to stainless steel. Composites have difficulty at cryogenic temperatures and the maximum useful temperature is much lower than steel. Using steel allows a much lighter heat shield and is much less difficult to modify.
Curving stainless in one axis like a cylinder is possible with a large radius. Curves in two axes (sphere or saddle) are hard. Welds are normally weaker than the parts welded. SpaceX had to learn a large amount about working with stainless and Musk was listening. Musk took the idea of a stainless car to Tesla where he does more talking and less listening compared to SpaceX. Cyber truck's flat panels come from the difficulty of curving stainless. SpaceX can now weld two axis curved sheets of stainless really well.
Tesla should have kept cyber truck as a concept for the future until they worked out the issues. Instead they committed to mass production in a material that was known to be troublesome before they had solutions.
Composites have difficulty at cryogenic temperatures and the maximum useful temperature is much lower than steel.
Also some stainless undergoes a martensitic transition at cryogenic temperatures (~100K, I think - it's been a long time) which means that they get useful extra strength when used for LN2 or anything colder.
Because Musk thought it sounded neat and sexy, and worth the extra weight and manufacturing headaches. BTW, it's 3mm stainless. And "bulletproof", so long as your antagonist doesn't have anything more powerful than a 9mm pistol, and doesn't just shoot you through the side window, where they could actually see you. Anyone at Tesla who took a different position probably got fired (Musk's customary management style).
9 mm can go supersonic with the proper bullet.
Most 9mm is supersonic unless you want to get subsonic for some reason. Armour piercing capablity is mostly a function of the projectile's sectional density and velocity though, so ratio of the projectile's mass to it's cross-section. One of those situations where bigger isn't necessarily better. You'll notice the Cyberduck doesn't come with an NIJ armour.. I mean armor rating. Can't think why. Another factor though can be slope angle, which creates a greater effective thickness and can increase deflection. Something the Cyberduck also can't do. So it may be armoured against a hail storm, but not a car jacker with a 5.7mm.
Fortunately, not directly on the goof. Yes, he owns SpaceX, but the folks that do the actual work are experts. Although he's apparently constantly butting in, they probably to a great extent ignore him, not least because the aerospace industry has established standards that have to be met. The US auto industry, on the other hand, is largely self regulating.
Upvote the above.
SpaceX doesn't just ignore Musk's loonier spur-of-the-moment notions; they have a dedicated team of Musk minders specifically tasked with steering him away from anything he might break, and mitigating his worst excesses. Let him push the shiny buttons, preside at major launch events, and name the drone ships, but keep him away from the actual engineering.
The dead bird site lacks any such mechanism, which goes some distance to explain how he managed to do so much damage to it so fast.
That may be the case, but Musk has sufficient control of the general direction of SpaceX (committing to contracts, general process of development, business direction), that he still appears quite capable of introducing uncertainty, if not complete rabbit holes.
Certainly the solution they have committed to for Artemis appears to be extremely poorly architected and planned, and the payments for development are... interesting. Regardless of how clever the folks are at SpaceX, they've been put in a position where they may be regarded as the single point of failure for a hugely (and possibly unnecessarily) complex mission, required to solve too many novel problems to meet the deadlines and without sufficient budget to complete the development process without huge losses.
Musk is not just a figurehead at SpaceX - he controls the money, and with it their obligations and overall direction. I'm pretty sure Starship would not have the current architecture (or even exist) without his direct influence.
SpaceX won't be the single point of failure for Artemis, NASA has also contracted Blue Origin to develop a lander.
It's a more conventional design, but it's from a company that so far has only launched sub-orbital rockets (and is also owned by a potentially volatile billionaire).
Still, I'm not a US citizen, so it's not my taxes being wasted :)
From what I understand, Blue Origin are contracted for a separate mission that's due to land some four years after SpaceX's attempt. Given Musk's special ability to miss deadlines (and the fact that there's less that two years to SpaceX's scheduled moon landing and they haven't even got a non-explodey rocket), it's entirely possible that Blue Origin will beat SpaceX to the moon.
