Why Tesla's Stainless Steel Cybertrucks May Be Rusting | Hacker News Reader

Why Tesla's Stainless Steel Cybertrucks May Be Rusting

wired.com

29 pointscharlitos76 comments

Because Stainless Steel != No Rust Ever... kind of a major "duh" for anyone who's ever owned a stainless pocket knife, or even silverware. You don't even need to read the article, it should have been obvious to everyone - particularly the designers at Tesla.

There's a fairly good reason modern vehicles are mostly made from Aluminum and Plastic.

Modern vehicles are still made with steel, if I am not mistaken (since I own two). I also think the designers did a fine job over at Tesla. It's more baffling that the automaker decided to forego a layer of clear coat---just like with all other cars---because they think they can defy the elements, or up-sell you on that $5000 wrap that they are offering.

That depends. Many auto bodies are made from aluminum and plastic these days, while the ones that continue to use steel for some body panels coat them not just with clear coat, but also paint. Chassis/frames are steel, but not exposed directly to sunlight, and typically have a coating as well.

Bare, exposed steel is pretty dumb in all things except perhaps looks (until it rusts).

> not just with clear coat, but also paint.

Most are phosphated, then e-coated, then primed, then painted, then clear-coated.

Thank you. This seems to just further emphasize the absurdity of selling bare stainless vehicles to consumers that drive on public roads, in all kinds of conditions including salted winter roads.

It's a choice. All engineering choices have consequences, and no material is perfect. It doesn't seem much more absurd than other parts of the vehicle, to me. Bare stainless has been used on other vehicles before. It provides a certain aesthetic.

To be pedantic, this was more of a cosmetic choice rather than an engineering choice.

The other bare stainless vehicles learned the same lesson (and are not produced today).

Engineers deal with more than just functional design requirements. There were also undoubtably other requirements pertaining to manufacturing, cost, and cosmetics which were a factor here. If cost and manufacturing weren't a factor, they could have just CNC'd the panels out of very fancy stainless grades that are a pain to stamp and cost a lot.

I think the issue is they decided what it should look like before they designed the rest of the vehicle. They wanted something that looked unusual... and now they have unusual problems to deal with.

There's no practical reason to make the vehicle have bare stainless panels, or "unbreakable" breakable windows, etc. It's marketing gimmicks that now seem to be developing into a PR issue. Time will tell..

The very fact that they try to upsell a wrap is absurd enough and obviously indicates Tesla was worried this might become an issue. The wrap should have been included... or some form of coating.

Other manufacturers also make new engineering choices in the name of styling that create unusual problems. Because selling the car is part of the design requirements.

As one of many examples, Mazda's Soul Red Crystal paint has some special formulations and application steps that were a departure from other types of automotive paint. It has no purpose other than cosmetics, and it had some issues when it was introduced. It was also more challenging and expensive to repair.

Styling may be a 'marketing gimmick', but it is an inherent requirement to selling cars in volume.

> The very fact that they try to upsell a wrap is absurd enough and obviously indicates Tesla was worried this might become an issue.

Some other manufacturers do this for painted cars too, because clear-coat is brittle and chipping is a known cosmetic issue that can occur.

e.g. https://autoparts.toyota.com/products/product/paint-protecti...

At the end of the day, I don't think it's any more unacceptable that cybertruck owners need to hit their truck with some scotchbrite to remove tiny rust specs than it is unacceptable that toyota owners need to hit their hood with some touch up paint to remove tiny paint chips. It's all just minor cosmetic wear and tear.

> At the end of the day, I don't think it's any more unacceptable that cybertruck owners need to hit their truck with some scotchbrite to remove tiny rust specs than it is unacceptable that toyota owners need to hit their hood with some touch up paint to remove tiny paint chips.

I'd argue both are unacceptable, and sure enough you'll find plenty of complaints from owners with chipped paint.

The difference is, the rust issue was predictable.

> Because selling the car is part of the design requirements.

> it is an inherent requirement to selling cars in volume

Let's not kid ourselves here - it's a Tesla truck and it would have sold in similar numbers even if it didn't look like something out of a video game. It may have actually sold better if it's design wasn't so divisive...

The reality is a bunch of people are buying/have bought this particular vehicle expecting luxury/premium and instead are being surprised by rust. Hence... the negative PR.

It is a choice. The choice is also motivated by a Big Idea: ELiminate every part you don't need. This sounds like a good idea to the point some people will adopt it uncritically, but when you start eliminating parts, like paint, or an anti-pinch sensor, or LIDAR, that you might actually need, you just create technical debt and future recall liability. Bad dogma.

