Cybertruck size vs. Model Y and S (spotted at supercharger together)

[Gurule92]

I'm addressing this separately.

I have no intention to garage shame. I do find it "silly" that so many people are living in seemingly constant fear of vandalism, bird poop, scratches, hail and who knows what else. I really don't relate to that fear.

And you ask what is gained? It's more like what is lost! Apparently so many people are living in fear that the CT had to be resized down to fit in what some people seem to think is a safe garage. And what was lost with that resizing? At a minimum, we lost bed size, and the 6th seat. Since we don't have the final specs yet, we don't know what else was lost during the resize. But if Tesla is trying to be tougher than the Ford Tough ICE vehicles, it seems silly that they are playing to the people living in fear of a little truck damage.

Idk if you've ever had to get a Tesla serviced for damage, but it's the equivalent of living in the 7th circle of hell. I can't even imagine how it would be when the CT first comes out.

Avoid at all costs seems like a fair play. Plus, ford trucks get garaged too.

I guess it boils down to what kind of toughness you really want/need.

Sponsored

 

[cvalue13]

Smaller hail might be faster

smaller hail is slower, though, Pete!

100 joules is about 74ft/lbs, and a moderate 22LR load is 130-180ft/lbs.

some sub-sonic .22 are sub-45 joules at muzzle, and yes you can find LR performance up to 180+ joules

precision on these metrics wasn’t the point of the thing, though

So if hail only logs in at 75-180ft/lbs of energy, then I don’t think we would be looking at any dents. The baseball hail has the impact spread out about the same as the sledge hammer.

I’m satisfied with your maths, but not satisfied with your (or the others’) conclusion on this when it comes to hail. I suspect you at least just got distracted by the excitement of doing the maths to trip up on a key issue:

what a sledgehammer does to the stainless is ~irrelevant to hail. The question is what a sledgehammer does to the windshield, glass roof, and composite bed, when repeatedly struck in the same or adjacent location.

the only SS facing the hail is the hood. On your maths, sure, maybe the hood won’t get dented.

But, >~55% of the hail-facing surface is windshield and roof glass, the other 40% is composite bed

So, unveil night’s steel ball to glass shattering, even if they’ve improved the glass since then, is a pretty good proxy for what a few hundred repetitive fastballs thrown at 90mph will do to the windshield and roof glass.

then there’s that composite bed. Rumor has been (and other info suggests) same composite bed manufacturer as used in the Toyota composite beds. Which are known to come times crack with less than a sledgehammers’ blow.

Regardless, I’d be worried about hail for the glass alone.

or - back to the starting point of this discussion - I’d at least think someone is being sarcastic when they say they’re ‘mystified’ how anyone could be worried about hail damage … on the stainless

 

[CyberGus]

I'm gonna have a tough, stainless-steel truck. If Zeus puts me in his crosshairs, then it might take some damage in a storm. No biggie. It's just stuff, and I'm insured.

My worry is about getting caught driving in such a storm, since the cabin topside is all glass.

That said: every car I've owned in Texas has been damaged by hail at some point, but never has any of the glass broken.

So as long as it's not raining Franz-branded ball bearings, I think I'll be OK.

 

[Red61224]

Truck plus wifey's car and my daily driver all remain inside overnight, out of the sun, wind and RAIN and ready to go at the push of a button. Easy to off load cargo and kids, safe and dry inside, yea I like dry stuff. BTW I live out in the country.
Room for the chest freezer (for the bodies), bicycles and kayaks well they from hang from the ceiling.
I have gotten spoiled to transitioning from vehicle to house in the middle of a thunderstorm and staying dry.

 

[HaulingAss]

Well, almost. 100 joules is about 74ft/lbs, and a moderate 22LR load is 130-180ft/lbs. And that is focused on just over .69 sq in. I would dare say that when Franz took the sledge hammer to the CT door, it was well above 180ft/lbs of impact. So if hail only logs in at 75-180ft/lbs of energy, then I don’t think we would be looking at any dents. The baseball hail has the impact spread out about the same as the sledge hammer. Smaller hail might be faster, but wil the lower weight, I don’t see any greater force. And a 9mm out of a pistol has 350-500ft/lb and that is focused on about 1.1 sq in.

During the Cybertruck reveal, the presentation showed a video of a 9mm round hitting a regular steel truck door and a Cybertruck door and the rounds went right through the regular door (obviously). The video clearly showed the rounds denting, but not penetrating the Cybertruck door.

This is of interest when it comes to hail, because the idea is to avoid any denting. It's not sufficient to say, "My Cybertruck survived the hailstorm because none of the hailstones made it inside"!

