Owners report rust forming on Tesla Cybertruck
theregister.com
theregister.com
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/rust-spot...
I don't know if it's an inclusion in the steel that's rusting, or if the act of rusting creates the pit in the regular steel that's then susceptible to rusting again.
Introducing Tesla Edition Car Keepers Friend. It’s buffs out those stubborn Cybertruck stains!
Couldn’t Tesla could clear coat their panels like every manufacturer ever? I feel like this company is forever struggling to solve kind of obvious shortfalls of its own making.
They made a truck that can’t get dirty. "But we told you in the manual." How precious. How insane.
Of course I could be leaping to conclusions and it turns out to be rail dust. That’s still possible I guess, to be fair. But most manufacturers actually watch their cars before they sell it.
> Just picked up my Cybertruck today. The advisor specifically mentioned the cybertrucks develop orange rust marks in the rain and that required the vehicle to be buffed out. I know I heard the story of never take out your Delorean in the rain but I just never read anything about rust and Cybertrucks.
I honestly can't imagine what they were thinking, shipping this turkey.
What's bizarre is they could've just clear coated it.
They surely didn't omit this to save costs, since the thing is a luxury item.
The only answer I can imagine is that omitting the clearcoat was supposed to be a flex about how it doesn't need any lame paint like the plebe cars use, which makes it especially funny if you have to go in for routine buffing to remove the discoloration and get it back to its original appearance.
Wonder if tesla is using 304, or have cheeped out with 430. If it's pitting already, makes me think it's the cheaper option.
Here's some anecdata that is probably the most coherent read I can find on the topic of Cybertruck oilcanning: http://livingstingy.blogspot.com/2023/08/dude-wheres-my-cybe...
Seems the alloy is probably less rust resistant than more common alloys, and also can't take a clearcoat without losing some valuable properties? More hearsay: https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/197sivs/tesla_...
> According to matmatch.com, “The Cybertruck exoskeleton is made from Tesla’s own stainless steel alloy, referred to as the Ultra-hard 30X Cold-rolled Stainless Steel. While the blend is proprietary, Elon mentioned during the product launch that the exoskeleton material of the vehicle is the same as the SpaceX Starship shell.”
[1] https://www.worldautosteel.org/why-steel/steel-muscle-in-new...
No wonder it's rusting, they're recycling all the exploded Starship shells.
301 according to post #50[1].
[1] https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/rust-spot...
I wouldn't be surprised if the rust resistant stainless alloys have other properties that are not desireable in a truck.
LC200N and Vanax are steels that are used on corrosive resistant knives, and they make great blades. Magnacut is a newer steel that also displays very good corrosion resistance and has very good knife qualities.
Well, they call it stainless and not stainfree steel for a reason. /s
https://www.carsdirect.com/automotive-news/green-technology/...
Who could possibly think that's a good idea?
And to be clear, I think the CT is an incredibly ugly monstrosity that is Tesla's jump the shark moment, so I'm not saying this defensively.
Think of it as “stain-resistant” and “rust-resistant”.
For example, your kitchen sink might be made out of 304 or 316 stainless steel - but your kitchen knives are more likely to use 440C which is less corrosion-resistant, but will hold an edge a lot better.
It also helps that you're not whacking road salt into your kitchen sink at 70mph.
Regurgitated advice from metalworkers I learned from:
If you're using a grinding wheel or brush to buff stainless, make sure the tool hasn't been used on regular steel or iron, and that the part of the tool that contacts the stainless is itself neither rusting nor rustable, because even a speck of iron will "seed" rust in stainless.
Learned this the hard way when a cat started pissing in the tub. Between that and using bleach for cleaning, the enamel was eroded down to the metal casting. Then, rust.
Advice online will say no, that red shit is calcium and mineral buildup. That mostly happens in toilets. Unless you bought a tub in plastic or fiberglass, it may well be actual rust, especially if it reoccurs very quickly. Treat it accordingly before it drains through your floor.
