Any GTAM'ers own an electric vehicle?

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Brian P said:
The thing that we don't know, and may not find out until later, is whether Tesla have protected space underneath the vehicle for more battery capacity in a different version of this vehicle later on. With technology that we have today, it'll need a battery of same-ballpark size and weight as GM's big-boy 212 kWh Hummer/Silverado EV battery in order to get 500 miles of range (the GM will do 450). There's no magic here ...
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Its worse than you could imagine. "Range extender" is a battery thrown in the bed of the truck. Burns about 1/3 of volume and ruins it for length. Adds about 130 miles of range. Only guesses so far but in the 500 lb ballpark seems about right. Steaming pile on a clean sheet design.

electrek.co

Tesla Cybertruck needs separate battery pack in the bed to get the range it promised

Tesla Cybertruck has officially launched, and the range is a bit disappointing as the automaker introduces a new “range extender,”...
electrek.co electrek.co

Tesla-Range-extender-battery-pack.jpg
 
I had a funny feeling that the "range extender" was an extra battery.

Over-promise and under-deliver continues unabated.

edit: Looks like it is a US$16,000 option and it's bolted in (possibly dealer installed), not readily removable.

I'm gathering from relative lack of social media response to this presentation, that the combination of underwhelming specs and higher-than-originally-announced cost has made it go over like a lead balloon. Buy a Rivian. Or a F150 Lightning. Or if you really need the super long range and/or do some amount of towing, wait for GM's battery supplier to get their act together and get Silverado EVs out on the road. Or wait for Ram's plug-in hybrid.
 
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Found something good:

Now, as a former "body-in-white" guy ...

This is a multi-material unibody with exterior skin panels that are bolted on, exactly as I suspected.

I can't measure the thickness of the skin panels over the internet, but it sure ain't the 4mm plate originally discussed. I'll guess 16 - 18 sheet metal gauge (1.8 - 1.2 mm). I think it's thicker than normal auto-body sheet metal (probably necessary for NVH for all those flat surfaces, and so that they can advertise that it's bullet-resistant) ... but not 4mm. The door skins aren't hemmed over the inners. They'll need a trimming operation so as to not have sharp edges where the blanks are cut.

Structural battery pack is the only way these are built. (Not like model Y, which can have either a bolt-in battery or a structural battery)

Around 11:44 there's a pretty good view of the structural part of the unibody without the skin panels installed. Front fender inners and front body structure are cast aluminium. Door ring is stamped steel, and I'm thinking this is stamped high-strength steel ... not stainless. There's a big bulkhead between the passenger compartment and the bed area, which looks like stamped steel. Rear body structure is cast aluminium. That's the "gigacasting".

I'm allowed to dislike the styling and some of its features while still admiring the way it's built ... and thinking crash repair for anything beyond a minor bump, is going to be expensive.
 
the only mistake they made was not making it Black as the default "colour"

that example at the 15min mark caught my attention instantly..
 
Quick-ratio fly-by-wire steering. I suppose that's a valid response to "how to activate signals in a roundabout", at least you don't have to take hands off the wheel to reposition them while turning.

In other dumb-truck stuff ... there's no spare tire. You can buy one ... it eats up a ton of bed space. And it sits in the same spot where the range-extender battery goes. Don't know what happens if you want both. No more useful bed space?

Dumb idiot me would have re-packaged things up front to get the spare tire into where the "frunk" is now, maybe rearranging some things under the trunk floor to get a deep enough well for it, and then made it removable so that you could use the frunk as a frunk if you wanted to. Or, if that couldn't be done, re-package things under the back of the bed floor to get the spare tire into where the lockable compartment is back there. Again, it could be removed if you wanted to use that spot for storage.
 
Do yourselves a favor and watch this review. And tell me if it doesn't change your perspective about cybertruck

 
Norcorider said:
Do yourselves a favor and watch this review. And tell me if it doesn't change your perspective about cybertruck

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You do know there’s already been reports of parts flying off at speed, right?
 
