A Tesla Cybertruck body has been spotted being worked on ahead of the electric pickup truck’s upcoming start of production in Texas.
There are about 1.5 million people interested in the Tesla Cybertruck, and they have been starved of information for a while.
An update on the production version with final specs and pricing has been expected for the past year, but the automaker has decided to stay quiet about the electric truck, which already had some delays.
When Tesla unveiled the Cybertruck back in 2019, Tesla said that the electric pickup truck would make it to market by the end of 2021. As the deadline was approaching, the automaker confirmed that production slipped to 2022.
CEO Elon Musk later said that Tesla was targeting a start of production for the electric pickup truck in “late 2022” at Gigafactory Texas. With the focus clearly on bringing the Model Y to production at the factory (that being delayed as well), it appeared likely that the Cybertruck production timeline could also slip.
In March 2022, it was confirmed that Tesla aims to complete Cybertruck development this year for production in 2023, and in June, Musk said that Tesla is aiming for production to start in mid-2023.
In its communications, Tesla has stuck to a mid-2023 timeline over the last few months, and it is starting to become more real than just words, with actual production equipment specific to Cybertruck coming to Gigafactory Texas.
Now the image of what appears to be a Tesla Cybertruck body has leaked through the YouTube channel Kim Java without much more information than the image itself:
The image appears to reveal the body of the Cybertruck that we saw arrive at Gigafactory Texas two months ago.
It shows large casting parts in the back of the truck. It’s hard to tell how many parts make up the entire back of the body since it appears to be partially coated.
The automaker appears to be using both aluminum-casted parts and steel for parts of the frame.
Tesla originally talked about the Cybertruck being equipped with an exoskeleton, although some dispute Tesla’s use of the word “exoskeleton” since it’s not clear that parts of the external body are structural.
Top comment by Mark Pryor
Potential CTE mismatch if the stainless steel skins are indeed connected to an aluminum frame. The skins could very well provide structural advantages if they are rigidly mounted to the understructure. Stainless steel is very heavy 3x compared to aluminum so I doubt that under structure is going to be still. The truck will be assembled at room temperature but if you take it to negative 20 Fahrenheit that is a large shrink mismatch that could buckle the stainless steel skins. That indeed is going to be a problem the way that they would counter it would be a flexural mounting where the skins aren't rigidly connected to the aluminum subframe. I'm no car expert but but I understand CTE mismatch very well in space structures.
Here’s how Tesla describes it on its website:
Cybertruck is built with an exterior shell made for ultimate durability and passenger protection. Starting with a nearly impenetrable exoskeleton, every component is designed for superior strength and endurance, from Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin to Tesla armor glass.
The picture of the body also doesn’t make any external structural parts clear.
Any body-in-white expert out there who wants to share their opinion on the Cybertruck body picture? Let us know in the comment section below.
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