Another day, another critical malfunction for “the World’s Toughest Truck™.”
This time, we have a great video explanation of a common issue. The Cybertruck has some fairly dramatic metal panels glued onto its frame, including a hockey-stick shaped length of stainless steel.
Let’s call that the A-Pillar panel. On low mileage Cybertrucks, that panel keeps shooting off. Whistlin Diesel even pulled it off with his bare hands.
A Video Breakdown of the Cybertruck A-Pillar… Breaking Down
Here’s a great video where another Cybertruck driver has his A-Pillar panel falls off, and he gives us an extended run-down of why it falls off in cold weather specifically:
From Exoskeleton Übertrück to Unibody Truck Held Together by 3 Season Glue
This malfunction where the glued-on panels fall off traces its roots all the way back to the beginning.
During the pre-production hype cycle, the EV übertrück was touted as having a revolutionary design feature: a stainless steel exoskeleton.
Well, suffice it to say, that feature didn’t make it into production. The actual production truck was a unibody chassis. A Tesla engineer helpfully described it like a “big old Model Y” or the “Honda Ridgeline.” It’s worth noting, the Honda Ridgeline is a meme amongst truck people, due to its unibody chassis.
For somewhat arcane reasons that I won’t bore you with (because every truck person already knows and everyone else won’t care), unibody trucks have worse performance than typical body-on-frame trucks. They are specifically worse at everything you think of as “truck stuff,” like towing, hauling cargo in the bed, and heavy-use durability.
The glued-on panels were just the final nail in the hype truck’s coffin for truck people. It’s hard to convince anyone that a glued-together vehicle they can disassemble by hand (or that will disassemble itself if the weather gets too cold) is ready for the rough life to be expected of a farm or construction truck.
Want to Laugh About It? Go Ahead, Nobody is Judging
Given the absolutely predictable nature of this vehicle screwing up, I’m unilaterally instituting a 10 second reprieve from ordinary rules of common decency and not laughing at the suffering of others, so if you want to holler “I TOLD YOU SO!“, you don’t need my permission, but you have it anyhow.
