Cybertruck Production Leak
The Tesla scene was wild last weekend, after images of what looks like the cybertruck frame was posted in a video by Youtuber Kim Java on December 9th.
Kim reported getting the image from an anonymous source who obviously works in GigaTexas. Or at least they did - Tesla’s likely not going to be too pleased with this person when they find them.
The image shows what appears to be an attached cabin and rear frame of a cybertruck, sitting on a stand in a powder coat station. The forward half is partway through a coating, and easily identifiable as a cybertruck cabin - the nose slope and both door frames are pretty distinctive.
As Kim points out, this cabin could be made of Hydroformed stainless steel - which is a process that forms hollow parts by pressing them into a mold and forcing water through at pressures up to 3000 bar. But that seems unlikely, or at least overkill for what we’re looking at here.
As for the back half, that appears to be a single-piece, mega-casted frame - Tesla ordered a colossal 9000 ton gigapress machine from Italian company IDRA to produce the Cybertruck’s rear frame - but given that we know the machine isn’t even at GigaTexas yet - we know this piece can’t be a single-casted part. The dark colouration suggests it might be plastic
We can see from the image that there's bracing that attaches the cabin wall to the wheel well, and another supporting structure that reaches towards the rear. The piece also includes a rear wall for the cabin - condolences to folks who were hoping for a folding midgate, it looks like the divider is too solid to allow for a folding backseat.
We know from comments made by CEO Elon Musk last year that the "vault" - the sealable bed compartment of the Cybertruck - will be needing a large casted piece for additional support. This is what the 9000 ton gigapress was ordered for - as the piece is much larger than any of Tesla's other gigapress machines can handle making.
That appears to be what this test piece at the back half of the assembly here is meant to simulate - but putting aside what these frames could be made of, what could they be for?
We know from Tesla’s Q3 2022 update letter that the Cybertruck is in its “tooling phase” - which is usually when the unique tools needed to make a vehicle are created and tested - so Tesla could have made the frame out of something cheap so they could test things like tools, fittings and measurements.
Not to mention that a tooling phase in this case likely includes testing and designing the die-casting molds that Tesla will be using to cast the pieces once they get that enormous - and expensive - Gigapress up and running. It would make sense to test out any changes to the design now, before they order those dies from Italy.
Which might help explain that cabin frame.
The Cybertruck has been advertised as having its stainless steel body double as its structure. CEO Elon Musk has gone into a fair amount of detail about using it as an “exoskeleton” - moving the majority of the vehicle's stresses to the skin, instead of supporting it with the frame like a regular vehicle would.
The rear of the vehicle needing some additional support isn't surprising - Elon talked about that last year before Tesla placed the order for the 9000 ton gigapress they needed to make the single-cast piece they wanted to use. But industry experts like Sandy Munroe believe Tesla wouldn’t have to use a cabin structure at all if they really went with an exoskeleton approach.
“What the exoskeleton does is to get rid of the requirements for internal longitudinals, stiffening ribs, and things like that because the structural skin would be doing all the work. What you are really doing is getting rid of roof bows, door surrounds, and things like that.”
And we can very clearly see that this frame at least has a door structure. So the most likely possibility is that Tesla has revised their design a bit due to some internal need for structure - and this frame is letting them test out some details before they commit.
But it’s very hard to tell with just a photo to go off of - so while this image is very interesting - and raises a tonne of questions - we’re unfortunately going to have to wait for something more concrete to show up before we know for sure.