The Cybertruck's Latest "Innovation": Parts That Self-Eject
Elon's $45 billion "unbreakable" metal origami experiment has reached a new milestone: every single one requires a recall because the roof trim is attempting to escape its dystopian design. The "cant rail" panels—appropriately named since they literally "can't" stay attached—are secured with what appears to be the same adhesive used on Post-it notes, but with less staying power.
Tesla's cutting-edge solution? Actually using nuts and bolts like every other manufacturer from the last century. Revolutionary! Nothing showcases disruptive innovation like hastily welding studs onto your "production-ready" vehicle because the original engineering approach involved hoping really hard that glue would work.
This eighth recall establishes the Cybertruck as Tesla's most consistent product—consistently recalled, that is. While traditional automakers waste time on extensive testing, Tesla boldly pioneers the "let customers discover the flaws" approach to quality control.
The timing couldn't be better, as owners were just mastering the art of pretending not to notice parts of their $100,000+ "future of transportation" littering highways behind them. At least the obscene gestures from passing motorists provide some entertainment while waiting for service appointments.
Perhaps next time, instead of launching cars into space, someone might suggest testing whether they can survive Earth's hostile environment—like air, roads, and reality.
Hell, the fog light body panels on my partner's Audi Q5 was press-fit. We found out it was held in with a couple plastic tabs after it went missing (presumed stolen) and we had to replace it.
Even better, should it ever fly off, the plastic covering would do less damage than the Cybertruck's heavy steel body panels.
What other manufacturers glue large steel panels on the sides of their car?
Sure, some other car makers use glue and tape to adhere some parts of the car together. Usually things like plastic trim pieces, not large steel panels.
It's a long steel trim piece. Calling it a large panel seems misleading. Similar (but not as long, as far as I know) pieces are glued by other manufacturers but they are plastic.
As an engineer I would be genuinely interested in a comprehensive "lessons learned" from the Cybertruck. I'd love to see how far you can diverge from standard processes/design and how much you must undo in order to fix the problems that creates. Could there be a reliable Cybertruck 2? What would it need to sacrifice from its odd design to accomplish that (drop the gigacast frame? 2 windscreen wipers? etc).
When it was announced, it had vibes of being a car meant for Mars (or the Moon); but there's so much wrong with it in practice, that whoever does eventually build bases on those bodies* will better off starting from scratch.
* I now only give 70% odds of Starship getting to Mars ever, including one-way test flights that crash rather than landing correctly: if SpaceX can't launch to Mars before Trump stops being president, they more than likely never will — I think Musk will be directly told by the sucessor that he's no longer allowed to work on rockets, or any government contracts, due to being seen as a security risk. And without Musk, why bother with Mars?
Not 100% sure this counts but I noticed that yesterday Reddit.com, on a default signed-out profile, was recommending me a /r/ "Cyberstuck" subreddit via the front page which was actively condoning and encouraging violence against teslas. Given that tens of millions of people view the front page daily, that could probably reasonably be construed as mass inciting of violence, and Reddit is well known to be a primarily Democratic instituion.
> was actively condoning and encouraging violence against teslas
> Violence is often defined as the use of physical force or power by humans to cause harm and degradation to other living beings, such as humiliation, pain, injury, disablement, damage to property and ultimately death, as well as destruction to a society's living environment. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation
You can't be violent against cars. You can vandalise them, which is a crime against property, but that's still not violence.
> Reddit is well known to be a primarily Democratic instituion.
I'm sorry, but you've been woefully misinformed. Reddit is mostly young, and thus socially progressive. Any relation to the US Democratic party is completely by accident, and in fact, I've seen tons of criticism towards them for going the wrong way (trying to entice "centrist Republicans" instead of being more progressive).
Your own definition of violence includes damages to property. And besides, damaging someone’s personal property is effectively the same thing as damaging their person. Because property takes time out of a persons life to earn, therefore depriving someone of their property is almost exactly the same thing as depriving them of their life / health.
> And besides, damaging someone’s personal property is effectively the same thing as damaging their person. Because property takes time out of a persons life to earn, therefore depriving someone of their property is almost exactly the same thing as depriving them of their life / health
This is one of the most absurd things I've ever heard. Cars are insured, and even if they weren't... this is still absurd. I can't even put into words how absurd it is. So if someone burns your house, it's the same as getting your feet amputated? Or what exactly is your scale? Losing the phone the same as going bald?
Having a house burn down is comparable to 25-75 years(most people get a mortgage) of labor toil loss, which is enough to push most humans to the point of debilitation, or at least they can only do that amount of work once or twice per lifespan. It’s hard to quantify suffering but yes I’d agree the physical suffering toll on their body and mental facilities required to work that long period of time does seem somewhat roughly comparable to the acute loss of a major limb.
That’s lovely. So, where is your evidence that Democratic politicians are cheering on the murder of Cybertruck owners? That was the claim you made in your flagged post. Time to put up or shut-up.
That's what you get when Tesla maintains a monopoly on service of their cars. Suppressed information, hidden recalls. The dealership model is more open and the power balance makes it harder to mask problems.
At the unveiling it was promised to start at $39,900, just under $50k in today's dollars.
Yes, that was for a base model that wasn't produced, but we are a long way from the promised stats on the upper trim. Promised to be under $70k, or about $87k in today's dollars (nope), 500+ mi range (nope, 300), payload 3500lbs (nope, 2500), tow rating 14000 (nope, 11000). By 2021 (nope).
It does come close on two of the promised stats: 0-60 in under 3 seconds and top speed just under the promised 130. I'd much rather have it be good at being a truck than being a massive hunk of pointy steel that can be thrown around with that much torque.
I believe it, but only if you don't use it too often. Aluminum doesn't handle creep[1] well so the actual tow rating probably decreases every time you tow something near the limit.
Tesla's vehicles give me "disposable technology" vibes. Criminal for something so expensive that's also meant to be environmentally friendly.
The Cybertruck is just trash. It will be relegated to the scrap yard of embarassingly bad cars. Unless you want to argue it's actaully an embarassingly bad truck.
As a European coming to USA and seeing cybertrucks for the first time in real life I think it looks really fun, much more fun than on the pictures.
Having lots of problems is expected though...I have an electric car in Europe and I knew there will be lots of problems when I bought it. Still, I wouldn't go back even with its frustrations.
Elon's $45 billion "unbreakable" metal origami experiment has reached a new milestone: every single one requires a recall because the roof trim is attempting to escape its dystopian design. The "cant rail" panels—appropriately named since they literally "can't" stay attached—are secured with what appears to be the same adhesive used on Post-it notes, but with less staying power.
Tesla's cutting-edge solution? Actually using nuts and bolts like every other manufacturer from the last century. Revolutionary! Nothing showcases disruptive innovation like hastily welding studs onto your "production-ready" vehicle because the original engineering approach involved hoping really hard that glue would work.
This eighth recall establishes the Cybertruck as Tesla's most consistent product—consistently recalled, that is. While traditional automakers waste time on extensive testing, Tesla boldly pioneers the "let customers discover the flaws" approach to quality control.
The timing couldn't be better, as owners were just mastering the art of pretending not to notice parts of their $100,000+ "future of transportation" littering highways behind them. At least the obscene gestures from passing motorists provide some entertainment while waiting for service appointments.
Perhaps next time, instead of launching cars into space, someone might suggest testing whether they can survive Earth's hostile environment—like air, roads, and reality.