ford making mustang station wagon. Tesla says hold my beer.

Car Spotting: Multiple Tesla Cybertruck Prototypes Hit the Streets

Mexico Has Conflicting Yet Interesting Ideas for Tesla’s Future

Wall Street Doesn't Expect Much of the Tesla Cybertruck

There's now a Tesla beer for Ford to hold.

If anyone ever gives me a Tesla Beer I am going full Kid Rock on it.

It's probably Elon's piss.

Tesla Cybertruck Caught On Public Roads Looking Kinda Stubby Faced

I'm calling bullshit on this. Stainless steel alloys have a numbering system based on their characteristics. I have some experience with these. 300 series alloys are often used on things that will be exposed to harsh elements. Musk's using a "custom" 301 series alloy for the trucks. (It's Elmo, so "custom" goes into quotes for obvious reasons.) Four hundred series is used for things like kitchen and surgical equipment. Not only have I machined and cast such alloys in the past, but I've also bent them on sheet metal brakes and stamped them out of sheet metal.

At my present job, we make battery boxes for semis out of quarter-inch thick 300 series stainless steel. These look like they were designed by HR Giger when compared to the Cybertruck and its flat sides. (If we run some this week and I can remember, I'll try to take a picture of them.) Are you going to tell me that the Cybertruck has material over .25 inch thick when the average for the industry is that body panels are only .035 to .04 of an inch thick? Bullshit.

Now, one thing that 300 series metal does, fairly easily, I might add, is become "work hard." Meaning that if you're not careful, when you're doing a process on the metal, if it gets a bit too warm in the area where you're working, the metal will get harder. This does limit the kinds of bends, etc. that you can easily do with them, and if you fuck up and bend a panel wrong, you might not be able to flatten it back out and start again. So, while you might have some issues easily bending the metal to make the shapes you'd see on an ordinary Tesla vehicle, you could still come up with something that looks more akin to the Tesla car than the Cybertruck without much trouble.

All of this tells me that the shape of the Cybertruck is an extreme example of cost-cutting. How extreme? I have operated sheet metal brakes that are state of the art for 2023, and I've operated ones that wouldn't be out of place in a machine shop in WWII. When you buy a sheet metal brake, you've got all kinds of tooling options for it that you can buy. From really simple stuff that can be set up in the machine in just a few minutes, to elaborate stuff that takes hours to set up and can only be ran on the most sophisticated of machines. The bends needed to make the Cybertruck? All of that can be done on a WWII-era machine (or older), with no specialized tooling and no long setups. If you want to get fancy and cut out some humans, there are some relatively inexpensive robots that can do the job. We have a sheet metal brake that bends 1-inch thick stainless steel parts, where a robot does all the work and a human just stops by every now and then to see if the parts basket is full or if it's running low on part blanks. We know Musk likes robots, so we can assume that he's doing the same.

He's trying to build a Bentley with the engineering philosophy that went into the original VW Beetle.

This is Tesla's latest video about their robots. I couldn't help but notice, however, that there were three, and only three, Cybertrucks in the background. That tells me, that's probably all they have built right now. Maybe a few more, but certainly not enough for them to be able to safely say that they'll be in production in whatever's Musk's current timeframe.

And someone pointed me to this engineering article that says pretty much the same thing.

Oh, and at 3 mm thick? That steel will stop a bullet.

This Weird Loophole Gives You the EV Tax Credit on Leased Vehicles

If you were to buy the vehicle, you can't get the tax credit unless it meets certain requirements for US-manufactured components. Leased vehicles are exempt from that requirement, so you can claim the tax credit, even though the vehicle might not meet the US-manufactured components part of the requirements.

Elon Musk Wants The Cybertruck To Outsell The Silverado

One inch stainless?!?

Quarter inch. Or are you talking about your robodick?

Yup.

It seems they won't either.

You Won't Be Able To Spin Your Rivian In Tiny Pretty Circles After All

Supposedly, the reason isn't technical, but the amount of damage done to the ground while the truck is doing that is such that the company doesn't think it'd be advisable to use the thing in off-road conditions. Big problem with people fucking up delicate environmental trails with that, I guess.

Ford hasn't said if they'll add the feature into the Lightning, as they had been talking about, nor has Musk said anything since he saw the video and said, "Oh, yeah, we'll be able to do that." Anyone does release it, I'm certain that the media will be filled with reports of people fucking their vehicles up by doing it on dry pavement.

Yeah, neutral steering definitely fucks up the ground. A tracked vehicle doing it on asphalt will fuck up a road, too.

Tesla's Cybertruck Supply Chain Lead Quits to Work at Rival Rivian

Truck Part Of Tesla Cybertruck Not Going Great: Report

A Californian startup has shrunk the electric pickup and made it better



It needs a frunk. (Do people in the UK call frunks "froots"?)

Tesla celebrates late arrival of first electric Cybertruck off assembly line

Elon Musk Doesn't Want To Talk About Cybertruck Deadlines Right Now

Tesla Cybertruck found broken down on side of the road

Tesla spotted shipping Cybertrucks by the truckload, some for crash tests

The Fisker Alaska Is The Perfect EV For Your Big Gulp And Your Cowboy Hat



Okay, I've got to be honest with you, this Infiniti?


Is just fucking bread box ugly.

What is it with the giant fucking grilles on vehicles these days? It looks stupid as shit.

It's more a question of the shape, rather than the size. I'm certain that if you compared square inches of grills from some of the finest-looking autos (we'll ignore the air-cooled ones and just talk about ones with radiators) ever built, with the fugly shit we're seeing now, some of the oldest ones will have larger grills.

If I am lucky, I will live long enough to document that what fucking ruined the automotive industry was the bean counters taking control of the companies. Yes, I understand, anyone who knows anything about cars recognizes there have been issues with the industry for a long time now. And yes, in many cases, the bean counters were responsible.

I am pretty sure the purpose is to be imposing to the people you tailgate. It seems to be the overall idea to make things larger and larger looking, and that relates to intimidation from what I have seen. In an indirect way it makes certain drivers feel like they are in a tank and safe.

Someone made the comment that they can’t believe that people consider a guy who made a giant drill and a Thunderdome tank is considered a “serious business person.”

I’d say it’s closer to this.

Leaked Email Shows Elon Musk Demanding "Sub 10 Micron Accuracy” Cybertruck Parts

I have made critical components for aerospace companies that didn't require those kinds of tolerances. And for things like "cosmetic items," (you know, fenders, trim pieces, etc.) that's overkill on the order of dropping the Tsar Bomb on your house because you saw a roach.