Tesla is facing issues with the bare metal construction of the Cybertruck, which Elon Musk warned was as tricky to do as making Lego bricks
A Saturday morning lemmy comment section has more engineering skill than a $1T automaker, apparently.
Musk isn’t an auto maker. He’s an idiot who owns a company.
$1T means nothing if the CEO has mush for a brain lol
Why would that not be the case?
I don’t have to be in the space program to know that Pluto is pretty far away and I don’t have to be a mechanical engineer to know the implementing exacting tolerances like this both in house and from external suppliers is going to drive costs through the roof just so his truck can look like a 90s wireframe model driving a literal information superhighway. With that being said, if you have better info I’d love to hear it. I just don’t think you do. I think you started with the assumption that Musk is some sort of gigagenius and then tried to make the inference from there that anything he says and does must be the right thing to say and do, and that anyone who criticizes him just isn’t following his hyperdimensional chess gambit.
lol
Ah, so no better info.
Name one other auto industry CEO that makes engineering demands of this nature and lambasts employees on social media for not meeting them.
Without relying on Google etc. you probably couldn’t even name the CEO of Toyota, Honda, Ford, etc. And I seriously doubt they are making technical decisions for their cars. They rely on knowledgeable managers whose teams have decades of technical experience, and likely defer to those experts when they say something isn’t feasible.
Musk is acting like Homer Simpson when given the chance to design his own car. Screw the experts! He wants what he demands and won’t take “no” for an answer, no matter how bad his decisions are.
Hes been doing this since the first roadster, its the way Tesla operates. You can not argue with the success up to this point.
He didn’t even make the roadster.
Not to mention:
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He’s been promising full self driving would be out of beta and readily available soon for over a decade now.
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Cybertruck available in 2019.
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one million Tesla robo-taxis by 2020.
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Teslas will have a 600+ mile range very soon
And those are just some of his broken promises regarding Tesla, without even touching on widely held poor decisions like insisting on a “vision only” solution for full self driving, getting rid of the control stalks in the S and X in favor of touch controls on the wheel, etc.
And don’t get me started on the similar broken promises involving SpaceX, Twitter, Hyperloop, etc.
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Imagine being a musk simp. Jfc. Grow up.
Two things, not necessarily related.
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The cybertronk looks highly regarded when put together correctly. Imagine if it has the panel gaps of other cars TSLA makes.
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My tinfoil hat theory on why Elon is acting all right wing all of the sudden is to get those idiots to buy electric bare metal Pontiac Aztecs with “unbreakable” windows instead of F-150’s
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In the full email he goes on to tell the engineer what a micron is.
I guess, he just read that word somewhere and now feels cool that he knows it.
It would be cute if he was a junior manager, but this way it’s just sad.
You really think he wrote it? He has an army of engineers working for him, many of which would kill their mothers to get on Elon’s good side, corporate culture is same shit different smell no matter the corporation.
The leaked email has his name on it and the leak claims it was an email from Elon to employees. Can’t really tell if the leak is real or fake, but if it’s real then Elon is definitely the one who wrote it.
Based on his proclivity to say dumb shit and his inability to keep his mouth shut, I’m inclined to believe it’s a real leak.
This 100% sounds like him. I don’t see any reason to doubt it given that if someone was going to make something up it wouldn’t sound like this.
Basically, it’s an admission that the cybertruck is going to stand out like a sore thumb due to normal wear and tear.
They’ve had five years to figure that stuff out. If they haven’t done it by now, they never will.
Sounds like a pr campaign
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Tesla should mill the car from one solid block of steel.
Pedestrian vaporizer 9000 coming up!
As a pedestrian and cyclist (aka Dutchman): fuck that noise
TIL I’m a dutchman
Make me some stroopwafel.
Only if you also grab a Heineken for on the road on your bike ride home from the bar
Just cause I’m a dutchman doesn’t mean I drink shit beer.
You’re one step closer to bringing back the glory of the Dutch East Indies Company
Sure hun. Would you like that with a side of fries or mashed potatoes?
