Cybertruck Rear Castings
With the official start of summer just days away, all eyes are on Tesla’s gigafactory in Texas, hoping to catch a glimpse of any indication as to the current state of production for the company’s hotly anticipated Cybertruck.
For the last couple of weeks, drone operators have been posting anything they can find, from test-track runs with prototype vehicles, to new equipment deliveries, to sightings of freshly casted parts that might belong to the new vehicle.
And here once again, Tesla-watcher Joe Tegtmeyer brings us something interesting.
We can see a bunch of castings piled up in the Tesla lot - castings that bear a striking resemblance to the prototype frames we saw back in December.
These pieces are missing the additional structures which were present in that example - but they could be added on later or might not even be necessary anymore. We have very little information about any design changes that might have happened since December.
It was definitely difficult to get a view on earlier frame prototypes for the Cybertruck, but these shots from Tegtmeyer are very clear. We can see a clearly defined bed support, and the rear wheel wells - along with some protruding frame pieces that look like they could be meant for reinforcing the truck’s towing gear.
And although it’s a little difficult to tell the scale of these pieces, they certainly do seem larger than the Model Y casts. Cybertruck is famously supposed to have a large, single-piece casted rear frame to support the large truck bed - which required Tesla to commission not one but two 9000 ton gigapress machines from Italian manufacturer IDRA.
Normally we would also be left to wonder if these casts could possibly belong to another vehicle - The Model Y and Model 3 are both going through design changes at the moment. But we know what a Model Y rear cast looks like, and these aren’t that.
The timing also matches up with the upcoming production run for the Cybertruck. Tesla has been aiming for a summer production run to prepare for a “first delivery” event sometime in September - and from the looks of things, they are still on-track to hit that goal.
More importantly, this is the second time inside of the last several weeks that Tesla has purposely left parts for their new Cybertruck out in the open for drone operators to spot. They aren’t trying to hide how far along they are - which means they must be doing well.
And that means we get to see some very detailed shots of some single-casted frames - as well as have our anticipation fed. We see you, Tesla.