Video: Tonneau cover closing on Cybertruck Beta!

[Ogre]

CT will most definitely be more prone range loss from protruding bed loads than a F150, provided the load on the F150 is below the cab roof height.

In a nutshell why I plan on keeping everything on my truck within the existing envelope if I’m traveling long distances. Short trips, the bikes can hang out. Going to visit family in California? In the vault, lid closed.

Visiting family in Hawaii? That’s a whole other problem.

Sponsored

 

[WHIZZARD OF OZ]

In a nutshell why I plan on keeping everything on my truck within the existing envelope if I’m traveling long distances. Short trips, the bikes can hang out. Going to visit family in California? In the vault, lid closed.

Visiting family in Hawaii? That’s a whole other problem.

Hawaii?.... you're gonna need a BIGGER BOAT!

 

[Sirfun]

Do you think kidnappees will be able to be heard with the tonneau cover closed?

ok bad joke.
sorry folks.

but seriously is it sound proof?

While it was closing, I noticed there's a large rubber gasket to seal it pretty tight. So yelling may not be heard very well. But pounding on that metal cover would produce plenty of noise.

 

[WHIZZARD OF OZ]

Yeah. It’s being called a beta. I personally think this version is about 99.9% the final production version and that any changes at this point will probably be very minor or completely invisible.

I’m sad to see the 6 seat option go away. That was a major selling point for me in 2019. But since then my older kids have become adults and don’t really want to ride around with me anymore.

When it turns up in the driveway, then we'll see who's the KOOL Dad?

 

[Crissa]

My comment was based upon the document. It shows the close path of the vault cover as obstructing with rear window when the vault cover is closed. Either the document in incorrect or I'm missing something which is a possibility ;-)

It passes the window and is not depicted blocking it.

The tonneau is basically a little train on a track. It's not contiguous from the roll to the tailgate. Just enough to close the vault. So it passes the window on its way in or out of the roll.

We saw this in videos of people riding in the original prototype.

-Crissa

 

[CyberBC]

I am looking forward to seeing you tubers test this tonneau cover in freezing conditions with big chunks of snow and ice frozen to it and in -20 after a car wash.

I see that they chose to butt the end of the cover up to the tailgate rather than have a lip to shed water over It. That would seem to mean that all of the water off the roof will be directed to the inside corners of the tailgate for draining. Hmmm.

 

[CyberBC]

My garage doors let out a gunshot noise when the seals release between the panels when frozen in the winter and that it with a 3 ft. gable overhang. With no cover this is going to sound like an uzi. Will probably set off the car alarm.

 

[CyberBC]

I really hope some Canadians get to test this this winter. Before I order mine. 40K

 

[CyberBC]

I suspect we might have to leave the cover out much of the winter unless we have covered parking. Here's hoping there is a sliding rear window to heat the box and melt the ice.

 

[Monkchoi]

Wait. Where does the cover go when it is open? We can clearly see the back seats when the cover is open, so does it just curl up in the back roof? It seems like a rather thick cover. I'm guessing it's magic. . .

Nano technology, like the latest gen Iron Man suit.

 

[Rutrow]

Also, why would I want to turn my truck into a 1982 Datsun 280Z?

Because 1982 Datsun 280Z...

 

[cvalue13]

Because 1982 Datsun 280Z...

Yes please sir may I have a Datsun 280Z, thank you.

No thank you sir I would not like to have the mongrel lovechild of a 2023 Lightning bred to a Datsun 280Z.

 

[Huntsman]

Area rule aerodynamics. The most efficient shapes are those that smoothly and slowly change the total cross sectional area viewed from front to back. Graphing out that area from front to back, you want it to look as much like an egg with the blunt end forward as possible for subsonic moving vehicles.

A vertical back window drags a bubble of separated, turbulent, nearly still air behind the vertical window, which "fills in the egg graph". Tailgate up holds on to a large bubble relatively well. Closed tonneau makes the bubble smaller, but not zero, and sometimes it does fall off the bed area, meaning a new bubble has to be "accelerated" to the speed of the truck to re-attach. Tailgate down doesn't let the bubble stick to the window, it falls out of the bed too easily, constantly requiring a lot of new air to re-fill in the void created. Sloped tonneau doesn't need a bubble at all, so the total boundary layer volume dragged along with the truck is less.

TLDR: sloped tonneau good for aero, in any other design nature tries to fill the void creating more drag.

All very good points you make.
Speed clearly makes a difference but length of bed in conventional trucks has been found to be signicant. While most trucks have a reduced bed length 4.5-6.5’, the traditional 8’ beds have a completely different look in a wind tunnel as the vacuum created by the cab never reaches the tailgate. Tail gate up or down at 70mph has little significance in short bed trucks while tail gate down (theoretically) reduces drag as it creates a secondary vacuum on 8’ beds. If the vault has been reduced from 6.5’ to 6’, this may be in part to improve that drag with the vault cover

open. Furthermore the CT tailgate… aka vault retainer, is sloped so that air from under the truck rejoins the airflow from above the truck at the top of the vault retainer rather in the bumper region - hence tail gate down on the CT may disrupt the optimum airflow design. …curious what it looks like in a wind tunnel in various configurations -
vault cover open closed,
speeds 35 - 55 -75,
tailgate up down.

 

[cvalue13]

TFLtruck is using a standard horizontal cover so there is still a significant amount of aerodynamic drag from turbulence off the back of the higher cabin structure.

The Cybertruck's cover that slopes from back of cabin to tailgate might add another 2-3 e-MPG over what TFLtruck saw with RAM 1500 & horizontal cover.

these guy’s “real world test” is also just sloppy and full of errors that account for their marginal “findings”

For a far better back-of-napkin, find the Myth Buster’s episode on this (using more equipment and better controls) - and found tonneau’s don’t improve mileage beyond expected margin of error.

Admittedly, you can find websites debunking the myth busters debunking … and thankfully, those websites all sell tonneau covers.

Sponsored