Leaked Email Shows Elon Musk Demanding "Sub 10 Micron Accuracy​” Cybertruck Parts

Comments

• Dettweiler42@lemmyonline.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  It’s almost like he hears about how bad the build quality of Tesla cars have become, so he thinks the solution is more accurrate, more expensive parts. Kind of like he has absolutely no clue what he’s doing, and doesn’t want to listen to smarter people telling him what they need.

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  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Elon is a masterclass in the Dunning-Kruger effect.

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    • bdesk@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I think we should rename that effect after the man who invented it: the Musk-Dunning-Kruger effect

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    • rektdeckard@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Seriously. He can’t NOT publicly repeat every technical term that he hears, usually with next to no actual understanding.

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  • 4lan@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I think it’s more likely that he is looking for excuses for the years of delays on the cyber truck.

    Now he can blame it on his “desire for perfection” instead of admitting that his timeline was never viable

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• anlumo@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Tesla should mill the car from one solid block of steel.

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  • SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    As a pedestrian and cyclist (aka Dutchman): fuck that noise

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    • Baahb@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Til I’m a dutchman

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  • Anomalous_Llama@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Pedestrian vaporizer 9000 coming up!

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• uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  10 microns is .4 thou, about the width of a cotton fiber. Its possible to machine those tolerances, but very time consuming as machine maintainance steps up. Its also small enough that the thermal expansion of the sheets will be larger than that

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  • Quill7513@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    So basically elon would rather dump money into expensive equipment to improve build quality than do the thing that’s actually needed to improve build quality and pay his workers what their work is worth and make their factory environment safer?

    This is the kind of petty angry bullshit you have to do to be a billionaire. Its not about being smart, it’s about on some level hating everyone that isn’t you

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    • Red_October@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Making a lot of assumptions about what he’s willing to put into this.

      He’s not going to get fancy expensive new equipment, he’s not going to hire the best machinists, he’s not going to slow the work down to allow that kind of accuracy. He’s going to bluster and shout and make demands without providing any way of actually achieving those demands. That’s what Elon does. He’s not an Engineer, he doesn’t design things, he doesn’t build things, he tells people who actually know what they’re doing to build something. Here, he’s just saying “Do better” without anything more, and expecting that to be enough because he doesn’t actually know shit about dick.

      Frankly the closest I’ve seen to evidence that Elon has ever actually designed anything is the eyesore that is the Cybertruck, because it absolutely looks like something that cretin would draw in crayon and demand be made a reality.

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    • blargerer@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      You aren't going to hit that tolerance consistently on an assembly line no matter how much you pay. Can be done by a skilled machinist, but there are too many dynamical variables in an assembly line environment, like the previously mentioned thermal expansion.

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    • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      What I meant is that Elon has set a fairly un-achievable standard, as the sheet metal parts he is talking about will grow and shrink by more than that depending on weather. Additionaly, the small parts can be machined to that tolerance, but only by a skilled machinist and not at assembly line levels.

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  • TenderfootGungi@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Which just shows he has no idea how tolerances work. Small machines parts have different tolerances than large stamped parts. The key is setting the right tolerances for each part, designing the vehicle for desired gaps with those tolerances, and continuous improvement to fix and design out issues.

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    • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      None at all. He also doesn’t understend that the issues tesla has faced are largely due to poor process design rather than automotive design. The plans may call for small gaps ore big gaps, but they certainly don’t call for iconsistent gaps

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  • Rowsdower@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    [deleted]

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    • Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      0.4 thou = 0.4 mil

      (TIL about thous, all my engineering textbooks referencing US units must be old or something)

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    • uniqueid198x@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Thanks, I understand my error now. Corrected

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  • coco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I can confirm this

    Machinist here.

    .004 ? That is exagerated but .0004 this is insane

    This is not a airplane engine !!!

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  • drdabbles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Imagine measuring door panels on a granite block in a climate controlled room, and sending it off to the surface grinder for rework. 🤣 Or sending the frame off to get scraped. Truly, this is the most idiotic idea on the planet and it’s all because he didn’t care about tolerances early on. His self own has turned into whatever the hell this crap was.

