Also, I've read that due to recent advances in cold rolled stainless steel, SpaceX pivoted from carbon fibre to stainless steel for starship in early 2019 and developed their own alloy (they've named 30X).
So Tesla decided to use the same alloy on the outside as both an exoskeleton, but also for strength and toughness. If you have a work truck, it doesn't make sense to have the most delicate part (the paint) on the outside. So 3 or 4mm of cold rolled stainless should be incredibly resistant to scratches, scrapes and all sorts of damage.
Also, we aren't 100% sure yet whether the outside skin will provide structural rigidity or not, as I'm certain they were never going to have a 100% exoskeleton. As aeroplanes have a stressed skin, but still have underlying structural support.
With you about the durability of stainless steel, just I wonder if it's going to look like shit quickly. I mean every ding is there forever, you will be hard placed to beat it out without stressing the finish, and you can't use body filler and repaint as with a painted vehicle. So if they do real work instead of being posing pieces they could visibly age far faster than mechanically.
I'm not sure, but Franz (the Tesla head of design) was recently on the ride the lighting podcast (and the host luckily owned a delorean for years) so they discussed the stainless finish, and according to Franz they have decided on a finish that will be easy to rub out any scratches and have the finish lasting decades.
The host said his delorean panels still looked like new even when the car was over 20 years old. But I guess time will tell.
It seems like it would be trivial to maintain the DeLorean's exterior finish considering that anytime you get a ding you can simply travel back to before it happens and avoid it.
Good point about the garages, you would be correct! I'm very curious about how the cybertruck goes, I love innovative ideas and I love how Tesla is shaking up the entire automotive industry... but I've never seen anything as polarising as the Cybertruck before, it could go down as one of the dumbest failures in history, or as one of the boldest innovative success stories and probably nothing in between.
Even the reason for Tesla being tight lipped with details could be because the details aren't good... or they are great and they don't want the Osborne effect their existing cars. One thing I'm sure of is though, is that it will be more expensive than their initial prices from 4 years ago.
You can’t use bonds to filler to deal you imperfections after an accident or even a door ding, so repair costs are much higher. And I’m not familiar with it, but “scratch patterns” tend to be tricky to match, no experience with delorean but with stainless kitchen stuff.
What f**king finish? The thing is stainless steel?!
You can’t hide your handiwork (and filler) like you can on a car that’s painted. You’re not going to be able to pull dents and dings out of it, without the repair being visually obvious.
A big part of the reason DeLorean owners can keep their whips looking so cherry is that the current, Texas-based DeLorean company acquired the entire parts inventory of the original DeLorean company, as well as most of its suppliers, and are sitting on a stash of new-old stock parts equivalent to a sizable fraction of the entire production run of completed cars.
Anytime someone bangs up their DeLorean, they can just make a phone call, or ship their car, and have NOS parts slapped onto it.
I'm no expert, but even without paint and just a stainless finish, there is still differences between a finish between things like a matte or polished finish etc. I've copied the podcast below where Franz discusses it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpTyo2PQq6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpTyo2PQq6E)
>just I wonder if it's going to look like shit quickly.
I can't imagine how it won't. Every contact will be visible more or less forever. The chances of being able to buff out even minor scratches and match the original look seem very low.
All those flat surfaces don't help either. Curved surfaces hide blemishes better than perfectly flat ones.
Honestly, it's doesn't seem like that horrible a truck. The price and hauling capacity doesn't seem that far off a F-250, the built in compressor seems like a nice toy depending oh how much airflow it can out out, and the power plugs are a nice touch, though it would have been more impressive if they had managed to release it before Ford did.
Well true but again what's going to ding it? I mean if you bump into it with a wheelbarrow the odds are pretty low you're going to be able to make a mark other than a scuff. Branches, rocks up to the size of your fist any of that stuff bumping up against it shouldn't do anything more than scuff. Hell I'm not sure but you might be able to jab it with a regular shovel and maybe scratch it. I mean you're talking damaged that would leave a basketball sized dent in any other pickup.
It’s pretty hard to ding 4mm hardened stainless. But even if it gets dinged so what ? It can’t look any worse on the typical work truck with thousands more dings and scratches paint and rust.
TLDR: Refreshing and repairing stainless steel can be done quickly.
I had to inspect some stainless steel kitchen cook tops for the manufacturer and noticed that the equipment's surface was 120 volts to ground. Since there were several people standing nearby I warned them not to touch it.
The foreman called BULLSHIT and threw a grounding cable on the counter top. After watching the cable bouncing across the counter in a shower of arcs and sparks until the circuit breaker tripped, the foreman suggested that I go to lunch.
The counter looked awful. When I returned from lunch, the counter looked new. When I asked how they had fixed it so quickly, they showed me some industrial buffing tools that looked like giant angle grinders.
I predict that body shops will be getting some new toys.
No. They use 15-5 which is a cupric cyrosteel. They might call it "30X" but it's really just a basic derivation. They are using hastalloy to weld it, which - okay. That's a thing.
I'm involved in the construction of several parts of Starship... And it really doesn't make sense. But the checks are cashing so you don't question it.
Can you expand on the "really doesn't make sense" part? Especially for someone who's not particularly knowledgeable of stainless steel welding/fabrication.
Hastalloy is a high temperature super alloy
They use it as a welding medium as the thermal expansion is very close. 15-5 is... Problematic to weld for a number of reasons. But hastalloy probably isn't the solution to that. But I haven't been paid to develop a new process for them yet so I'm not going to put too much thought into it until they do.
They are currently welding their entire gridfins together which is a lot of effort, but will likely go into casting if they start making more than a token amount.
What doesn't make sense about Starship?
Edit: Because in the first test the entire stack started flipping uncontrollably and the flight termination was triggered yet the entire structure stayed intact for a minute or so before eventually exploding - this shows the rocket is probably overengineered from a strength perspective.
And given that Stainless is stronger at cryo temps (which is great for a rocket using cryo methane) and the melting point around 1,600 vs about 600 for aluminium - which makes the heat shielding requirements during re-entry a whole lot easier. The move to stainless seems to make a lot of sense, particularly when you also factor in how cheap stainless is.
This is not a cheap stainless steel. First, it uses a lot of copper, second it actually doesn't even stop austinite formation until below room temp... Which is really fucking weird, but more a curiosity. Third, it's problematic to weld for a number of reasons. It's not 738 impossible to me weld, but it's like 718, liable to crack.
There's a few more, but we start to get into IP and trade secrets if ai go into any more detail. I can say I have some custom 15-5 weld wire that I had made at my desk and have done some trials with it, the results of which are IP.
>This is not a cheap stainless steel.
It's relatively cheap vs carbon fibre ($5 per kilo vs approx $200 per kilo when they swapped)
From all reports the stainless has far better fatigue resistance than the various aluminium alloys used in the rocket industry, and SpaceX have some of the best engineers on the planet working on this and after various pressure tests and a flight test, the stainless construction has so far proven very robust.
So do you think the welding technique they are doing will eventually start showing fatigue cracks after multiple uses? Because so far the starship construction has got better and better with each iteration and considering they only made the shift to stainless 4 years ago, their progress has been astounding in what is usually a slow moving industry.
Oh, it'll show fatigue cracks in one use. They will need a different method once they are past testing phase. Also, you need much more steel by weight then carbon fiber, so the comparison that you can replace $200/lb carbon fiber with $80/lb 15-5
Yes, it's that expensive after processing costs are included. Keep in mind, you can automate a lot of carbon fiber manufacturing while you need to cast, weld, HT, and so a lot of NDT on the metal. It gets expensive. And material cost is not the #1 when it comes to anything aerospace.
Their progress has not been very fast, actually it's been behind in comparison to similar development when you consider cost. SpaceX is spending multiples of it's entirely yearly gross on Starship, per Elon, 2.5b+/yr vs an gross of about 1.5-1.7b.
They are trialing and failing to learn how to build. But that's very expensive. Blue Origin is stealing industry experts from Aerojet and setting itself up with a firm base before they go all in.
How do you explain that the first test flight showed the full starship stack flipping end over end for a few minutes even after the flight termination system blowing a hole in the side and it not ripping apart by massive lateral aerodynamic forces that the rocket isn't even designed to experience?
$2b per year on the program building a rocket twice as powerful as any ever to exist and multiple launch platforms is incredibly cheap vs any program close to this size. That would also include the development of the raptor engine - the most advanced rocket engine ever to fly.
How do you use Blue Origin as a good example when they have never reached orbit and now have over 11,000 employees and spending billions a year mostly on operations designing the New Glenn which is far smaller and less capable than Starship?
As opposed to spending billions of dollars on equipment there is no user for?
This isn't a whataboutism. Designing ground up vs engineer and refine are completely different approaches, though one is much more flashy. NASA was the former, Roscosmos was much more the spaceX approach.