If you want to talk about ft/lbs of energy, you need to know the video depicted a 9mm FMJ round with a weight of 115 grains (which is on the light side), and that was shot from 30 meters distant. So the important ft./lb number is not the muzzle energy, it's the energy still remaining after 30 meters.

We can assume a typical 9mm 115 gr. FMJ round might have a muzzle energy of roughly 340-350 ft/lbs and that might dissipate by 9% or 10% after 30 yards, down to around 305-315 ft.lbs.

So we know around 310 ft/lbs of energy, over the area impacted by a 9mm 115gr. FMJ round can dent, but not penetrate, the Cybertruck's doors.

The bigger unknown here is how thick the stainless steel hood is. It may be thinner and not able to prevent penetration of the same round, when fired perpendicular into the hood surface. This is the body panel that might be most likely to be damaged in a hailstorm. I do think it will be cold-rolled to full-hard, so it may impress with it's resistance to damage from normal hail, even if it's much thinner than 3mm.

There is no way the Cybertruck can survive the worst hailstorms recorded, but there should be little doubt it can withstand the most common, garden variety hailstorms. On the other hand, nothing is going to stop these:

Not even a typical garage roof.

 

[CyberGus]

These are the largest hailstones I've ever contended with, almost 15 years ago:

They did this to my stainless...!

No glass broke, and the fiberglass louvers were undamaged.

Fortunately, all of my worthless junk was safely tucked away in the garage.

 

[ricinro]

Were those hail stones made of metal or something? The CT is impervious to sledge hammer strikes and theoretically even large solid metal ball bearings.

The sad wailing a hailstone makes when realizing it will be hitting a cybertruck; only to become a flash of icy mist.

 

[JBee]

Here in Australia you garage your vehicle to get it out radiation. The sun is the primary cause of paint and dashboard failure. Black painted cars that live on uncovered work parking lots sometimes only last 5 or so years before the paint starts peeling off.

With that amount of overhead glass and windscreen area, I expect that we will need a decent roll up sunscreen that lives in the bottom of the dash. Will also be necessary for camp mode, seeing that there will be over 2kW of heat coming in through that windscreen from the sun alone.

I'm also expecting to see more HVAC consumption and load in comparison to other vehicles. It will need some really good IR rejection filters to cope in normal driving conditions. I'm also hoping that we don't have to sit in the sun, too much is not good for you either. I don't want a CT solarium or sauna.

 

[PilotPete]

If you want to talk about ft/lbs of energy, you need to know the video depicted a 9mm FMJ round with a weight of 115 grains (which is on the light side), and that was shot from 30 meters distant. So the important ft./lb number is not the muzzle energy, it's the energy still remaining after 30 meters.

We can assume a typical 9mm 115 gr. FMJ round might have a muzzle energy of roughly 340-350 ft/lbs and that might dissipate by 9% or 10% after 30 yards, down to around 305-315 ft.lbs.

So we know around 310 ft/lbs of energy, over the area impacted by a 9mm 115gr. FMJ round can dent, but not penetrate, the Cybertruck's doors.

I’m with you on most of what you said. I laugh when TV shows or movies shows people in a gun fight hiding behind a car door. .22LRs can make it through the average car door. 115 gr. Is the military standard for a 9, and the most common round on the market. The military uses 115 gr. rounds, and so that’s what everyone wants.

The graphic at the reveal (as I recall) was that it would take a 9mm at 15 ft. So i used muzzle energy because the drop off is negligible at that distance.

But yes, no one wants the truck to “survive” the hail, but be dented like a golf ball. And yep, the 9 into 3mm SS makes a heck of a dent.

 

[JBee]

We're not allowed to forget that joules of energy are not really the metric that deforms the metal, rather the pressure applied over what area of impact. The same force applied over a smaller area will have a higher penetration capability than if applied over a larger area. So although a larger hail travels faster and has more mass, and therefore joules of impact energy, this is somewhat offset by the fact that the impact area is larger as well. It is also why the hammer test works using a blunt end on the stainless. Using a pick instead would look much different.

This is why body amour dissipates the impact energy over a larger area, that in turn stops it from penetrating. That is also why I suggested using an inflatable cover.

 

[Crissa]

I’m with you on most of what you said. I laugh when TV shows or movies shows people in a gun fight hiding behind a car door. .22LRs can make it through the average car door. 115 gr. Is the military standard for a 9, and the most common round on the market. The military uses 115 gr. rounds, and so that’s what everyone wants.

Yeah. My father was killed by a bullet fired into the tail of our station wagon. (A police officer wrongly shot at him after failing to flag down the car in a busy supermarket parking lot.)

