Aftermarket rock / skid plate?

Ogre

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This is the ONE thing I really liked about the Hummer. It reported to have under car cameras. (Please don't boo me for saying something good about the Hummer. I promise I won't do it again.)
There are a lot of good things about the Hummer.

They just need to do 3 simple things to make it awesome.

Cut the weight in half.
Cut the price in half.
Make is a bit less bulky, if you could see out of the cab you probably wouldn’t need those cameras quite so badly and it would be a lot safer for pedestrians.
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CyberGus

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My concern with off-roading the CT is that the "skid plate" is the battery pack. A deformation on an ICE skid plate might damage some underbody components, but a bent pack could cause you to have a Very Bad Day.
 

Ogre

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Clearly you've never had a stick pull down your brake line or damage your oil pan, if you think there's nothing important down there in an ICE vehicle.

-Crissa
Debating which would be worse, piercing a battery and getting a really huge fire, or tearing a brake line and not having brakes. Either can be life altering moments.
 


Ogre

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My concern with off-roading the CT is that the "skid plate" is the battery pack. A deformation on an ICE skid plate might damage some underbody components, but a bent pack could cause you to have a Very Bad Day.
The plate was designed after someone ran over what was essentially a giant can-opener at 75MPH on the highway.

If you are moving slowly, it’s pretty near impossible you will do anything to damage the battery pack. Few people off-road at 70MPH.
 

CyberGus

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If you are moving slowly, it’s pretty near impossible you will do anything to damage the battery pack. Few people off-road at 70MPH.
Challenge accepted
 

FutureBoy

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My concern with off-roading the CT is that the "skid plate" is the battery pack. A deformation on an ICE skid plate might damage some underbody components, but a bent pack could cause you to have a Very Bad Day.
The plate was designed after someone ran over what was essentially a giant can-opener at 75MPH on the highway.

If you are moving slowly, it’s pretty near impossible you will do anything to damage the battery pack. Few people off-road at 70MPH.
I believe your can-openner reference might be from the story about the MS that caught fire from road debris. After 3 different MS fires from damaged batteries, Tesla addressed the issue.

Tesla's solution was to reinforce shields protecting the batteries, and set a higher minimum clearance level in the software that controls the air-assisted active suspension that is designed to lower Model S Teslas at highway speeds to improve aerodynamics and efficiency.

Two-thirds of 2012-2013 Tesla Model S cars - including all three burned by battery fires - came with computer-controlled, air-assisted suspension systems that can be upgraded without a visit to the garage. A bigger fix does require refitting at a garage or dealership, but it will come free for Tesla customers, Musk wrote in his blog.

Tesla plans to replace the aluminum plate protecting the battery pack under the passenger compartment with one made of titanium, Musk told the NHTSA and wrote in his blog. It will also add a second plate to cover the vulnerable leading edge of the original plate and a round, hollow aluminum tube mounted forward of both to deflect debris before it reaches either plate.
True that few people off-road at 70MPH. But there are some. They tend to go off-road at up to 120 MPH.




Elon says that he wants the Cybertruck to kick butt at Baja.




@CyberGus, I'm pretty sure that a slow rock crawl high center issue is not going to damage the CT battery pack. I trust Tesla engineering on that.

Challenge accepted
Excellent! I can't wait to see. Have someone take drone video so we all can watch!
 

Ogre

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True that few people off-road at 70MPH. But there are some. They tend to go off-road at up to 120 MPH.
Somewhere back in this mess of posts I mentioned off road racing and suggested upgraded protection would likely be a requirement for that.
 


rr6013

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<Snip>
Few people off-road at 70MPH.
But the ones who will do 75, will drive a Cybertruck. Desert roads drive 5 or 40 mph. Long straights 70 mph if the suspension is working. If it can’t handle it, its not going to end well for Cybertruck reviews. FORD Raptor is a low bar, that Cybertruck is unstable below Raptor performative level would be an unwise design brief assumption.

Elon laid that gauntlet.
 

KrodEKid

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And as soon as the truck is home, everyone who hasn't yet taken delivery is going to be asking for pictures/video of every single inch of the truck. Both parked and in motion, at slow and at high speed, in sunshine and in floodwaters, on paved streets and over rocky boulder roads.

Might be advisable for the first few people to delay notifying anyone that they took delivery so that they can have a bit of time to get fully comfortable before others start barging in.
Or put in on Turo! ?
 

HaulingAss

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I did some very light off-road stuff on my Model Y, the kind of thing where you get out of the car six times to keep your wheels on the taller rocks so you don’t drag the underside. (No I didn’t drive straight over these rocks)

Ready for something which can do this kind of stuff on autopilot and bigger stuff with some planning.