Brian P said:
Did not watch the event (don't care) but I gather:
Windows did not break when a baseball (downgrade from a rock) was thrown at them.
Bullet-resistant to bullets shot from a Tommy gun. Not being a gun nut, I didn't know what that was. Evidently developed in 1918 and Al Capone used one.

Okay.
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Today I am trying to learn about the Cybertruck since I have to live in the world where they exist, and somebody's gonna ask me what I think about them.

45 ACP is not nothing, but if you were right on the edge of penetration then it is possible that 9mm (the most common handgun cartridge in the world) would go through. This level of small arms resistance is not good enough for say, South Africa, but possibly actually useful for rougher cities in the USA. I feel like some unhinged Youtuber will explore this further inside of a year
 
Norcorider said:
Sure, Tesla build quality sucks.

It's more about doing something different. The innovation and technology is amazing.
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I'd say the ideas are amazing however the follow through leaves something to be desired and at this point, it's been years.
 
Norcorider said:
Sure, Tesla build quality sucks.

It's more about doing something different. The innovation and technology is amazing.
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Doing something different just to be different is often idiotic (yoke steering wheel, touch sensitive turn signal buttons, structural battery packs and giga castings that can turn fender benders into writeoffs, full self-driving that is in no way full self-driving, etc). He has done some great things. His ego really impedes his ability to do many more great things. If he had supplied ev drivetrain to oem's, tesla could have run away with the market and built the drivetrain in most vehicles. Instead he chose to make his own vehicles and ignore those that had done it before.

Edit:
This truck is designed for people that want to be looked at. Raw stainless will be an epic disaster with anal owners and almost zero repairability. Expect insurance premiums to the moon. Every tiny scratch/mark will be almost impossible to make disappear without panel replacement. There is a very good reason cars aren't raw steel. Paint gives you a lot of flexibility and allows filler to hide minor flaws.
 
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Brian P said:
Quick-ratio fly-by-wire steering. I suppose that's a valid response to "how to activate signals in a roundabout", at least you don't have to take hands off the wheel to reposition them while turning.

In other dumb-truck stuff ... there's no spare tire. You can buy one ... it eats up a ton of bed space. And it sits in the same spot where the range-extender battery goes. Don't know what happens if you want both. No more useful bed space?

Dumb idiot me would have re-packaged things up front to get the spare tire into where the "frunk" is now, maybe rearranging some things under the trunk floor to get a deep enough well for it, and then made it removable so that you could use the frunk as a frunk if you wanted to. Or, if that couldn't be done, re-package things under the back of the bed floor to get the spare tire into where the lockable compartment is back there. Again, it could be removed if you wanted to use that spot for storage.
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I honestly don't think the spare is much of an issue. I really like having a spare tire personally, but I don't think many people are interested in installing it themselves these days. And half the trucks I see on the road with a lift or oversize tires (or both) have made the spare completely useless. Is a spare even still included on most "normal" trucks today?

I dunno what to make of the super high ratio steering. It will be made or broken based on how well they tuned it, and it seems like they did a good job? I can see at least one collision being blamed on it in the near future
 
TwistedKestrel said:
. And half the trucks I see on the road with a lift or oversize tires (or both) have made the spare completely useless. Is a spare even still included on most "normal" trucks today?
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I saw a wrangler today with stupid huge rims. Maybe 24x12? The "spare" was just a rim as with rubber on it there is no way it would fit. So so dumb.

Afaik, most trucks still come with a spare. My passenger car has room for a full-size spare without throwing it in the cargo area. Embarrassing and once again form before function from tesla. He needs to take some first year design classes and start focusing on form follows function.
 
I think if it wasn’t for all the promises and hyped up specs this wouldn’t be so bad.

It’s got range, it’s got some storage, and it can seat 5 comfortably from what I’ve seen.

It’ll sell.
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