The Doha airport features a stainless steel roof; standard architectural stainless steel would be far too vulnerable to corrosion in this setting. They had to specify a duplex stainless steel with a special finish, and even so it requires regular cleaning and rust removal:
https://www.imoa.info/molybdenum-uses/molybdenum-grade-stain...
"Stainless steel" is only a relative term.
Stainless steel is designed to resist rusting from common minerals in fresh water. Citric acid, for example, is happy to stain your stainless steel.
[1] https://www.chaitanyaproducts.com/blog/rainwater-healthy-com...
But as others answered - it's likely pitting from other sources, not elements themselves
You know what I think is the culprit, there must be fragments of regular steel/iron debris on roads that get kicked up and form rust spots like wet steel wool would. Rust is terribly penetrating and can easily stain SS or even porcelain.
Still, a few rust spots aside, I don't think these cars will be rusting out like a 1980's Civic.
All of yourself needs to do the driving in your stain less vehicle.
I don't think I'll ever understand why people downvote on HN...
Anyway, here's the clip: https://youtube.com/watch?v=W7rSYzbpA8k
HN polices noise very hard, because the alternative is half the site is just the first comment thread from reddit that continuously circle jerks the same damn jokes.
But the spelling "stainless" makes me think of words such as "peerless".
Actually you can just think of it as was intended: “stain LESS”. As in, not “stain NONE”.
I have no experience in such large object as I work on micro mechanic. I would love to have an expert share a more informed comment.
the main thing you need to do with stainless is 'passivate' it by putting it in an acid solution that removes as much of the iron from the surface layer as you can, leaving just the chromium and other alloyed elements. particularly on any welds you may have made.
Possible tagline: "An acid a day keeps the cyberrust away"
https://www.unifiedalloys.com/blog/stainless-grades-families
They Cybertruck's problem (oversimplifying here, there's a bit more chemistry going on) is that it has too low of a chromium content (as a cost cutting measure). There isn't enough chromium to protect the underlying steel from the conditions it's being exposed to. Or, to put it another way, the steel is corroding faster than the chromium rust/passivization layer can form.
How about HN users that took actual Engineering and specialised in material sciences and are familar with the austenitic stainless steel family?
Meh, forget all that - are you stating that the steel cladding on current Cybertrucks is not showing pitting and corrosion despite claims to the contrary?
Is your kitchen sink installed outside where it can rain, snow, etc?
It’s not just water either, being outside exposed material to sunlight, dirt, dust, acid rain, temperature extremes, road salt, etc.
(As others have noted, it looks like Tesla intentionally chose a less-resistant alloy for price reasons. This would be consistent with other consumer complaints about their build quality.)
It has nothing to do with environment. As others have mentioned, most kitchen sinks, like good "silverware", have a higher chromium content. The CT seems to have a low grade SS.
The (in)famous Delorean clearly used a better grade of stainless steel. There were no problems with Deloreans rusting, with people having said vehicles many decades later will zero body rust. That was specifically the #1 noted feature of the car.
Does your sink get coated in salt for weeks at a time? In areas where road salt is used, cars certainly do.
Cars parked outside will often still be wet after a nighttime rain, while water in a climate controlled kitchen sink rapidly evaporates. If your kitchen sink is still wet the morning after washing dishes, you’ve got bigger (mold) problems to deal with.
Even 316 ‘marine grade’ stainless will pit and rust, given enough time outside. I’ve seen it plenty, metal NEMA 4X enclosures rated for outdoor use are made from 304/316 SS, and those eventually rust.
Nope. "Stainless" steels are just resistant. They're not magically impossible to tarnish, if you want a metal which will not tarnish you need pure (not Jewellery grade) Gold or Platinum.
One thing about your sink: You probably clean it. That's all Tesla advises for these cars. Drove to the store to buy groceries? Now clean your Cybertruck. Took kids to soccer practice? Now clean your Cybertruck. A "weekly" trip to a car wash which might turn out to happen once a month isn't good enough, these vehicles will stain permanently if left.
