Is that typical in the industry, parts or components being glued onto an exterior surface instead of fastened?
For car companies, no.
But as Tesla reminds us constantly, they're not a car company, they're a robotics / AI company. Those generally focus less on how to build cars.
Tesla just doesn't have a good record with adhesives.
Mid-size accessories like add-on spoilers on trunk lids, or other exterior styling pieces are frequently attached with adhesive.
A larger component commonly attached with adhesives are the rear fender flares on dually pickups. Very commonly these are built with a standard bed, and then the flares to cover the extra wheel width are applied with a 3M VHB-like adhesive strip.
But like anything, there is a way to do it properly, and a way to do it hacky.
Most plastic body panels are held on with conformal clips. But they couldn't do that with the metal panels of the cyber truck nor did they want visible fasteners so glue is the only option.
Glue isn't ideal because the part has to be clamped in place while the glue cures which is slow, and quality control is tough because you're doing a little chemistry experiment on your assembly line hundreds of times per day.
Normal cars have this problem with paint and quality control with paint is such a big deal that it has its own separate production line just for painting stuff pre or post assembly
Using composite panels is very uncommon in production vehicles and when they are used (for looks) traditional fasteners are used during assembly often with threaded inserts embedded in the composite panel during manufacture
Perhaps it's about minimizing the installation cost at the dealership.
The irony is that you'd imagine that an off-road roof mounted light would be something that you should be able to tighten when you are ... off-road.
I guess field serviceability isn't a design goal for these "off-road" trucks, but appearing "off-road" when going glamping is.
Yes. If automotive OEMs can glue it they will.
It's just that other OEMs don't build uninterrupted 5ft light bars so glueing is a much less suitable (think about how much glue contact patch per amount of light bar there is and how little leverage it's mass has over the glue, contrast with normal light) solution for them.
Just like how SpaceX and Tesla and Twitter seem like they have three different CEOs; the degree of their competency is inversely proportional to the amount of day-to-day feedback Musk has into their operations.
I’d say he thinks he has many superpowers, but maybe in reality just has one.
He's a cult leader with surprisingly horrible political instincts
Without actually getting into the specific actions he took while in government, I dare say that what he did during that time was material to people's revulsion and that a different version of him who took different actions would have been differently popular.
His weakness is as you write - thinking he is the smartest and best engineer in the room, when all he has are engineering companies.
SpaceX is the only company of his that consistently delivers and that's effectively not operated by him.
Like promising your team will create a Mars colony by 2036 while they're trying to make commercial rocketry efficient and safe.
You may say this armchair analysis is unfair, but both these men have been so candid, veiled by the thinnest layer of irony, that it's impossible not to see how fragile they are.
"all input is error" - elon musk
wdyt? From where I'm sitting anyone with that position would deprecate the input devices...
I think people forget the Model 3 literally had the bumper falling off from driving in rain. And it took Tesla a LONG time to admit to it being their fault.
https://www.jalopnik.com/tesla-finally-admits-model-3-bumper...
Additionally, they didn't manage to find a satisfactory solution to attach the steel panels to the frame so they glued them on.
I suspect the 'parts falling off' has something to do with the inflexibility of both materials as well as the different thermal expansion coefficients.
Good news - it only affects 6000 vehicles with the optional lightbar which is dealer installed. Bad news - Tesla finds it ok to let its dealers do glued lightbar installations and can't really fix the glue failing part so they are adding redundancy.
They've also recalled powerwalks. Tesla is great at being visionary, their Achilles heal has always been their weak manufacturing. Which makes sense, its the really hard part about being in the car or battery business.
Cybertrucks are for pioneers. If you want something super reliable, just get a "boring" Model Y. They've improved all parts of the design continuously, the cars are indistinguishable from the early ones when it comes to finish quality
What? You think people are paying that kind of money to be beta-test a car?
Not according to the many comments here about Model Y.
ProllyInfamous•1h ago
Now add on flying corners/blades/edges ... even less enthused.
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I finally drove in a Rivian — and while I prefer the hybrid drivetrains — it was exceptionally nice. As an American, I can't wait for BYD to offer test drives here.
hamdingers•1h ago
In the US, the safety standards consider only the occupants of the car. The safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and occupants of other cars are not considered. This was looking like it would change but with the current administration I doubt it.
The Cybertruck is not legal in Europe and anywhere else with actual safety standards.
guitarbill•50m ago
> NHTSA conducts frontal, side and rollover tests because these types account for the majority of crashes on America's roadways.
> IIHS tests evaluate two aspects of safety: crashworthiness — how well a vehicle protects its occupants in a crash — and crash avoidance and mitigation — technology that can prevent a crash or lessen its severity.
> As well as assessing how well cars protect their occupants, Euro NCAP tests how well they protect those vulnerable road users – pedestrians and cyclists – with whom they might collide.
potato3732842•1h ago
monocasa•1h ago
And you can buy a BYD in America. There's just a pre-Trump 100% tariff on Chinese EVs with bipartisan support that isn't going away any time soon.
toomuchtodo•1h ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39992428
monocasa•35m ago
fragmede•30m ago
kube-system•13m ago
toast0•28m ago
Regular passenger vehicles have a lot of standards they need to meet, which usually means manufacturer participation. Has BYD gone through the process to get passenger vehicles approved for use in the US? Otherwise, sure, you can get it imported under a conditional use to bring it to car shows, but not for daily use.