Elon Musk says 'we dug our own grave' with the Cybertruck as he warns Tesla faces enormous production challenges::Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that the Cybertruck's unique design means the company faces immense challenges in scaling production.

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 246 points 2 years ago (5 children)
  • [–] 179 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    When things go right, it's "I". When things go wrong, it's "We". These are Musk's situationally preferred pronouns.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 53 points 2 years ago (5 children)
  • load more comments (4 replies)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • [–] 44 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Exactly. Who has the one promoting it? It was you, Elon.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 35 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    He's very likely the one who pushed the engineers to try to make it work in the first place. They probably tried to warn him of the challenges it was going to face at every step, and he just used the power of arrogance, bullying, & positive-thinking to ignore it and just go full steam ahead with it. He would've just fired anybody that directly challenged him on it and told him what an idiot he is.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 139 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Wasn’t he the one who made a bunch of ridiculous demands? This car seems like it was designed by Homer Simpson.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 106 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    That's weird, I could have sworn he said that they nearly had all the issues sorted out and that it was coming next month.. Trying to remember when he said that.. 2021?

  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • load more comments (1 reply)
    [–] 88 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    "When you've got a product with a lot of new technology or any brand new vehicle program, especially one that is as different and advanced as the Cybertruck, you will have problems proportionate to how many new things you're trying to solve at scale," he added.

    does it have new technology? i thought it was just like, shockingly ugly?

  • source
  • hideshow 4 child comments
  • [–] 50 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (8 children)

    It's got a lot of new things to them

    800v power train

    Newer 4680 cells

    ~85% custom chip controllers (up from 60s on Y)

    48v power electronics instead of 12v, which is fairly new to everyone and the supply chain isn't as robust as the 12v one, but long term it's good for industry. (Edit I've heard talk of how they connect everything is going to be very different too, but nothing I've seen confirmed)

    Folding the stainless steel at scale

    9000T press, biggest one made

    The wheels that can turn on front and back

    New assembly method (excluding stainless steel part)

    I'm sure there's more they didn't tell us.

    It went from being a weird vehicle (love or hate it) to a new technology platform.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 10 child comments
  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    4 wheel steering isn't really new. (but your point is still taken)

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 8 child comments
  • load more comments (6 replies)
  • load more comments (6 replies)
  • [–] 84 points 2 years ago (36 children)

    Gee... telling the engineers to getting precision to below 10 microns would cause production challenges.

  • source
  • hideshow 39 child comments
  • [–] 61 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    I've been doing PCB-board design recently. Here's the manufactuering specs: https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/dkred

    So that's 0.13mm tolerances to my printed-circuit board. Or 130 microns.


    Current leading theory is that Elon Musk is such an ignorant dumbass that he doesn't know the difference between mils and microns, despite running a car company / manufacturing firm. Give that a thought. Even then, 10-mils tolerance is near this PCB design, an object that's only a few inches in size. Cars are much larger and normally should be built to much wider tolerances than a fucking PCB board.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    If he said <10 mils, I'd might have bought the explanation that Elon actually meant millimetres. Micron is a very specific metric-based unit which to Elon might have been trying to use like a buzzword.

    The moral of the story is don't say stupid engineering stuff if you don't want engineers to laugh at you.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • [–] 31 points 2 years ago

    And 10 microns at what temperature? Because on something the size of a car, made of mixed materials, thermal expansion of less than a degree is going to blow that figure.

    They couldn't apply paint to a tolerance of 10microns.

  • source
  • parent
  • load more comments (3 replies)
  • load more comments (1 reply)
  • load more comments (33 replies)
    [–] 64 points 2 years ago

    You'd think the guy claiming to "know more about manufacturing than anyone else on Earth" would have anticipated such issues at the start of the design process.

  • source
  • [–] 49 points 2 years ago (1 child)
  • [–] 40 points 2 years ago

    *invents stupid and logicitally impossible truck.

    *Production challenges

  • source
  • [–] 39 points 2 years ago (4 children)
    load more comments (4 replies)
    [–] 37 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Weird, Ford and Rivian both seem to be able to make an EV pickup truck.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 43 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    And GM, the epitome of "slow and bloated legacy dinosaur", who in the time since Tesla announced the cYbErTrUcK, managed to design AND RELEASE a truck before Tesla even had prototypes. At this rate, I think they'll technically have 3 different trucks out before a single cYbErTrUcK is sold.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago

    The automotive giants always could have outpaced Tesla, they just didn’t want to because until it was viable with enough consumer interest (and competition), it was cheaper to only produce fossil fuel vehicles (and lobby against electric vehicles at every turn)

  • source
  • parent
  • [+] 36 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
    [–] 32 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The real story is that a million people have reserved this thing.

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago

    Given that I had dumbass coworkers at work who gleefully dropped $500 to "reserve" one of each trim, despite not even being able to even afford the cheapest trim (which will never even come close to existing with the listed price+specs), I'm not betting that it's probably 1/4 of that, and about 1/4 of those will ever actually translate to purchases.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 29 points 2 years ago (5 children)

    When I was a kid, I asked my dad why the cars on the road didn't look like any of the prototype cars I saw in autoshows or car books.

    Now Elon has given me the answer. Those cars are hard to make at scale. One is doable, but thousands is impossible.

  • source
  • hideshow 5 child comments
  • load more comments (5 replies)
    [–] 28 points 2 years ago

    Who could have known that traditional manufacturers who have been building cars for decades have reasons to do it the way they did?

    Surely not the man who reinvented the subway (but shitty) reinvented content moderation (but shitty) and reinvented the car (but shitty).

    How come "normal" Teslas with traditional coachwork are selling, well not great, but good and every time Musk thinks he's the genius who'll singlehandedly completely reinvent a very competitive product he just creates a worse version?

  • source
  • [–] 24 points 2 years ago

    I actually thought this was an elaborate joke. The "Cybertruck" looks like a piece of shit, and apparently is a piece of shit.

  • source
  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago

    I cannot believe it, this coming from the man who knows more about production and manufacturing than anyone alive! For sure the Genius of Musk will find a solution to overcome this.

    Like when he demanded 10um tolerance for the assembly of the cybershmuck nobody understood and they said it's impossible. But he realised, he realised early on that the mail will leak and idiots will take it as an argument of quality and performance and be motivated to throw money at him. Conmen need money inflow to keep the scheme going.

    /s or not ...

  • source
  • [–] 19 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Wait, that's a real thing? I thought it was just a marketing stunt!

  • source
  • hideshow 2 child comments
  • load more comments (2 replies)
    [–] 17 points 2 years ago

    There is exactly one reason I cancelled my tesla you stupid Muskrat.

  • source
  • load more comments
    view more: next ›