I'm curious to see how the material looks after a few years in the wild. If it were clear coated, we wouldn't get a proper stress test. Solving this problem is basically the only reason for the Cybertruck to exist.

It'll be a great *eats popcorn* scenario for those who didn't buy one.

wow, I think this is the first time I've read someone in support of the dealership offering the clear coat option.

Modern vehicles use plastic or aluminum on the most common rust points. Rockers, wheel wells, bumpers.

Go look under the car, that’s where all of the steel is. Unless your car is new or has literally never seen water/salt, that’s where the rust is going to be.

Seems like a good time to share https://youtu.be/qFXWjv65JWg?si=zI7TuqZRLomXFlhq

sacrificial anode

For the truck might be really easy to attach and not such a bad idea

I don't fully understand how a sacrificial anode works, beyond the basics. Wouldn't each body panel need one? They must also be replaced regularly from my understanding.

It seems like it would have been easier for Tesla to just coat the metal from the factory... or include the wrap in the price of the vehicle.

Maybe you can cultivate and streak the rust to look like woodgrain panels, like the Griswold family's Ford LTD Country Squire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Country_Squire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Country_Squire#/media/Fil...

https://www.insidehook.com/autos/buy-the-national-lampoons-v...

Naaaah. Musk is a G.E.N.I.U.S (tm) He clearly identified that Tesla owners want a "Rat's Style" custom car.

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=Rat%E2%80%99s+Style+cars&at...

IIRC this was one of the reasons the Delorean manual recommended using gasoline to clean the steel panels

torn between a vote pro or against the delorean for this, almost worth it to see my neighbor's reaction when i'm washing the car

Is it possible that the kind of stainless steel selected was specifically chosen to be hard so that Musk could say it’s “literally bullet proof”, and this rusting is a consequence of that?

If so, you know there are mechanical and materials engineers who work at Tesla who were internally screaming during the WHOLE development process. Can you imagine the stress of being tasked with something so stupid?

Can't wait for submersible version of the truck.

This one is already going to dissolve, so you are half way there

/r/justrolledintotheshop is going to have so many pictures of road salt corroded Cybertrucks right about 2 years from now

I watched a video about it after Cybertruck release, but can't figure out which one it was mentioned in to share it, but basically, yes, the knew about this, its mentioned in the owners manual. If I recall correctly, the video mentioned that it should be covered when not in use, and it will suck if birds are shitting (uncovered) on it too.

Edit: Found link to Owners Manual breakdown / Video

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-cybertruck-owners-manual-rev...

And from there found exact spot where it talks about maintenance / cleaning:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXY5zBpfGOw&t=1358s

i don't get it. my kitchen sink is stainless, as are various cookware, and they are regularly exposed to water with no problems. what's the difference?

The difference is what's in the water.

still confused, what could possibly be in rainwater or coastal humidity that isn't in dirty dishwater? i get the focus is on salty water on the coastline, but i can guarantee the dish sink has been exposed to extremely concentrated salt solutions.

the difference is velocity. salt and dirt at 60mph velocity makes a big impact

I have no idea if this is the salient difference, but rainwater is actually slightly acidic -- it absorbs CO2 as it forms in the air, which combines with the water and turns into carbonic acid, H2CO3.

Various unfriendly-to-metal compounds free in the air (such as sulfur) that can precipitate out into the rain and thus onto the vehicle.

> i can guarantee the dish sink has been exposed to extremely concentrated salt solutions.

It also is usually rinsed after use, and sits dry in a climate controlled indoor environment 99.9% of the time.

Try salt water.

I think it’s because your kitchen sink and cookware aren’t regularly exposed to other corrosive elements that damage that a car left parked outside would be.

The article mentions this: > Once the chromium oxide barrier is breached, corrosion takes hold. And caveat emptor, because Tesla's owner's manual advises promptly removing corrosive substances, emphasizing not to wait until the Cybertruck is scheduled for a "complete wash,”

I think kitchenware will eventually suffer from the same problems, but it’s just not exposed to the same level of wear and tear as a car, so you’ll see things rust after maybe 10+ years, versus <=1 like with CyberTrucks

Pretty sure it’s more the steel grade in a cybertruck (301) is < the grade in most kitchen sinks (304)

> it’s just not exposed to the same level of wear and tear as a car

is it because the kitchenware is washed more regularly than a car would be?

also, to add anecdotal evidence, I have some stainless, non-coated hardware on my deck, directly exposed for 18 months now, and there is zero rust.

not trying to be contrary, just saying i have used stainless things but never experienced rust on them. either it's coming, or the stainless i have is somehow all better, or something else is up.

