Conventional steel which is not what they’re using. They’re using a proprietary alloy designed at SpaceX for rockets which necessitates low weight, weight eats money when getting to space. This is all ignoring the fact that they outright said “it will be about the same weight as the F150” they outright said it, and it’s not like they didn’t have a prototype to weigh of all the things they could get wrong I’m betting that’s not one of them
I don't think the prototype weight is a great guide for them: From the Motortrend reveal article: "Construction of the prototype is "unibody-on-frame" in the same vein as the new Land Rover Defender, but the production Cybertruck will be pure unibody" (https://www.motortrend.com/cars/tesla/cybertruck/2021/tesla-cybertruck-electric-pickup-photos-info/) I suspect the prototype is considerably heavier than the final truck will be (due to the redundant frame) - the question is how good are they at estimating how much of the weight they can lose?
Apparently the CT will weigh in as a 3/4 Ton truck. If so, I think it needs to be 5th wheel capable to compete with F250, Chevy/Dodge 2500.
CyberTruck has at least one more year of design/engineering work. No one knows any details for sure - things can and do change. Most anything can be designed/engineered or offered as an option. You'll just have to wait and see. dreaming & speculating is fun
No, it won't weigh that much, but the GVWR will be up there because of the increased payload capacity over a F150.
Hmm. 14000 pound towing limit. Here's a supplier of enclosed cargo trailers showing weights empty and loaded: ENCLOSED TRAILER WEIGHTS AND PAYLOADS - Brothers Trailers Tampa - Enclosed Trailers for Sale in Tampa Florida | Trailer Dealership | Cargo Trailers Figure maybe 2800 pounds empty, so 11,200 pounds of payload. With a 14 kWh powerwall weighing 269 pounds: https://ww.electrek.co/2016/10/28/tesla-powerwall-2-game-changer-in-home-energy-storage-14-kwh-inverter-5500/ That's potentially 41 powerwalls for ~574 kWh of usable capacity - for ~$250,000...
Remember the ICE answer to these towing capabilities is a huge dually smelly diesel with a 5th wheel in the bed. Makes the bed totally useless for anything else and will get around 5mpg overall with load. Will typically cost more than Cybertruck as well. Will ride like ass when not towing, not fit in a garage or even parking lot stalls. Needs a step to climb up into cab. Essentially a one trick pony. It will idle like a can full of rocks and stink up everything around them while spewing canceragenic particles.
Seems entirely possible that a fifth wheel could be welded onto the bed. The question is whether it'll be a third-party extension or something Tesla would offer as a factory option.
@Saghost Lol true. I am wondering though if its possible to design a trailer in such a way that it either improves or at least keeps the same drag co-efficient.
A basic rule to go by is that the tongue weight of a 5th wheel trailer is about 20 percent of the gross trailer weight. Based on the 5th wheel trailer dry weight of 13,400 pounds the dry hitch weight is correct at 2,535 pounds.
There are plenty of F-150s towing smaller fifth wheels, like the one I have. Towed another with a Ram 1500 before that. Lots of people don't want to live with an HD truck 100% of the time when they're only towing a camper 5% of the time. Since the Cybertruck appears to be out of the question, I'm holding out hope that the electric/hybrid F-150 will have a conventional pickup bed with room to attach a fifth wheel hitch to the frame.