Musk: Tesla Cybertruck is waterproof and can serve as a boat to cross rivers, lakes & calm seas 🤯

[sotek2345]

What part of it is nonsense? Or are you just "that guy" that has to crap on people who are doing new things because "it's different than it's always been?"

You probably said they could never land a rocket too...

Ooh - I will dive in to make this fun.

- The "stressed exoskeleton" is really just another word for unibody. Some minor innovations with structures, but nothing major.
- Stainless is a very expensive material both to buy and to work with. The stainless is why the cybertruck looks the way it does. It is also very heavy as compared to the aluminum body on the F150.
- the "Mega castings" aren't really that big compared to industrial castings in general. They will also make the Cybertruck (and new model Y) almost impossible to repair after a collision. Fender benders quickly turn into totaling the vehicle. The structural battery makes this worse. Big castings also have a tendancy to have defect inclusions (inherent to the casting process) that reduce strength and can lead to cracking over time.

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[greenne]

I'll just say there is no way in HELL Tesla will offer a competitive spec truck for under $100k. I'm betting $125k. If anything, prices keep going up. There is nothing simple about the radical design elements of this truck. Simple physics says it will need a huge battery to get anywhere close to Elon's lofty dreams of range and performance. That requires money and development (more money).

Size is EVERYTHING when it comes to an EV due to weight and due to aerodynamics which impact range.

Bullet resistant body? You have to be joking...

 

[lightspeed]

I'll just say there is no way in HELL Tesla will offer a competitive spec truck for under $100k. I'm betting $125k. If anything, prices keep going up. There is nothing simple about the radical design elements of this truck. Simple physics says it will need a huge battery to get anywhere close to Elon's lofty dreams of range and performance. That requires money and development (more money).

Size is EVERYTHING when it comes to an EV due to weight and due to aerodynamics which impact range.

Bullet resistant body? You have to be joking...

I don't know what the price will be, but neither do you. I would bet that It will be under 100K. But either way, we'll know next year.

An F150 would get almost 500 highway miles with a 200kWh battery. The CT will do better because it will be more aerodynamic. A 200kWh battery is not crazy. GM is doing it now.

The bullet resistance is not something I would rely on, or a reason to buy or not buy, but 3mm stainless should stop an average 9mm handgun round.

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

The cyber truck fanatics are an interesting lot. One guy told me that the cyber truck is the only EV work truck currently in the pipe line. When I asked why he didn’t consider the lightning a work truck, his response was that the F150 platform was too obsolete. I didn’t even know how to respond to that.

For the record, I made a deposit for the Cybertruck when it was first announced.

I was even an active member in the CyberTruck owners forum for a while.

The reason was simple. I made the decision to give up gas engines, but never pulled the trigger because I loved my F-150. At the time Tesla was the first major company that announced an electric pickup, so I finally could have an EV, that's also a pickup.

When I watched the Ford announcement for the Lightning I JUMPED at the chance to make a deposit because I knew 2 things. 1. It would be a REAL product that actually shipped. 2. It would be a REAL F-150.

The F-150 design is far from obsolete. The F Series of trucks is still the gold standard that all other trucks are measured against.

I love my Lightning because it's built on the F-150 platform. Every detail inside and out feels at home because it's had decades of refinement.

Some of the CyberTruck technical features are impressive on paper, but some things just plain don't make sense as a work truck. I never liked the seats, steering yoke and dashboard on the thing, and the frunk has never been demonstrated because it's clearly an afterthought. The feature I liked best was the ramp for the (manual) tailgate, but it looks like they've dropped that from the final version. They've also never demonstrated what kind of power delivery the truck will have for tools and tailgating.

Time will tell. They've moved the production date to 2024, so they have time to change things, but as it stands now... it's clearly not ready for prime time.

 

[lightspeed]

Ooh - I will dive in to make this fun.

- The "stressed exoskeleton" is really just another word for unibody. Some minor innovations with structures, but nothing major.
- Stainless is a very expensive material both to buy and to work with. The stainless is why the cybertruck looks the way it does. It is also very heavy as compared to the aluminum body on the F150.
- the "Mega castings" aren't really that big compared to industrial castings in general. They will also make the Cybertruck (and new model Y) almost impossible to repair after a collision. Fender benders quickly turn into totaling the vehicle. The structural battery makes this worse. Big castings also have a tendancy to have defect inclusions (inherent to the casting process) that reduce strength and can lead to cracking over time.