I put a plastic item in a stainless steel bowl and added bleach. I left it for several days because I was trying to remove some persistent stains from the item. When I checked it, the bleach had corroded through the stainless steel.

I would imagine that road salt stuck into seams would, over time, also corrode stainless steel. If there are small gaps, it can get in there and be hard to clean out. Just like getting food caught between your teeth and not flossing.

There's dozens of varieties of stainless, all with slightly different properties. All of them can rust under varying conditions.

Most sinks and silverware are typically fairly rust resistant varieties of stainless, and are exposed to pretty minimally demanding conditions.

Different types / grades of stainless steel

There isn’t just one “stainless steel” everyone uses there are a vast number of grades and types for all applications and rust resistance is only one attribute

Iirc kitchen sinks are 304 and the cyber truck is a special 301 Tesla formulated. Marine is 316

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAE_steel_grades

There are also different ways to “finish” it citric vs nitric acid baths for instance

Here's a fairly decent breakdown of the types of steels used for knives: https://knifeinformer.com/discovering-the-best-knife-steel/

First, 'Stainless' is not a single item and in fact a wide variety of alloys with sliiiightly differing compositions which confer more or less corrosion resistance in favor of other mechanical attributes of the finished product. I have read (but must admit I do not know the accuracy of the claim) that Tesla went with a harder yet less corrosion resistant form of stainless for the cybertruck.

Second, while they see regular use the profiles of wear for e.g. cookware are very different than that of a car's body. For one, you likely thoroughly clean your cookware relatively soon after using it. How often is the car thoroughly washed down? The outside chemicals, road de-icer, quantity of UV or other environmental effects that differ between the daily life of your average chef's knife and a given cybertruck also very much play into it.

The comparison point is a kitchen sink, not a chef’s knife, and Cybertrucks rust after only a few days in the rain, and somewhere it doesn’t snow. Some stainless steels don’t even rust in salt water. They could have chosen a stainless steel that wouldn’t rust, they just didn’t. It could be a mechanical compromise, but the shell isn’t pushing mechanical requirements. I think it’s much more likely cost cutting, supplier problems, aesthetics, ineptitude, or a sleazy attempt to sell more wraps. Whatever it is, it was avoidable.

Kitchen sink is washed with water and left to dry immediately. Additionally, it is exposed only to mildly chlorinated water (or detergents that will protect the sink).

The Cyberpuck does not always get the luxury of air drying even. It is consistently exposed to acid rain and sometimes to high concetrations of road salt and sand eating the smooth surface making it vulnerable.

There are lots of different 'stainless steels', some are more resistant to rust than others. Stainless steel just means 'less susceptible to rust and staining than other steels'.

Unverified reports based on statements made before the truck came out discusses 301 stainless, most cookware is made from 304, 301 is cheaper and less resistant to staining and rust. The delorian was also built with 301 laid over fiberglass for the body-panelling (maybe so that the rust would be where you could see it and scotchbrite the fuck out of it). 301 isn't particularly salt-resistant though, so if you have a cybertruck anywhere that regularly salts their roads or near the coast salt air...

I worked at NIO. The consensus there was that Tesla routinely ignored auto industry best practices from UI to manufacturing, across the board.

Didn't they just use consumer-grade LCDs to get that massive (especially for the time) 17-inch screen in the Model S that then started failing?

https://www.thedrive.com/tech/27989/teslas-screen-saga-shows...

The Cybertruck Can Still Rust! (youTube | Waveform Clips | Marques Brownlee)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6pY4pdkHik

Why wouldn't they add sacrificial anodes which should be replaced every year or something like that? It seems like a cheap an effective solution but I'm no rust expert.

I think, for a sacrificial anode to be effective, it needs to share an electrolyte with the material it is protecting.

You are right. It wouldn't work.

[dupe]

Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39354342

Rust is a vibe

Could be batteries that could accelerate rusting

Musk doesn’t build anything without a paradigm shift. Up until now we’ve only known “paint the car, wash it, wax it, touch up, repaint or else it will rust out and fall apart.” The new paradigm with the CT could be “it’s so hard it barely dents, the finish will age and develop a patina over time but stop worrying about it because it will never rust out in your lifetime.”

Yeah I want my car to look good and clean, but I think this will be an easy fix and some small adjustments to your standard wash process could be all that’s need.

I already have an iron remover I use on my painted car before I apply ceramic coating. It’s not standard for people to do that when washing but it’s also not an exotic procedure.

he unfortunately shifted the paradigm to bad car that can't get wet.

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