NY Times CT article

[Alpine]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ny...as-cybertruck-pickup-stainless-steel.amp.html

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[charliemagpie]

That was painful

 

[Crissa]

Wow, that's a terrible article. I don't even know where to start. Almost every paragraph has a factual or editorial error.

-Crissa

 

[MiguelAznar]

A few thoughts on the article (excerpts in bold):

“Stainless steel is typically heavier than the steel used in most other cars, reducing driving range.”

True if the 3 mm stainless steel were simply replacing the <1 mm steel in conventional trucks, but it’s not. It is going to provide much of the strength that conventional trucks rely on a heavy ladder frame for. It is an exoskeleton, pushing the strength to the outside like the carapace of a beetle. We do not yet know if the Cybertruck will be heavier or lighter than an F150 Lightning.


“To me, the insistence on stainless steel is a manifestation of his belief that he has some unique understanding of the market, and that the market will buy whatever he offers because it comes from the mind of Elon Musk.”

The story goes that he looked at Tesla’s factories and saw 30% was paint shop. To avoid that, along with the unavoidable delays of waiting for paint to dry, he explored stainless steel. Space X already had researched various forms of stainless steel to make their rockets, so he knew what was possible in a way that other carmakers did not.


These challenges probably help explain why Tesla is two years behind schedule in manufacturing the Cybertruck, which the company plans to produce at its factory in Austin, Texas.

According to discussion on this forum, batteries delayed the Cybertruck. Tesla spent the last few years creating a new kind of battery that can be mass-produced much faster and cheaper. While that has been coming up to speed, they’ve been selling as many cars as they can manufacturer, given battery constraints. There’s no point in selling a Cybertruck instead of a couple of Model Ys. While they have been scaling up the battery production line, they’ve been making improvements to the Cybertruck design.


“Tesla thinks they can solve any problem and don’t have to learn from anyone else,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, “and then they get stuck in a corner.”

Tesla learns from Space X.


“The first-mover advantage that Tesla could have leveraged has completely gone away,” Mr. Rajkumar said. “It’s a massive opportunity lost.”

If no one else can yet mass produce electric trucks and Tesla will soon mass produce a superior electric truck, I don’t see there’s any loss of opportunity. The lost opportunity might’ve been struggling to produce a brand new truck in lieu of smoothly manufacturing Model Y cars, for which there was more demand than could be fulfilled.


Stainless steel does not crumple as easily, exposing passengers to more of the force from impact.

Crush zones within the car will be easier to create, protecting passengers, than external crush zones to protect pedestrians. I think pedestrians will be the problem.

 

[Delusional]

It is very simple. Tesla does not advertise. Ford and others do advertise.
How could you ever expect any for-profit media organization to be impartial? You Cannot.

 

[datechboss101]

Just from Miguel posting snippets from that article gave me more than enough information of how painful this article is w/ incorrect info. Just like everything else NY Times butchers with their unnessary extremely subjective takes. Whoever wrote, edited, and approve this didn't bother to do enough research to publish an article like one supposed to do.

This thread just gave me another reason why to I should stay away from NY Times.

 

[MEDICALJMP]

A few thoughts on the article (excerpts in bold):

“Stainless steel is typically heavier than the steel used in most other cars, reducing driving range.”

True if the 3 mm stainless steel were simply replacing the <1 mm steel in conventional trucks, but it’s not. It is going to provide much of the strength that conventional trucks rely on a heavy ladder frame for. It is an exoskeleton, pushing the strength to the outside like the carapace of a beetle. We do not yet know if the Cybertruck will be heavier or lighter than an F150 Lightning.


“To me, the insistence on stainless steel is a manifestation of his belief that he has some unique understanding of the market, and that the market will buy whatever he offers because it comes from the mind of Elon Musk.”

The story goes that he looked at Tesla’s factories and saw 30% was paint shop. To avoid that, along with the unavoidable delays of waiting for paint to dry, he explored stainless steel. Space X already had researched various forms of stainless steel to make their rockets, so he knew what was possible in a way that other carmakers did not.


These challenges probably help explain why Tesla is two years behind schedule in manufacturing the Cybertruck, which the company plans to produce at its factory in Austin, Texas.

According to discussion on this forum, batteries delayed the Cybertruck. Tesla spent the last few years creating a new kind of battery that can be mass-produced much faster and cheaper. While that has been coming up to speed, they’ve been selling as many cars as they can manufacturer, given battery constraints. There’s no point in selling a Cybertruck instead of a couple of Model Ys. While they have been scaling up the battery production line, they’ve been making improvements to the Cybertruck design.


“Tesla thinks they can solve any problem and don’t have to learn from anyone else,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, “and then they get stuck in a corner.”

Tesla learns from Space X.


“The first-mover advantage that Tesla could have leveraged has completely gone away,” Mr. Rajkumar said. “It’s a massive opportunity lost.”

If no one else can yet mass produce electric trucks and Tesla will soon mass produce a superior electric truck, I don’t see there’s any loss of opportunity. The lost opportunity might’ve been struggling to produce a brand new truck in lieu of smoothly manufacturing Model Y cars, for which there was more demand than could be fulfilled.


Stainless steel does not crumple as easily, exposing passengers to more of the force from impact.

Crush zones within the car will be easier to create, protecting passengers, than external crush zones to protect pedestrians. I think pedestrians will be the problem.

Thanks, I had already hit my free article limit with NYT.

