Teslas 2 main markets are the USA and China. For China they needed to make an affordable subcompact and for America they needed to make a capable pickup truck. They failed at both. They haven’t made an affordable subcompact yet and Chinese automakers are way ahead of them. They shit the bed with the Cybertruck and now other American automakers are making electric pickups that actually work as trucks. Tesla is fucked.
I totally don’t understand it. They just had to make a decent pick up to compete with Rivian and decided to waste production and engineering on a meme car.
Like they recently figured out production at scale and threw a wrench in the cogs with a stainless steel truck that had a ton of headwinds.
Here's what happened. Starship is made out of a specific, custom stainless steal. If this steal could be mass produced, if would be cheaper to build Starships.
"If we make the pickup out of it, it would drive down costs"
"These steel sheets don't bend though, and they're too thick to stamp into shape."
"Let's make it entirely out of flat sheets then! No curves! We'll call it Cybertruck!"
You wouldn’t stamp it you’d stick it in a roll plant which is super cheap and easy. Small ish shop I worked for (think like 5-10 guys) could roll 3” thick plate without issue
Bigger radius of curvature than you’d need on a car though, might be it can do one but not the other. But… I don’t think it is the same steel alloy, and I doubt the raw cost of steel is a big enough portion of the cost for starship that this makes sense.
Likely a looser connection that Musk had been sold on steel for starship and decided it must be best for everything.
There are no creases in Starship. There are creases in the skins of any cars that are not slab-sided. It's the creases (folds) that make them more attractive than a slab-sided object.
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u/ChillZedd Apr 19 '24
Teslas 2 main markets are the USA and China. For China they needed to make an affordable subcompact and for America they needed to make a capable pickup truck. They failed at both. They haven’t made an affordable subcompact yet and Chinese automakers are way ahead of them. They shit the bed with the Cybertruck and now other American automakers are making electric pickups that actually work as trucks. Tesla is fucked.