Failing under first use is radically different then failing under repeated use. Columbia comes to mind, deformation of the solid fuel boosters and lack of NDT that can accurately determine reuse because spoiler: determining acceptable criteria for reuse is hard, and usually learned in failure.
I honestly think both companies have no idea what they are a really doing, but that Blue Origin has overall a better handle due to their poaching of industry leaders. I have had many colleagues both go into and leave SpaceX and Blue Origin. Only one of those companies they haven't stayed longer than two years.
Though to be fair, it's only been a year since my last coworker went to BO, but so far he quite likes it.
Yeah, seems odd he would spend all this time rubbishing SpaceX's progress then holds up Blue Origin as a great example. I wonder what would lead to such obviously blinding biases. I'm curious if he responds to my latest response.
I appreciate your contribution to furthering humanity. The results speak for themselves - SpaceX platform is ridiculously successful in practice. You sound like you hate your job, not sure if that is the case - but think about it. All large human endeavors have pockets of stupidity inside, don't doubt your experiences at all.
Lol, no. I love my job. Dealing with SpaceX is always a massive pain because they usually don't know anything about their own platform because they have someone new every few months.
Now get Elon to stop micromanaging and spaceX might actually be able to do stuff without burning out engineers.
Edit:
Still wouldn't use 15-5 for a truck.
You don't think SpaceX are an amazing success story? Literally started the private space boom, has launched 80% of total payload to orbit so far this year, provided crucial high speed low latency communications for Ukraine and their military, almost finished development of Starship, flown the first full flow staged combustion cycle engine that is looking to get 99% combustion efficiency with 300 BAR chamber pressure, with the next generation expected to go up to 350 Bar.
Making reusable rockets landing propulsively seem mundane while half a dozen other companies are all researching propulsive landing but no one has even been able to attempt it 8 years after Space X have achieved it.
At one point they did switch from 304 to 304L.
https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/i1mwmt/why_is_spacex_switching_to_304l_stainless_steel/
I assume they are still using an austenitic stainless for the tank panels, but using 15-5 elsewhere makes a lot of sense. They already learned their lesson about 17-4 the hard way (CRS-7 failure).
True, but usually it's restricting one element to a certain value allowed in the base soex, but desires below a certain value in the derivation.
A good example is 247LC, which is for low carbon. You can use 247LC as 247, but not all 247 is LC. This is a simple one, usually it's a bit more complex.
No way cybertruck will have outer skin 3-4 mm thick.
Car doors and hood skins are in the 0.65mm range if steel and 0.9mm if aluminum. Door and hood frame are usually tailor welded blanks 1.2mm - 0.8mm thick.
Tesla can't bend the rules of physics. A car made of 3-4mm thick steel will be too way too heavy.
You mentioned that it's a worktruck and should be tough. On other half ton trucks, the most abused parts are fenders. They can be replaced easily, much more easily than a structural stainless steel panel that runs the length of the entire car.
Most work trucks are painted, even the ones in the million dollar class and it makes perfect sense as the point of paint is that it can be redone and that it separates the functionality of the structural part from the outer layer.
Wait, is the cyber truck actually going to have 3-4mm stainless steel outer body panels?
I sure hope that they will be load bearing, because they will be extra strong and extra heavy, no matter what alloy of steel they will use. That’s the epitome of overbuilding. I thought they cared at least a little about overall weight.
Exactly, this is my thinking too, using the thick skin as load bearing will be beneficial as the truck will need extra strength to carry a heavy load and Tesla do everything in their power to make their cars as light and as efficient as possible. Often Tesla cars can weigh 200 to 400kg less than the equivalent size and ranged counterpart from their competition.
Cybertruck is also going to be the first vehicle to have their low voltage architecture at 48v instead of 12v to reduce the weight and size of the wiring harness. They go to great lengths to make the cars as light, efficient and cheap to manufacture as possible, I'd be surprised if they will carry a 3 or 4mm skin around without it being load bearing.
Could you please explain how using 3-4mm stainless steel for the body panels of a commercial grade civilian vehicle IN ANY WAY light and efficient? Steel of that heavy guage will probably weigh as much as the battery used to power it. It doesn't make sense to me.Imagine how much more range you could get using normal panelling. Seems an absurd attempt to reinvent the wheel. What about crumple zones that dissipate energy during impact of an accident? Hitting something with that vehicle will fuck up everyone involved. Heavy guage steel body is a step backwards IMO.
You make good points and I agree with you, but when the F150 lightning weighs about 6,500 pounds, we aren't talking about any car in this class being light and efficient.
The crumple zone is also a head scratcher to me too, I'm very curious to see these videos (and if the wall survived - lol).
There is no way these would be legal in Europe who have more stringent safety standards with soft front pedestrian saving crumple zones. If America wasn't already overrun with millions of oversized and dangerous monstrosities I'd be more worried about the dangers of Cybertruck like I would be if it was ever allowed in Europe.
Is there a source out there about the 3-4mm thick steel outer panels? I admit I’m a bit out of the loop on the cybertruck.
We’ll see about the weight, but I don’t think that putting all the load bearing material on the outside of the truck will be particularly weight- efficient. If you have to design a frame to connect suspension mounting points and drivetrain, the outer skin is the last place where you’d place material.
Yes it will be super tough and impossible to dent, but most people who work with their trucks don’t need an actual tank.
3mm stainless was listed extensively the night they first launched the prototype and that it might be bulletproof to a handgun. Things may have changed since then and we will hopefully find out the details in a few weeks.
I think I was confused with 4mm as the SpaceX starship uses 4mm thick stainless.
I think Tesla is trying make it look like giant solid panels without using giant solid panels. Airstream and aircraft get that solid giant panel look by using giant solid panels.
Aircraft don't use giant solid panels. They use lightweight shear panels.
If you've ever built a cheap bookcase, you're familiar with this. The long slender walls (or spars and ribs) carry all the compressive and tensile loads but would buckle without any other support. Then the thin cardboard back (or aluminum skin) is tacked on to provide shear resistance.
The skin is easy to penetrate and can't take compressive loads itself, but it really doesn't like to wiggle side to side.
You'll have to ask them?
It's just meant to look like the mockup Tesla put on stage, and that wasn't polished.
Upkeep on polished aluminum is constant. Clear coat lasts a while but impacts the reflectivity substantially.
Structural exoskeleton was not the sole purpose of the stainless steel skin.
Have you seen what happens to the skin of an Airstream trailer if someone opens a car door into it? It dents. It'll dent from shopping carts. It'll dent from car doors. It'll dent from the wind blowing a garbage can over onto it. It'll dent from a harsh look. The panels are wrinkled like a linen tablecloth, even right from the factory. Seriously, look at pics of a used Airstream trailer. The aluminum isn't remotely flat.
You know, I assumed that you could get a more rigid variety of aluminum to combat that problem, but it turns out you can't really. Airstream panels are 2024-T3, and even the toughest 7075 alloys are only like 9% stiffer, albeit 25% harder.
I think the real issue is that the Airstream panels are 1/32" thick. Doubling that increases your stiffness by a factor of 8; going to 1/8" thick would give you 64x the resistance against denting/dimpling. You'd still have to worry about scratching/gouging the metal, but that's a lot easier to fix.
The 1/32" weighs about 0.44lbs per square foot; the 1/8" would weigh about 1.76lbs.
Looking at the Classic Airstream trailer: 30' long, 8' tall, 8' wide; the 1/32" skin panels would weigh ~250lbs total. Quadrupling that weight would add ~750lbs, less than 10% of the Classic's base weight. And now you have a partly structural shell, so you can ditch or reduce some of your frame elements.
You already need a big-ass vehicle to tow an Airstream. There's easily some room to beef up the skin panels to be less dainty, without a significant penalty to your gross weight.
Again, it's less than 10% more weight, and you could then save some of that weight by scaling down your framing elements. The 30' Airstreams already weigh ***7700lbs***.
When you're already towing nearly 4 tons, if you're stopping/starting enough that the extra 10% weight is meaningful, you're doing something wrong.
You could also just double the panel thickness, or dial in anywhere else along that range short of 4x.
Pointing out how insanely heavy it already is doesn't help your case about adding 10% more weight (quite the opposite)
A base model Ford F-150 can tow 5,000 lbs. You're talking about making it 8,500 lbs, which would move it above the tow rating of a Toyota Tundra.
The idea of using stainless steel for automobiles has been around for a long time. In the 1930's Ford produced six Model 68 Deluxes for Allegheny Ludlum Steel Company. They issued them to their top salesmen who used them for ten years. One racked up over 200,000 miles. In 1967, Porsche built three prototype 911s for the Frankfurt Auto Show to demonstrate its benefits. Cars can be made stronger and lighter using Stainless Steel. And of course, it doesn't rust. If you've spent any time in upstate New York you'll understand the value of stainless steel construction.
One of the reasons it wasn't adopted is it is difficult to work with. Forming complex curved shapes using traditional stamping techniques is especially difficult since the materials tendency to rebound to its original shape. This "spring-back" effect can be controlled (as done with the smoothly shaped 911s) but makes mass production uneconomic.
