The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 527 points – The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels
businessinsider.com

The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels::The Cybertruck's steel is made in "coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper," WSJ reported.

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You mean the thing everyone said was going to happen actually happened. Lmao

The Cybertruck's steel is made in "coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper,"

All steel is shipped from the steel mill in coils just like that.

Other manufacturers of all manner of stainless products seem to have figured out a solution to the problem.

Other manufacturers of all manner of stainless products seem to have figured out a solution to the problem.

Two design choices together probably make the problem multiplicatively worse:

  1. Flat panels are not anywhere as stiff as curved panels.
  2. Mechanical parameters of the stainless alloy they're using (eg it might retain the coiled shape more than some other plain steel alloys).

I can't get over the flatness... those panels surely rattle too? Or do they void-fill the doors and body with something?

Flat panels are not anywhere as stiff as curved panels

Same for windows. So much for "thermonuclear explosion-proof glass", Elon.

Also, the shape has horrible aerodynamics. If it had a combustion engine, they couldn't sell it in large parts of the world due to fuel efficiency.

Also, the shape has horrible aerodynamics. If it had a combustion engine, they couldn't sell it in large parts of the world due to fuel efficiency.

I doubt it will get a type approval in Europe anyway, seems absolutely no consideration for pedestrian safety has been given. If this thing is as stiff and solid as Musk said it was it is also going to fail miserably during crash testing. Having been in a car crash this weekend I can testify how crumple zones save lives. Good thing the whole "but it's a light truck" loophole they used in the US isn't going to fly here.

Knowing about crumple zones makes you ask why you would even want a "stiff and solid" vehicle in the first place lmao.

So they can't sue you after the crash cuz no one survives it.

They'll probably have kamikaze mode for when it detects a crash about to happen it speeds up.

So you can absorb all that sweet sweet kinetic energy being released yourself of course. Energy gud right? And as you already paid for that energy at the Fast Charger, it seems only fair that they give it back to you when you crash.

Point 2 in particular is huge. Depending on the exact alloy steel can vary wildly in characteristics. One alloy might bend almost as easily as aluminum, while another might be nearly as hard as tungsten. Adding to that proper heat treatment and the difference in the mechanical characteristics of the finished product can be absolutely massive.

Yes but that can be adjusted. The factory can provide what you need. The design is the limiting factor here. Flat panels are simply bad design.

Flat panels cause problems but they're not insurmountable, they just need to be taken into consideration. It's going to be more expensive to make them flat because you'll have to include more material behind the panels. In a sense they cease to be structural and instead are more decorative.

From an engineering perspective it's a horrendous choice, but a perfectly valid one from an aesthetics perspective and it's far from the first time some designer has made a decision that the engineering department has cursed them for.

I imagine the real issue here is that Musk or the upper management at Tesla is trying to penny pinch and is unwilling to make either design concessions or to pay for the engineering time and materials necessary to fix this right.

Don't older cars have mostly flat panels? So it should be possible, right?

How old?

Early 1900's: Yes. Metal panels had the same problem, timber panels did not (their thickness stops them from flapping).

Late 1900's: I don't think anyone used flat? There were definitely designs intended to look flat (esp 80's and early 90's), but there were still subtle curves to those panels to bias them and stop them flapping, as far as I recall.

Happy to be proven wrong :)

but there were still subtle curves to those panels to bias them and stop them flapping

Okay, that explains it. Thanks!

Seems like tesla has an answer too:

sell the poorly made trucks to rubes while you crank out more as cheaply as possible.

Company doing stuff they have no expertise with. Neither have i, but i don't promise silly products.

I saw one of the “RC” release candidates in the wild in San Francisco two weeks ago. It looked like shit in person. Marker lights weren’t aligned, the stainless already had fucked up scuffs and discoloration, etc. Water spots showed up just like my stainless kitchen sink.

You can see the stainless smudges and water spots here. I wish I got the tail lights when the brakes were off.

Also, the brakes flashed at you. Super annoying.

Similar to the one I saw in Oregon a few weeks ago. It had fingerprint smudges all over the body. Seems like it'd be a huge pain to keep clean and probably need a sealant or clear wrap over the top.

QC issues aside, the design is pure ass

I thought it might grow on me but the flat tailgate looks absolutely atrocious like a door on some shitty commercial freezer or something.

It's one of the biggest pieces of evidence (besides X...) of Musk's growing mental illness and bubble of sycophants. I'm sure many very respected people in the field told him this would be a Very Bad Idea. I doubt any still work at Tesla. They should've had the first EV truck to market, now they're left only with this abomination.

The lights look so shit. Never noticed before

Well, Duh. Everything is over promise, delay, underdeliver. All Teslas have crappy panel gaps. Why would anyone expect anything better?

I wonder how much better Tesla quality would be if they dumped Elon. Is it a systemic problem, or just poor leadership?