And that's fine for Elon, he can assign a junior assistant to go wash his Cybertruck. Do you have a junior assistant? No? Then maybe the Cybertruck isn't for you.
That’s taking things a bit far. These don’t oxidise but there are other metals that won’t corrode (in normal conditions) because they form a protective passive layer like titanium, chromium or aluminium. Stainless steel behaves like that and some grade are almost impossible to corrode under normal conditions. Getting the right steel for the kind of conditions a car would see is not a new problem and we’ve had good solutions for decades. There were stainless steel train carriages in the 1960s, for example. These were pristine after much more than a couple of months and were not washed every other day.
> One thing about your sink: You probably clean it.
The kitchen sink is a good example. It should not rust if you leave water in it for a month, even though a stainless steel knife might get pitted after a couple of times in a dishwasher. The alloys are not the same, and the conditions are different. The knife requires some mechanical properties whilst corrosion resistance is more important for the sink. The number of times you wash your sink does not matter.
And passenger trains are washed pretty often, it might be as infrequently as once or twice a week (?), but they get washed, that's why they have automated train washing, the train driver just drives through at a slow pace and the machine does the work.
I live next to an ocean, I reckon if "We can use just a steel grade which avoids corrosion" was even an option some the vessels here would just be made of that steel, instead of painted, and yet every single metal vessel I've seen here (the sailing boats and speedboats are often fibreglass) was painted. So if the right grade of steel exists apparently you can't use it to make boats.
I don't know how frequently they'd have been washed, though. Probably a lot more often than the average truck.
Off the top of the net, some examples from Canada:
https://railfan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/dec2012-01.jp...
https://www.progressiverailroading.com/resources/editorial/2...
The US:
https://www.american-rails.com/images/x9176518237799761uui91...
https://wearemodeshift.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/DI-032...
Or France:
https://www.patrimoine-ferroviaire.fr/wp-content/uploads/snc...
> usually the bulk carriers I've seen were brown with rust
Most of the time it’s dust but yes, eventually they rust. It’s also most of the time not stainless steel, because it does not have the right mechanical properties and would be way too expensive for no good reason, considering that they are coated and painted anyway. They also take insane amounts of abuse and it takes decades and a complete lack of maintenance for rust to appear. There really is absolutely no excuse for this in a months-old cars, this is not a case of “duh, everything corrodes”.
> The Cybertruck deliberately isn't painted, presumably this makes it look more "Cyber".
Which is doubly stupid because there are plenty of surface coatings that would give the same look or something equally sci-fi. But then Elon does not know a thing about materials, so it’s not surprising.
> And passenger trains are washed pretty often, it might be as infrequently as once or twice a week (?), but they get washed, that's why they have automated train washing, the train driver just drives through at a slow pace and the machine does the work.
I guarantee you that they do not do it once a week, at least not in most of the world. You can tell by the layers of dust that accumulate.
> live next to an ocean, I reckon if "We can use just a steel grade which avoids corrosion" was even an option some the vessels here would just be made of that steel, instead of painted, and yet every single metal vessel I've seen here (the sailing boats and speedboats are often fibreglass) was painted.
Because, as I said, stainless steel can have fantastic corrosion resistance, but terrible properties otherwise. A ship’s hull needs strong structural integrity, which a sheet of stainless steel is not going to provide. It also needs to be reasonably cheap, which, again, is not the strong suit of high quality stainless steel.
So instead a better alloy is used, and protection is provided by coatings. Just like in cars that were not designed by a maniac.
> So if the right grade of steel exists apparently you can't use it to make boats.
That’s exactly the point. But we don’t use them for ships for other reason than “corrosion resistance is a myth”. If they wanted to use a decent stainless steel in the cybertruck, they could have done it. But they did not, so they made compromises, which results in panels that are too stiff to be adjusted properly, huge gaps, and bad durability.