The better reason to hide behind it is that removes line of sight and ability to aim at a target. Anything to remove line of sight is better than nothing.

-Crissa

 

[HaulingAss]

I’m with you on most of what you said. I laugh when TV shows or movies shows people in a gun fight hiding behind a car door. .22LRs can make it through the average car door. 115 gr. Is the military standard for a 9, and the most common round on the market. The military uses 115 gr. rounds, and so that’s what everyone wants.

The graphic at the reveal (as I recall) was that it would take a 9mm at 15 ft. So i used muzzle energy because the drop off is negligible at that distance.

But yes, no one wants the truck to “survive” the hail, but be dented like a golf ball. And yep, the 9 into 3mm SS makes a heck of a dent.

The graphic at the reveal specifically said it was shot from 30 meters, which is less significant than exactly what kind of 9mm FMJ 115 gr. round it was (that went unspecified). I think we can assume it was just a common regular pressure round.

One of Franz's blows to the door with the sledgehammer actually left a tiny, barely visible dent but I think the relevant thing here is that the vast majority of everyday things that would damage the paint, or dent the panel, on a traditional truck, will not leave a mark on Cybertruck. That's not to say it's entirely bulletproof, scratchproof or dent proof, just that it's mega-tough.

Most hail will bounce right off without leaving a mark but, obviously, there are hailstorms that it cannot withstand without damage. I think it's safe to say the same thing about the armor glass. Given how fragile current trucks are, I think it's commendable that Tesla has finally made a truck worthy of being called "tough".

Who is going to be the first Cybertruck owner to not give a damn and shoot it up all over with rounds that leave impressions, but do not penetrate, in order to make it look like it has survived a gun battle? I can't imagine the answer will be "no one". For good effect, some higher energy rounds should shot at a 45-degree angle for more variety in the impact craters.

I don't want to draw any additional attention to my Cybertruck, so I'll avoid intentional damage. I have a .22 caliber PCP air rifle that will penetrate regular steel doors. I might shoot it with that, testing it in inconspicuous spots first, and being aware of ricochet angles.

 

[PilotPete]

Who is going to be the first Cybertruck owner to not give a damn and shoot it up all over with rounds that leave impressions, but do not penetrate, in order to make it look like it has survived a gun battle? I can't imagine the answer will be "no one". For good effect, some higher energy rounds should shot at a 45-degree angle for more variety in the impact craters.

I don't want to draw any additional attention to my Cybertruck, so I'll avoid intentional damage. I have a .22 caliber PCP air rifle that will penetrate regular steel doors. I might shoot it with that, testing it in inconspicuous spots first, and being aware of ricochet angles.

Go onto amazon and buy a small sheet of 304 SS and try it on that first. Then you can see what it could do to your truck first.

As for ”decorating” your CT with gunfire, I think there may be a better option. When they were making the movie “Air Force One” with Harrison Ford, the studio leased a B747 from a cargo company, and painted it look like AF1. They flew it out of LAX, and at one point, they had painted SFX bullet holes all over the tail. Whenever that thing taxied around the airport, all the airline pilots wanted first to know if they had to wait for the “priority aircraft” and then a couple asked what happened to the plane! I think we can find some really good vinyl stickers that would make it look like it’s been in a war zone, without any real damage… If course, just like with movies, some actors go for as much realism as possible…

 

[HaulingAss]

Go onto amazon and buy a small sheet of 304 SS and try it on that first. Then you can see what it could do to your truck first.

I've never seen sheets of full-hard 304 SS offered on Amazon and there is no way to harden annealed 304 SS to a full-hard temper without multi-ton rollers. If you could provide a link to cold-rolled 304 SS in 3mm thickness, I would be amazed.

The assumption most people have is the Cybertruck alloy will be 304 but, as far as I know, Tesla has never said that. I believe they actually said it's a custom variation on traditional compositions to suit their exact needs. If it's a custom alloy, it would likely be unavailable from any supplier and test results from similar alloys would not necessarily be valid.

What I think is under-appreciated is how much the properties of various alloys of stainless steel can vary, and how dramatically most of them change simply by hardening them with a repetitive cold-rolling process.

 

[Coolbreeze704]

Yeah. My father was killed by a bullet fired into the tail of our station wagon. (A police officer wrongly shot at him after failing to flag down the car in a busy supermarket parking lot.)

The better reason to hide behind it is that removes line of sight and ability to aim at a target. Anything to remove line of sight is better than nothing.

-Crissa

My goodness Crissa, I am so sorry to hear this.

Sponsored