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Sammi • yesterday at 8:00 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

The cybertruck was claimed to be a steel exoskeleton. They ended up releasing a car with heavy steel plates glued on.

It's not at all conspiracy theory. It's just same old over promise and under deliver that Elon does.


Replies

simondotau • yesterday at 8:32 AM

What you just relayed is another misleading claim purveyed by obsessives. Cybertruck is not a true exoskeleton design, but neither are the steel plates decorative. It is a hybrid -- the unibody shell carries some minimal structural load, but it's not sufficient on its own. The exterior skin is structurally necessary for torsional rigidity and contributes meaningfully to the overall chassis strength.

All major exterior panels are welded and/or bolted on. On the earliest revisions, the thin upper door trim strips were bonded using a bad structural adhesive which became brittle with temperature cycling. These were recalled and remedied with a different structural adhesive plus a welded stud. Such recalls are very common; the current generation Ford Explorer had multiple recalls for exterior panels falling off.

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