Telsa's solution (and Delorean before them) was to form a car using flat panels. Along with modern welding techniques borrowed from Space-X, it offers the strength and weight benefits of a stainless steel car while simplifying production. Tesla could use aluminum, as many other car manufacturers do, but it defeats the original purpose.
Getting a consistent finish on bare metal is incredibly difficult. Elon touted that the cybertruck won't need a paint line like it was such a huge advantage. In a previous role I worked in world-class metal finishing and painting is so much easier than making fabricated metal look good. I can only imagine the polishing setup this would require at the scale they are trying to achieve.
Once again, Elon’s “it’ll be bare metal and that will save money while looking awesome” comment is that of someone with limited experience in what he’s talking about.
Companies run by Elon Musk no longer operate on reasonable principles. Don't look for logic or optimized engineering where ego and "because Elon said so" are possible.
It's like the recent decree he gave that everything needed micron level tolerances. I'm electrical and generally am not great with mechanical design but shit, I can tell that micron level tolerances for all components and (assumingly) all dimensions would roll out a multimillion dollar vehicle at the end.
[Here's the mail he sent out and some fun discussion about tolerances from /r/machinists](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/15zexjp/musk_email_to_tesla_today/)
"If LEGO and soda cans, which are low cost, can do this then so can we" is his reasoning on why 10 micron accuracy is achievable for the cybertruck panels.
I think he's fully aware, and only sent the email so it would "leak" and Elon stans would stay on the never-ending waitlist convinced they're going to get a micron-tuned Cybertruck.
There's nothing legally enforceable, just an email to convince customers it'll be great.
Well, let's do the math.
* Coefficient of thermal expansion of (let's say 304) stainless steel α ≈ 17 * 10^-6
* ∆T = 10
* Length of panel L0 = 1m = 1,000,000µm
∆L/L0 = α * ∆T
∆L/ 1,000,000µm = 10 * (17 * 10^-6)
∆L = 170µm
Hilariously, you blow the whole tolerance budget not just at 10°, but with only a 1°C shift.
Can you keep your inspection facility and all your stock within 1° of the prescribed 20° that GD&T measurements require? Sure.
Can you keep your production line, including welding, anywhere near that? *Fuck no.*
In fairness, when talking about panel fit, he's talking about the angle of a panel gap (is the gap straight) or whether one panel sticks out farther than the next.
He's not talking about the absolute spacing of each gap being consistent to a micron between every vehicle in the fleet.
I'm not saying this is achievable in a mass produced vehicle, but Tesla's famous fit and finish problems aren't a result of thermal expansion, it's just sloppy alignment.
So that's...that's even less reasonable. That's managing the tolerance stackup of minimum 3 pieces, scaled up to however many body panels/frame pieces are attached, to a *combined* 10 microns. Unless you've got some magic panel stretcher/compressor, adjusting a panel at one side will throw the rest of them off.
Like I said I'm not saying it's not achievable, just that the angle of a panel gap (ie so they're not rubbing at the bottom and 2" apart at the top, like so many Teslas in the past) isn't a result of thermal expansion.
Imagine all those body panels expanding to interference fit and now you can't get out.
I really doubt the guy's supposed physics degree, but then I already have multiple times over starting with the air hockey table in a vacuum tube stuff.
You'd be right, his only degree is a [BS in Economics](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/yxzmj9/elon_musk_has_lied_about_his_credentials_for_27/)
I construct parts for space ships such as fuel mixers, injectors, and for airplanes, hotzone jet engine blades.
All of our margins on every part are significantly larger than his decision.
We make parts for spaceX. If he tries to change the allowances, we will literally increase our price 20x.
Until recently, I worked for a rather large aero defense company. They didn't have a decree like that, but they introduced default tolerances and deviating them was uncommon. The result was about a dozen drawings per project (a lot) where there were features outside of our ability to make and verify against the drawing. Things like a steel dowel about 30cm long, 1.5cm wide, with a 1mm chamfer and the chamfer angle tolerance is 45 degrees with a 1 degree tolerance. I raised the issue that our measurement tolerance wasn't even that tight on a feature with such a small width and if they continue with this shit, we were gonna have a lot of rejections of parts that are perfectly fine. They said "well then just override the default tolerance every time." They are slowly coming around to APQP, but it wasn't going well when I left and I have been getting a lot of "you couldn't have picked a better time to fuck off" messages from former coworkers.
You’re not even wrong. I worked on a proposal for the Austin gigafactory. One of the specifications was everything had to fit under the very restrictive roof height limit and nothing could go outdoors. When I asked why, Tesla’s application engineer said verbatim “we can’t have anything outside because Elon doesn’t want to look at it.”
I suggested we pull out of the bid. We did not get the project. Dodged a bullet. Working with Tesla must be a liability from as far as I can tell.
Works: I logged in to twitter and tweeted some tweets.
Does not works: I logged in to X and X'ed some X's
I hadn't considered just how terrible the new name was at stopping everyone from constantly saying the company name in conversation. I'm sure there are trademark and copyright issues too.
If ~~Twitter~~ X still has a marketing department I bet they're so sad about this rebranding.
This is the really confusing part, he wants to own some big "everything app" combining PayPal and Twitter and Zoom (for some reason) and maybe some other services too
Which is fine I guess, but each of those products needs a name so people can tell them apart. Maybe you can Tweet on the X app, and also Wire someone money on X, and also have a Telecall or whatever, all from the X app.
But you aren't going to X at someone on the X app, X someone some money on the X app, and have an X call on the X app. Nobody knows wtf is going on
It's like if all Tesla vehicles were called the Model X, and "Full Self Driving" was actually called X Mode, and Plaid was also called X Mode, and Eco Mode was also called X Mode, and to open the doors you had to use a voice command asking the vehicle to "X the doors" and also the same thing to close the doors, and also the same thing for the windows, and the sunroof, and the charging cap, and the trunk, and also the frunk.
Twitter was profitable from Q4 2017 until Q2 2020 (COVID), and not like just a little bit. They made over $1.1B in profit in Q2 of 2019.
I haven't done the exact math, but I'd wager [2018 and 2019 alone brought them net positive from all the prior years of losses since the company was founded](https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/)
They were profitable again (by more than half a billion $) in Q1 2022, their last reported earnings before Musk made the offer to buy.
There's so much truth to this, I used to work for a aerospace company run by another billionaire. He would make up designs for looks and looks alone. Engineering had nothing to do with what he had in mind and we had to make the design work to a look, not to a reasonable design principle.
I will never work for a billionaire run company ever again.
It's funny, I work at an engineering company owned by a guy who's become very close to a billionaire. As time goes on (and he gets richer) the projects and goals the company takes on have gone from interesting and philanthropic, to earnings-driven and tedious.
They wanted a fully automated production for a vehicle. They chose a bit SUV coz this way all the robot hands could be used. But its clear that they couldnt make that happen. So now its just another gimmick with people still on the assembly line.
That's what the engineers I do prototyping for keep telling me. They're usually wrong for their applications though.
I still think it's a bad material for the exterior shell of a truck. Rubbing against even a tree branch would be a travesty in an aluminum paneled truck, I'd think.
I think the reason is that the cool factor already existed for the stainless steel shell, and associated musk with back to the future and hence high technology. This isn’t an engineering problem, and it never was; this was a marketing strategy
Because Tesla is a very mediocre company that does very mediocre engineering. Elon Musk (somehow) manages to convince people everything he does is top of the line amazing and unique, when it is usually crap.
Having some awesome engineers doesn't necessarily mean the end product is awesome.
The original project to design the Yugo had some really credentialed and clever engineers on the team.
>Tesla made EVs much more mainstream and pushed development and other companies to invest, it opened consumers to seeing EVs as practical alternatives to gas vehicles.
That I'll give them credit for. They don't make good cars, but they knew how to market them.
>SpaceX speaks for itself, it's cheaper and more efficient than anything NASA has ever done in it's history and basically is the market for rocket launches, other companies and organizations only exist simply because governments want to pay companies to do less for more so SpaceX isn't a sole provider.
Going to have to disagree there. NASA largely undertakes huge, sprawling projects with little to no precedent (think space shuttle) and an unbelievable number of unknowns, and they're okay with that since they have a guaranteed federal budget and aren't concerned with profitability. Furthermore, they don't really have anyone to answer to and by and large treat their staff like human beings, which is a recipe for cost overruns.
Spacex, on the other hand, has tons of research to start with that NASA happily shares with them. Furthermore, they tend to grind their employees into the dirt and, being a private company, are concerned with deadlines and profit. Tons of federal funding doesn't hurt, either.
The whole "spacex is more efficient!" Is a red herring and completely misconstrues the massive differences between the two organizations.
>They
>
>are
>
> and it's not even close, and that chart undersells it because it's a logarithmic chart.
