Uh, if it rains a lot in your area, an $80K Tesla "Cybertruck" might not be right for you.

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I read in the news today that some people who've have had their "Cybertrucks" for less than two weeks are already developing rust issues.  I guess the so-called stainless steel truck has very little chromium content in it's steel.  Now if that can happen in California after only two days of rain, what would happen in other places where it rains more?  I can envision a lot of time, effort and money devoted to maintenance, either that or many $80,000 "Cybertrucks" will look like they've been sitting in a farmers field since the 1950's.

 

[Sabertooth]

I saw one of these on the road here. They are just ridiculous IMHO. It's wild that they were ever built. I guess the richest man in the world can make anything happen, even if it looks like an 8 year-old futurist designed it.

To be fair, it was more than a year's worth of rain in a weekend here in SoCal. An absolute deluge. But my VW id.4 ain't rusting.

[RickR]

My guess is another overblown media frenzy.  Tiny rust spots.  Maybe a coat of wax is all it needs.

I think all new cars can have minor issues.  My Toyota has an occasional "whistle" from one of the roof rails, but I haven't had time to take it in to have it fixed.

 

43 minutes ago, Sabertooth said:

I saw one of these on the road here. They are just ridiculous IMHO. It's wild that they were ever built

Same.  It is pretty startling to see one in person.  Very large and different. 

[Cryptocoffee13]

I saw one yesterday. They look awesome in person. The owner was nice and people kept flocking to look at it, and of course touch it, he mentioned it does get fingerprints on the outside quite often. No rust, it's rained on an off last week and this past Monday. The inside looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. It's got very little truck attributes, it's more like a mid-sized sedan, part suv and a hint of truck. It looks like a sleek tank. 

[Justin]

DeLorean owner here, checking in. I have 25 years experience with Stainless Steel bodied car care. Let me tell you, it's a bundle of joy. Especially with people constantly wanting to touch your car. Improper care of the Stainless will cause problems. A few tips for Cybertruck owners:

• "Rust spots" aren't actually rust. It's what builds on fingerprints, etc. I'm willing to bet that's what's happening with the Cybertrucks. I know zero about the Cybertruck as I'm not interested in it, but I'm willing to bet there's a no rust-thru warranty on the bodies. The DeLorean came with a 25-year warranty on the bodies, which were backed by the german company that supplied the stainless steel and long outlived DMC. Show me a DeLorean anywhere in the world with rust holes through it after 40+ years.
   
• Bar Keepers Friend and Soft Scrub are your best friends for properly cleaning stainless.
   
• Industrial Kitchen Cleaner spray, after a basic top-down wash with water and dry of the car, is my favorite and most reliable way to wash the car.
   
• Weiman Stainless Steel Wipes are a nice way to finish off the car after you've washed it of any dirt.
   
• Fingerprints are an issue after a while. Be prepared if you're in public and people touch the car. Stainless Steel Wipes are very helpful.
   
• Gasoline rubs out anything. The instruction manual suggests that if you get tar on the body of your car, use a paper towel lightly dipped in gasoline to rub out the tar, then thoroughly rinse with water, dry and properly dispose of the towel.
   
• Don't use Brillo Pads, use Scotch Brite Heavy Duty Scour Pads instead, and rub with the grain, not in circles. Brillo Pads will leave little shards of metal from the pad left between the grain in the Stainless. Those metal specs will rust, and give the appearance that the Stainless is rusting when it is not.
   
• Wax is definitely not the answer for a Stainless Steel bodied car, at least in the case of the DeLorean. I have to think that 40 years later, Tesla made it a priority to create a Stainless Steel body that could be treated and washed like a regular car - put through a car wash, waxed, etc. I'm not so sure that's the case. I'm willing to bet Stainless is Stainless and that means finger prints and "rust" spots and Soft Scrub and Bar Keepers Friend, I would hope that Tesla prepared their owners for this and created a "bulletproof" truck that is at least as resistant to fingerprints as my refrigerator is.
   
• I'm assuming Tesla offers a Stainless Steel car wash kit, with a grain pad, Stainless Steel cleaner and polish (see example below). That's probably the best bet for washing at home.

 

I've been looking forward to standing back and watching the public react to naive Cybertruck owners. I've seen this story play out before. Obnoxious owners, combined with a press and others who don't understand / don't embrace something new and different, rev boys looking for attention, etc. And everyone in the parking lot thinking they know more about your car than you do and looking for something to point fault at, coming up to you and sharing their opinion and throwing the same disinformation at you day after day after day, and calmly offering a thoughtful response to them, as the ambassador to your car that you are. I bet electric car owners have very different yet strikingly similar stories. I knew going into this that Cybertruck owners would likely run into these common issues that arise from treating Stainless Steel like it's a painted car. We went through the same thing when we started seeing normies in falcon winged Tesla Model Xs driving around trying to show off with their doors up (awful idea and genuinely obnoxious) carelessly clipping the tips of their doors on the side of busses and garage doors, and twisting their car doors at the hinges mounted at the center of the roof. Yikes.

 

 

 

[Justin]

P.S. - I would think Atari Jaguar and Cybermorph fans would love the Cybertruck name. It was the first thing I thought of when I first saw the Cybertruck a few years ago. Not the DeLorean, not the Lotus, I thought of Cybermorph - and Skylar included as a KITT-like talking annoyance in the car.

 

 

I was also impressed that Tesla didn't continue trying to spell out "S-E-X-Y" in their model line. i.e. Model S, Model 3, Model X, Model Y - that's an intentional choice, and Model 3 was originally intended to be "Model E", however Ford owns that trademark and defended it.

[RickR]

Here's a picture of one of the prototypes that I took at the Peterson Auto Museum in L.A. in 2023.  What is amazing to me is that the real product is pretty much identical to the prototype.  A rarity in car design.