I'm hoping shareholders do push him out. They're still in a great position to compete if they focus on the right things (build quality, designing cars people actually want, etc). The charging network is still the best around and they're still ahead in battery tech, but they need to stop chasing FSD and give up on this cybertruck thing.

Charging network doesn’t matter anymore for them since basically every manufacturer (save for VW as of this writing) has signed on for the NACS. You should be seeing fords charging at Tesla chargers by either late December or early January.

Battery tech they’re mid on. They haven’t seemed to improve the pack much compared to rivals. Some Chinese manufacturers are even producing better packs.

FSD is something they should continue to pursue, but Elon needs to pull his head out of his ass and accept that things like LiDar and Radar are important additions to the car so that it can continue to “see” even when the cameras aren’t seeing perfectly or at all.

Build quality is their biggest uphill. It could be systemic, but I also suspect there is a bit of “move it along” coming from upper management and Elon. So that’ll never get fixed.

They said they're a tech company and the car is tech on wheel, so i guess it's just competency and inexperience issue.

dumped Elon. Is it a systemic problem

Don't you know that the revolution eats its children? The electric cars revolution is over. Tesla was part of the revolution. Now Tesla is obsolete and the others are going to take over.

I doubt anything but a man child would have gone with stainless steel.

But the normal Tesla build quality and gaps would still be there. Because that would involve major overhauls and retraining and is never going to happen while the company is successful... And won't happen if the board is looking to sell

Not a Tesla fan but this article is garbage. Basically all sheet metal comes on coils "that resemble toilet paper" including the metal that other manufacturers use.

It definitely seems like an irrelevant point. All car sheet steel arrives in rolls.

I'd be more concerned about how it is formed into panels, how resistant it is to corrosion, what tolerances parts have, how easy is it to replace parts, whether there are visible production flaws due to it being naked steel, and if construction techniques or material thickness makes it more dangerous to occupants or pedestrians in collisions.

I certainly won't be surprised if pictures start appearing in a year or two of cybertrucks that have been completely fucked by salt water corrosion, or heat warppage or other issues caused by their design.

I certainly won't be surprised if pictures of that don't start appearing in a year or two because the things still haven't been delivered

(I know, I know, they're supposed to be delivering the first ones in two days, but I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if that somehow falls through)

yeah. panel gaps aren't a sheet metal issue, it's been a Tesla issue since forever.

Yeah, but other manufacturers don't try to origami sheet metal into a car.

The missing point is it's a property of stainless steel that it remembers being a coil and can unflatten itself weeks later if the manufacturer doesn't know how to work around that.

I've worked with stainless steel (specifically 304, 430 and 401) for 15 years and the steel shouldn't have a memory after being run through a de-coiling machine that is configured properly. Excessive heat in a focused area would definitely cause it to warp but this can usually be overcome by adding geometry to stiffen the parts. It seems like the team at Tesla is missing a step somewhere.

Flat panels suck for resistance to bending, the compound curves and folds pressed into most car panels give them more rigidity

If only someone had figured that out in the last 120 years. Oh wait...

What’s funny to me is how fast the Korean car companies learned “metal bending.” They went from generic easy shapes with little forming to adding in creases all over the damn car just to prove they could do it and replicate it, and they did that in the span of a couple decades at the most.

Well at least Elon can pretend that all the panels were within 10 microns of gap when they left the factory, and it totally warped 2 cm (20000 microns) on the way to the customers.

So wait. You're telling me that materials can expand and contract due to many conditions such as shifts in temperature? Ya don't say (that was directed at Elon, not you).

Sure, he could say that. It's still his/Tesla's fault. Shipping the product is part of the process, and they'd still be responsible for that (or should be at least. Who knows in this dystopia).

He'd probably just say that it arrived in perfect shape, the customer just fucked it up and are lying. Or something like that.

Seems like the answer here is "You're an idiot if you buy Tesla products".

Essy lesson to learn, imo.

Good old fashioned blame the customer. He's so good at it his fanbois will do it for him.

What a surprise! The other well known stainless steel car, the Delorean DMC-12, is FAMOUS for being a huge pain in the ass to work on. Dents and dings are tremendous problems, and stainless steel is super heavy.

Not to mention all of the manual labour it took to make all the panels to fit properly. No 2 delorean were the same

Depending on the grade, the weight difference between stainless steel and carbon steel of the same thickness is not much of any at all.

Don't most cars use aluminum as well as carbon steel in their frames, to save on weight?

I doubt this has any stainless in the frame. Really it should be a comparison of stainless vs aluminum and plastic body panels

I think the majority just use regular steel. Ford was a talking point when they started using aluminum for the F150 body panels. And then they started running into corrosion issues where the aluminum meets the steel fasteners and frame.

Panel gaps are just a ubiquitous feature of a Tesla. This isn't a surprise, and the apologists will say it's no big deal.