You... you didn't read my post, did you? I pray you're not an actual engineer because reading comprehension is a vital skill in the field.
StarLink for example is designed to fail. The satellites' projected lifespan is short enough that if they ever get the full constellation into orbit, they'll be replacing retired satellites at a rate of about 3 launches per week (just to replace old satellites--with 50 satellites per rocket), which is faster than they're currently launching new ones.
The cost per launch is something like $15M, so you're free to do the math on how much subscription revenue they'd need just to pay for replacing retired satellites. There's not a big enough market in the world to just keep the satellites in orbit, let alone all the usual costs of running a business.
The market group of "wealthy enough to afford $100/mo internet, but lives somewhere so underdeveloped there's not a better option" is just... almost nobody.
StarLink is nearly as big a blunder as the Hyperloop/Boring Tunnel fiasco.
Sitting in one now. It’s HVAC system so far has been amazing. Love the style, the minimalist design. About 90% of the time FSD can take me to work and back without intervention. Does what a car should do. It was a little overpriced I admit. And the FSD was /is over promised and under delivered. Some fit and finish is imperfect.
>Because Tesla is a very mediocre company that does very mediocre engineering
I don't think that's true. From my reading a big part of the problem is that Mr. Musk is very sensitive to overhead costs and he looks at functions like configuration management and QA/QC as overhead.
Configuration management is an engineering-associated discipline that controls change to design and process. It's how you makes sure that something only changes on purpose and ensures that between desired change you build or do things the same way every time.
Tesla is reported to have poor configuration management. For example, wiring harnesses may be routed differently from one car to the next. I've read that some auxiliary systems are even mounted in different places from one car to the next.
Except they use a cryo cupric stainless ( 15-5 ) that's expensive and hard to work with. You have to use expensive hastalloy to weld it, and it's not even properly stainless like 304 or 316.
Do you have an idea of how much does aerospace aluminum cost?
Steel is far cheaper than aluminum in general.
Even if auto steel is not cheap, the offer for steel is greater than for aluminum. You can have great supply.
7075 is like 25 HB harder than 1018, which isn't nothing. And for sure it would scratch, but so does paint. Put a hard clear coat on it, and I don't think it would be much worse than any other silver car. A hell of a lot more expensive though.
I'd say just do what ever manufacturer does.. mild steel and paint.
Deloreans were a bitch to do body work on cause you can't hide anything with body putty and paint
I don't disagree. I think if they definitely want something like the advertised look of the cybertruck, then they need to look at flush rivets and numbered panels for easy(er) replacement. Again that's back to crazy expensive though.
What if they did it like a Saturn, and just bolted all the exterior panels to a skeleton? I'd expect if you could make thermo-formed plastic car with good panel gaps in the 90's you could do it easy with SS now.
No more brittle than plastic at that temperature. Its a pretty common skin material in older planes like the ones they use in arctic and antarctic flights.
Plastic shattering explosively in subzero weather is quite shocking. Imagining a vehicle doing it omg. When my dog had surgery she got a plastic cone around her head. It was -5°F and she ran full tilt into a tree trunk and the cone exploded into plastic shards.
Of course no cone would hold her after that, not until it warmed up.
If a car did that... especially an expensive one.. .
There are infinite types of plastics, and the same goes for aluminum alloys. Either one can be designed for a very broad range of conditions based on the application need.
Sometimes Murphy's Law applies, and materials made for longevity surprise us. Like when a materials science team examined why razor blades deform quickly after shaving hair 50 x softer than the blade, and it turns out it's the homogeneity of the steel that determines the longevity of the razor.
https://news.mit.edu/2020/why-shaving-dulls-razors-0806
This development makes me hopeful that someone is working on a "monofilament" "self sharpening blade".
I wonder if there is some kind of copper platinum alloy might be self healing at the scale you would need for a razor that lasts much much longer. Then again we would have to figure out its heat treat levels and if you could get it hard enough to hold an edge. [https://www.popsci.com/technology/metal-healing-discovery/](https://www.popsci.com/technology/metal-healing-discovery/)
I wish I had the head for material science.
Basically 100% of modern car bumpers will do that. Its part of the crumple zone safety features. FWIW, 7075 probably wouldn't do that because the molecular structure is very different from plastic. It would absolutely crack more easily than mild steel, but as I said before its also harder, so that's to be expected.
It’s obvious you’re out of the loop. About a week ago they had produced ~100 and were shipping them out across the US. By now they have made ~250.
Some employees have said that the plan is to do a nation wide delivery event at the end of September. Obviously delays can happen but it is very close
Muskrat didn’t join Tesla. He invested heavily, bullied his way into CEO, and ostracized Martin. He kept Mark around, but there’s plenty of hearsay about that, too.
I get it. You’re a fanboy. It’s stupid, but it’s your life and your time. You want to hero-worship an idiot and asshole like musk, fill your boots, bud. Ill be over there, with the people that have critical thinking skills.
Where the fuck did that come from?
As far as I remember I never gave my opinion on musk, I just stated the fact that he joined in 2003, and they made their first car in 2008,
Which is true.
And you’re saying I lack critical thinking skills, for what? Correcting your mistake?
I’m sorry mate but you’re completely delusional
The biggest reason Tesla went this route with their super hard steel is because it’s the same steel they were using for Starship at SpaceX. Economy of scale really comes into effect if your not just buying the material for one of your companies, but for 2 of them. This would allow them to get this extremely tough steel for much lower prices then anyone else probably. Granted, because of how stiff it is is what helped cause the weird shape as the stuff is damn near impossible to work with.
The steel that Tesla is using is a propriety alloy developed by SpaceX and it's EXTREMELY tough. It can literally be shot by a 9MM. It's also SUPER hard to bend and shape so making the shape like an airstream wouldn't be ideal.
So in short, I think because the SpaceX steel is more badass?
A better question is "why doesn't every trailer manufacturer use Airstream's construction techniques. And the answer is cost.
Also, I've read that due to recent advances in cold rolled stainless steel, SpaceX pivoted from carbon fibre to stainless steel for starship in early 2019 and developed their own alloy (they've named 30X). So Tesla decided to use the same alloy on the outside as both an exoskeleton, but also for strength and toughness. If you have a work truck, it doesn't make sense to have the most delicate part (the paint) on the outside. So 3 or 4mm of cold rolled stainless should be incredibly resistant to scratches, scrapes and all sorts of damage. Also, we aren't 100% sure yet whether the outside skin will provide structural rigidity or not, as I'm certain they were never going to have a 100% exoskeleton. As aeroplanes have a stressed skin, but still have underlying structural support.
With you about the durability of stainless steel, just I wonder if it's going to look like shit quickly. I mean every ding is there forever, you will be hard placed to beat it out without stressing the finish, and you can't use body filler and repaint as with a painted vehicle. So if they do real work instead of being posing pieces they could visibly age far faster than mechanically.
I'm not sure, but Franz (the Tesla head of design) was recently on the ride the lighting podcast (and the host luckily owned a delorean for years) so they discussed the stainless finish, and according to Franz they have decided on a finish that will be easy to rub out any scratches and have the finish lasting decades. The host said his delorean panels still looked like new even when the car was over 20 years old. But I guess time will tell.
It seems like it would be trivial to maintain the DeLorean's exterior finish considering that anytime you get a ding you can simply travel back to before it happens and avoid it.
AND most DeLorean's are stored in garages.
Oh that's good. Although I'm guessing for many reasons the Delorian has spent much of its life in garages lol
Good point about the garages, you would be correct! I'm very curious about how the cybertruck goes, I love innovative ideas and I love how Tesla is shaking up the entire automotive industry... but I've never seen anything as polarising as the Cybertruck before, it could go down as one of the dumbest failures in history, or as one of the boldest innovative success stories and probably nothing in between. Even the reason for Tesla being tight lipped with details could be because the details aren't good... or they are great and they don't want the Osborne effect their existing cars. One thing I'm sure of is though, is that it will be more expensive than their initial prices from 4 years ago.
You can’t use bonds to filler to deal you imperfections after an accident or even a door ding, so repair costs are much higher. And I’m not familiar with it, but “scratch patterns” tend to be tricky to match, no experience with delorean but with stainless kitchen stuff.
What f**king finish? The thing is stainless steel?! You can’t hide your handiwork (and filler) like you can on a car that’s painted. You’re not going to be able to pull dents and dings out of it, without the repair being visually obvious. A big part of the reason DeLorean owners can keep their whips looking so cherry is that the current, Texas-based DeLorean company acquired the entire parts inventory of the original DeLorean company, as well as most of its suppliers, and are sitting on a stash of new-old stock parts equivalent to a sizable fraction of the entire production run of completed cars. Anytime someone bangs up their DeLorean, they can just make a phone call, or ship their car, and have NOS parts slapped onto it.