This is called primer, and is a gray paint layer.
They call it stainless (as in, fewer stains) and not stainfree steel for a reason. /s
Source: Worked as a mechanical engineer designing industrial meat grinders and cutters. Folks throw in bones, meat, ice, salt and then heat it and grind it to a pulp but it never rusts.
How many "improper" varieties of stainless steel are there? Are the fully stainless steels that will not rust under any circumstances exceptionally expensive compared to their less-than-ideal counterparts?
I would assume given my experience with "stainless" steel sinks must mean they're less than ideal quality which is not a shocking surprise.
I'd think for car body panels you'd want n50 or n60, but those are marine alloys, and they're spendy.
It could also be that the material they're using isn't passivated well, in which case the fix is fairly simple (barkeepers friend and a buff wheel).
Most auto manufacturers use mild steels which are highly susceptible to rust, but mitigate rust by using various types of coatings. This has significant drawbacks because coatings can be compromised by wear, causing the underlying steel to fail to corrosion.
As my engineering professor always said, if you're willing to spend a few million dollars on a car, you can get one that will last a lifetime!
Apparently not, though - it's obviously rusting
Drive most steel bodied cars behind a salt truck in the rust belt and you'll often get small cosmetic rust spots: https://www.reddit.com/r/GrandCherokee/comments/vboker/shoul...
Remember, most traditional automakers are using steel with little to no corrosion resistance at all, and are relying on fragile coatings to do the work instead. This is not without its own drawbacks.
You might not hear much about these types of issues, because cosmetic issues with traditional brands normally don't make the news, but recalls due to safety concerns do: https://www.fox9.com/news/driving-in-the-salt-belt-millions-...
TL;DR: steel cars corrode.
The car you linked to on reddit was a 2018 Grand Cherokee, which is ~7 years old now (5 years old when posted), so it would be expected -- and something you can just touch up. Note that in the comments they suggested it might even be covered under the new-vehicle limited warranty had it occurred in the first 3 years. Which makes sense, I'd consider that to be a material defect within that period of the NVLW.
Note that Tesla will sell you a cybertruck clear coat paint job for $5000. Probably a good investment.
No. Stainless steel comes in many varieties and levels of corrosion resistance. In order to get increased corrosion resistance you trade other mechanical properties. Every choice of steel balances the level of corrosion resistance with the tradeoffs of loss of other properties.
There is no truly corrosion proof steel, just various grades of resistance.
Your claim was also, explicitly:
> but if you scratched your dishwasher and subjected it to water and salt I bet it would.
That is literally what happens every day. All the time.
I'd say the conditions are not dissimilar.
Well, they were designed to handle a lot of snow.
Passivation isn't really enough for a car though, they basically get sand blasted while driving on the road, and every little pit is an area where the material would have to repassivate without rusting. SS301 isn't nearly as good at that game as some other alloys.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204172
> The leather iPhone case is made from natural leather. Its appearance will change as you use it. It might acquire a patina and might change color due to the oils from your skin and direct sunlight, further enhancing the natural look.
(I have one. Most of my "patina" is bits peeling off; I regret the purchase.)
If we had a centuries long expectation of rust being desirable, then Tesla would have a point
Aside from hard drops, I've never had that experience. My current one has worn down a bit where my finger usually rests on the back, but the leather is fully intact.
Any chance you may have gotten ahold of a fake one? I've seen several online which have very convincing packaging, like this eBay listing:
Not unless store.apple.com got MITMed. Someone else on the thread says they changed materials at some point; maybe you have one of the originals?
https://www.popovleather.com/blogs/from-the-workshop/the-ult...
Black plastic (polyurethane, maybe?), metal top panel across the top the height of the camera bulge, and a padded red leather back.
I bought it used on eBay (because I needed a case with a 17mm accessory lens mount to quickly test a lens). It arrived with a scratch, and then over the course of my owning it began to resemble more and more a lovely beaten up leather sofa.
