Elon Musk has delivered on his promise to get the Tesla Cybertruck into manufacturing. The wedge-shaped, Syd Mead meets Giorgetto Giugiaro design is out on this planet, albeit with some design concessions from the idea model to make the entire bundle work. It won’t go so far as initially promised, it’s dearer than he initially mentioned it could be, however the Cybertruck nonetheless seems very near the idea Musk stunned us with again in 2019—stainless-steel physique panels and all. These stainless-steel physique panels could be one of many truck’s greatest attracts, however may they be its Achilles heel?
Musk and Tesla declare that the truck’s laborious floor is so damage-resistant that it may cease bullets. However like each materials within the recognized bodily realm, it may be damaged. And when one thing will get damaged, it’ll must be repaired. That is the place issues get tough right here.
In spite of everything, there are solely a couple of baker’s dozen’s price of manufacturing Cybertrucks on the highway. Coupled with Tesla’s notoriously rigorous and tight-lipped stance towards its commerce secrets and techniques about repairability, we gained’t know the express, granular particulars of methods to restore the Cybertruck till there are various on the highway, and rumblings in regards to the truck in personal, go public.
Nonetheless, all of us have eyes. The Cybertruck isn’t the primary electrical truck, not the primary Tesla, and never the primary car to be product of stainless-steel.
To get an concept of what Cybetruck homeowners could be in for when the going will get robust for his or her vans, I reached out to some sources accustomed to autobody restore, stainless-steel restore, fixing Teslas particularly, and different folks with skilled data on this subject.
The image they painted is cautiously optimistic at greatest, but additionally earnest in regards to the challenges the truck’s design presents. And people specialists are adamant about how the truck may additional take a look at the often-contentious relationships between the patron, auto physique technicians and the insurance coverage trade.
Stainless Metal Is Exhausting To Restore
The Cybertruck is unusually stiff. Its 3mm thick stainless-steel panels are undoubtedly an trade first. Musk bragged that conventional auto presses, which might exert literal tons of drive, can’t even form the stuff as a result of it’s so thick and laborious. It’s foolish to count on that a regular PDR (paintless dent elimination) man may use their instruments to hammer out any dents. But, not contemplating the Cybertruck’s proprietary steel alloy and absurd thickness, we have already got at the least a little bit of a precedent of methods to restore stainless-steel—an instance from the Nineteen Eighties, when DeLoreans have been nonetheless new and doubtless extra on the highway than they’re in the present day.
It takes quite a lot of labor to make sure the physique panels stay straight and usable. Then, in contrast to regular automotive metal (and even aluminum) physique panels, you’ll be able to’t conceal structurally sound, however visually unappealing, repairs behind physique filler and paint because the vans are unpainted. So, each restore needs to be pitch-perfect, which isn’t simple, and, extra crucially, very time-consuming.
That is why the tales behind painted DeLoreans typically come from accident-involved autos; it didn’t make any monetary sense to spend hours repairing a chrome steel panel. As an alternative, some homeowners and physique store guys would use conventional strategies involving physique filler, after which choose to color the automotive.
“Repairing stainless-steel is a novelty,” mentioned Josh Bengston, proprietor and operator of DeLorean Industries, in Tallmadge, Ohio. His firm repairs DMC-12s and sells components for them. Though our dialog was quick, Bengston was pointed and direct. Repairing stainless-steel actually solely is sensible for traditional and collector vehicles just like the DeLorean the place replacements won’t exist, and the vehicles themselves are particular, uncommon gadgets for hobbyists.
James Espey, president of one other store, Basic DMC, was a little bit extra optimistic. However he agreed that the labor to restore stainless-steel isn’t simple. Espey described a few of the restore processes of DeLorean panels as “old fashioned,” the place they’re utilizing choose and information, not the computerized physique store instruments to beat out divots and dings. It’s an artwork kind that takes much more time than the common metal fender. “If you are going to spend greater than say, eight, 9 hours making an attempt to do a restore, you’re higher off simply shopping for a brand new (panel),” Espey mentioned.