Oh fries please, he gets too easily distracted and just plays with the mash potatoes all dinner
This means something…
So that’s how this PoS vehicle was conceived in the first place? That tracks.
10 micron tolerance is rather impressive for a mashed potato sculpture.
I’m sure he did pretend it was, though.
It’s almost like he hears about how bad the build quality of Tesla cars have become, so he thinks the solution is more accurrate, more expensive parts. Kind of like he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, and doesn’t want to listen to smarter people telling him what they need.
I think it’s more likely that he is looking for excuses for the years of delays on the cyber truck.
Now he can blame it on his “desire for perfection” instead of admitting that his timeline was never viable
The design isn’t viable. They could have developed a new car in less time if it wasn’t going to be an absolute nightmare to produce reliably.
Let’s not forget about the new Roadster that was due to enter production 3 years ago.
Everyone that bought one gave Tesla a $250k interest-free loan.This is all starting to seem intentional.
At some point, once consumer rights are eroded enough , the straightest path to profits is just downright theft. Take money now, worry about product later. It’s literally inevitable and the video game industry is really fuckin good at it.
Elon is a masterclass in the Dunning-Kruger effect.
I think we should rename that effect after the man who invented it: the Musk-Dunning-Kruger effect
On the kneecaps of giants.
Family emerald mines not withstanding.
Two to invent, one to perfect.
Seriously. He can’t NOT publicly repeat every technical term that he hears, usually with next to no actual understanding.
Microns
If Elon would have looked back, he would have seen that Delorean has already tried bare metal, and it’s nearly impossible to fix. Dent your truck? May as well paint it.
I mean, Elon obviously doesn’t care about repairability, but the first few fender benders will result in a pile of articles about how unfixable the body panels actually are.
But at least John DeLorean didn’t demand that the parts be accurate to within a few microns. Maybe he was too busy making cocaine deals to do it, but still…
I just realized how accurate the comparison probably is…
Although Musk is famously on Ketamine instead.
eNgInEeRiNg
10 microns is .4 thou, about the width of a cotton fiber. Its possible to machine those tolerances, but very time consuming as machine maintainance steps up. Its also small enough that the thermal expansion of the sheets will be larger than that
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0.4 thou = 0.4 mil
(TIL about thous, all my engineering textbooks referencing US units must be old or something)
decimal inches is basically only used in machining. The only time ive ever seen it is in schematics and an indicators.
Thanks, I understand my error now. Corrected
Isn’t that 10 microns? 0.01mm?
Which is 0.4 thou
Oh haha, yeah, I understand my error now. Thanks for bearing with me
So basically elon would rather dump money into expensive equipment to improve build quality than do the thing that’s actually needed to improve build quality and pay his workers what their work is worth and make their factory environment safer?
This is the kind of petty angry bullshit you have to do to be a billionaire. Its not about being smart, it’s about on some level hating everyone that isn’t you
You aren’t going to hit that tolerance consistently on an assembly line no matter how much you pay. Can be done by a skilled machinist, but there are too many dynamical variables in an assembly line environment, like the previously mentioned thermal expansion.
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It’s not even about that. You absolutely don’t need those tolerances for a cup holder. An assembly line will fuck it up regardless. You use tolerances like that when needed - in jet engines or turbines. Insisting on those numbers on a car is plain stupid - it isn’t better (other than the ego boosting “my car has high tolerances where nobody cares”) than just doing it like every other manufacturer does it. It’s a waste of money plain and simple.
For reference, in working with parts that interface directly with optical components about the tightest I’m ever comfortable specifying at production volumes is 0.05mm and that is for very specific dimensions and not entire parts yet he is demanding 5 times lower tolerances here.
Making a lot of assumptions about what he’s willing to put into this.
He’s not going to get fancy expensive new equipment, he’s not going to hire the best machinists, he’s not going to slow the work down to allow that kind of accuracy. He’s going to bluster and shout and make demands without providing any way of actually achieving those demands. That’s what Elon does. He’s not an Engineer, he doesn’t design things, he doesn’t build things, he tells people who actually know what they’re doing to build something. Here, he’s just saying “Do better” without anything more, and expecting that to be enough because he doesn’t actually know shit about dick.