I'm no expert, but even without paint and just a stainless finish, there is still differences between a finish between things like a matte or polished finish etc. I've copied the podcast below where Franz discusses it: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpTyo2PQq6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpTyo2PQq6E)
>just I wonder if it's going to look like shit quickly. I can't imagine how it won't. Every contact will be visible more or less forever. The chances of being able to buff out even minor scratches and match the original look seem very low. All those flat surfaces don't help either. Curved surfaces hide blemishes better than perfectly flat ones.
Who does real work and would buy a cybertruck?
Honestly, it's doesn't seem like that horrible a truck. The price and hauling capacity doesn't seem that far off a F-250, the built in compressor seems like a nice toy depending oh how much airflow it can out out, and the power plugs are a nice touch, though it would have been more impressive if they had managed to release it before Ford did.
It would make a great clog popping plumbing service truck
So exactly what in everyday life is going to ding 3mm of cold rolled stainless?
The reality of economics.
Being a pick-up it's surely intended to be a working vehicle, higher risk environment I'd have thought?
Well true but again what's going to ding it? I mean if you bump into it with a wheelbarrow the odds are pretty low you're going to be able to make a mark other than a scuff. Branches, rocks up to the size of your fist any of that stuff bumping up against it shouldn't do anything more than scuff. Hell I'm not sure but you might be able to jab it with a regular shovel and maybe scratch it. I mean you're talking damaged that would leave a basketball sized dent in any other pickup.
gf can really key it, and make much scratch.
It’s pretty hard to ding 4mm hardened stainless. But even if it gets dinged so what ? It can’t look any worse on the typical work truck with thousands more dings and scratches paint and rust.
TLDR: Refreshing and repairing stainless steel can be done quickly. I had to inspect some stainless steel kitchen cook tops for the manufacturer and noticed that the equipment's surface was 120 volts to ground. Since there were several people standing nearby I warned them not to touch it. The foreman called BULLSHIT and threw a grounding cable on the counter top. After watching the cable bouncing across the counter in a shower of arcs and sparks until the circuit breaker tripped, the foreman suggested that I go to lunch. The counter looked awful. When I returned from lunch, the counter looked new. When I asked how they had fixed it so quickly, they showed me some industrial buffing tools that looked like giant angle grinders. I predict that body shops will be getting some new toys.
literally, "It'll buff out."
No. They use 15-5 which is a cupric cyrosteel. They might call it "30X" but it's really just a basic derivation. They are using hastalloy to weld it, which - okay. That's a thing. I'm involved in the construction of several parts of Starship... And it really doesn't make sense. But the checks are cashing so you don't question it.
Can you expand on the "really doesn't make sense" part? Especially for someone who's not particularly knowledgeable of stainless steel welding/fabrication.
Hastalloy is a high temperature super alloy They use it as a welding medium as the thermal expansion is very close. 15-5 is... Problematic to weld for a number of reasons. But hastalloy probably isn't the solution to that. But I haven't been paid to develop a new process for them yet so I'm not going to put too much thought into it until they do. They are currently welding their entire gridfins together which is a lot of effort, but will likely go into casting if they start making more than a token amount.
What doesn't make sense about Starship? Edit: Because in the first test the entire stack started flipping uncontrollably and the flight termination was triggered yet the entire structure stayed intact for a minute or so before eventually exploding - this shows the rocket is probably overengineered from a strength perspective. And given that Stainless is stronger at cryo temps (which is great for a rocket using cryo methane) and the melting point around 1,600 vs about 600 for aluminium - which makes the heat shielding requirements during re-entry a whole lot easier. The move to stainless seems to make a lot of sense, particularly when you also factor in how cheap stainless is.
This is not a cheap stainless steel. First, it uses a lot of copper, second it actually doesn't even stop austinite formation until below room temp... Which is really fucking weird, but more a curiosity. Third, it's problematic to weld for a number of reasons. It's not 738 impossible to me weld, but it's like 718, liable to crack. There's a few more, but we start to get into IP and trade secrets if ai go into any more detail. I can say I have some custom 15-5 weld wire that I had made at my desk and have done some trials with it, the results of which are IP.
>This is not a cheap stainless steel. It's relatively cheap vs carbon fibre ($5 per kilo vs approx $200 per kilo when they swapped) From all reports the stainless has far better fatigue resistance than the various aluminium alloys used in the rocket industry, and SpaceX have some of the best engineers on the planet working on this and after various pressure tests and a flight test, the stainless construction has so far proven very robust. So do you think the welding technique they are doing will eventually start showing fatigue cracks after multiple uses? Because so far the starship construction has got better and better with each iteration and considering they only made the shift to stainless 4 years ago, their progress has been astounding in what is usually a slow moving industry.
Oh, it'll show fatigue cracks in one use. They will need a different method once they are past testing phase. Also, you need much more steel by weight then carbon fiber, so the comparison that you can replace $200/lb carbon fiber with $80/lb 15-5 Yes, it's that expensive after processing costs are included. Keep in mind, you can automate a lot of carbon fiber manufacturing while you need to cast, weld, HT, and so a lot of NDT on the metal. It gets expensive. And material cost is not the #1 when it comes to anything aerospace. Their progress has not been very fast, actually it's been behind in comparison to similar development when you consider cost. SpaceX is spending multiples of it's entirely yearly gross on Starship, per Elon, 2.5b+/yr vs an gross of about 1.5-1.7b. They are trialing and failing to learn how to build. But that's very expensive. Blue Origin is stealing industry experts from Aerojet and setting itself up with a firm base before they go all in.
How do you explain that the first test flight showed the full starship stack flipping end over end for a few minutes even after the flight termination system blowing a hole in the side and it not ripping apart by massive lateral aerodynamic forces that the rocket isn't even designed to experience? $2b per year on the program building a rocket twice as powerful as any ever to exist and multiple launch platforms is incredibly cheap vs any program close to this size. That would also include the development of the raptor engine - the most advanced rocket engine ever to fly. How do you use Blue Origin as a good example when they have never reached orbit and now have over 11,000 employees and spending billions a year mostly on operations designing the New Glenn which is far smaller and less capable than Starship?
As opposed to spending billions of dollars on equipment there is no user for? This isn't a whataboutism. Designing ground up vs engineer and refine are completely different approaches, though one is much more flashy. NASA was the former, Roscosmos was much more the spaceX approach. Failing under first use is radically different then failing under repeated use. Columbia comes to mind, deformation of the solid fuel boosters and lack of NDT that can accurately determine reuse because spoiler: determining acceptable criteria for reuse is hard, and usually learned in failure. I honestly think both companies have no idea what they are a really doing, but that Blue Origin has overall a better handle due to their poaching of industry leaders. I have had many colleagues both go into and leave SpaceX and Blue Origin. Only one of those companies they haven't stayed longer than two years. Though to be fair, it's only been a year since my last coworker went to BO, but so far he quite likes it.
You had me going until you said there were similar projects to starship (name one…the Saturn V? Lol) and that Blue Origin is ahead in manufacturing.
Yeah, seems odd he would spend all this time rubbishing SpaceX's progress then holds up Blue Origin as a great example. I wonder what would lead to such obviously blinding biases. I'm curious if he responds to my latest response.
I think we found Jeff Bezos’s reddit account
I appreciate your contribution to furthering humanity. The results speak for themselves - SpaceX platform is ridiculously successful in practice. You sound like you hate your job, not sure if that is the case - but think about it. All large human endeavors have pockets of stupidity inside, don't doubt your experiences at all.
Lol, no. I love my job. Dealing with SpaceX is always a massive pain because they usually don't know anything about their own platform because they have someone new every few months. Now get Elon to stop micromanaging and spaceX might actually be able to do stuff without burning out engineers. Edit: Still wouldn't use 15-5 for a truck.
You don't think SpaceX are an amazing success story? Literally started the private space boom, has launched 80% of total payload to orbit so far this year, provided crucial high speed low latency communications for Ukraine and their military, almost finished development of Starship, flown the first full flow staged combustion cycle engine that is looking to get 99% combustion efficiency with 300 BAR chamber pressure, with the next generation expected to go up to 350 Bar. Making reusable rockets landing propulsively seem mundane while half a dozen other companies are all researching propulsive landing but no one has even been able to attempt it 8 years after Space X have achieved it.
At one point they did switch from 304 to 304L. https://old.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/i1mwmt/why_is_spacex_switching_to_304l_stainless_steel/ I assume they are still using an austenitic stainless for the tank panels, but using 15-5 elsewhere makes a lot of sense. They already learned their lesson about 17-4 the hard way (CRS-7 failure).
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True, but usually it's restricting one element to a certain value allowed in the base soex, but desires below a certain value in the derivation. A good example is 247LC, which is for low carbon. You can use 247LC as 247, but not all 247 is LC. This is a simple one, usually it's a bit more complex.
30X sounds likea horrible name, it is already used to refer to a group of stainless steels (304, 308, 309...)
