I had a read. To me it is clear that it is easier and cheaper to manufacture with straight panels in stainless steel with no paint or stamping.
Well, you captured one part of what was being discussed. Not all of it.
The truck is structured like a cantilever bridge. The rear diagonals bear the stress in the back. The structural skin plays the role of internal trusses in a cantilever bridge.
The structural skin - which provides the extreme abuse resistance far beyond any non-military vehicle on the market - cannot realistically be produced by stamping. How easy do you think it is to stamp something that can withstand being shot or take hard blows with a sledgehammer? Good luck with that. If you want to use such a skin, you
need to fold it.
What they're offering is something that's basically unheard of: a truck that you don't have to take care with when driving. Tree branches hanging down on the path ahead? Meh, go ahead and let them scratch up against you. What are they going to do, scratch your paint? Dent your bodywork?
On cost it's about the same as an F150.
Perhaps you missed the part where not only are its capabilities significantly greater than a F150, up to the point of
being literally bulletproof, but it's
also an electric vehicle with a massive battery pack (read: something that should make it much more expensive), and despite that has a F150-like sticker price, with a vastly lower TCO?
Who here was expecting the base price to come in at under $40k?
Anyone? Heck, before Elon tweeted under $50k, I think most people were expecting it to be somewhere in the ballpark of Model S pricing.
From here I hope they listen to some designers
Well, we certainly have enough back seat designers here.
Don't get me wrong, I think some more creases to function as style lines would be good. But I'm not in the mood to let some random individuals personal aesthetic dictates override the engineering considerations that gave us these spectacular price and functionality stats, when a large chunk of the population is
also liking the aesthetics, and ordering the vehicle.