I am not a car guy. Would gaps allow water to come in and causes issues as well as act like asail increasing air resistance?

Probably not in this case. Most vehicle doors are designed to channel any water that enters the gap. But, Tesla may not be aware of this practice and rely only on the seals.

Don't ask questions, just hail Elon our overlord who can do no wrong!

It would slightly increase wind resistance. Every car has weather stripping, making water not a concern even for comparatively very large gaps.

LoL some Tesla's dont even have drainage tubes installed or weather stripping missing or installed incorrectly like needing an article about it

Also if you look up just "water leaking" and "tesla" you will find their forums full of people saying their cars let in water and even one person saying it gets in when they use a car wash and Tesla saying its normal and to just hand wash the vehicle from now on.

Some level of gaps is totally normal but this is a shit show.

You should see the videos of model Y owners (a model they've had many iterations on) roll down their window during rain to get a drive through order and the water pours into the open window directly onto the, you guessed it, button console used to open/close the window and DOOR. I'm sure that won't eventually cause problems. With OPENING THE DOOR.

And it's not just falling rain, it literally channels rain from the glass roof directly into any open window. It's hilarious.

Tesla's quality control just reflects Elons concern for all his biological children.

This isn't even the first time this has happened to a Tesla, at this point this particular problem is just expected.

Much like the wealthy expert who built his own sub, there is a need to listen to other experts. Your employees that aren't fired will be the "yes" people

Every single thing you've ever had that had sheet metal in it came from "coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper". But it's the WSJ, I just assume the writer has never met anyone who works for a living.

Watch what happens when people eventually discover what completely flat panels of sheet metal do in heavy wind.

There is literally a reason why no other auto manufacturer uses flat body panels on cars.

Just so I know, what does happen?

I assume the flat panels have an aerodynamic effect like the underbody of race cars. They ultimately create forces sucking the surface into a direction. And since on the sides it will be never stable it will flap around all the time. You can see that the most with the vertical fin stabilizer of Formula 1 cars. https://old.reddit.com/r/F1Technical/comments/nd2ayw/alpine_flexible_rearwing/

Here is a lot of wobbling and while the vertical changes are intended, the horizontal ones surely aren't and they tried to make it as stiff as possible. Certainly nothing a production car would achieve.

Correct me if I am wrong, as I didn't study this particular area.

Metal does not like to compress at all. But when you make it really thin it will be floppy like a spring you might find in a pen or wind up toy. However you can make it stiff again by making it curved so the sheet has structure/mass going on all directions. Infact believe it or not cars during the 1960/70s had quite a bit of curves dispute being a brick. And that's because they didn't want the panels to dent easily. So when a car has flat faces like the Cyber truck. Those panels don't even have subtle curves to give them structure and they are soo suspectable to dents that a simple brease does the job of denting them.

Cybertruck would be the time machine in a Back to the Future shitty remake if they would make one.

A perfect replacement for the DeLorean: stainless steel body? Check. Failed ego-drive project? TBD but it's not looking good.

I love how this is a joke that just went too far. Elon presented a stupid design, just for attention, as with everything he does. And now they are seriously taking about releasing the ugliest car since the Fiat Multipla.

Fiat Multipla

Damn that's a goofy lookin car. Looks almost like the car that Homer Simpson designed.

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Should have just been left as a quirky concept car. Obviously divisive design but I think it looks best under specific lighting conditions.

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Oh no! You have to respect the “Spaltmaß”! * cries in German *

I mean in the end it is a sign of sloppy craftsmanship. The gaps themselves might not be so bad, but they reflect an alarming lack of quality control, that could very well affect more critical systems.

If I can't trust you to make a good looking turd, how can I trust you to make an actual quality product?

If they were smart, they would pursue nitinol body panels or a similar memory metal. Get a ding in a panel? Take a heat gun to it or leave it out in the sun and the dent is gone. Another benefit would be a ~25% weight reduction.

All they would have to do is figure how to make large panels; which is no easy task, but neither is rocket science. The patent licensing could be a major revenue stream.

Isn't this what Saturn did or is nitinol some sort of metal alloy?

Nitinol is an alloy of 60% nickel and 40% titanium (usually). It can be used in memory materials or to capture energy from heat. Basically it can be bent when it's below a certain temperature (like a regular metal) and it creates force to restore its shape when it's heated.

Yes, I did learn that by playing modded Factorio. Why do you ask?

Just leaving a "Aber die Spaltmaße" comment here.

2 million idiots clambering over themselves to preorder this brainfart of a vehicle.

Yeah it looks like what a toddler would draw if you told them to draw a truck.