I have never owned a phone case even half as good, and were it not for MagSafe I'd be hunting one down for my current 12. It's superbly comfortable to hold, and the way it shows wear is unlike anything else I've seen. Super cool.
https://lavidaleica.com/content/lenny-kravitz-edition-leica-...
304 Stainless Steel: Composition: 18% Chromium, 8% Nickel.
Properties: Excellent corrosion resistance, good formability, non-magnetic (may become slightly magnetic after cold working).
Common Uses: Kitchen equipment, food processing equipment, architectural trim, and general hardware.
Properties: Superior corrosion resistance to 304 in harsh environments, excellent formability, non-magnetic.
Common Uses: Chemical processing equipment, medical devices, marine applications, and any environment where greater corrosion resistance is required.
Properties: Good corrosion resistance, strong magnetism, lower cost than 300 series.
Common Uses: Domestic appliances, automotive trim, and interior architectural features.
https://www.sae.org/news/2020/06/tesla-cybertruck-stainless-...
Specially long term floating objects such as buoys, with minimal physical contacts, and a painting/maintenance schedule is possible
304 or 316L would be better, n50 or n60 would be best, but you've just doubled the cost of the panels...
The real question I have is, is this thing actually supposed to be a serious vehicle that you can drive around and keep outside and expect it not to rust/fall apart/whatever? It doesn't seem to be very well-designed, I just sort of assumed it was a meme product like the Boring Company flamethrower that they were selling a few years back. Something that you buy because you have a lot of disposable money and want to show other people you're in on the joke, that's not supposed to really be used for whatever thing it ostensibly does. It seems like if it was supposed to be a real truck, it would be, well, good.
Trying to pick up exactly one standard-size bag of cement mix out of the bed from the side would have told them that their design was flawed.
And I speak as someone who had a Tesla since 2018.
I love it. It's a great car.
I would not buy a Tesla today. I used to dream about the Roadster 2.0, but I don't like the direction they've gone in design of the car. I'm hoping the Corvette EV impresses, because that's likely going to be my next car.
I do this for the rock sliders on my Tacoma.
Anyway the way to fuck up stainless steel is to rub some non stainless steel on it which breaks down the passivation layer. This is why you can buy stainless tools (eg Wiha makes driver bits in stainless)to use on fasteners so they won't be contaminated.
A new way to deface a cyber truck would probably be to find a way to invisibly contaminate its surface with regular steel so it doesn't show up until it begins to rust in the pattern you've chosen for your defacement.
The posted probablem may just be little ferrous particles of road grime settling onto the surface and breaking the passivation layer.
I wonder if DeLoreans suffer from this problem too?
Derp :)
> A new way to deface a cyber truck would probably be to find a way to invisibly contaminate its surface with regular steel so it doesn't show up until it begins to rust in the pattern you've chosen for your defacement.
Tyre Extinguishers might be interested.
I suspect its fairly rare tbh, it being common would likely have been raised years ago and a fix (including coating) implemented.
They still haven’t added rain sensors or proper blind spot monitors because of hubris, and those have been common complaints for years. What makes you believe this would be different?
I'd be happy to take a bet on this if we can nail down the specifics.
What, exactly, is there to “find out soon enough”?
The owner's manual for every car says this is a potential issue. E.g. https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/Own...
And yet most cars you see on the road look okay. Unless this is substantially more common than others cars this could be much ado about nothing.
"To prevent damage to the exterior, immediately remove corrosive substances (such as grease, oil, bird droppings, tree resin, dead insects, tar spots, road salt, industrial fallout, etc.)."
which inidcates that it is a known concern. Essentially nobody who uses CT as an actual vehicle is going immediately remove every little substance that gets on it.
Assuming that Tesla would never let a common issue make it into production seems counter to basically the entire history of the company.
E.g. Ford F150's user manual says: "Immediately remove fuel spillages, additive residuals, bird droppings, insect deposits and road tar."
https://www.fordservicecontent.com/Ford_Content/vdirsnet/Own...