Blue Origin appears to be taking a more incremental and more traditional route to development - which means they don't get quite the hype cycle SpaceX currently receives, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are behind their schedule, or incapable of getting there in time for their contracted mission.
Certainly the rivalry between the two owners means that both companies will be throwing everything they have at the problem. Place your bets as to what will stick.
I don't like what you described.
they were doing the same thing for Trump and I don't like it one bit.
If someone's name and money is on a project, he must take responsibility for that project.
It's disingenuous to say the least, that he is living off of his "perceived genius" and getting richer and richer, but this "ingenuity" is a fraud, and the real "ingenuity" belongs to people who stop the fake genius from ruining their work. They shouldn't protect him from himself, He is not a child, people trust his name and his words.
He has to be liable to the same consequences that the rest of us will face if we do something or say something moronic.
She deserves "a lot of" the credit?? How about ALL of it! Does Musk actually do anything at SpaceX other than take credit for its accomplishments? He gets credit for getting it off the ground, but she and the engineers working for her are the sole reason for its success.
It's my understanding that back when it was starting up he arranged enough funding such that SpaceX still existed by the time the engineers had got Falcon 1 capable of lifting a paying payload.
Since then, it appears that he merely breaks things and causes delays whenever he escapes his minders.
He is good at hype, and has a big pot of money. Beyond that, he doesn't seem to be wearing very much.
That'll be the new trend! Fire (salt-)water pistols at the CyberTruck and see it dissolve. Can't wait for the (a)social media to post the challenges.
And very soon afterwards you'll be imprisoned for firing your soaker!
Just find a spot where a puddle can be formed. Then all you need is salt water and couple months time (reaction speed depends on temperature) and the sheet might have already tiny spot rusted through and any time water is introduced corrosion continues.
They chose something that's the least corrosion resistant 30X grade. Just wait until they see what road salt does to it...
And being Tesla it's a fair bet they skipped any cleaning and passivation steps during manufacture which will make it even worse; they like to 'optimise' out anything they think they can get away with.
Customers will be have been thinking it'll be like 316 when really it'll end up looking really rough without care.
ex-Californiia kid here. No road salt there. Most of the populated area gets maybe a dusting once every few decades. And where they do get appreciable snow, they often get stunning amounts. Too much for salt to have much affect. They depend on plowing and for those who insist on driving in the stuff tire chains. I do not think putting chains on a Tesla Cyber-Monster looks like much fun.
Even though it's been made clear on many many occasions that Tesla engineers don't believe anywhere exists outside a particular part of California, for some reason they still manage to find customers in those other mythical parts of the world.
These things are going to get many opportunities to show off their decorative corrosion, just like other models got to show off their heaters that didn't work or their water sealing that, well, didn't.
Yup. It’s Teslas world. We’re all just Beta Testers in it.
'Fanboi' icon because...you know
Self-crashing cars marketed as self-driving, terrible product quality built under dangerous, awful working conditions, hiring whole teams to dissuade the owners from using their warranty, selling domestic-use flamethrowers, touting mass-transit vaporware, the list goes on.
It's hardly surprising that he'd sell a flashy, expensive, basically useless truck that rusts in the rain.
I had a disagreement with a newspaper tech reporter who insists that Musk is an amazingly successful, innovative entrepreneur. You need a pretty narrow field of view to see him that way.
Well, to be fair he has, despite all his major flaws been extremely successful, whether or not that success was personally earned or entirely off the back of some smart people around him. He has, or those he hires have, been pretty innovative too.
Note: It's still possible to be 'innovative' even if the products you innovate are complete crap - in fact it's much easier to be innovative if you're not actually concerned with improving on what came before ...
Of course 'successful and innovative' is not all that can be used to describe Musk - there are many, many less flattering adjectives that come to mind. You're right it would be a narrow view to suggest that he's only these things, but it would also be narrow view to argue that he's not.
To be fair, a lot of historians don't believe Edison invented much either.
Edison was the money man driving the hype train, while the teams of engineers actually did stuff.
