The only figure I could quickly find was from a few years ago (2016 in Canada) mentioned one out of twenty sold had an eight foot bed. My guess is that the ratio of eight foot bed trucks is smaller now.
I wonder how much of that low percentage is due to costs and how much due to the vehicle just getting even more unwieldy large.
The Cybertruck fits the "same" functionality into a bit less space - I believe it's about a foot shorter than an equivalent configuration (4 door 6.5' bed). The Cybertruck is ~232" long, versus the F150 configuration being about ~244". If you add on the extra 18" to get an 8 foot bed, the Cybertruck is ~250" versus ~262". This makes the hypothetical 8' bed Cybertruck only about 6" longer than the F150 with 4 doors and 6'5" bed.
Not everyone wants even a 4-door truck, as that's pretty long to begin with, so starting "small" is the better approach (and it's possible that the design wouldn't work as well with a 2-door as the top of the triangle might be in the wrong place for headroom / volume purposes). But it would be interesting to see how many 8' beds they could sell since they'd only be half a foot longer than the 6.5' F150 ...
With their steel folding production method many such variations can probably be implemented in software...
As
@KarenRei correctly pointed it out stainless steel isn't for
every vehicle form factor - but for those where it is an advantage (trucks, vans, taxis, minibuses) the flexibility will be amazing, as long as a number of physical constraints are maintained:
- Triangular top - this is a main load bearing structure and also air flow tapering requires shallow angles at the top.
- Nose to top angle has to be below a certain limit - which defines a minimum length for the vehicle: not enough internal cabin height otherwise.
- Simple styling: anything that doesn't fit into the Origami XY design style is out.
- All around skin: load has to be distributed and stiffness maintained.
I'm curious whether they'll try smaller and larger stainless steel vehicles. The stainless steel ATV is I think a silent suggestion that they might.
I wouldn't obsess too much over only triangles being allowed. I don't see why they couldn't build what are essentially trusses to get variations that are not just a single triangle.
Very interesting, Tesla will be making their own stainless steel:
Elon Musk on Twitter
"We’re creating this alloy at Tesla. Not a problem to create a lot of it, but we’ll need to come up with new body manufacturing methods, as it can’t be made using standard methods."
So after SpaceX foundry there's going to be a Tesla foundry too!
Might explain some of the CoGs reduction
@KarenRei and
@ReflexFunds were arguing about?
They'd avoid steel tariffs as well.
I'd be surprised if they built two separate foundries to make the "same" product. More likely that one of them (or a wholly owned subsidiary) builds one foundry, and then supplies the other(s).
They should just expand the SpaceX foundry to be large enough for both.
Cybertruck using "SpaceX steel" would be a huge selling point.
Tesla will likely use the product at a much higher rate than SpaceX, so it makes sense for Tesla to be the one that owns and operates it, and sells the a small portion of the product to SpaceX. The existing SpaceX foundry likely isn't capable of anything near the volumes needed for even Starship, much less Cybertruck. It's for small batch custom castings and such, not massive quantities of steel.
I don't get how the front and rear crush zones will work. I think this design is the equivalent of the first solar roof.
The vehicle shown isn't even legal and didn't even have cameras or side marker lighting. I doubt that the bed cover shown is waterproofing. The ramp was obviously not complete and would be problematic in a production vehicle.
I do think that Tesla can do well selling this sort of design. But what I saw is a "concept car". I think the primary purpose was to generate excitement and to accumulate unsatisfied demand. I do think Tesla will make the vehicle if they can, but they don't know if it is possible.
Crush zones can probably be done by having the back side of the body have pre-made cuts in them that go to a partial depth, creating areas that will fold in a specific pattern.
The half-hexagon wheel wells are literally the simplest possible, still functional planar approximation of a half-circle.
~90% of the Cybertuck is defined by function, not form - in a brilliant minimalist design.
I have wondered if the hexagonal wheel wells are just stylistic to match the rest of the truck and they are just cut out or if they actually folded the material inwards. If they're just stylistic, nothing says they can't then cut them round. Of course they could also just use round plastic fender flares to hide the hexagonal opening too, if they wanted.
)
