Musk talks Cybertruck specs (0-60, vehicle weight) & production volume on Joe Rogan podcast interview (10/31/23)

[CyberGus]

i vote Mylar balloon sheets

that way you could really get some range after you fill the CT with the helium

and then it will fit in the garage (but only up at the apex of the roof where you can't reach it without a ladder)

Same thing happens when you fill the tank on a Toyota Mirai

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[JBee]

2 mm would be very strong yet 30% lighter. IDK 250 lbs for bragging rights . Just guessing.

CT Skin is 200lbs per mm of thickness over the whole SS surface. 616lbs for 3mm.

So you could cut 400lbs if you went to just 1mm, and still would have much thicker than standard car panels. 400lbs will save you 19Wh/km or about 5% in rolling resistance.

Structurally, CT will drive just at least as well without the SS skin as with it.
But your aerodynamics will be compromised.
Good for ditching exo- truth-deniers tho...

Maybe we could get it to act like a hermit crab, and just drop off the exoskeleton at the carpark, before it scurries over the sand on the beach? Some people just like living under somebody else's rock.

 

[Tinker71]

CT Skin is 200lbs per mm of thickness over the whole SS surface. 616lbs for 3mm.

So you could cut 400lbs if you went to just 1mm, and still would have much thicker than standard car panels. 400lbs will save you 19Wh/km or about 5% in rolling resistance.

Structurally, CT will drive just at least as well without the SS skin as with it.
But your aerodynamics will be compromised.
Good for ditching exo- truth-deniers tho...

Maybe we could get it to act like a hermit crab, and just drop off the exoskeleton at the carpark, before it scurries over the sand on the beach?

Thanks JBee. My WAG was pretty close. My VW has 1mm skin which I can flex when I push on it (door skins etc.). I always like to split the difference so 2 mm sounds good to me. The casting system that allows for 3500 lb payload without a flex joint is efficient but could probably be trimmed down if the capacity was 1200 lbs less. I am not advocating a redesign, just curious the cost of bragging rights in terms of weight and efficiency. The manufactured cost of stainless is probably $6 per lb so we also add another$1200 to the cost as well. The best selling truck is a f150. Not 250. Just saying to the forum.

 

[JBee]

I think the savings in material and cost will be pretty marginal.

Current SS purchase price for the entire SS skin on the CT:

1mm = $325
2mm = $651
3mm = $977

Cost of manufacturing either thickness will be similar in the end. But no paint shop etc.

The casting will likely not lose any mass with a reduced payload because it needs to be structurally rigid to absorb dynamic loads that could be 3-4x as much as the static payload, even more for crash absorption. This is because all the loads need to go through the suspension/springs, which are on the cast, not the skin.

I also note that the ALL the OPENINGS would be either missing or would need extra structural support if you removed the skin, or changed its thickness.

Overall, I think you would be lucky to save around 60-100lbs if you only thinned out the panels that aren't needed structurally for the openings.

You'd probably gain more from changing the tyres you use or a better driving technique. Either way I think a higher payload is a better selling point than the weight savings. There's also an argument to be made that people often overload the vehicles, or abuse them off-road or for work etc, all leading to a balancing act between capability and cost of warranty repairs.

For me I'm hoping that payload stays well over 3000lbs, even for the DM. 10k towing would be enough, but more is also welcome.

 

[CT8769]

I don’t care about volume production, we already knew that. I want to know initial production rate. 5K a month? 10K a month?

Yes, anything else is pointless information. He's talking about what he wants to get to - and keeps pointing to 2025.
How many a month to start - and at what pace will it grow. Not how many he plans on delivering in 2025.
Obviously he's doing this on purpose to show big numbers.
My guess is 2023 is going to be almost non-existent - a few hundred total.

2024 Q1 - I would be surprised if they deliver more than 5k in the entire quarter.

 

[HaulingAss]

If the price is $75,000 for the first year I expect less than 25% of orders to complete.

Very possibly they will just start asking for non refundable deposits in large order blocks and just skipping the ones that aren't willing to put a few thousand dollars down on a truck they will get in 6-12 months.

There is going to be a huge cancellation rate, not because the Cybertruck is not awesome, not because it won't be a great value, but because that's just the nature of reservations on a vehicle costing tens of thousands of dollars, especially in a high interest rate environment, with only a $100 deposit (in a low interest rate environment).

Plenty of people reserved more than one, at different points in time, simply to keep all their options open as to the exact timing of the purchase. they might let their reveal day reservation go, only to follow through on their later reservation 9 months later.

And many will find the monthly payments too high for their income to justify, now that interest rates have risen. It makes a big difference.