Back then the boss usually personally claimed the patents, that's one thing the USPTO have improved.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
All this means is they used the cheapest grade of stainless possible vs actual quality stuff that is truly corrosion-resistant. I wondered if something like this would happen, and simply laughing that yes, like most cheap Chinese "stainless" things you get from amazon or wish with low-grade metals, they corrode/rust about as bad as steel.
There are trade-offs. DeLorean used 304 steel, according to the mighty Google - whereas Tesla are using 301. 301 is less good at resisting corrosion, but stronger and more impact resistant. 316 would be better still at not rusting - also more expensive - I'm pretty sure it's harder, but not sure if it's as flexible.
Personally I suspect there's a good reason only one company has gone the stainless route with car building - a company that also went bust.
"You need metal to deform on impact if you want even the slightest chance of it passing safety regs."
Irrelevant as we are talking about body panels and the main function of those is to keep driver dry. All the structural elements are ordinary structural steel, most probably just painted, definitely not stainless.
Actually you DON'T NEED structurally deforming materials to ABSORB IMPACT as pneumatic, hydraulic or magnetic systems can perform the same functions as a deformable metal structures.
Literal bumpers and side-bars of impact absorbing material or an impact-absorbing pneumatic or hydraulic piston-like system can absorb frontal and side impacts quite well if designed properly. Shear thickening fluids could do the same as metal bumpers. Even electronically-controlled Rheological Fluids (i.e. Magnetic Ferro-Fluid-like liquids!) could work as an impact absorber. I've been personally working on this myself for aerospace applications. We will see what me and our fancy supercomputers come up with soon enough!
V
A bet.
The initial idea was advertised with big promises. Tesla are famous for being slow at starting mass production. Back in the early days putting down a deposit to get a place near the start of the queue looked like a safe opportunity to scalp people who did not have such foresight. Back then, Musk was a clandestine transphobic Nazi. Later, after spending too much time in Texas he thought it would be a good idea to boast of these qualities. In the mean time Tesla has strengthened its litigation team with people selected for their ability as street fighters and prepared for scalpers competing against Tesla for early sales.
> people selected for their ability as street fighters
Well, that's Musk gone and spoiled my plan to take the piss out of his previous insistence that his Twitter employees should be "hardcore" by asking if these "street fighters" should be "hardcore" too.
Because he already said so. The article itself says "Elon Musk says he's recruiting 'hardcore street fighters'".
How can you mock someone who's already pretty much self-mocking?
Let's remind outselves that the this isn't coming out of the mouth of an immature nineteen-year-old Internet Tough Guy, but a from fifty-two year old man/child who still thinks "420" is funny. FFS.
I think it was to distract attention from his failure to deliver an electric lorry, which had in turn been announced to distract attention from the huge quality problem with the Model S. "Ooh, quirrels" is more-or-less the entire thought process of the fanboiz.
I think it was to distract attention from his failure to deliver an electric lorry, which had in turn been announced to distract attention from the huge quality problem with the Model S
Don't forget the new Roadster. At least the Cyberduck saves on polygons.
So much cope in that Cybertruck owners forum. You've got people calling the original poster a liar / bot. Then others blaming it from metal particles from being shipped by rail. And pollen. Cultists can't bear bad things being said about the totems of their leader. Of course the owners will gladly shell out extra money to get the entire vehicle wrapped in paint protection film.
I truly cruel social media "prank" would be to encourage people to throw iron powder at Cybertrucks, nothing I'd encourage myself.
This is such a a great example of technologists hubris. They always think they're going to change everything with their latest gadget. Sometimes they do, but mostly they just inspire possibility and it's the traditional engineers with their long histories and deep consideration that make it eventually viable. Why do you think the paint on your car is so expensive? It's designed to prevent rust for 20+ years. People have been applying coatings to metal to prevent oxidation for literally ever. The freaking knights of the dark ages knew this, but Tesla doesn't? Worse, consumers bought it? I have negative sympathy for it.
