Manufacturing the Cybertruck... excited to see process for folding stainless body parts.

Crissa

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Vehicles generally don't beta outside the company - betas are test beds for production-intent pieces, but unlike production-intent vehicles, they generally will be missing pieces, often big ones. Production-intent are supposed to focus on all the pieces being there, tho they may be missing pieces that haven't arrived yet. Betas won't be crash-tested yet and generally can't be handed to someone outside. Production-intent are being crash tested and so can be...

Just more levels of testing for a factory.

-Crissa
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Here's an old article that's helpful to suss out how Tesla sees Alpha/Beta testing...

https://www.autoblog.com/2011/01/17/teslas-chief-engineer-model-s-on-track-alpha-tests/

Seems like the wiper testing/design would close out Alpha testing. Then Beta testing would be for detailed data and manufacturing decisions. Then "homologation" would be for figuring out the assembly line process. Tesla may see the first CT we saw was the Alpha and the recent track CT is the Beta. But it seems like decisions like the wiper, 4-wheel steering, and door handles would be Alpha stuff, while the OG-broken window CT was just a "working concept".

But, I could be wrong. I can't assume to know how Elon is pushing this project along. It could be a constantly moving Alpha/Beta/Homologation process.
 

anionic1

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You admit that it won't have paint and that's a big benefit but then you say they will use regular steel. That makes no sense. Regular steel needs to be galvanized and coated. The way this is done in the auto industry is by hot-dipping and spraying, two very expensive processes that would be avoided by avoiding the use of regular steel. Stainless steel can be stamped without issue as long as it hasn't been hardened first so I suspect the stamped parts around the doors will be made of unhardened stainless steel.

We will know soon enough.
Interior body panels won’t be painted. They will probably be dip coated for corrosion protection. Go to the CT main page to the exoskeleton screen and tell me if you think everything in that image is stainless. Even the obviously stamped body parts. If you think they will create the concealed body parts out of stamped stainless I disagree. The exterior is clearly all unpainted 3mm stainless but there will be a robust interior body frame as well and that frame will in my opinion be steel and it will be dip coated like all the other Tesla body frames
 
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Interior body panels won’t be painted. They will probably be dip coated for corrosion protection. Go to the CT main page to the exoskeleton screen and tell me if you think everything in that image is stainless. Even the obviously stamped body parts. If you think they will create the concealed body parts out of stamped stainless I disagree. The exterior is clearly all unpainted 3mm stainless but there will be a robust interior body frame as well and that frame will in my opinion be steel and it will be dip coated like all the other Tesla body frames
There will be plenty of parts that are not made of stainless steel. Mounting brackets, fasteners, etc.

But if there is a painted plain-steel "body under the body", I will eat it.
 

anionic1

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There will be plenty of parts that are not made of stainless steel. Mounting brackets, fasteners, etc.

But if there is a painted plain-steel "body under the body", I will eat it.
So you think a couple angles and that stainless body will just bolt right onto the castings
There will be plenty of parts that are not made of stainless steel. Mounting brackets, fasteners, etc.

But if there is a painted plain-steel "body under the body", I will eat it.
I copied an image of the model 3 strucutural pack on the unibody frame. There will be a lot of internal stamped steel. I never said the internal stuff would be painted. It will be corrosion protected and doubt it will be stainless. a lot of people on here are under the impression that the entire body will be stainless and i very much disagree. If you cant see it I bet it will be steel. like the B pillar. probably going to be steel. that will probably get painted because you can see it when the door opens. Ha! I even found it painted in this video around 10 seconds in you can see both doors open and a shiny black pillar. If you believe you are getting a 100% stainless body I believe you are very mistaken. There will be a stamped steel interior body frame with stainless steel exoskeleton panels mounted to it making a composite unibody frame once connected to the castings and structural pack. The entire structural pack will be painted steel as well! there will be A LOT of non stainless steel on that truck and I don't care if its painted or not. But I still think the 3mm exoskeleton is an incredible move and they likely are greatly reducing the interior framing due to the strength of the exoskeleton.

Tesla Cybertruck Manufacturing the Cybertruck... excited to see process for folding stainless body parts. 1641511464453
 


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So you think a couple angles and that stainless body will just bolt right onto the castings


I copied an image of the model 3 strucutural pack on the unibody frame. There will be a lot of internal stamped steel. I never said the internal stuff would be painted. It will be corrosion protected and doubt it will be stainless. a lot of people on here are under the impression that the entire body will be stainless and i very much disagree. If you cant see it I bet it will be steel. like the B pillar. probably going to be steel. that will probably get painted because you can see it when the door opens. Ha! I even found it painted in this video around 10 seconds in you can see both doors open and a shiny black pillar. If you believe you are getting a 100% stainless body I believe you are very mistaken. There will be a stamped steel interior body frame with stainless steel exoskeleton panels mounted to it making a composite unibody frame once connected to the castings and structural pack. The entire structural pack will be painted steel as well! there will be A LOT of non stainless steel on that truck and I don't care if its painted or not. But I still think the 3mm exoskeleton is an incredible move and they likely are greatly reducing the interior framing due to the strength of the exoskeleton.

1641511464453.png
The Structural Battery is not part of the exoskeleton.

The shiny black B-pillar is externally visible. It is probably plastic, containing a side-view camera or the cardkey reader. But the pillar itself is part of the stainless exoskelton.