But focusing on a high cancellation rate is only relevant in terms of when YOUR reservation number comes up, not in demand for the Cybertruck. Because new reservations will likely outnumber cancelled reservations. Even with a high rate of reservations that don't convert to a sale, it's possible for the backlog to grow rather than shrink.

I think your estimate of 25% conversion rate is probably in the general ballpark. Maybe as high as 35-40%, but not much more. This is good news for those with reservations who want delivery ASAP.

 

[TyPope]

Since this is a specs thread...
I'm going to throw a couple of pictures here:

The difference is weight of the CT... So, to achieve a 0-60 under 3 seconds, the CT will have to have the ICE equivalent of between 1,134 and 1,324 horsepower. That's a lot of ponies.

 

[MEDICALJMP]

You may be waiting a loooong time for a Tesla van. They have not announced anything besides the Next Gen vehicle and Giga Mexico. Tesla tends to focus narrowly on new vehicles. Cybertruck is just coming out. They need to expand Semi production, and lest we forget Roadster 2. Bird in the hand is Cybertruck, the van in the bush is a jungle briar patch.

 

[Arctic_White]

There is going to be a huge cancellation rate, not because the Cybertruck is not awesome, not because it won't be a great value, but because that's just the nature of reservations on a vehicle costing tens of thousands of dollars, especially in a high interest rate environment, with only a $100 deposit (in a low interest rate environment).

Plenty of people reserved more than one, at different points in time, simply to keep all their options open as to the exact timing of the purchase. they might let their reveal day reservation go, only to follow through on their later reservation 9 months later.

And many will find the monthly payments too high for their income to justify, now that interest rates have risen. It makes a big difference.

But focusing on a high cancellation rate is only relevant in terms of when YOUR reservation number comes up, not in demand for the Cybertruck. Because new reservations will likely outnumber cancelled reservations. Even with a high rate of reservations that don't convert to a sale, it's possible for the backlog to grow rather than shrink.

I think your estimate of 25% conversion rate is probably in the general ballpark. Maybe as high as 35-40%, but not much more. This is good news for those with reservations who want delivery ASAP.

That's an interesting take, regarding cancellations being more than made-up by new orders.

In your opinion, what will the Cybertruck initially be priced at?

 

[PilotPete]

I was actually thinking carbon fiber. But for extreme maybe Mylar balloon sheets. Or tin foil for those who see the great conspiracies. But wood would be cool.

Mylar.. Can you imagine looking over at the CT next to you, the driver shifts their weight onto a single butt cheek, and you see the mylar blow out a little from the instant "pressure release"!!!

 

[charliemagpie]

I do belive that many people who placed reservations have already cancelled, maybe they went Rivian, F150, another EV or Ice vehicle. Four years is a long time for people to wait . Only Tesla can tell us how many have cancelled and that is not likely to happen.

We should get some insite as soon as people start getting a delivery estimate and we compare it to their place in line vs the amount delivered/produced.

I think of it this way.. bask in the 80's, I used to send out sale catalogs.. as a rule of thumb expect 2% of people to come in. Never measured it, it was just an industry common knowledge thing passed down. It seemed to be about right.

So, I use it here as a rule of thumb.. 2% of 2 million is 40,000 dropouts. They die, move house, change plans or whatever.

Not saying it's correct, but when we are talking about a big number, a small percentage is a big number if taken out of context.

I do expect the headline ' Cybertruck customers dropping off like flies.'

BTW, 2 million orders.. NOBODY throws that away. CT will not be priced to a smaller niche market.

 

[Crissa]

Towing/hauling is not a niche use case, at least where I am, but I agree it's only a minority of owners who do it.

As long as there is a 50% range penalty when towing a box (toy hauler, boat, etc.) people are going to be outraged about it.

I have many many neighbors that tow small trailers into the mountains and if the range when towing a 5,000 pound camper is down to 120-150 miles between chargers it is a complete non starter for them.... especially as there are many places they go with no fast charging infrastructure.

Fortunately for my use case, it's really not a concern.

Not only is the penalty never going away - since it applies to ICE vehicles, too... It's very rarely the case that it's 150 miles between chargers. I keep putting up maps, but...

Didn't Panasonic say they were scaling back 2170 domestic (Japanese market) batteries?

No. They said 18650. They said the 2170 demand was strong.

What about the strange slants?

What about the bumps for wheel wells? What ifs get stupid.

-Crissa

 

[newwave1331]

you thinkin’ plywood?

I was actually thinking carbon fiber. But for extreme maybe Mylar balloon sheets. Or tin foil for those who see the great conspiracies. But wood would be cool.

