CT Versus Cybervan

Jhodgesatmb

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If Tesla used exoskeleton & mega-casting on stainless steel Cybervan I think they could do it faster than 18 months. Normal designs are delayed because a significant amount of tooling, stamping presses and paint shop need to be delivered and installed by suppliers. The stainless steel Cyber style design eliminates more than half the stamping presses and the paint shop.

Today there are standard 2 meter x 1 meter solar panels that output 430-450W

So yes, put 1,500-2,000W of solar panels on the roof.
I am sure that the machining and tooling, especially after the CT is done, would be a walk in the park. Its all about batteries at this point in time.
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Firetruck41

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I would seriously consider the van with the stipulations mentioned in the original post. It would need to have similar payload. My main use that I am concerned with is, 4wd, comfortable family hauler and comfortable tow vehicle for a travel trailer, as well as being an EV for low maintenance and cheap "fuel" for daily driving.
 

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It Tesla were to announce a cyber van available in the next 18 months. How many of you would switch your reservation?

Assume 1200ish watt solar roof.... 10 miles per day, similar construction but not bullet resistant, same motor choices, 15% less range per model, less off road capabilities but still capable. 10,000 lbs. of towing. Multiple seating configurations. Cost - add $10,000 to each model.
I think Rivian is the choice for vans, at least for the near future. They are making a crap ton of them for Amazon. Those things would make great campers if you could buy a run-out from Amazon after a couple hundred thousand miles.

If you listened to the whole JRE interview, Elon did mention that they plan to offer this. And he also mentioned that unlike the CT, it's feasible to put solar panels on a van shape.
 


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I am sure that the machining and tooling, especially after the CT is done, would be a walk in the park. Its all about batteries at this point in time.
I agree about the batteries. With Telsa's patents, pilot plant proof of concept and plan to recycle they are 2-3 years ahead. We should really focus on the battery plants. Most of the other requirements to bring out a new vehicle are easy, but pointless without a steady supply of reasonably priced batteries.

All this talk about the solid state batteries is mostly to sew seeds of doubt. Don't buy it.
 

Crissa

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All this talk about the solid state batteries is mostly to sew seeds of doubt. Don't buy it.
No, currently they're just different use cases. Like Tesla was saying they could make a battery more cheap or more dense, but not both if you wanted to keep fast-charging and have thousands of cycles And it's that lack of fast charging that is the current solid-state weakness. A couple designs are promising, but none have the fast charging and long cycle life yet.

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