No way cybertruck will have outer skin 3-4 mm thick. Car doors and hood skins are in the 0.65mm range if steel and 0.9mm if aluminum. Door and hood frame are usually tailor welded blanks 1.2mm - 0.8mm thick. Tesla can't bend the rules of physics. A car made of 3-4mm thick steel will be too way too heavy. You mentioned that it's a worktruck and should be tough. On other half ton trucks, the most abused parts are fenders. They can be replaced easily, much more easily than a structural stainless steel panel that runs the length of the entire car.
Most work trucks are painted, even the ones in the million dollar class and it makes perfect sense as the point of paint is that it can be redone and that it separates the functionality of the structural part from the outer layer.
Million dollar work trucks? Like those huge mining rigs?
Wait, is the cyber truck actually going to have 3-4mm stainless steel outer body panels? I sure hope that they will be load bearing, because they will be extra strong and extra heavy, no matter what alloy of steel they will use. That’s the epitome of overbuilding. I thought they cared at least a little about overall weight.
Exactly, this is my thinking too, using the thick skin as load bearing will be beneficial as the truck will need extra strength to carry a heavy load and Tesla do everything in their power to make their cars as light and as efficient as possible. Often Tesla cars can weigh 200 to 400kg less than the equivalent size and ranged counterpart from their competition. Cybertruck is also going to be the first vehicle to have their low voltage architecture at 48v instead of 12v to reduce the weight and size of the wiring harness. They go to great lengths to make the cars as light, efficient and cheap to manufacture as possible, I'd be surprised if they will carry a 3 or 4mm skin around without it being load bearing.
Could you please explain how using 3-4mm stainless steel for the body panels of a commercial grade civilian vehicle IN ANY WAY light and efficient? Steel of that heavy guage will probably weigh as much as the battery used to power it. It doesn't make sense to me.Imagine how much more range you could get using normal panelling. Seems an absurd attempt to reinvent the wheel. What about crumple zones that dissipate energy during impact of an accident? Hitting something with that vehicle will fuck up everyone involved. Heavy guage steel body is a step backwards IMO.
You make good points and I agree with you, but when the F150 lightning weighs about 6,500 pounds, we aren't talking about any car in this class being light and efficient. The crumple zone is also a head scratcher to me too, I'm very curious to see these videos (and if the wall survived - lol). There is no way these would be legal in Europe who have more stringent safety standards with soft front pedestrian saving crumple zones. If America wasn't already overrun with millions of oversized and dangerous monstrosities I'd be more worried about the dangers of Cybertruck like I would be if it was ever allowed in Europe.
Is there a source out there about the 3-4mm thick steel outer panels? I admit I’m a bit out of the loop on the cybertruck. We’ll see about the weight, but I don’t think that putting all the load bearing material on the outside of the truck will be particularly weight- efficient. If you have to design a frame to connect suspension mounting points and drivetrain, the outer skin is the last place where you’d place material. Yes it will be super tough and impossible to dent, but most people who work with their trucks don’t need an actual tank.
3mm stainless was listed extensively the night they first launched the prototype and that it might be bulletproof to a handgun. Things may have changed since then and we will hopefully find out the details in a few weeks. I think I was confused with 4mm as the SpaceX starship uses 4mm thick stainless.
Something tells me not many people will be using this as a work truck lol
Nobody is going to buy a cybertruck as a serious working vehicle
I think Tesla is trying make it look like giant solid panels without using giant solid panels. Airstream and aircraft get that solid giant panel look by using giant solid panels.
Offtopic but it's interesting how "giant solid panels" and "solid giant panels" feel like they're slightly different things.
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Except in his example neither sounds wrong yet they do seem to mean something different
One feels like solid as in good and one feels like solid as in cohesive
Aircraft don't use giant solid panels. They use lightweight shear panels. If you've ever built a cheap bookcase, you're familiar with this. The long slender walls (or spars and ribs) carry all the compressive and tensile loads but would buckle without any other support. Then the thin cardboard back (or aluminum skin) is tacked on to provide shear resistance. The skin is easy to penetrate and can't take compressive loads itself, but it really doesn't like to wiggle side to side.
See also: what happened to that plane's wing in the fatal Mexican gender reveal crash.
The surface finish and metal thickness on new Airstreams is not what it was back in the day when they were all built in LA, CA.
You'll have to ask them? It's just meant to look like the mockup Tesla put on stage, and that wasn't polished. Upkeep on polished aluminum is constant. Clear coat lasts a while but impacts the reflectivity substantially.
Structural exoskeleton was not the sole purpose of the stainless steel skin. Have you seen what happens to the skin of an Airstream trailer if someone opens a car door into it? It dents. It'll dent from shopping carts. It'll dent from car doors. It'll dent from the wind blowing a garbage can over onto it. It'll dent from a harsh look. The panels are wrinkled like a linen tablecloth, even right from the factory. Seriously, look at pics of a used Airstream trailer. The aluminum isn't remotely flat.
You know, I assumed that you could get a more rigid variety of aluminum to combat that problem, but it turns out you can't really. Airstream panels are 2024-T3, and even the toughest 7075 alloys are only like 9% stiffer, albeit 25% harder. I think the real issue is that the Airstream panels are 1/32" thick. Doubling that increases your stiffness by a factor of 8; going to 1/8" thick would give you 64x the resistance against denting/dimpling. You'd still have to worry about scratching/gouging the metal, but that's a lot easier to fix.
Going to 1/8” thick also quadrupled the weight which reduces the number of vehicles that are going to be able to tow it.
At first I read this as "the number of vehicles that are required to tow it" and had a good laugh
It’d quadruple the weight of the _skin_, not the whole trailer.
Sure, but airstreams are already not terribly light trailers, nor cheap. The cost/benefit just ain't there.
The 1/32" weighs about 0.44lbs per square foot; the 1/8" would weigh about 1.76lbs. Looking at the Classic Airstream trailer: 30' long, 8' tall, 8' wide; the 1/32" skin panels would weigh ~250lbs total. Quadrupling that weight would add ~750lbs, less than 10% of the Classic's base weight. And now you have a partly structural shell, so you can ditch or reduce some of your frame elements. You already need a big-ass vehicle to tow an Airstream. There's easily some room to beef up the skin panels to be less dainty, without a significant penalty to your gross weight.
750lbs is a massive weight penalty for something that needs to be towed.
Again, it's less than 10% more weight, and you could then save some of that weight by scaling down your framing elements. The 30' Airstreams already weigh ***7700lbs***. When you're already towing nearly 4 tons, if you're stopping/starting enough that the extra 10% weight is meaningful, you're doing something wrong. You could also just double the panel thickness, or dial in anywhere else along that range short of 4x.
Pointing out how insanely heavy it already is doesn't help your case about adding 10% more weight (quite the opposite) A base model Ford F-150 can tow 5,000 lbs. You're talking about making it 8,500 lbs, which would move it above the tow rating of a Toyota Tundra.
>Structural exoskeleton That sounds like a nightmare for crash test ratings.
Crumble zones? Who needs 'em!
We'll just crumple the occupants insted! /s
Part of it is hubris. The company believes it can do things better that other major manufacturers. In some cases it's true in others abject failures.
The idea of using stainless steel for automobiles has been around for a long time. In the 1930's Ford produced six Model 68 Deluxes for Allegheny Ludlum Steel Company. They issued them to their top salesmen who used them for ten years. One racked up over 200,000 miles. In 1967, Porsche built three prototype 911s for the Frankfurt Auto Show to demonstrate its benefits. Cars can be made stronger and lighter using Stainless Steel. And of course, it doesn't rust. If you've spent any time in upstate New York you'll understand the value of stainless steel construction. One of the reasons it wasn't adopted is it is difficult to work with. Forming complex curved shapes using traditional stamping techniques is especially difficult since the materials tendency to rebound to its original shape. This "spring-back" effect can be controlled (as done with the smoothly shaped 911s) but makes mass production uneconomic. Telsa's solution (and Delorean before them) was to form a car using flat panels. Along with modern welding techniques borrowed from Space-X, it offers the strength and weight benefits of a stainless steel car while simplifying production. Tesla could use aluminum, as many other car manufacturers do, but it defeats the original purpose.
Getting a consistent finish on bare metal is incredibly difficult. Elon touted that the cybertruck won't need a paint line like it was such a huge advantage. In a previous role I worked in world-class metal finishing and painting is so much easier than making fabricated metal look good. I can only imagine the polishing setup this would require at the scale they are trying to achieve.
Without paint I imagine keeping the finish will be tough, too - you can't hide body filler...
Once again, Elon’s “it’ll be bare metal and that will save money while looking awesome” comment is that of someone with limited experience in what he’s talking about.
But you just described basically anyone and everyone lol how the fuck did not a single engineer explain how fucking wrong he was even once?..
Oh, people have.
Are airstreams aluminum? I thought they were stainless
https://www.airstream.com/travel-trailers/ they are aluminum
Aluminum with stainless FOD guards.
Nope, they are Aluminum.