I'm no Cybertruck fan, but people repeating this particular line like it's "proof they knew!!" is just plain incorrect.
If 5% of any given Toyota model started rusting like that it'd be a really big deal.
Can't wait to see what one of these screen doored submarines looks like after two years of Minnesota winters.
Steel alloys are not, in general, homogeneous. They are often composed of a microscopic mixture of different materials.
For a SS electric truck that's marketed as being not only rugged but "badass", it's embarrassing that we're already hearing about rust. It seems L. Ron Musk decided to sell a half-assed product so critics can't as easily point to it as a total failure.
I used stainless steel equipment in the darkroom and I always saw some amount of staining or corrosion. It will even rust, under certain conditions.
How is the Cybertruck built, monocoque/unibody fully patina'd
Here is what FOOCUS thinks of that idea: https://i.imgur.com/gIe5IH0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/vFbVBfd.jpg
Or maybe glue a fine layer of your best stainless steel each few years.
The build quality of Tesla is abysmal.
https://www.cybertruckownersclub.com/forum/threads/cybertruc...
It is bad user ownership if its expected and advertised as such, chefs knives are sold as fragile and requiring regular maintenance. Tesla advertises this as bullet proof, amphibian, workhorse, f150 breakfast eater jesus truck.
There's also a absolute ton of stainless alloys, no idea which one they selected for the exterior panels.
Curious if they'll survive Colorado winters with the salt.
301, a less expensive option with very poor corrosion resistance compared to other stainless steels! 304, which is more corrosion resistant, is used for unpainted train cars, and those aren't even exposed to road salt!
From the Society of Automotive Engineers article: "'Tesla’s strategy with this truck is very interesting," observed Dr. David Matlock, professor emeritus at the Colorado School of Mines’ Advanced Steel Processing and Products Research Center. Reviewing Musk’s public comments on Cybertruck online, Matlock surmises that the material is 'very likely a modified version of the lean-alloyed austenitic 301 alloy.'"
Two other things line up for me: the rate of rust is right and I think if they were using 304 they'd want to advertise it as 304, not 30X.
He could very well be right, but that is definitely speculation rather than fact.
C'mon.
-
Beet juice is better because it doesnt kill the FN trees + flora...
Source, grew up in Lake Tahoe - Salting the roads killed the ice AND the trees on the side of the road.
Also, my grandfather and great grandfather on my stepdads side were beet farmers in Idaho.... and yes - beet juice is WAY better for the environment, but you have to do all that farming first. Then Juicing, then trucking then....
https://www.codot.gov/travel/winter-driving/snow-removal-and...
> CDOT uses a variety of products to treat Colorado highways during a winter storm. All snow removal products contain salt with added corrosion inhibitors used to prevent or remove the buildup of ice and snow on roads and minimize the impact on vehicles.
----
> CDOT makes an anti-icing brine mix in-house at a rate of 42 cents per gallon. This product is applied hours before a snowstorm or ice storm and will appear as white stripes on the roadway once dry.
> Unlike other anti-icing products used throughout the country, CDOT's brine mix contains a corrosion inhibitor, which helps prevent damage on both vehicles and infrastructure. Once snow begins to fall, or the temperature drops below freezing, crews will stop using the anti-icer and switch over to de-icers.
----
> Solid de-icers are used for ant-icing and de-icing on roadways during winter weather conditions. CDOT uses two types of solid de-icers:
> Ice slicer — made of granular salt and magnesium chloride.
> Sand or sand/salt mixture — mainly used in high elevations and the eastern plains where more extreme cold temperatures exist, and more traction is needed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deicing
We use the glycols on aircraft and some electron equipment
There's only one person that posted pics in the whole thread that has lasted several days.
I get the design intent but, like with SUVs (and unlike iPhone), there is lacks of proportion. So end result is lipstick on a pig.