Cybertruck Body Prototype Casting spied uncovered!! 😲

[flowerlandfilms]

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[firsttruck]

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With uni-body the ribbed/skeletal parts are structural members. These structural members are various shapes and layers of sheet metal steel.

Much of the stuff you see in a body-in-white is the sheet metal ribbed/skeletal parts are structural members.

What you do not see in body-in-white is left & right front fenders and left/right rear fenders.
In uni-body those fender pieces are not structural. These fenders are not designed to be load bearing, under compression forces or to take tension forces. With a uni-body car a good place to look and see is the rear fender area. The rear side exterior fender are sheet metal stamped & painted are NOT structural. But if look at a body-in-white picture you will see a inner stamped sheet metal panel that probably is structural and is part of the body-in-white.
The uni-body body-in-white can structural take the vehicles design loads without the exterior fenders and other exterior skins.

Car Body Design - New Volvo V60 Body in White Safety Structure
Car Body Design is a leading website in the automotive and industrial design fields.
https://www.carbodydesign.com/gallery/2018/02/the-new-volvo-v60/13/

Bostik Smart Adhesives - Automotive Body in White (BIW) and a Smart Solution - Bostik Blog
https://industrial.bostik.com/automotive-body-white-biw-smart-solution/

Pretty much anything not in body-in-white is non-structural.

That is where Cybertruck is more than a uni-body but is a exoskeleton. In the Cybertruck the 3mm steel skin is structural. The 3mm steel fenders ARE designed to be load bearing or under compression forces or to take tension forces.
The Cybertruck needs the exterior fenders and other exterior skins for the structure to take the vehicles design loads. A exoskeleton.

I think one point of confusion is exoskeleton vehicle body is slightly different than a human in exoskeleton contraption for moving boxes vs exoskeleton insect like creature. These things have similarities but are not 100% equal in meaning and design. This commonly happens with words that are used in diverse domains that what the word represent might be similar but also have significant differences. Example is human exoskeleton contraption for moving boxes has no skin while an exoskeleton type creature the skin is an central part of it being exoskeleton type.

 

[samroy92]

Just adding my two cents (or nonsense) to the discussion.
Doing a quick overlay of a 3D model (Thank you Lizard_FPV) and trying to do a camera match without being certain if anything in the frame is square, level, or parallel with anything else in the scene...

...it doesn't line up perfectly, but is close enough to convince me that the photo is legit.

This is the picture that everyone should be looking at - we need more of this 3D rendering because perspective shifting is tearing this community apart!

 

[anionic1]

Probably anti-corrosion coating (undercoating) combo sound deadening material?…maybe

The sign on the ceiling says powder coating. It also looks like it is on a big skid that can slide probably back to the right on the picture into an oven. My bet is they are powder coating because they need to protect the steel and since the stainless exoskeleton will be structurally glued to the inner body the powder coating will be a stronger bond than paint. They probably coated the aluminum casting to prevent galvanic corrosion between the stainless body.

 

[anionic1]

You can’t just have stainless skin panels hanging out at the corner. Corners are complicated. This corner also needs to allow the tailgate to attach to it. And the bed cover track needs a support.

The critical cost saving element of the stainless body panels is cutting them then not messing with them to much. So they will clean up the edges, do a minor finishing (buffing/polishing) then glue them on the truck. If they needed to start welding on attachment points or latches or tracks, this would end up being very difficult to save cost on.

 

[anionic1]

I understand that but from the start we’ve been led to believe that the frame of this truck is 30x stainless

They never said frame or 100% stainless. They pushed a stainless exoskeleton and happened to use a gray primer on the inner body panels. I have been preaching an inner steel body for years (with much push back on this forum I might add). Tesla is crazy efficient. They would never build a stainless inner body. Stainless is 2x steel cost.

 

[greggertruck]

Kim Java with updated video

1. pic was taken in december
2. according to her, it's a friend at giga texas

Everything else is speculation and regurgitation from a teslarati post.

 

[Elder Drew Haughton]

FINALLY something NEW

from NEWton

 

[Elder Drew Haughton]

Just follow the roofline...

 

[anionic1]

Your perspective is off. The top of your red outline on the body already doesn’t line up with the roof. This is the real thing.

 

[anionic1]

A couple interesting observations. I didn’t read through all 21 pages on this post so forgive me if it’s been stated.

First you can see how above the rear sail pilar the casting is set low or offset from the roof about 1” but there are some tabs that stick up. This is likely a recess for the tonneau cover track where it will attach to the castings.

Next, you can see large pass through voids in the casting right behind where the rear bumper would be. My bet is that a steel crash rail tube will be slid in from the exterior and bolted in place. Then the bumper and inner truck bed will attach to that. That way it acts like a replaceable bulkhead and is probably designed to fail before the castings in an accident.

 

[anionic1]

Betting no.

that’s the same wrap we saw roll in there a month ago on the bodies, sitting behind. Kinda looks like it anyway.

Thread: https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/new-cybertruck-body-shell-photos-taken-inside-giga-texas-?.5660/

It just clicked. I think many of us saw they white plastic wrapped delivery and thought it was the stainless exoskeleton because the shape matches so closely. But what was under that wrap is this inner body in the post!

 

[anionic1]

Looks 100% legit to me.

I find it interesting how much space there is between the two rear frame rails. It is also missing the typical cross-members you would expect. It is painted so I think they’d be installed at this step in manufacturing. So this brings up the question, what’s going to go there? Are they going to have additional batteries below the truck bed? Kind of makes sense.

Another’s thing is it looks like two separate casings in the back. So will there be a total of 3 castings per vehicle (1 front, 2 back)?

And to answer an earlier question, you can definitely weld mild steel to stainless. You can also bond aluminum to stainless with standard automotive adhesives that are reported to be as strong (or stronger) than welding.

I think it’s one big casting otherwise they wouldn’t have needed that larger press. The smaller press could have handled this as the two smaller sections would have been about the size of the model y casting.

 

[anionic1]

Kinda small to be gigacastings. But they really show an amount of strength in the wings I predicted - they're essential to the strength of the vehicle.

No motor mount points in this sub-assembly.

-Crissa

Everyone saying looks like two rear castings is making stuff up. Point to one part of this image that shows a break or two castings. There’s isn’t one. That’s why they brought in the giga press. It’s what we have been waiting for. It shipped in October ready to assemble and use and we are seeing the result of that. This is very likely the final version of those castings. And this is the version they will be doing the testing on.

 

[Sonnus]

Model Y went from 2 rear castings to 1 to get production going early. Maybe they are doing the same with the Cybertruck? Start production with 2 castings with the available presses and once the big mama is available go to a single casting.

Also, it would be very tough to cast this as pictured with the way the casting drafts (webs) are on the side.

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