Tesla Cybertruck Manufacturing the Cybertruck... excited to see process for folding stainless body parts. tesla-cybertuck-exos_800x0w
 

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Interior body panels won’t be painted. They will probably be dip coated for corrosion protection. Go to the CT main page to the exoskeleton screen and tell me if you think everything in that image is stainless. Even the obviously stamped body parts. If you think they will create the concealed body parts out of stamped stainless I disagree. The exterior is clearly all unpainted 3mm stainless but there will be a robust interior body frame as well and that frame will in my opinion be steel and it will be dip coated like all the other Tesla body frames
Here's the problem with your analysis:

Dip coating the door jambs (which you think will be made of regular steel) would prevent them from being welded to the stainless steel parts of the structure. You can't just clean up around the weld areas (before welding) because then you would need to dip coat the new assembly to prevent the welds and surrounding areas from corrosion. That's why it makes the most sense to use a stainless steel alloy without so much cold rolling that it prevents them from being formed by hydraulic stamping presses.

Sure, they could dip coat regular steel parts and glue them to the stainless steel but the dipping/gluing would likely bring the cost near what it would be if they just stuck with stainless steel for the remaining parts of the structure and used much less expensive robot welding. There really isn't a whole lot of the Cybertruck that needs to be stamped. Very little. The extra cost to make those limited remaining parts from stainless would small to non-existent when compared to dip coating and gluing. And let's not even suggest they will be bolted or riveted together without glue when it makes so much sense to just make them from stainless steel.

The whole beauty of making the Cybertruck from stainless steel from a cost perspective is the lack of dip-coating or painting. We already know the alloy Tesla uses for the aluminum pressure castings doesn't require a coating to have good corrosion resistance.
 

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The Structural Battery is not part of the exoskeleton.

The shiny black B-pillar is externally visible. It is probably plastic, containing a side-view camera or the cardkey reader. But the pillar itself is part of the stainless exoskelton.

tesla-cybertuck-exos_800x0w.jpg
I see a lot of misunderstanding of what an "exoskeleton" really is. If the battery is structural, then, by definition, it is part of the exoskeleton.
 

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I see a lot of misunderstanding of what an "exoskeleton" really is. If the battery is structural, then, by definition, it is part of the exoskeleton.
I agree. An exoskeleton in nature is a crab or insect with very small openings. A modern jet liner has a stressed skin and could be called a exoskeleton.

There are too many openings on a CT to be a true exoskeleton. It is a unibody with some neat folded SS sheets attached to aluminum megacastings tied together with a self supporting structural battery pack with some shear and bending moment resisting capabilities. Then you glue a hell strong glass composite on top. Efficient and strong yes. Magic exoskeleton no.
 

Crissa

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I agree. An exoskeleton in nature is a crab or insect with very small openings. A modern jet liner has a stressed skin and could be called a exoskeleton.

There are too many openings on a CT to be a true exoskeleton. It is a unibody with some neat folded SS sheets attached to aluminum megacastings tied together with a self supporting structural battery pack with some shear and bending moment resisting capabilities. Then you glue a hell strong glass composite on top. Efficient and strong yes. Magic exoskeleton no.
An exoskeleton says nothing about the size of the openings. Almost the entire underside of a crab is openings, for the gills.

And when the doors are closed, a Cybertruck will have fewer openings than a crab.

Everything else you said is true.

-Crissa
 


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I agree. An exoskeleton in nature is a crab or insect with very small openings. A modern jet liner has a stressed skin and could be called a exoskeleton.

There are too many openings on a CT to be a true exoskeleton. It is a unibody with some neat folded SS sheets attached to aluminum megacastings tied together with a self supporting structural battery pack with some shear and bending moment resisting capabilities. Then you glue a hell strong glass composite on top. Efficient and strong yes. Magic exoskeleton no.
No, you don't agree with me. I'm saying the Cybertruck is an exoskeleton. In a weak sense, a traditional unibody vehicle could be considered an exoskeleton but it doesn't get a high enough percentage of its strength from the body panels to really deserve the name. Tesla applied the term to Cybertruck to distinguish the fact that it gains much more of it's total strength and stiffness from the upper body relative to all other unibody vehicles. The Cybertruck could also be called unibody but that isn't as descriptive because 'unibody' doesn't distinguish the Cybertruck from all the rest. But technically, 'unibody' is 'exoskeleton'.

Let's not get too hung up on descriptors because they exist simply to communicate. And it does seem useful to employ the term "exoskeleton' to denote the much stronger uppers relative to the undercarriage.
 

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Elon must have dreamt about an exoskeleton vehicle with very thick metal. It sure must have been a very noisy dream with all that banging of the stamping process?
 

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Elon must have dreamt about an exoskeleton vehicle with very thick metal. It sure must have been a very noisy dream with all that banging of the stamping process?
You know how some people dream in color?

Elon's dreams have audio and that audio is in classical music. No banging and stamping! ;)
 
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CyberGus

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I see a lot of misunderstanding of what an "exoskeleton" really is. If the battery is structural, then, by definition, it is part of the exoskeleton.
I think we are arguing semantics. The structural pack adds rigidity to the exoskeleton, but so does the windshield and the roof. It all works together, but the exoskeleton is still an exoskeleton when it has neither the pack nor the glass.

We need a philosopher to settle this. Elon...?
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