A "unibody" car is really an inner structural frame covered with a secondary layer of non-structural body panels. Stressed skin might allow you to remove a lot of the reinforcing frame members. I don't know how much that will save, but not having to stamp/weld the inner frame and then also stamp body panels might allow for some manufacturing savings. It's a novel idea for cars (been around aircraft forever). We'll see how it pans out.

Stainless is more expensive, so it depends on if other savings offset the added cost. Not having to paint the truck for example. Also, the cost of the body material even in stainless is probably pretty low compared to everything else.

I don't know how every company is using castings, but supposedly Tesla's 9000 ton casting machine is the largest ever made and I haven't heard anyone refute that. Maybe the confusion is that the Tesla machine is a high pressure die casting machine, not just a giant sand form that you poor hot metal into like the crude castings used in some giant machines. High pressure plus careful material management should eliminate significant internal defects.

Lastly, any impact that has enough force to break the casting would probably total any normal car too. But there are a lot of variables.

 

[lightspeed]

For the record, I made a deposit for the Cybertruck when it was first announced.

I was even an active member in the CyberTruck owners forum for a while.

The reason was simple. I made the decision to give up gas engines, but never pulled the trigger because I loved my F-150. At the time Tesla was the first major company that announced an electric pickup, so I finally could have an EV, that's also a pickup.

When I watched the Ford announcement for the Lightning I JUMPED at the chance to make a deposit because I knew 2 things. 1. It would be a REAL product that actually shipped. 2. It would be a REAL F-150.

The F-150 design is far from obsolete. The F Series of trucks is still the gold standard that all other trucks are measured against.

I love my Lightning because it's built on the F-150 platform. Every detail inside and out feels at home because it's had decades of refinement.

Some of the CyberTruck technical features are impressive on paper, but some things just plain don't make sense as a work truck. I never liked the seats, steering yoke and dashboard on the thing, and the frunk has never been demonstrated because it's clearly an afterthought. The feature I liked best was the ramp for the (manual) tailgate, but it looks like they've dropped that from the final version. They've also never demonstrated what kind of power delivery the truck will have for tools and tailgating.

Time will tell. They've moved the production date to 2024, so they have time to change things, but as it stands now... it's clearly not ready for prime time.

No arguments here.

I'm don't know if the CT will be great, but it does have potential. Until it's really available, we won't know what the real pros/cons are.

I do know the Lightning is very good (and could have been amazing with a larger battery lol).

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

No arguments here.

I'm don't know if the CT will be great, but it does have potential. Until it's really available, we won't know what the real pros/cons are.

I do know the Lightning is very good (and could have been amazing with a larger battery lol).

I have no doubt that the CyberTruck will be the best Tesla ever, and probably sell like hotcakes. I think the majority of buyers won't be traditional pickup drivers, so the impact on Ford's position as the #1 pickup will remain unchanged.

The landscape will be quite different when it arrives in in 2024/25, so their original strategy of being the 1st major EV to market was lost. Tesla will be competing with all the traditional pickup brands including Chevy and RAM.

Ford's position as the best selling pickup, and now best selling EV pickup gives them a lot of the momentum needed to massively scale production of their future generations just as they're just starting their 1st.

When I visited the factory in April they reminded me that the entire factory was brand new and that the rear wall would be gone within a year as they literally double that massive factory so they can scale production even further.

Like a lot of people, I've given up on gas forever. I never would've made that choice without an electric pickup truck as an option. I'm so glad the Lightning is not only an EV, but it's a real F-150. Even better, I didn't give up anything to make the switch. I don't think I could say that if I had the CyberTruck. It brings some new things to the table, but I'd be giving up a lot of the comfort and utility features that I've loved over the years.

 

[Sandag]

I think stainless steel prices are going to be a significant issue. Even if you save on the batteries, SS commodity prices have fluctuated wildly and while down from their peak, are still 50% higher than when the truck was announced. End of the day, I wanted an electric truck, not an order to track for 5 years.

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