Love it, or hate it.
There’s no question that the Cybertruck has divided opinions.
“It’s gonna be a Lamborghini.
It’s gonna cost too much.
There’s gonna be a gigantic battery.
I’m calling it a toy for Elon fanboys.”
Even Tesla’s own design team had mixed feelings about the Cybertruck.
Tesla’s chief designer Franz von Holzhausen said in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Elon
Musk: “A majority of people in this studio hated it.”
“They were like, ‘You can’t be serious.’”
Elon was serious.
He felt they had played it safe with the look of the Model Y
And wanted to make a bold statement with the Cybertruck.
Once in every ten years, once in awhile, a really unusual product special product comes
along.
We’ll remember those special moments.
Innovation can be shocking.
New designs can be unsettling
Remember when people laughed at AirPods?
Elon’s son Saxon once asked: “Why doesn’t the future look like the future?”
That really resonated with Elon.
Finally, the future will look like the future.
His vision for a forward-looking design was inspired by the Lotus Esprit from the James
Bond film 'The Spy Who Loved Me,' a car he admired so much that he bought it for $1 million
and gave it a place of honor in Tesla's design studio.
And the Cybertruck’s engineering seemed to naturally call for a futuristic look.
The vehicle is made from the same stainless steel used in SpaceX’s Starship, so it’s
certainly tough enough for terrestrial travel.
The body panels used in cars are traditionally made out of aluminum or steel alloys because
of their ease of use and cost-effectiveness.
However, Elon wondered whether another material would be better for a durable, high-performance
electric truck.
This is an example of first principles thinking - challenging the status quo, breaking down
assumptions to reimagine possibilities.
Pickup trucks haven’t changed much in appearance for decades.
Elon’s approach was to create something entirely new.
Once in every ten years, once in awhile, a really special product comes along.
We’ll remember those special moments.
That people said was impossible and this is one of those times.
Despite how notoriously difficult the metal is to work with, Elon was determined to create
a stainless steel vehicle.
The Cybertruck will be heavy but a stainless steel body can bear some of the load, enhancing
its durability and offering better protection for passengers.
If you’re ever in an argument with another car, you will win.
While the armor glass of the Cybertruck famously cracked when struck by a steel ball a few
years ago, Elon is serious about the Cybertruck being strong enough to withstand bullets
If Al Capone showed up with a Tommy gun and emptied the entire magazine through the car
door, you’d still be alive.
People said, ‘Why’d you make it bulletproof?’
I’m like, ‘Why not?’”
The Cybertruck uses a special type of cold-rolled stainless steel patented by Tesla.
Hot rolling involves heating steel to over 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (927° Celsius),
making it soft and malleable.
The steel is pressed and shaped by big rollers.
As it cools, it shrinks, causing the tiny grains inside the steel that got stretched
out to relax back to their normal shape.
This results in less precision in the size and finish of the final product.
While hot-rolled steel isn’t very strong, it’s good enough for things like railroad
tracks.
In cold rolling, the steel is cooled to room temperature.
Rolling this cooler, harder steel requires significantly more force.
The intense pressure during this process makes the steel thinner and longer.
The grains inside the steel get stretched out in the direction it’s rolled and don’t
revert back to their original state.
This gives cold-rolled steel its superior strength and a smoother finish.
But cold-rolled steel is also harder to bend and shape, so straight planes and sharp angles
are more practical
You can’t actually stamp the body panels.
The body panels would break the stamping machine.
Stainless steel also doesn’t need to be painted thanks to its natural rust resistance
which reduces manufacturing costs.
When Franz von Holzhausen presented Elon with a full-size mockup of the Cybertruck in July
2019, Elon’s immediate response was: “That’s it!
I love it.
We are doing that.”
When some members of Tesla’s design team suggested doing some market testing to see
how the public would receive it, Elon replied: “I don’t do focus groups.”
As reported in Isaacson’s book, Elon explained: “I don’t care if no one buys it.
We’re not doing a traditional boring truck.
We can always do that later.
I want to build something that’s cool.
Like, don’t resist me.”
He pushed for a prototype in just three months.
The world got a taste of the Cybertruck in November 2019 where Elon announced its expected
range and pricing.
Fast forward three years later, when Tesla delivered the first Cybertrucks in November
2023.
Thank you for buying a cybertruck
However, the Cybertruck's range hasn't quite met the targets initially set at its debut,
even with a range extender.
Pricing has also increased.
Although people have been eagerly anticipating the delivery of more Cybertrucks, Elon is
quick to temper expectations.
At best, he expects 250,000 Cybertrucks a year to come off the assembly lines beginning
in 2025.
As the saying goes, good things take time, and the Cybertruck is no ordinary vehicle.
The remarkable innovation of the Cybertruck requires a deep understanding of engineering
principles.
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Thanks for watching.
For Newsthink, I’m Cindy Pom.