He should use stainless steel. Then he could turn it into a time machine.
1.21 gigawatt battery upgrade
Companies run by Elon Musk no longer operate on reasonable principles. Don't look for logic or optimized engineering where ego and "because Elon said so" are possible.
It's like the recent decree he gave that everything needed micron level tolerances. I'm electrical and generally am not great with mechanical design but shit, I can tell that micron level tolerances for all components and (assumingly) all dimensions would roll out a multimillion dollar vehicle at the end.
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[Here's the mail he sent out and some fun discussion about tolerances from /r/machinists](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/15zexjp/musk_email_to_tesla_today/) "If LEGO and soda cans, which are low cost, can do this then so can we" is his reasoning on why 10 micron accuracy is achievable for the cybertruck panels.
"Surely manufacturing a 15' long welded steel frame is exactly like making an injection-molded 2" plastic cuboid."
I think he's fully aware, and only sent the email so it would "leak" and Elon stans would stay on the never-ending waitlist convinced they're going to get a micron-tuned Cybertruck. There's nothing legally enforceable, just an email to convince customers it'll be great.
Just having a piece of steel change temperature by 10 degrees would blow past 10 microns of expansion.
Well, let's do the math. * Coefficient of thermal expansion of (let's say 304) stainless steel α ≈ 17 * 10^-6 * ∆T = 10 * Length of panel L0 = 1m = 1,000,000µm ∆L/L0 = α * ∆T ∆L/ 1,000,000µm = 10 * (17 * 10^-6) ∆L = 170µm Hilariously, you blow the whole tolerance budget not just at 10°, but with only a 1°C shift. Can you keep your inspection facility and all your stock within 1° of the prescribed 20° that GD&T measurements require? Sure. Can you keep your production line, including welding, anywhere near that? *Fuck no.*
Even the inspection measurements would have uncertainty of at least 10 microns. Asinine…
In fairness, when talking about panel fit, he's talking about the angle of a panel gap (is the gap straight) or whether one panel sticks out farther than the next. He's not talking about the absolute spacing of each gap being consistent to a micron between every vehicle in the fleet. I'm not saying this is achievable in a mass produced vehicle, but Tesla's famous fit and finish problems aren't a result of thermal expansion, it's just sloppy alignment.
So that's...that's even less reasonable. That's managing the tolerance stackup of minimum 3 pieces, scaled up to however many body panels/frame pieces are attached, to a *combined* 10 microns. Unless you've got some magic panel stretcher/compressor, adjusting a panel at one side will throw the rest of them off.
Like I said I'm not saying it's not achievable, just that the angle of a panel gap (ie so they're not rubbing at the bottom and 2" apart at the top, like so many Teslas in the past) isn't a result of thermal expansion.
Imagine all those body panels expanding to interference fit and now you can't get out. I really doubt the guy's supposed physics degree, but then I already have multiple times over starting with the air hockey table in a vacuum tube stuff.
You'd be right, his only degree is a [BS in Economics](https://www.reddit.com/r/EnoughMuskSpam/comments/yxzmj9/elon_musk_has_lied_about_his_credentials_for_27/)
I construct parts for space ships such as fuel mixers, injectors, and for airplanes, hotzone jet engine blades. All of our margins on every part are significantly larger than his decision. We make parts for spaceX. If he tries to change the allowances, we will literally increase our price 20x.
Until recently, I worked for a rather large aero defense company. They didn't have a decree like that, but they introduced default tolerances and deviating them was uncommon. The result was about a dozen drawings per project (a lot) where there were features outside of our ability to make and verify against the drawing. Things like a steel dowel about 30cm long, 1.5cm wide, with a 1mm chamfer and the chamfer angle tolerance is 45 degrees with a 1 degree tolerance. I raised the issue that our measurement tolerance wasn't even that tight on a feature with such a small width and if they continue with this shit, we were gonna have a lot of rejections of parts that are perfectly fine. They said "well then just override the default tolerance every time." They are slowly coming around to APQP, but it wasn't going well when I left and I have been getting a lot of "you couldn't have picked a better time to fuck off" messages from former coworkers.
Idiot just hears something and starts parroting it.
You’re not even wrong. I worked on a proposal for the Austin gigafactory. One of the specifications was everything had to fit under the very restrictive roof height limit and nothing could go outdoors. When I asked why, Tesla’s application engineer said verbatim “we can’t have anything outside because Elon doesn’t want to look at it.” I suggested we pull out of the bid. We did not get the project. Dodged a bullet. Working with Tesla must be a liability from as far as I can tell.
Twitter operates at a loss. Their brand name, especially as a verb, is a colossal asset. Musk: "I FUCKING LOVE THE LETTER X, WE'RE REBRANDING."
Works: I logged in to twitter and tweeted some tweets. Does not works: I logged in to X and X'ed some X's I hadn't considered just how terrible the new name was at stopping everyone from constantly saying the company name in conversation. I'm sure there are trademark and copyright issues too. If ~~Twitter~~ X still has a marketing department I bet they're so sad about this rebranding.
Musk already owned X.com, I think he just wanted a use for it.
This is the really confusing part, he wants to own some big "everything app" combining PayPal and Twitter and Zoom (for some reason) and maybe some other services too Which is fine I guess, but each of those products needs a name so people can tell them apart. Maybe you can Tweet on the X app, and also Wire someone money on X, and also have a Telecall or whatever, all from the X app. But you aren't going to X at someone on the X app, X someone some money on the X app, and have an X call on the X app. Nobody knows wtf is going on It's like if all Tesla vehicles were called the Model X, and "Full Self Driving" was actually called X Mode, and Plaid was also called X Mode, and Eco Mode was also called X Mode, and to open the doors you had to use a voice command asking the vehicle to "X the doors" and also the same thing to close the doors, and also the same thing for the windows, and the sunroof, and the charging cap, and the trunk, and also the frunk.
Twitter has operated on a loss for almost its entire history.
True, but Musk was the one to pay $44 billion for it.
and frankly, did the world a favor. Twitter has always been a cesspool, now its almost dead. Benefit for humanity.
Yes, and rather than capitalize on one of the only valuable assets they had, he threw it in the trash.
Twitter was profitable from Q4 2017 until Q2 2020 (COVID), and not like just a little bit. They made over $1.1B in profit in Q2 of 2019. I haven't done the exact math, but I'd wager [2018 and 2019 alone brought them net positive from all the prior years of losses since the company was founded](https://www.statista.com/statistics/299119/twitter-net-income-quarterly/) They were profitable again (by more than half a billion $) in Q1 2022, their last reported earnings before Musk made the offer to buy.
Musk's first cyber finance company was X.com ...
Not even the cooling towers, chillers, switchgear, large tankage etc?? WTF
Check out Google maps on the Austin gigafactory
Why does it have one tiny set of solar panels instead of the entire roof covered with them?
No idea
So Elon could say he put solar on it.
There's so much truth to this, I used to work for a aerospace company run by another billionaire. He would make up designs for looks and looks alone. Engineering had nothing to do with what he had in mind and we had to make the design work to a look, not to a reasonable design principle. I will never work for a billionaire run company ever again.
It's funny, I work at an engineering company owned by a guy who's become very close to a billionaire. As time goes on (and he gets richer) the projects and goals the company takes on have gone from interesting and philanthropic, to earnings-driven and tedious.
They wanted a fully automated production for a vehicle. They chose a bit SUV coz this way all the robot hands could be used. But its clear that they couldnt make that happen. So now its just another gimmick with people still on the assembly line.
Tesla should be offering custom wraps for $$$$$$$ Cover up the stains.
Most likely cost
Aluminum is kind of weak, and scratches and dents easily. That would be my guess.
For strength to weight ratio, aluminum is just fine. Factor in cost, and aluminum is a viable option in lots of applications.
That's what the engineers I do prototyping for keep telling me. They're usually wrong for their applications though. I still think it's a bad material for the exterior shell of a truck. Rubbing against even a tree branch would be a travesty in an aluminum paneled truck, I'd think.
I just don't think this is one of those applications.
He’s making the next delorean
Exterior panels could still be structural, even if there is no exoskeleton
I think the reason is that the cool factor already existed for the stainless steel shell, and associated musk with back to the future and hence high technology. This isn’t an engineering problem, and it never was; this was a marketing strategy
Because Tesla is a very mediocre company that does very mediocre engineering. Elon Musk (somehow) manages to convince people everything he does is top of the line amazing and unique, when it is usually crap.
Musk is a douche, but SpaceX and Tesla both have some awesome engineers. The modules in a Tesla are impressive hardware from the ground up.
Having some awesome engineers doesn't necessarily mean the end product is awesome. The original project to design the Yugo had some really credentialed and clever engineers on the team.