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Yep, it amazing what a car with such low ground clearance can navigate safely with good driving. Here's a good story:

I was driving my Model 3 Performance (Stealth version with 18" Aero wheels) on a rocky and rugged Forest Service Road in the North Cascades. It's pretty rare to see anything but high-clearance vehicles on some of these roads due to large rocks, deep drainage swales cut across the road at 45 degree angles to let rain runoff escape, and washouts.- I was looking for a good place to observe mountain climbers on nearby Mount Baker and pick some high mountain berries.

I had driven carefully, only lightly scraping the bottom once or twice with a small amount of wheel slippage here and there as the car fought for traction on the steep and dry, dusty rocks on a couple of particularly bad washouts, to the top of one road around 5500 feet above the valley below and there was a lightly lifted Toyota 4X4 pickup parked at the end of the road. I guessed he was picking berries nearby and figured I would give them privacy as I did a three point turn and descended a couple of miles where I set up a tripod and binoculars on a hairpin turn to observe climbers.

After an hour or two of binocular observing, the driver of the pickup came by and rolled his window down. I asked him if he had found any berries. People like to protect their berry spots but he was obviously really proud of his haul and I could see him deciding whether to tell me or not. Finally he blurted out that he had five gallons of the special treats (the berries are very small but pack a delicious flavor so that's a real haul for a lone picker). He quickly added that you needed a high-clearance 4X4 to get there though as he glanced at my shiny, new looking Model 3 with a fresh coat of wax on it. His berry spot was safe from the driver of a regular low sedan.

I paused a few seconds and said, "No, I saw where you were parked up at the end of the left fork of the road. I scraped lightly on the worst washout about half-way there but nothing a careful line couldn't take care of." His jaw just dropped as he tried to figure out some way I must have mistaken another truck parked somewhere else for his truck but then I could see him slowly coming to the conclusion that there were no other vehicles within miles of us for that to be a likely misunderstanding.

He probably briefly considered that I was lying but then dismissed that as unlikely too. It was quite a shock to him that you didn't need a high-clearance 4X4 like his to go where he had been. He was a little deflated as he said that he guessed the electric drive train didn't have anything hanging down in the center to get caught on and that the electronic traction control probably helped too. I added that the Model 3, as low as it was, had the wheels mounted far front and aft for better approach/departure angles as he slowly nodded and absorbed this new revelation. I could see his brain whirring as he took it all in. It was like he now had to question everything he thought he already knew.

We chatted a few more minutes before he took off down the mountain, hopefully with a new appreciation for the capabilities of a Tesla. It's 90% the driver and 10% the vehicle. That said, I never would have made it with four people in the car (it was just me and about 40 lbs. of gear) and I do make sure I have 46 psi in the tires otherwise they don't ride high on the rocks.

I've also had to turn back if the road is too torn up by water washouts so still looking forward to my Cybertruck! But I use what I have and can no longer stomach driving my F-150 4X4 up these roads as it ends up going through a lot of gas at the slow speeds required and the steep hills. In the Model 3, I return to the valley below with more miles of charge than I had at the top even when running the air conditioner hard to stay cool! Regen works great on steep mountain grades, even when only going 10-15 mph.
 
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HaulingAss

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But the ones who will do 75, will drive a Cybertruck. Desert roads drive 5 or 40 mph. Long straights 70 mph if the suspension is working. If it can’t handle it, its not going to end well for Cybertruck reviews. FORD Raptor is a low bar, that Cybertruck is unstable below Raptor performative level would be an unwise design brief assumption.

Elon laid that gauntlet.
The population of people who off-road at 75 mph is largely limited to multi-millionaires and a few young rednecks who either know how to weld or will shortly be learning how to weld. :ROFLMAO:
 

Ogre

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But the ones who will do 75, will drive a Cybertruck. Desert roads drive 5 or 40 mph. Long straights 70 mph if the suspension is working. If it can’t handle it, its not going to end well for Cybertruck reviews. FORD Raptor is a low bar, that Cybertruck is unstable below Raptor performative level would be an unwise design brief assumption.

Elon laid that gauntlet.
I don’t think I’ve seen a review where they take a stock truck out on desert roads at 75MPH. I don’t think that is an expectation people have of any stock vehicle.

I see lots of bits on the underside of a Ford Raptor that are far less protected than the battery pack on the Cybertruck.

Tesla Cybertruck Aftermarket rock / skid plate? 1637261846737
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