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• dmention7@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If LEGO and soda cans, which are very low cost, can do this, so can we.

  This man is a certifiable idiot, and I feel bad for anyone working for him.

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  • peopleproblems@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I mean, to be fair, he’s not entirely wrong, you can get that accuracy on larger parts given sufficient time, materials, tools, expertise, etc.

    But a car has more parts than a Lego brick

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    • dmention7@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah anything is possible with enough time and money, it’s just that is about the most textbook example of comparing apples to oranges I’ve seen IRL.

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    • demlet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Which will balloon the cost exponentially.

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    • drdabbles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      What happens when you put that large metal part in the sun? He is entirely wrong.

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• cryomancer20x6@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  These tolerances are very possible to hold while machining, but speaking from my perspective having been a machinist by trade for 20+ years, holding those tolerances for every single part on a vehicle is going to get prohibitively expensive really fucking fast.

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  • barsoap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    He’s probably hyper self conscious about people ripping into Teslas over their clearances (measured in millimetres). But, no, instead of saying “VW can produce stuff that doesn’t look like it fell from a truck and you will figure it out, too” he’s going overboard.

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    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      If we’re going overboard, why bother with cars at all? Just use this cheesy blueprint, make it work and solve all of humanity’s problems! This is what California should invest in instead of trains.

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  • HessiaNerd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Micron, as in 0.00004"? Yes you COULD hold it, with second ops and temp control.

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    • cryomancer20x6@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The article states “sub 10 micron”, which I interpreted to be +/- .0004" in practice

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  • Death_Equity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Elon: “Stacking” tolerances? No, we will not tolerate anything less than micron precision on every aspect of the design.

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• Lianodel@ttrpg.network ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Due to the nature of Cybertruck, which is made of bright metal with mostly straight edges, any dimensional variation shows up like a sore thumb.​

  It sounds to me like the reasonable conclusion to draw from this would be to modify the design of the car. I’d also assume you don’t need tolerances to be the same for literally all parts inside and out. I’d also think that, if the car looks that bad if things are 10 or more microns out of place, these cars are going to age terribly after regular use.

  But what do I know? If I were smart, I’d be rich, right? And Elon is so rich, he must be a genius!

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  • Bakkoda@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Tesla is know for shoddy panel alignment correct? This is gonna look horrific.

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  • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah heat that mf up on a sunny day vs a cold day lol what an idiot.

    It’s not like “accuracies” doesn’t add up either ha ha what a genius.

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    • Death_Equity@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Usually car makers solve the expansion and contraction using glue, curves, and trim to deal with expansion and contraction.

      The cybertruck has no curves and not much trim, the glue would have to be very flexible, which would lead to separation.

      I am going to bet that we will see cybertruck with panels flying off or flapping at highway speeds not long after release.

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• Nacktmull@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This just shows how dumb he is and that he doesn’t know shit. Unnecessary, unreasonable and unrealistic tolerances will not result in a better car!

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  • painfulasterisk@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That tells you of Elon’s brain surface roughness

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    • totallynotarobot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Variations below 10 microns, like the car parts?

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    • Hotdogman@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Like a bowling ball

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    • coco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Hahhaahhahaah

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• Im14abeer@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Elon gonna engineer the shit outta this thing. Nevermind coil steel itself varies by more than that before it goes into a die and stretches. It’s almost like he doesn’t have any background in automotive manufacturing. This statement makes me think Elon may not know what a micron even is. The fit and finish of Tesla’s current offerings seems to evidence it anyway.

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• nomecks@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If Elon would have looked back, he would have seen that Delorean has already tried bare metal, and it’s nearly impossible to fix. Dent your truck? May as well paint it.

  I mean, Elon obviously doesn’t care about repairability, but the first few fender benders will result in a pile of articles about how unfixable the body panels actually are.