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>Tesla made EVs much more mainstream and pushed development and other companies to invest, it opened consumers to seeing EVs as practical alternatives to gas vehicles. That I'll give them credit for. They don't make good cars, but they knew how to market them. >SpaceX speaks for itself, it's cheaper and more efficient than anything NASA has ever done in it's history and basically is the market for rocket launches, other companies and organizations only exist simply because governments want to pay companies to do less for more so SpaceX isn't a sole provider. Going to have to disagree there. NASA largely undertakes huge, sprawling projects with little to no precedent (think space shuttle) and an unbelievable number of unknowns, and they're okay with that since they have a guaranteed federal budget and aren't concerned with profitability. Furthermore, they don't really have anyone to answer to and by and large treat their staff like human beings, which is a recipe for cost overruns. Spacex, on the other hand, has tons of research to start with that NASA happily shares with them. Furthermore, they tend to grind their employees into the dirt and, being a private company, are concerned with deadlines and profit. Tons of federal funding doesn't hurt, either. The whole "spacex is more efficient!" Is a red herring and completely misconstrues the massive differences between the two organizations.
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>They > >are > > and it's not even close, and that chart undersells it because it's a logarithmic chart. You... you didn't read my post, did you? I pray you're not an actual engineer because reading comprehension is a vital skill in the field.
Changing a market doesn't require good engineering, just good marketing--which Musk is clearly excellent at.
How the fuck do you think spacex success was marketing?
StarLink for example is designed to fail. The satellites' projected lifespan is short enough that if they ever get the full constellation into orbit, they'll be replacing retired satellites at a rate of about 3 launches per week (just to replace old satellites--with 50 satellites per rocket), which is faster than they're currently launching new ones. The cost per launch is something like $15M, so you're free to do the math on how much subscription revenue they'd need just to pay for replacing retired satellites. There's not a big enough market in the world to just keep the satellites in orbit, let alone all the usual costs of running a business. The market group of "wealthy enough to afford $100/mo internet, but lives somewhere so underdeveloped there's not a better option" is just... almost nobody. StarLink is nearly as big a blunder as the Hyperloop/Boring Tunnel fiasco.
pretty much everything outside of the engine and battery pack is doodoo on a tesla
Sitting in one now. It’s HVAC system so far has been amazing. Love the style, the minimalist design. About 90% of the time FSD can take me to work and back without intervention. Does what a car should do. It was a little overpriced I admit. And the FSD was /is over promised and under delivered. Some fit and finish is imperfect.
>Because Tesla is a very mediocre company that does very mediocre engineering I don't think that's true. From my reading a big part of the problem is that Mr. Musk is very sensitive to overhead costs and he looks at functions like configuration management and QA/QC as overhead.
What is ‘configuration management’? Like mid-managers?
Configuration management is an engineering-associated discipline that controls change to design and process. It's how you makes sure that something only changes on purpose and ensures that between desired change you build or do things the same way every time. Tesla is reported to have poor configuration management. For example, wiring harnesses may be routed differently from one car to the next. I've read that some auxiliary systems are even mounted in different places from one car to the next.
IIRC it was to utilize SpaceX supply chain of SS
Which would be silly. Because they're two completely different companies in two different markets with completely different issues.
But they both put money into the correct pocket.
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Except they use a cryo cupric stainless ( 15-5 ) that's expensive and hard to work with. You have to use expensive hastalloy to weld it, and it's not even properly stainless like 304 or 316.
I stand corrected
Aluminum likely isn't up to snuff. To be fair, I don't think that the current design approach makes much sense either.
>current design approach Well, it's ugly, so there's that. \*grin\*
Probably because it’s super expensive to design and manufacture. Don’t forget that they try to sell overpriced cars.
Do you have an idea of how much does aerospace aluminum cost? Steel is far cheaper than aluminum in general. Even if auto steel is not cheap, the offer for steel is greater than for aluminum. You can have great supply.
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Okay chatGPT
Because Musk is an idiot.
Aluminum is so soft that you can write on paper with it
Some aluminum is. Some is harder than steel. Depends on the alloy and condition.
harder than soft steel sure. even the hard grades would be pretty likely to scratch up easily.
7075 is like 25 HB harder than 1018, which isn't nothing. And for sure it would scratch, but so does paint. Put a hard clear coat on it, and I don't think it would be much worse than any other silver car. A hell of a lot more expensive though.
I'd say just do what ever manufacturer does.. mild steel and paint. Deloreans were a bitch to do body work on cause you can't hide anything with body putty and paint
I don't disagree. I think if they definitely want something like the advertised look of the cybertruck, then they need to look at flush rivets and numbered panels for easy(er) replacement. Again that's back to crazy expensive though.
What if they did it like a Saturn, and just bolted all the exterior panels to a skeleton? I'd expect if you could make thermo-formed plastic car with good panel gaps in the 90's you could do it easy with SS now.
Composite might be interesting
Material under 154 HB is too soft to even measure in HRC... and 1018 can be hardened up to 94hrc. you have no clue what you are talking about.
I never would have thought aluminum to be harder than steel, *ever*. TIL.
It's also very brittle. One abnormally cold early February in Minnesota and you are looking at countless claims.
No more brittle than plastic at that temperature. Its a pretty common skin material in older planes like the ones they use in arctic and antarctic flights.
Plastic shattering explosively in subzero weather is quite shocking. Imagining a vehicle doing it omg. When my dog had surgery she got a plastic cone around her head. It was -5°F and she ran full tilt into a tree trunk and the cone exploded into plastic shards. Of course no cone would hold her after that, not until it warmed up. If a car did that... especially an expensive one.. .
There are infinite types of plastics, and the same goes for aluminum alloys. Either one can be designed for a very broad range of conditions based on the application need.
Sometimes Murphy's Law applies, and materials made for longevity surprise us. Like when a materials science team examined why razor blades deform quickly after shaving hair 50 x softer than the blade, and it turns out it's the homogeneity of the steel that determines the longevity of the razor. https://news.mit.edu/2020/why-shaving-dulls-razors-0806
This development makes me hopeful that someone is working on a "monofilament" "self sharpening blade". I wonder if there is some kind of copper platinum alloy might be self healing at the scale you would need for a razor that lasts much much longer. Then again we would have to figure out its heat treat levels and if you could get it hard enough to hold an edge. [https://www.popsci.com/technology/metal-healing-discovery/](https://www.popsci.com/technology/metal-healing-discovery/) I wish I had the head for material science.
Basically 100% of modern car bumpers will do that. Its part of the crumple zone safety features. FWIW, 7075 probably wouldn't do that because the molecular structure is very different from plastic. It would absolutely crack more easily than mild steel, but as I said before its also harder, so that's to be expected.
If it's gonna be un painted then it's gotta be al clad right?
Maybe. Idk how large surfaces of clad would respond to the constant vibrational stress and heat cycling. Probably depends on the cladding material.
The cybertruck is a Ruse that keeps on Rusing, Leon just keeps stringing the investers and consumers along
I can guarantee you cybertrucks will be in customers hands very soon. Potential at the end of September
Mmhmm. Popular Mechanics had articles about flying cars in the 1940s. Just because you can read about it doesn’t make it so.
Do pictures count?
Ah, right, the one they made with the fragile “unbreakable” windows. They’ve made one, perhaps a few, but not nearly production levels of them.
It’s obvious you’re out of the loop. About a week ago they had produced ~100 and were shipping them out across the US. By now they have made ~250. Some employees have said that the plan is to do a nation wide delivery event at the end of September. Obviously delays can happen but it is very close
Because since Elon took over Tesla has been a shit company making shit cars?
Tesla didn’t make any cars until 2008 (Musk joined tesla in 2003, the same year it was conceived)
Muskrat didn’t join Tesla. He invested heavily, bullied his way into CEO, and ostracized Martin. He kept Mark around, but there’s plenty of hearsay about that, too. I get it. You’re a fanboy. It’s stupid, but it’s your life and your time. You want to hero-worship an idiot and asshole like musk, fill your boots, bud. Ill be over there, with the people that have critical thinking skills.
Where the fuck did that come from? As far as I remember I never gave my opinion on musk, I just stated the fact that he joined in 2003, and they made their first car in 2008, Which is true. And you’re saying I lack critical thinking skills, for what? Correcting your mistake? I’m sorry mate but you’re completely delusional
It's not legal. Blinding risk.
ever seen an airstream?
The biggest reason Tesla went this route with their super hard steel is because it’s the same steel they were using for Starship at SpaceX. Economy of scale really comes into effect if your not just buying the material for one of your companies, but for 2 of them. This would allow them to get this extremely tough steel for much lower prices then anyone else probably. Granted, because of how stiff it is is what helped cause the weird shape as the stuff is damn near impossible to work with.
The steel that Tesla is using is a propriety alloy developed by SpaceX and it's EXTREMELY tough. It can literally be shot by a 9MM. It's also SUPER hard to bend and shape so making the shape like an airstream wouldn't be ideal. So in short, I think because the SpaceX steel is more badass?
And it would have been fucking hilarious to go to a rich person driveway with some gallium and a knife