Frankly the closest I’ve seen to evidence that Elon has ever actually designed anything is the eyesore that is the Cybertruck, because it absolutely looks like something that cretin would draw in crayon and demand be made a reality.
Harsh, but fair 😂
It’s design demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of what trucks are for. I know people give the CEO of Ford shit for saying hes not worried about the Cybertruck because people who want to do real work wouldn’t take any interest in it, but its true. Trucks all have the shape of bed they do for a reason. Convergent product evolution landed on that as the best shape for a bed for trailer hitches
Actually, anyone else notice how comically small most truck beds are nowadays? So embarrassing.
Oh you mean those SUVs with the open-air trunks?
Very true, and very annoying. Anytime I see thst all I can think is that its a family sedan for someone not confident enouf in their manhood
I mean… I literally bought a Ford Maverick because it was like a four door family car with the added bonus of a truck bed for many of the purposes I would have wanted a truck for.
Maverick gets a pass for being a small hybrid rather than a gas guzzling 1500 with no torque
Also for shitty drivers. Many people buy large trucks so they don’t have to drive decently.
And then they don’t know where the front end of their vehicle is, making the roads more dangerous for everyone
This is the very first thing I thought of when I saw cybertruck
Reminds me of Bill Burr https://youtu.be/E3s-qZsjK8I?si=YKykzYsFt7lnPC6g
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Lol, never saw that bit before. Bill Burr is an absolute treasure.
I love the uncomfortable silence. He makes really good use of it too. I’ve seen him do that several times and it’s always hilarious to me.
What I meant is that Elon has set a fairly un-achievable standard, as the sheet metal parts he is talking about will grow and shrink by more than that depending on weather. Additionaly, the small parts can be machined to that tolerance, but only by a skilled machinist and not at assembly line levels.
Besides just thermal expansion, which will totally happen by driving on the road, the rotation of the motors and the use of brakes.
It will also flex as it hits bumps and takes turns.
And these will be different metals. With different thicknesses which will expand and contract at different rates.
Which just shows he has no idea how tolerances work. Small machined parts have different tolerances than large stamped parts. The key is setting the right tolerances for each part, designing the vehicle for desired gaps with those tolerances, and continuous improvement to fix and design out issues.
None at all. He also doesn’t understend that the issues tesla has faced are largely due to poor process design rather than automotive design. The plans may call for small gaps ore big gaps, but they certainly don’t call for iconsistent gaps
Imagine measuring door panels on a granite block in a climate controlled room, and sending it off to the surface grinder for rework. 🤣 Or sending the frame off to get scraped. Truly, this is the most idiotic idea on the planet and it’s all because he didn’t care about tolerances early on. His self own has turned into whatever the hell this crap was.
I can confirm this
Machinist here.
.004 ? That is exagerated but .0004 this is insane
This is not a airplane engine !!!
I’m not even sure the Space Shuttle was built with those ridiculous tolerances. Maybe some internal engine parts like turbopump rotors and shafts. Does he know what he’s saying?
10 micron (0.01mm) is pretty reasonable tolerance for a lot of stuff. The laminations in Tesla’s motors will be held to somewhere around that, possibly even tighter. Things like motor winding insulation coatings will be far tighter.
For something like body panels or plastic interior pieces it’s utter overkill and a waste of resources.
Something like a body panel is going to expand/contract a couple of orders of magnitude more than 10 microns just from the weather changing day-to-day.
It’s pretty common for a CMM to be in its own climate controlled room. Parts will be placed in the room and allowed to reach reference temperature for a several hours prior to measurement.
On production lines you usually skip the absolute measurement of a CMM and use go/no-go gauges. One should fit, one should not. They’ll be made of a material with similar thermal expansion coefficients as your parts. As long as they’ve both been sitting around for a while they’ll be at the same temp. They’ll have expanded or contracted the same amount from reference so their relationship of go/no-go will still hold true.
The whole field of metrology is a never ending rabbit hole - really interesting the more you get into it.
