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Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

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Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#51

Meta: What is it with Tesla that each little thing is being blown epically out of proportion by news outlets, press, TV, etc.? I mean, i get it - bad news are good news, bring clicks etc. But with Tesla? - Cybertruck? Rust, tyre problems - "recalls" which are OTA software updates - waste disposal in CA - ... Elon is of course no saint, a controversial figure - in fact, i think he's pretty much a clown and at this poi…

Seems obvious to me. Tesla has an absurd valuation. Their CEO is the richest person alive (or was at one point) and has a cult-like status amongst many online fans. This person has historically used his loudspeaker to lie, pump, dump, you name it. Finally, Tesla as a company is premised on subverting an existing industry with very established players - it’s entertaining news when that doesn’t go according to plan. Pr…

All this, but there is also some negative PR getting funded, presumably by the incumbent car manufacturers threatened by Tesla.

Remember that NYT article came out in 2018 that painted such a terrible picture of Elon (1)? A year later it showed up on my Facebook feed as a paid advertisement. Who pays to promote a year-old news article?

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#52
post #48
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a terrible truck. And on that subject I was thinking on pickup truck beds today. None of them are really very good. A good bed would be made out of solid steel and be full of tie down points. That is, the way work trucks are made. As is stands they are made of car body steel and have almost no tie down points, and never one where you need it. As a postscript I have been watching the edison motors channel…

> tie down points I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck. Why don't trucks and cars have modular storage? multi-use storage? Why do we have to quickly drive home from the grocery store to put stuff in the fridge or freezer? We should have a cooler in the back of the vehicle for groceries so it…

The answer to all of your questions is that trucks are marketed largely to people who don't need trucks and will only subject them to light use.

If the truck bed were solid steel it would cost more and wouldn't sell that much better.

If there were more tie downs it wouldn't look as sleek and fewer people would buy it. Those are the people who don't use tie downs (or the bed, really) anyway.

That high-end entertainment system is what sells trucks to that kind of customer.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#53
post #45

Huh, interesting. It would be hilarious* if these cars really had a serious rust problem, and all the hipsters with their 60-100k cars will explain how rust is completely normal on a 3 years old car. Or that it is "cosmetic tarnishing". * hilarious in the abstract, if it happened to you and you take a financial hit, I'm sorry As one reddit comment mentioned, if people start wrapping this car, but the "wrapping" compa…

> Or that it is "cosmetic tarnishing". I'll give it a pass if it turns out it was made with weathering steel. :p https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weathering_steel

That would be an incredible mess. If it's not pre-weathered, weathering steel leaves rust stains everywhere during the weathering process. You would have thousands of people suing Tesla for the damage to their driveways and garages.

I don't think it's weathering steel :-)

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#54
post #48
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is a terrible truck. And on that subject I was thinking on pickup truck beds today. None of them are really very good. A good bed would be made out of solid steel and be full of tie down points. That is, the way work trucks are made. As is stands they are made of car body steel and have almost no tie down points, and never one where you need it. As a postscript I have been watching the edison motors channel…

> tie down points I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck. Why don't trucks and cars have modular storage? multi-use storage? Why do we have to quickly drive home from the grocery store to put stuff in the fridge or freezer? We should have a cooler in the back of the vehicle for groceries so it…

    I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the 
    CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a 
    motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck.
From the outside, seems like two huge factors.

One it's because there's so much time crunch pressure on vehicle development. It costs megabucks and they can't just extend the development cycle on a new vehicle for months to allow for "dogfooding" (which may involve hauling literal dog food from the grocery store)

Two it's because feedback cycles on vehicles are long enough to be effectively useless. For example, everybody hates the removal of physical controls from car interiors, but it doesn't hurt new car sales (because it's not obvious how crappy the controls are until you've spent some real time in the vehicle) so manufacturers don't really have an effective feedback loop guiding their decisions. So cars often have just the dumbest possible usability failures.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#55
post #52
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tie down points I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck. Why don't trucks and cars have modular storage? multi-use storage? Why do we have to quickly drive home from the grocery store to put stuff in the fridge or freezer? We should have a cooler in the back of the vehicle for groceries so it…

The answer to all of your questions is that trucks are marketed largely to people who don't need trucks and will only subject them to light use. If the truck bed were solid steel it would cost more and wouldn't sell that much better. If there were more tie downs it wouldn't look as sleek and fewer people would buy it. Those are the people who don't use tie downs (or the bed, really) anyway. That high-end entertainmen…

Serious question: won't any "real" pickup truck user put a plastic truck bed liner in the truck bed anyway?

I mean if you're hauling heavy stuff around it's going to quickly beat a bare metal or painted metal surface to crap anyway right?

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#56
post #17

This “rust” is cosmetic tarnishing, not structural corrosion. Over time I imagine it will develop into a beautiful patina. Every CyberTruck will look unique. If you really want to keep it looking shiny and pristine, you can always get a clear protective wrap.

Is that even a thing available?

If you see a really expensive vehicle (rare sports cars, etc) I think it's the norm.

Big financial hit if you screw up the paint job on a Ferrari or something like that. Either you're going to pay through the nose for paint repairs or you're going to take a huge hit on the resale value of your $250K vehicle.

So a $5000 (or whatever they cost) clear wrap quickly becomes the smart financial choice on your investment.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#57

I don’t understand why people want their truck to look pristine. Mine is all of seven years old, and is more dents and scratches than it is intact bodywork - because it’s a truck, and it gets used for truck stuff. If you don’t use it for truck stuff, and want a shiny object, for god’s sake, don’t buy a truck.

Car rust is a little bit more than a cosmetic issue. Eventually it destroys things.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#58

I don’t understand why people want their truck to look pristine. Mine is all of seven years old, and is more dents and scratches than it is intact bodywork - because it’s a truck, and it gets used for truck stuff. If you don’t use it for truck stuff, and want a shiny object, for god’s sake, don’t buy a truck.

The majority of trucks sold are status symbols. I’ve never seen a muddy Raptor.

I'm not exactly defending it but a lot of people buy trucks because they occasionally "legitimately" need one.

I remember my parents used to buy station wagons. 51 weeks out of the year, we did not need a station wagon. But one week out of the year... we did need it, for family vacations.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#59

Huh, interesting. It would be hilarious* if these cars really had a serious rust problem, and all the hipsters with their 60-100k cars will explain how rust is completely normal on a 3 years old car. Or that it is "cosmetic tarnishing". * hilarious in the abstract, if it happened to you and you take a financial hit, I'm sorry As one reddit comment mentioned, if people start wrapping this car, but the "wrapping" compa…

> cosmetic tarnishing

We call that patina.

Re: Tesla Cybertruck may have a rust problem

#60
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tie down points I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck. Why don't trucks and cars have modular storage? multi-use storage? Why do we have to quickly drive home from the grocery store to put stuff in the fridge or freezer? We should have a cooler in the back of the vehicle for groceries so it…

I've always thought the same thing. Maybe none of the CEOs ever take home groceries in their car. Or haul a motorcycle, bicycle or plates of food over to a potluck. From the outside, seems like two huge factors. One it's because there's so much time crunch pressure on vehicle development. It costs megabucks and they can't just extend the development cycle on a new vehicle for months to allow for "dogfooding" (which m…

some car companies have been in business for > 100 years!
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