CT Skin is 200lbs per mm of thickness over the whole SS surface. 616lbs for 3mm.

So you could cut 400lbs if you went to just 1mm, and still would have much thicker than standard car panels. 400lbs will save you 19Wh/km or about 5% in rolling resistance.

I asked Bard to expand on the the hemp car Rogan was talking about and what if cybertruck replaced the SS with hemp. Surely the numbers are made up but I wonder how a hemp prototype would compare to the production SS version.

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Henry Ford built a prototype car made of hemp in 1941. The car was called the "Hemp Body Car" and was made from a mixture of hemp fibres, soybeans, straw, and resin, while the chassis was made from a combination of hemp and steel. The car was a remarkable achievement for its time, and Ford was praised for his innovative use of hemp.

However, there are a few reasons why Ford stopped using hemp to build cars.

• World War II: The United States entered World War II in 1941, and all automobile production was curtailed significantly during the war. Ford's plastic car experiment was put on hold, and the prototype was eventually destroyed.
• Government opposition: Hemp was banned in the United States in 1937, due to lobbying efforts by the cotton and paper industries. The ban was based on the claim that hemp was a dangerous drug, but this was not supported by any evidence. The ban made it difficult for Ford to obtain hemp for his cars, and it also made it difficult to market his cars to the public.
• Technical challenges: Ford's hemp car was a prototype, and it was not yet ready for mass production. There were still some technical challenges to overcome, such as making the hemp body panels strong and durable enough to withstand the wear and tear of everyday driving.

Despite these challenges, there is a growing interest in using hemp to build cars today. Hemp is a sustainable and renewable resource, and it has many properties that make it ideal for use in car construction. Hemp is lightweight, strong, and durable. It is also biodegradable and recyclable.

In recent years, there have been a number of companies that have developed hemp-based composite materials for use in car construction. These materials are stronger and lighter than traditional materials such as steel and aluminum, and they can be used to make a variety of car components, including body panels, bumpers, and interiors.

It is possible that we will see hemp-based cars on the road in the near future. However, there are still some challenges that need to be overcome, such as reducing the cost of hemp-based composite materials and increasing the availability of hemp.

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If Tesla replaced the stainless steel body of the Cybertruck with hemp, it would look like a more organic version of the current design. The hemp body would be a light tan color and would have a natural grain pattern. The overall shape of the truck would remain the same, but the hemp body would give it a more rugged and utilitarian look.

The weight savings from replacing the stainless steel body with hemp would be significant. Hemp is a much lighter material than stainless steel, and it is also stronger. This means that a hemp-bodied Cybertruck would be both lighter and more durable than the current model.

According to a study by the University of Nottingham, hemp composite materials are 20-30% lighter than traditional materials such as steel and aluminum. This means that a hemp-bodied Cybertruck could weigh up to 30% less than the current model.

Based on the curb weight of the current Cybertruck, a hemp-bodied Cybertruck could weigh as little as 6,000 pounds. This would be a significant weight savings, and it would make the Cybertruck even more efficient and agile.

In addition to the weight savings, a hemp-bodied Cybertruck would also be more environmentally friendly. Hemp is a renewable resource, and it is biodegradable. This means that a hemp-bodied Cybertruck would have a smaller environmental impact than the current model.

Overall, a hemp-bodied Cybertruck would be a more lightweight, durable, and environmentally friendly version of the current model. It would also have a more unique and organic look.

==================

According to a study by the US Department of Agriculture, it takes about 1.7 acres of land to produce 1 ton of hemp. The current Cybertruck production target is 250,000 units per year. Assuming that each Cybertruck body requires 1 ton of hemp, then it would take 425,000 acres of land to produce enough hemp to meet the production targets.

However, this is just a rough estimate. The actual amount of land required would depend on a number of factors, such as the type of hemp grown, the climate and soil conditions, and the farming practices used.

There are a number of ways to reduce the amount of land required to produce hemp. One way is to use high-yield hemp varieties. Another way is to use intensive farming practices, such as double cropping and vertical farming.

By using these methods, it is possible to produce significantly more hemp per acre of land. For example, a study by the University of Kentucky found that it is possible to produce up to 10 tons of hemp per acre using intensive farming practices.

If Tesla were to use high-yield hemp varieties and intensive farming practices, then they could potentially reduce the amount of land required to produce enough hemp for the Cybertruck production target by up to 90%. This would mean that they would only need about 42,500 acres of land to meet their production targets.

Overall, it is possible for Tesla to produce enough hemp to meet their Cybertruck production targets without requiring a significant amount of land. By using high-yield hemp varieties and intensive farming practices, they could potentially reduce the amount of land required by up to 90%.

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