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  • FlyingSquid@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    But at least John DeLorean didn’t demand that the parts be accurate to within a few microns. Maybe he was too busy making cocaine deals to do it, but still…

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    • demlet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I just realized how accurate the comparison probably is…

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• LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sure hun. Would you like that with a side of fries or mashed potatoes?

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  • rdrunner@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Oh fries please, he gets too easily distracted and just plays with the mash potatoes all dinner

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    • Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So that’s how this PoS vehicle was conceived in the first place? That tracks.

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    • demlet@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This means something…

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• quadropiss@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Sounds like a pr campaign

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• dotslashme@infosec.pub ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Jesus that thing just remind me of Lara Croft’s boobs in the first tombraider game.

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  • Totuustorvi@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    This has made rounds around the interwebs as cybertruck origin story

    Image

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  • zer0nix@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Looks more reminiscent of the warthog from Halo 1

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• Diplomjodler@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  They’ve had five years to figure that stuff out. If they haven’t done it by now, they never will.

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  • theragu40@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    And they won’t, because that level of precision is stupid for this application, and not required. They can’t even come close to matching the quality and precision of larger auto makers, how and why would they require levels many times what those manufacturers have deemed necessary?

    Classic example of an exec understanding on a high level that they have fit and finish issues with parts, and pulling a completely inane statement out of his ass to make it sound like he has any real understanding or power whatsoever to address the issue.

    It’s Musk, so everyone immediately knows he’s full of shit. But it’s a good reminder to not entirely trust CEOs when they make statements related to specific technical details because the fact of the matter is they are not engineers and for large companies they are nowhere near close enough to the design and manufacturing process to be able to make statements like this that are actually informed. It’s just PR bullshit.

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• fubo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Cybertruck, Cybertruck,
  Engineers say “what the fuck”
  Micron fits for auto steel?
  Those are not a thing that’s real
  So deal! Deal with it, Cybertruck.

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• squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  In the full email he goes on to tell the engineer what a micron is.

  I guess, he just read that word somewhere and now feels cool that he knows it.

  It would be cute if he was a junior manager, but this way it’s just sad.

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• iforgotmyinstance@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Guarantee he has no understanding of metalwork. It’s not tricky, it’s an exact science.

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  • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Ummm excuse you, Elon is a ROCKET SCIENTIST CHIEF ENGINEER GENIUS PROGRAMMER QUINTUPLE CEO EXPERT EPOXY USER.

    I X’d this at him and he’s gonna ratio you with a super sweet meme.

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• candyman337@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Hilarious considering the panel gaps in all his other cars, dude is fucking insane. Unattainable standards don’t breed better work they breed exasperation and apathy.

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• MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  While holding this tight of a tolerance is standard for small sinple injection molded plastic part like Lego blocks (0.01mm tol. usually need some really good tooling though), it’s not really possible to hold this tight of a tolerance for large sheet metal construction such as the Cybertruck body (Standard tolerance should probably be in the milimeter range at most. )

  So, guess the Cybertruck is never coming out.

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  • agressivelyPassive@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I mean, just putting it into the sunlight will probably introduce larger variances than these tolerances from heat expansion alone.

    And if dave holds a sheet slightly wrong, it’s going to be slightly bent anyway.

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    • SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Exactly the gaps between the panels that make expansion possible are gigantic compared to micron level tolerances.

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  • squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Not a loss for humanity if that pedestrian killer doesn’t come out.

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  • MargotRobbie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Also, there is no way to actually measure this tight of a tolerance on large parts such as a car, since the standard methods for this tight of a tolerance measurement is… using a caliper, as using automated optical inspection for every dimension isn’t really feasible.

    So, I guess they’ll probably just coddle Musk and make some fake drawings for his eyes only or something, which would only be more useless work for Tesla people.

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    • elboyoloco@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Also, there is no way to actually measure this tight of a tolerance on large parts such as a car, since the standard methods for this tight of a tolerance measurement is… using a caliper, as using automated optical inspection for every dimension isn’t really feasible.

      We definitely have lasers that can measure this tolereance.

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    • squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That’s been their modus operandi from the start.