Seems like once again Xitler is fucking around and finding out why other car makers do a lot of the things they do. Like, for example, applying a clearcoat to all vehicles. Helps prevent that pesky rust problem. Being out on the open road doesn't mean I want to see it zipping past because there's a huge hole in the undercarriage. I mean really, relative to the rest of the vehicle, how much does it cost to apply a clearcoat? This just strikes me as miserly penny pinching that's going to end up costing more in the long run when people start lobbing sueballs, not to mention the damage to the brand. Without the logo you might be hard pressed to tell a Corolla from a Civic at a casual glance while driving down the road, but there's no mistaking the Cybertruck. Given it looks like a rock monster fucked a triangle, you're immediately going to know what it is and who made it.
He will fix it. The other Tesla's are amazing. Know your limits and develop patterns for success. The truck can go mudding. It is high torque. You have to train for it. It can simply dig holes too. It is a learning experience for all. The next software update will mimick a lower torque approach. The truck goes zero to 60 in 2.7 seconds. Faster than a Lamborghini.
Musk is a busy man.
Sounds like there is going to be quite a market for after market paint jobs! - you know, that clear outer layer of paint you find on normal cars.
There might even be some "survivalists" that choose camouflage transfers to match assault rifles they use for "legitimate deer hunting" (clearly unaware that several hundred bullets ruins the texture of the meat)
You can buy industrial anhydrous isopropanol. I use it for cleaning small hobby projects and repairs. Wiping down a whole Cybertruck with that might cost around $80. There's a pretty good chance you'd set your arm on fire in the process, so reserve another $60000 dollars for 'Merican medical bills too.
I continue to find it hilarious that this truck, your manliest of Trump 4 lyfe white nationalist no homo mans only beefcake, is such a complete fragile snowflake compared to my Camry Hybrid (or Subaru, but those are known rugged).
Your $80,000 Sports Futility Vehicle can't even make it up my driveway, which my Camry Hybrid has no problems with. ... ... Which I also guess is the case for a lot of cybertruck owners too, gasping for breath after a hard typing session defending whatever Elmo says on Twitter.
You can disagree with a lot of things I said above, but you can not, without being in complete denial of reality (okay, yeah, MAGA/Tory), deny that my Camry Hybrid family sedan is a more capable, rugged, vehicle which will need far less maintenance than your Playstation 1 excreta.
Just paint it - white as in elephant although donkey dick pink would be favourite.
I was wondering if you could nitride the chassis? - I don't know if that reduces corrosion but would harden these uglies up. :)
Back in the late '70s fish oil stopped a second hand Ford Escort from further rusting - the pong prevented any possibility of theft and subsequently the car never did rust.
We have a couple of teaspoons from S.Korea made from surgical steel - extremely hard as to be unscratchable and don't appear to corrode - another thought.
I imagine painting these vehicles with Vantablacktm would appeal to cybertruck community. :)
I was wondering if you could nitride the chassis? - I don't know if that reduces corrosion but would harden these uglies up. :)
Don't go giving him ideas. I guess you could try coating it in something like boron nitride. This would potentially provide surface protection and make it slightly more aerodynamic. But AFAIK, that requires vapour deposition, which requires vacuum deposition... Wait, doesn't someone have some large vacuum chambers they were planning to play air hockey and drive cars through?
To do vapor deposition coating each cybertruck will take a ride on that monstrosity that has yet to make it to orbit. They will do it in the vacuum of space and just drop it through the atmosphere to land it right on your driveway.
Just don't park your Camry in the same spot.
Stainless steel is an umbrella term given to many different steel alloys. Some are easy to form or machine (stainless is a PITA to machine) and some have resistant properties that make them good for food or marine applications.
I expect that the specific alloy was chosen for mechanical and manufacturing reasons and it just is not one of the more resistant alloys.
As a 25 year stainless steel appliance owner, stainless requires constant maintenance. Anyone stupi, er rich enough to buy a Cyber truck should invest in:
1) Pay a automotive maint shop to clear coat it
2) Then pay to have in Ceramic coated
3) Expect to re-ceramic coat it every 3-5 years depending upon your climate, # of car washes, etc
What moron though untreated stainless would be a great vehicle material?
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