Munro sees how Cybertruck's Hard Freaking Stainless Steel Body Panels are Blanked, Bent, and Built @ Production Factory

[Administrator]

Lars Moravy, Head of Vehicle Engineering gave Sandy a tour of the Giga Factory in Austin Texas and showed us how they build the panels for the Tesla Cybertruck.

Video confirms that the door steel is 1.8mm thickness and rest of exterior panels is 1.4mm

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[geekfam]

Just watched it, fantastic video and amazing work by the Tesla engineers!

 

[Macgyverfever]

1.8mm thickness for doors and 1.4mm for everything else - interesting.

 

[Tommytuna]

fascinating - can't believe the scale and how much stuff they had to invent to bring this to market. Explains the delays...

 

[cvalue13]

1.8mm thickness for doors and 1.4mm for everything else - interesting.

in terms of passenger protection, really only the doors are relevant

e.g.,

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired broadside at the rear quarter panel, even if it penetrates, wont endanger a passenger

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired head-on at the frunk face, even if it penetrates, to endanger a passenger would have to ALSO go through the truck brains behind the frunk, the firewall, and the dashboard materials (similar story RE the tailgate/bulkhead etc.)

- unlike the other panels, the door panels are replacing traditional ingress fitments for passenger protection in crashworthiness


though, what is left interesting in my book is that in theory there will be some delta between "ding" protection at the doors vs the quarter panels. But I imagine the 1.4 to 1.8 delta, however, is so slight as to be near irrelevant, and in any event not critical to passenger safety.

 

[Macgyverfever]

in terms of passenger protection, really only the doors are relevant

e.g.,

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired broadside at the rear quarter panel, even if it penetrates, wont endanger a passenger

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired head-on at the frunk face, even if it penetrates, to endanger a passenger would have to ALSO go through the truck brains behind the frunk, the firewall, and the dashboard materials (similar story RE the tailgate/bulkhead etc.)

- unlike the other panels, the door panels are replacing traditional ingress fitments for passenger protection in crashworthiness


though, what is left interesting in my book is that in theory there will be some delta between "ding" protection at the doors vs the quarter panels. But I imagine the 1.4 to 1.8 delta, however, is so slight as to be near irrelevant, and in any event not critical to passenger safety.

Better than what we had anyway

 

[JBee]

in terms of passenger protection, really only the doors are relevant

e.g.,

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired broadside at the rear quarter panel, even if it penetrates, wont endanger a passenger

- a Joe Rogan arrow fired head-on at the frunk face, even if it penetrates, to endanger a passenger would have to ALSO go through the truck brains behind the frunk, the firewall, and the dashboard materials (similar story RE the tailgate/bulkhead etc.)

- unlike the other panels, the door panels are replacing traditional ingress fitments for passenger protection in crashworthiness


though, what is left interesting in my book is that in theory there will be some delta between "ding" protection at the doors vs the quarter panels. But I imagine the 1.4 to 1.8 delta, however, is so slight as to be near irrelevant, and in any event not critical to passenger safety.

The doors are also the largest flat panel areas so they need to be proportionately thicker. They also span the largest open span area and are critical for ingress protection.

It's interesting that they are stamping the SS inners and welding them without the weld showing through the front. The inner SS formed shape is obviously substantially helping the flat SS outer skin. The airbender is also interesting, but surprisingly simple looking with around 60 second cycle times. Seems they have multiple lines for different panels setup, and then us robots to polish the SS finish.

Heaps of gear in the body shop that looks ready to go. Lars mentioned that they are ramping to get the quality and then the production speed. There was also mention of the SS panel cutting accuracy being in the 10's of microns.

Sadly we didn't get to see the rear fenders yet, or how they attach to the rear cast.

But otherwise it was an interesting tour.

 

[Sandman1962]

I have had tours of the Fremont factory and the Gigafactory in Reno. Each two or three times. In each case, the subsequent tour was much busier than the previous tour. I would love to tour the Austin Gigafactory and see where the CTs are made and how. It looks quite fascinating. I kept wondering if any of my Beast parts are there now. In any event, it does look like they are very cognizant of the “micron” level of precision we are expecting.

Great video.

 

[REM]

Legacy auto's reaction to this series of videos from Munro:

 

[Friday]

Legacy auto's reaction to this series of videos from Munro:

The "Competition" has to be sh*tting themselves in the C-suite, prepping their golden parachutes asap. Like the vermin abandoning the sinking ships, just watch, it will happen all at once and at large volumes.

 

[Rutrow]

Doors at 1.8 mm is about the thickness of a US nickel.
Other panels at 1.4 mm about the thickness of a US penny.

 

[anionic1]

I was right! The doors are a thicker material than everything else. Don't worry i pat myself on the back.

I was wrong that the panel inners would be steel. They are stamping stainless. I really wonder why. Its probably because they want to weld them to the exteriors and not worry about galvanic corrosion which would be a significant challenge mating a steel inner with stainless outer panel.

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