      And if Musk gets too involved somewhere, they just drop a couple of cool words and get him to go on a wild goose chase about shooting people through a massive vacuum canon or something stupid like that.

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• Rentlar@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That’s an idea I would have supported when I was taking high school physics. My astronomy calculations I put to the nearest centimetre (something like 20 significant digits sometimes) for no good reason. Just writing down all the numbers from the calculator.

  Then I took engineering and grew out of it.

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  • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    My grandpa once published an article where he turned a tree circumference (obtained using a tape measure) into a “diameter estimate” with 6 significant figures. Turns out, he was wrong on the 4^th^ digit because he used π=3.14…

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    • fubo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      My high-school chemistry teacher would dock a point for each extra digit past the calculation’s actual precision. We learned quickly not to overstate our sig figs.

      An answer written as “3” means that the true value is somewhere between 2½ and 3½. If you write “3.19142” when what you actually know is “3”, you’re incorrectly excluding the vast majority of the possible true values.

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    • squaresinger@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      The difference between accuracy and precision.

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  • ramjambamalam@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Just writing down all the numbers from the calculator.

    Please tell me you actually had that many digits of significant figures and weren’t just copying down overly-specific figures from your calculator…

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    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      He most certainly didn’t. Other than physical constants, very few measurements were ever taken to more than 15 significant figures. It’s just not practical as no instrument will get 1m precision over a light year. A spacecraft travelling anywhere near that far will just get an order of magnitude closer and then recalculate with one more digit of precision.

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    • geogle@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Prof here…it’s always the latter.

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  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Yeah it’s one thing to spit out numbers. But as an engineer I have to understand what’s going to happen with thermal expansion, wear and tear, and what can actually be produced consistently by an apathetic worker on their 60th hour of work that week

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• gencha@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  There are companies making bricks in much better quality than LEGO, and they are cheaper than LEGO. What kind of a margin is this supposed to be?

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  • incognito_15@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    My guy, you can’t drop these claims without telling us who! Lego are so expensive, I’d love some supposedly higher quality alternatives.

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    • gencha@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Apologies, I would recommend checking out www.bluebrixx.com/en/ to get an impression of what other vendors offer. You can look up the brands and models on your local Amazon, Alibaba, your local brick dealer, … These prices are a lot lower that LEGO sets, so you might be able to try different vendors and see what’s on the market.

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  • JeremyT@lemmy.teaisatfour.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    cheaper than lego

    I’m listening. Please do share.

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    • ours@lemmy.film ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      My kid got a non Lego set as a gift and what a letdown that was. It’s a frustrating excersise as the construction simply doesn’t holds up like the real thing.

      We had to give up building the damn thing.

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  • karlthemailman@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Any brands you would recommend?

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• 30mag@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  On the whole, most products Lego builds are identical injection molded chunks of plastic, and not complicated cars filled with exotic materials like glass, steel and cobalt.

  Only the hardest hitting journalism of the highest quality from Jalopnik. Who else would appreciate the difficulties encountered trying to incorporate exotic materials like glass and steel into a vehicle?

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• NathanielThomas@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This reminds me of the episode when Homer Simpson was allowed to design a car.

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• ebits21@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  So just use Lego bricks.

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• TimeSquirrel@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I'm not even sure the Space Shuttle was built with those ridiculous tolerances. Does he know what he's saying?

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• jugalator@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I know it’s supposed to make them sound good and might indeed be meant for leaking, but all I can think of is the demands on quality assurance and risks of failures down the road if such precision is paramount for the operation of the vehicle.

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• ImpossibleRubiksCube@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  That thing looks like a soda machine toppled onto a pallete jack and spray painted the color of the road…

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• drdabbles@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This man is like an unintelligent P.T. Barnum.

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• Grant_M@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  No amount of accuracy is going to fix the ugly of that thing.

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• domesticstreetcat@feddit.ch ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Kind of wish we would just get away from cars. I’m in a car centric neighborhood and miss the days of when I didn’t live in one.

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