 

[JBee]

Lol what a joke, I actually read it.

They can’t even write a good hit piece.

 

[John K]

Can I assume the author lost money in short selling Tesla stock?

 

[Ehninger1212]

NYT does it again.. garbage journalism at its finest... Sad part is many people will read this and believe every word without question.

 

[android04]

Thanks, I had already hit my free article limit with NYT.

I'm didn't click and read it because I don't want to support crap, but this might be useful to you for just such an occasion as reaching your limit of free articles https://12ft.io/

 

[pricedm]

Lol what a joke, I actually read it.

They can’t even write a good hit piece.

I got about half way thru "skim-reading" before I gave up...each "expert" quoted was negative on Tesla. My bias is NYT reporting on Tesla is consistently negative; this "shocking new report!" is more of the same garbage.

 

[Crissa]

It's not two years late now, either.

December 2021 is not two years ago. That is false.

So annoying to print a bunch of unsourced opinions from people as if naming the people made the factually errant opinions better.

They act as if the entire big 3 have shipped trucks first. Which is also false - Ford had already sold electric Rangers. And how does one have a first-mover advantage with 'very few' produced?

Tesla has a massive reservation list. That's its first mover advantage.

-Crissa

 

[Zabhawkin]

A few thoughts on the article (excerpts in bold):


“To me, the insistence on stainless steel is a manifestation of his belief that he has some unique understanding of the market, and that the market will buy whatever he offers because it comes from the mind of Elon Musk.”

Not in my case, no paint means no scratches. My wife and I drive the back roads and forest roads. We have a couple of large dogs. Every truck and car we have owned had scratches and dents.

These challenges probably help explain why Tesla is two years behind schedule in manufacturing the Cybertruck, which the company plans to produce at its factory in Austin, Texas.

According to discussion on this forum, batteries delayed the Cybertruck. Tesla spent the last few years creating a new kind of battery that can be mass-produced much faster and cheaper. While that has been coming up to speed, they’ve been selling as many cars as they can manufacturer, given battery constraints. There’s no point in selling a Cybertruck instead of a couple of Model Ys. While they have been scaling up the battery production line, they’ve been making improvements to the Cybertruck design.

And the typical Elon timline errors, the time it took to build the factory etc.

“Tesla thinks they can solve any problem and don’t have to learn from anyone else,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, “and then they get stuck in a corner.”

Tesla learns from Space X.

And experts like Sandy Munroe

“The first-mover advantage that Tesla could have leveraged has completely gone away,” Mr. Rajkumar said. “It’s a massive opportunity lost.”

If no one else can yet mass produce electric trucks and Tesla will soon mass produce a superior electric truck, I don’t see there’s any loss of opportunity. The lost opportunity might’ve been struggling to produce a brand new truck in lieu of smoothly manufacturing Model Y cars, for which there was more demand than could be fulfilled.


Stainless steel does not crumple as easily, exposing passengers to more of the force from impact.

Crush zones within the car will be easier to create, protecting passengers, than external crush zones to protect pedestrians. I think pedestrians will be the problem.

Tesla cars and SUV's have consistently been among the safest if not the safest, so suddenly they are going to make a product that is not safe?

“Stainless steel is typically heavier than the steel used in most other cars, reducing driving range.”

True if the 3 mm stainless steel were simply replacing the <1 mm steel in conventional trucks, but it’s not. It is going to provide much of the strength that conventional trucks rely on a heavy ladder frame for. It is an exoskeleton, pushing the strength to the outside like the carapace of a beetle. We do not yet know if the Cybertruck will be heavier or lighter than an F150 Lightning.

Take the example of my Jeep. When I built the roll cage I integrated it into the body. To do this I had to cut out much of the structure in the body to run the much stronger tubes. In the end I added very little weight, the body is significantly stronger, and there is more interior space than even the stock setup had.

 

[Ogre]

You gotta love how articles and conversations about the Cybertruck conveniently ignore the bigger picture. The fact that the entire automotive industry has been plagued with delays. The fact that GM made a huge deal of launching 2 new vehicles in 2022 and were only able to product 900 of them and lost massive amounts of money doing it. The fact that Rivian and Ford are losing tens of thousands on each truck sold.

All of this ignored… COVID, supply chain shortages, massive chip shortages, battery supply price increases, huge spike in shipping costs, war in Europe… none of this affects Tesla, it only affects competitors. Cybertruck’s problem is 100% about failure on Tesla’s part.

It’s not as if Cybertruck were delayed and the rest of the world just went on as if business as usual.

“Tesla thinks they can solve any problem and don’t have to learn from anyone else,” said Raj Rajkumar, a professor of engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, “and then they get stuck in a corner.”

Do they though?

I mean… I guess being the most profitable auto maker in the world (likely this year) is a sort of corner.

“The first-mover advantage that Tesla could have leveraged has completely gone away,” Mr. Rajkumar said. “It’s a massive opportunity lost.”

They used to say this about Apple as well. Turns out that jamming a product onto the market first isn’t all it takes to be the market leader. Apple was not first with: Watch, Apple TV, Speakers, large smartphones, or many other products. Yet all of these products are hugely successful for them and many are market leaders by a large margin.

Tesla was not first with a sub-$35k sedan, but the Model 3 is by far the most successful. Being first isn’t all it’s cut out to be.

PS: I didn’t read the article. Refuse to send clicks their way.

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