Last time mentioned that Tesla Cyberruck will use a special alloy with properties and composition similar to 304L stainless steel to create body structure and appearance sheet metal, but the second round also mentioned that the corrosion resistance effect of 304L stainless steel is good, even if it is really rusty slightly polished, it will not occur The embarrassment and trouble of sheet metal rust wearing, but 304L is expensive, the processing is relatively difficult, and the structure is not good, in fact, it is not suitable for the body of the car.
According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk, 304L stainless steel is very hard and strong, suitable for Tesla Cyberruck this kind of large load, high towing, heavy off-road electric pickup, plus stainless steel is very strong, can effectively protect the safety of lithium batteries, in addition to stainless steel also has the characteristics of not easy to deform.
Therefore, Cyberruck did not use the traditional pickup truck steel beam chassis + separate body upper and lower combination structure, so as to reduce the body vibration and heterophonic problems, but similar to the general SUV is an integrated body design, there is no division of chassis and body, all connected together, to put it bluntly, it is really unprecedented!
It seems perfect, but there is an absolute gap between theory and practice. First of all, it must be explained that ElonMusk said that the 304L stainless steel is very hard compared with the general steel plate used in the traditional car, in fact, the hardness of the 304L in the field of stainless steel is only medium, from the fact that 304L stainless steel is not suitable for making knives, it is not difficult to understand that there are many harder stainless steel in real life, and you have a kitchen at home or my home, unless you are cutting vegetables and cutting meat with a hand knife.
However, with 304L stainless steel used to build the body, the biggest doubt is the lack of elasticity, the biggest impact is not comfort, but once a serious impact accident, the most effective safety buffer material is only the passenger's own fat! To be more technical, 304L stainless steel is difficult to make a vehicle impact safety buffer collapse zone of this structure, not only lack of elasticity will only be hard.
Another problem is that 304L stainless steel also lacks toughness, and once deformed, it will immediately lose its support, and the result is instantaneous distortion or even fracture, which is very unfavorable to impact safety design. Even if it is a special 304L alloy, it is difficult to have a major change in physical properties, otherwise it is not called 304L, and there will be other exclusive numbers.
Of course, this problem is not insurmountable, after all, there are more than 200 kinds of stainless steel, and there are indeed good elasticity, good rigidity, strong support, and first-class structure of stainless steel, such as the localization car Ford Kuga extending from the A column to the inside of the roof super, ultra-high rigid steel, yes, it is the kind of confidential material that can be used to build military submarines, in fact, it is a kind of stainless steel!
Why didn't Ford emphasize the existence of this stainless steel? Because the word anti-rust wrapped in it does not have much meaning; in addition, this type of steel with good structure is usually not very good, and there is no two good if there is a good one! Therefore, even if such stainless steel is used to create the appearance of sheet metal, in fact, it is still necessary to add anti-rust treatment such as soaking + baking paint, which is no different from the treatment process of ordinary steel plates! Since this is the case, there is no need to emphasize the words stainless steel, so as not to hit your mouth.
So Tesla Cybertruck can actually use the splicing method, that is, the 304L stainless steel body with other structurally good steel designed to impact the collapse zone, but in addition to the 304L part, other steels still have to do anti-rust treatment! In this way, it is not only as simple as modifying the body design, but also to modify the production process, so it is not surprising that it is delayed for one year to be mass-produced and listed, coupled with the interference of the epidemic, it may be two years!
But what is even more embarrassing is that the use of the above antidote must pass the impact safety test and mass production and market? not necessarily! Because of the lack of relevant experience points at present, it is difficult to calculate the accurate impact result with computer simulation, so it is still necessary to refer to the real vehicle impact test and then correct it, which is time-consuming! And once it fails.
The parts of the body that must be modified are getting bigger and bigger, and pulling the whole body will definitely affect other performances such as weight, comfort, handling, anti-distortion... Endless! The degree of engineering trouble with this kind of modification and modification may not be less than that of redesigning a car, so the mass production time to market can only be postponed repeatedly, and it seems that the current Tesla Cyberruck seems to be like this.