These issues of an elevated labor price have been shared amongst a Fb group filled with novice and veteran auto physique restore technicians. Certain, the Cybertruck’s panels will doubtlessly be capable to be repaired like DeLoreans have been, however there’s the massive query: will insurance coverage firms approve labor-intensive repairs? Excessive labor totals out vehicles; they’re why one Ohio driver’s Rivian R1T restore got here out to a whopping $42,000 for what seemed to be a primary fender bender. Excessive restore payments like which are the issues that whole out vans, as some Rivian homeowners are studying.
Changing Panels Might Open Up a Twofold Drawback
Changing panels would doubtless be considerably faster (and thus signify decrease labor prices) than repairing them, insisting on changing reasonably than repairing may open up a brand new can of worms. Arguably, it’s solely exacerbating the present stress factors Tesla homeowners are already experiencing with their insurance coverage firms: lengthy waits for restore instances, and excessive restore prices, even earlier than Tesla’s controversial option to go along with stainless-steel panels.
“So quite a lot of prospects rent me to combat insurance coverage firms as a result of insurance coverage firms don’t need to pay what Tesla requires you do to return a car to pre-loss situation,” mentioned Billy Walkowiak, the CEO of Collision Security Consultants, a agency partly meant to function an advocate and adjudicator for insurance coverage claimants who might not really feel just like the insurance coverage firm is successfully making them complete. “I personally in all probability do 10 to fifteen Teslas every week,” he mentioned.
Walkowiak defined that though we will’t fairly but know what’s going to occur with the Cybertruck, Tesla’s restore procedures have traditionally skewed towards substitute of components, reasonably than repairing components technique. Add within the sophisticated software program recalibration procedures and elevated labor prices—solely Tesla-certified technicians can restore Tesla autos—and all of it will get costly in a short time. Walkowiak shared a Tesla Mannequin 3 declare that was $22,000, with $14,000 of that solely being substitute components. Yikes.
“Tesla’s getting challenged as a result of insurance coverage firms now have their grasping little palms into the estimating software program program,” Walkowiak mentioned. “And so they can say that they don’t imagine it wants that we [the body shop says] as a result of in accordance with the [insurance company’s] software program, it would not want that, or [they’re] not paying for that, or that is too costly.”
Be that as it might, the substitute components technique that can doubtless apply to the Cybertruck may create a brand new drawback: can Tesla even make sufficient components to maintain up?
“I bear in mind studying tales within the automotive commerce press about how substitute components for the Mannequin S and the three the Y, and the X have been all quick provide gadgets as a result of they have been constructing all the pieces they may make. [Tesla] hadn’t allotted sufficient spare components is how I understood it,” Espey added.
Tesla’s half restore woes have gotten considerably higher in recent times, however it’s not all that arduous to seek out experiences on social media of Tesla homeowners upset that their repairs take a very long time, with wait instances upward of six months. “The DeLorean firm was actually good about making each vendor purchase a sure subset of spare components, together with physique panels,” Epsey mentioned. “Is each Tesla service middle going to have physique panels available to ship?”
He additionally solid doubt on any availability of outdoor OEM components. For the reason that Cybertruck is purportedly utilizing a customized stainless-steel alloy, it’s not clear if third-party firms will be capable to create aftermarket physique panels for the truck.
Some Stay Optimistic
Nonetheless, Espey wasn’t all doom and gloom on the Cybetruck. Later in our dialog, he in contrast the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel panels to the Ford F-150’s aluminum physique—one thing that was intensely controversial when it first got here out.
In fact, there are some lingering emotions in regards to the prices and strategies of repairing an aluminum automotive, however by and huge, the auto physique restore trade has tailored. (The huge recognition of the F-150 has a approach of doing that.) As of late, aluminum physique restore is sort of a non-issue, though some physique store guys do insist the elevated prices related to repairing them are nonetheless very a lot a problem.
Workers at one other Ohio physique store I spoke to (that features a 7,000-square-foot devoted EV restore area) have been extra optimistic too. They insisted Tesla often provides out good coaching on methods to restore its autos, a sentiment seconded by different trade professionals I surveyed for this story. It is very attainable the automaker—which doesn’t converse to the press in America—has a plan for repairs that we’re not aware about but.
Nonetheless, collision restore entails extra than simply the bodily act of pulling out a dent and paying a physique store man. There are quite a lot of shifting items at work right here, and it’s not clear how the Cybertruck will fare when the chips fall the place they might.