With the Cybertruck, Tesla sought to break from convention by cladding its electric pickup in ultrahard stainless steel, a material that doesn’t need to be painted, resists dents and adds to the vehicle’s distinctive look.
Turns out, the choice of metal has further complicated an already difficult new-model launch for the world’s most valuable automaker. Ss Mirror Sheet
The stainless steel, which is being used for the truck’s outer shell, has proven challenging to bend and manipulate, testing Tesla’s ability to shape the material into body panels that line up correctly and don’t result in large gaps when installed, according to people who have worked on the pickup.
On top of that, it is so hard and strong that it can be difficult to flatten, these people said. The metal is produced in coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper, and even when unrolled, it has a tendency to spring back into its earlier, curved form.
These difficulties are among the manufacturing hurdles Tesla has wrestled with leading up to the rollout of its first new passenger model in more than three years.
Tesla aims to start delivering the first trucks on Nov. 30, a milestone that it plans to mark with an event at its factory near Austin, Texas.
Chief Executive Elon Musk warned on an earnings call in October that Tesla would have “enormous challenges" both in increasing factory output of the Cybertruck and making money on it, saying the new technology involved would make building it more difficult. He didn’t elaborate on what specifically is creating problems.
“We dug our own grave with Cybertruck," Musk said at the time. Tesla didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.
Stainless steel is rarely used for vehicle bodies, in part because it is generally less malleable and more expensive than traditional materials. It is also relatively heavy, particularly in comparison to aluminum, which some automakers have embraced in recent years to make cars and trucks lighter.
While the Cybertruck’s exterior panels don’t have to be painted, Tesla has planned to put them through a surface finishing process to give them a more uniform appearance, people familiar with the matter said. That is done much like in jewelry, where the metal’s surface is typically sanded or polished.
The Cybertruck launch is a critical one for Tesla, whose once-blistering sales growth has slowed as it has confronted stiffer competition in the EV space.
The company and its investors are now counting on the truck to spark some new excitement in the brand at a time when many of Tesla’s other models are aging and the automaker has resorted to steep price cuts to entice buyers.
Tesla has already run into numerous delays and cost overruns with the Cybertruck. Musk said on the October earnings call that he expects to eventually produce about 250,000 pickups a year. Still, he cautioned that the ramp-up will be slow due to the difficulties of the design, and said Tesla is unlikely to hit that rate of output before 2025.
First revealed in 2019, the Cybertruck was designed to make a statement, with an imposing, angular profile and a stainless-steel exterior meant to be tough enough to withstand bullets.
Tesla executives have also highlighted the advantages of using stainless steel, saying it would make the truck stronger and more durable. Because the metal is corrosion resistant, the company can also eliminate the expensive manufacturing step of painting the outside.
The move, however, was a risk, given how infrequently the material has been used for automotive exteriors. The last company to release a car with an unpainted stainless-steel exterior was DeLorean Motor more than 40 years ago.
One person who worked on the Cybertruck likened Tesla’s decision to use stainless steel to the falcon-wing doors that plagued early production of Tesla’s Model X SUV. Those doors, which lift vertically, proved difficult to manufacture and sometimes stopped working for customers.
“Forming full hard stainless steel isn’t rocket science, but it sure isn’t easy," Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering, told investors in March.
Tesla worked with Luxembourg-based steelmaker Aperam in developing a custom alloy for the Cybertruck’s exterior that met the car maker’s strength and corrosion-resistance requirements, people familiar with the matter said.
Ensuring color consistency was a focus during the development process, given the Cybertruck’s bare metal exterior. Variables such as chemistry and processing techniques can affect the appearance of stainless steel.
Tesla also wanted to use thicker metal for the Cybertruck’s exterior than what is typically used in the auto industry, at least partly because Musk wanted the truck to be bulletproof, one of the people said.
That makes it more difficult to form. It is also too hard for a stamping press, which is commonly used to produce body panels in the car business, executives have said. Instead, Tesla is laser-cutting the pieces and then bending them into shape.
Once the truck is on the road, other challenges may surface with the material.
The hardness and thickness of the metal is likely to make it more resistant to dings and scratches, but if the truck does get dented, fixing it could be an obstacle, say those who have worked in the metals industry.
“You’d have to beat the absolute hell out of it," said Chris Nicholson, who started out polishing stainless steel and now travels the world restoring DeLorean cars.
DeLorean owners have asked him to remove dents, restore finishes and even get rid of the dark spots that he said can form if, for example, bird or fly poop is left in place for an extended period. Stainless steel resists corrosion but isn’t immune to it.
Nicholson, who lives in England, often addresses such spots by removing the top layer of metal and sanding what remains.
Right now, there aren’t many body shops with experience repairing stainless steel. With the Cybertruck poised to hit the market, “people are going to have to learn how to do this," he said.
Write to Rebecca Elliott at rebecca.elliott@wsj.com
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