The regular Tesla cars have inconsistent panel gaps already, I feel this is a production issue, not a material issue.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The Cybertruck's stainless steel body has been difficult to work with, especially when it comes to the vehicle's fit and finish, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

In October, Tesla set a delivery event for the first Cybertrucks for November 30 after two years of delays — and there's signs the truck will have a smaller release than initially expected.

Meanwhile, Musk has warned that it will be difficult to scale production due to the vehicle's unusual design and said the company aims to produce about a quarter million Cybertrucks per year by 2025.

"When you've got a product with a lot of new technology or any brand new vehicle program, especially one that is as different and advanced as the Cybertruck, you will have problems proportionate to how many new things you're trying to solve at scale," Musk said during Tesla's earnings call last month.

Yet despite the enthusiasm, some Tesla fans have already taken to criticizing the design, including the vehicle's enormous windshield wiper and images of its finger-print smudged doors, as well as misaligned panels.

Auto expert Sandy Munro previously told Insider it's unfair to judge the vehicle based off of images of early Cybertruck prototypes.

The original article contains 589 words, the summary contains 200 words. Saved 66%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Well, if Sandy Munro said to not worry about it we're good. Oh who tf is Sandy Munro?

Sandy Munro is a legit car reviewer. His firms tears down vehicles and predict reliability based on what they find among other things. He's a pretty well respected industry guide. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Munro

Sandy Munro lost all credibility when it came out that, while going on about all these wild claims about Tesla's incredible manufacturing prowess and how everyone else was shit, he held a fair bit of Tesla stock and even went on to gloat about how much he made off it during 2020.

Absolutely zero integrity and no reason to trust a single word he says anymore, because not only has he shown that he won't disclose serious conflicts of interest, but that he'll also gladly abuse them for personal gain. He realized he can make way more money shilling Tesla and selling merch than he ever did with his normal business, and rides off his company's past reputation.

Even if you ignore that, his analyses are basically entirely cost focused, and having seen some of the reports on projects I personally know quite well, he takes an incredibly simplistic view towards component design and focuses on almost entirely on cost/simplicity, with basically zero regard for longevity, function, NVH, etc. Which, for the massive 500+ page reports that are purely for cost and build analysis, is totally fine. However, he then spouts it to the public as if everyone else is an idiot for not wanting their cars to be rattling shitboxes.

He'll praise things like Tesla re-using the suspension from the Model 3 1:1 onto the Model Y because it saves on manufacturing costs and such, but will completely ignore that, until some fairly recent part changes, the Y had literally one of the single worst rides of anything on the road today, because they added 100s of pounds of weight and didn't even bother to change the spring rates.

he takes an incredibly simplistic view towards component design and focuses on almost entirely on cost/simplicity,

Except pop-up door handles. If you don't have extra motors and mechanisms in each door he harps on it (eg: Polestar 2).

Should have taken a closer look at DMC...

At least the Delorean actually looked cool and had some style

Looked? Thing still is awesome looking!

I wasn't using past tense to imply it no longer looks good. I used it because the car is no longer in production.

Chill it was a joke m8

Okay? I know my tone in text isn't always what I intended but I'm confused what in my reply suggested I need to "chill"

Ya don't gotta be so literal man, tis all. I knew what ya ment. It was just supposed to be a funny snarky comment

I truly applaud the attempt to radically innovate, from stainless steel to eliminate car rust (how much of it truly is stainless, mechanically speaking?), to major aesthetical design overhaul (even though it does not appeal to me at all). With so much innovation, delays ought to be expected

That being said, everything else is just atrocious. Production issues are blamed on unexpected delays because of innovation and vice versa. It just screams project mismanagement. This thing should't have been revealed at all. Also, why the fuck does this have bullet proof glass? A truck for the apocalypse? Are they trying to sell an APC? Who asked for any of that?

I wouldn't call any part of this innovative

Idk, it's kinda innovative to see musk finding new ways to shoot himself in the foot

The oligarchs are preparing for the apocalypse they're bringing about themselves. This is the car they'll be driving through the rubble.

I would pick a Toyota pickup run the mother on syngas from wood. Civilization is over but I can still get air conditioning and drive.

Worked for a car manufacturer doing statistical analysis on gap & flushness all over the exterior... And the door gaps are a bitch to get right. Probably the most difficult ones over the whole car. All the manufacturers struggle with this to a degree. This is also the one place where part quality is probably most critical.

The other gaps are usually handled by designing the angles in a beneficial way etc. When they show up in a bigger way it's almost always bad design.

Replacing car doors with ones from a junkyard is always fun too.

that the truck is not designed or built right has been obvious from the getgo. Similar issues are found in all Tesla products, i'm not sure why we're pretending otherwise

electric ground vehicles are not going to save the world

No, the world is screwed, but if I could not have to breathe all the exhaust I'd be all for that.

anti-T articles almost as many pro-T. pics or it didn't happen. did see some showroom, not rc, that are pretty defect free. get ready. delivery day in 2, 1...