The street to a manufacturing Cybertruck has been bumpy. Nearly as bumpy and uneven as the primary Cybertrucks popping out of the Austin Gigafactory, which have reportedly been so unhealthy that they prompted Elon Musk to ship an pressing electronic mail to Tesla workers. Within the message, Musk demanded better precision within the manufacturing technique of the EV pickup, with Musk occurring to reference the famously tight tolerances of Lego blocks and soda cans to encourage his employees to construct higher Cybertrucks. It goes with out saying that the time to ask for “sub 10 micron accuracy” from your personal firm, not to mention the suppliers constructing elements for the factor can be a number of years in the past, earlier than the automobile was “headed for manufacturing.” However we’re all studying as we go on this life.

However a greater Cybertruck would solely be potential via a whole redesign, in response to Quick Firm, which cites automobile designer and the Autopian contributor Adrian Clarke. The problems come all the way down to the impossibly flat physique panels of the Cybertruck. Given the design of the EV, small imperfections inherent within the manufacturing course of are all of the extra clear, as Clarke tells Quick Firm:

Professor X believes that Tesla can attain such precision, however Clarke questioned the demand in an electronic mail he despatched me in the present day. “Is completely infeasible for manufacturing. Physique panel tolerances are measured in entire mm to permit for variance in meeting and the tolerance stack!” That is additionally nonsense as a result of, as he factors out, it doesn’t bear in mind the thermal enlargement and contraction of autos that come into play throughout the manufacturing and operation of the car.

Musk is conscious of those points, however he appears satisfied that tighter tolerances would be the repair the Cybertruck wants — once more, the factor is supposedly near manufacturing and is notably not a single stamped/moulded/solid piece. This ignores different sensible issues which have led to a number of delays in bringing the EV to market. Per Quick Firm:

Musk promised this pickup in 2021 and didn’t ship. Then he stated manufacturing was coming in 2022, however that 12 months got here, and it obtained delayed once more to early 2023. Now it’s been delayed once more until “late 2023.” Tesla blamed the availability chain, however Clarke and others within the business are skeptical it is going to ever occur—not less than, not with out a severe redesign. “As quickly as we noticed [the Cybertruck], everybody I do know within the business began laughing. We simply thought there is no such thing as a means they’re gonna be capable of get that into manufacturing.” There’s no means, he assures me, as a result of it’s not going to move crash laws, it’s not going move pedestrian impression laws, and, extra importantly, it’s going to be extraordinarily exhausting to make these “these lifeless straight panels.”

Nonetheless, Musk is soldiering on with the Cybertruck regardless of its unprecedented design, which stays unprecedented for good cause: it makes manufacturing troublesome and repairs practically unimaginable.

I get the impulse to design one thing easy and clear. Actually, I do. However there’s a distinction between one thing minimalist and one thing reductive. The Cybertruck strikes me as an try on the former that went off the rails and arrived on the latter. A foul joke that began with Elon Musk or another person at Tesla saying “what if we did this as an alternative…” adopted by uproarious laughter at crudely drawn strains and 4 circles. Behold, the Cybertruck, stated some genius and nobody dared to query the so-called Technoking.

The issue is that the bit went too far. That’s, if the damned factor ever makes it to manufacturing.