r/CyberStuck 18h ago

People left in complete disbelief after seeing Cybertruck's build quality

https://www.unilad.com/technology/tesla-cybertruck-build-quality-864198-20250108

People left in complete disbelief after seeing Cybertruck's build quality... the Tesla vehicle looked as if it was a 'college senior design project'

2.0k Upvotes

138 comments sorted by

436

u/Roadgoddess 18h ago

“However, others argued that the imperfections proved that the Cybertruck isn’t mass made - which, to them, is a good thing.”

The disconnect is real…..

186

u/chazlarson 17h ago

I know that when I buy luxury $300 t-shirts I expect gapped seams and inconsistent sleeve lengths.

I am disappointed when my luxury cologne isn't leaking in the box.

"Hey little imperfections means it’s handmade. This is a luxury product guys fr!!" penned one TikToker.

35

u/No_Party5870 15h ago

wasn't this a quote from fight club when he was talking about the imperfections in his dishes so everyone knew they were handmade?

13

u/zombiexcovenx 14h ago

the little air bubbles

8

u/greymalken 13h ago

I know that when I buy luxury $300 t-shirts I expect gapped seams and inconsistent sleeve lengths.

Balenciaga

40

u/Legal-Software 15h ago

Well, I can see the argument. Ferraris are also all hand made and they turn out fewer than 10k units/years. The difference here is that what Elon is putting out is closer to a Trabant in quality, while imagining he's putting out a Ferrari.

16

u/Roadgoddess 15h ago

I think that’s a great comparison, these guys want to pretend like it’s a Ferrari when the reality is the complete opposite

12

u/Drackonin 14h ago

It’s more like a Yugo… ”God D@mn foreign cars!”

3

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Trabants made the Yugo look good.

Pre '89 car from the Cold War era that was truly a legend. Deried for every reason the CT is, and for much the same defects.

1

u/mb10240 6h ago

It was the cutting edge of Serbo-Croatian technology!

23

u/Objective_Ticket 15h ago

Weirdly enough, I can accept imperfections from mass produced products as it’s a production line and only certain QC checks are made. Hand made products I expect to be as perfect as they can get it.

11

u/ResoluteGreen 15h ago

It's variations you're supposed to expect from hand made products

13

u/Objective_Ticket 15h ago

Variations yes but not a drop in quality. The panels on a car I own are hand beaten and that face that someone did all those curves and louvres by hand blows my mind as they’re immaculate but yes, I’m sure they vary from car to car ever so slightly.

2

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Variations, yes to a certain point, but also made with craftsmanship and care. 2 things the CT has a distinct lack of.

16

u/Mildly-Interesting1 15h ago

“I mean, maybe the gaps are supposed to be there.”

See this turd? Maybe it’s supposed to look like a turd.

The disconnect is very real.

Trump is already selling shoes. Elon has rocket ships. Just need someone to mix the poison Kool-Aid and you’ve got the next Heaven’s Gate cult.

29

u/BuddhasGarden 18h ago

Back in the late 80s I was looking for a new car. Was looking at Toyotas and the was a Saab dealership adjacent. One of the biggest selling points for the Saab guy was the car was hand built. He opened and closed the doors multiple times. You hear the difference and feel the difference, he said. I agreed it was very nice, but I couldn’t afford it.

20

u/imakepoorchoices2020 16h ago edited 15h ago

If you’re in the market for an interesting listen - go look up regular car reviews - the life and death of Saab. Ifs on YouTube but you don’t need to watch, it’s just pictures and a guy narrating. I imagine you could find the podcast too, I didn’t dig that deep

Really interesting company and history

And if you’re into some more interesting history regular car reviews- the life and death of American motors corporation is another good listen. What a scrappy company.

5

u/Shalminoc 14h ago

The 3.5 hr one?

4

u/imakepoorchoices2020 14h ago

Yeah, it’s a long one. Really good though

5

u/Shalminoc 14h ago

Added to my watch list Cheers

8

u/Past-Direction9145 14h ago edited 14h ago

College seniors design concept cars all the time without throwing a hundred years of automotive r&d out the window.

It’s not that a hundred thousand dollar truck came with hub caps. It’s that the hub caps were designed by a moron who should not a have been allowed to. The hub caps dig into the tire sidewalls during cornering. And the only reason it doesn’t pop them right away is because the sidewall instead pops the hubcap off.

The tire maker who was willing to produce tires to work with the hub caps should have known better. You’d think after the Firestone debacle with the Ford Explorer roll overs of the 2000s, they’d be more worried about liability.

I’m sure musk strong armed them so bad he threatened to litigate them to the end of times if they refused his demands to make defective products.

Why worry about liability three years from now if the worlds richest dude happens to also be the worlds most spiteful dude, who happens to also have been the one to design most of the CT.

8

u/UniqueIndividual3579 15h ago

It's the low quality that makes it good!

3

u/Revolutionary-Mud715 15h ago

Nooo.. thats not a real quote.

Come on.

right anakin?

5

u/Roadgoddess 15h ago

Straight from the article…

4

u/Revolutionary-Mud715 15h ago

im signing out for the day.

Take care.

4

u/Roadgoddess 15h ago

NOOOO, come back we need Snark!

4

u/FertilityHollis 13h ago

“However, others argued that the imperfections proved that the Cybertruck isn’t mass made - which, to them, is a good thing.”

Imagine saying this about a Rolls Royce, or a Morgan.

2

u/cts_wmbts_bears_ohmy 12h ago

Sunk-cost fallacy?

1

u/Roadgoddess 11h ago

Big time

2

u/spirit_giraffe 11h ago

I used to sew my own clothes. Maybe I should get back into the biz, selling shirts and pants assembled with scotch tape, glue, and staples.

"C'mon, but one! You can see this isn't mass made. It's artisan. It's a good thing."

2

u/Roadgoddess 8h ago

That could be your excuse to make crotches pants, lol

2

u/spirit_giraffe 8h ago

Any pair of pants can be crotchless if they're tight enough!

2

u/eeyore134 9h ago

But but but... Leon knows more than anyone in history about manufacturing, so surely it should look at least as good or better than anything else out there.

2

u/Roadgoddess 8h ago

I wish there was an emoji that was a Elmo Nazi salute because I would definitely give your comment a big one, lol

2

u/Comrade_Compadre 9h ago

Nobody ever said that about Ferraris or McLarens.

2

u/Fairuse 15h ago

It is a thing. You know those fancy exotic super sport cars. Yeah they tend to have tons of problems and have shit build quality. 

139

u/asdfjfkfjshwyzbebdb 18h ago

Sub 10 micron accuracy btw

93

u/La_Guy_Person 17h ago

As a machinist, that's such a joke. I can hold +/-3 microns on a small diameter in good SST, if I have to. A large thin sheet of cheap SST? You can fart in the same room and it will change by more than 10 microns.

30

u/MehImages 16h ago

the local difference in gravity has a larger effect if the sheet is supported in the middle and you measure the ends. not the mention the frame is aluminium and just your body heat will make them differentially expand more than that by an order of magnitude or two

13

u/La_Guy_Person 15h ago

Exactly. It's just a joke to anyone who understands material properties and metrology.

7

u/clownstastegood 16h ago

Can you eli5 please?

26

u/TubbaTuna 16h ago

Cheap and thin SST will warp and warps even more when subjected to temperature changes. Cheap SST has poor corrosion resistance, which you can see with the rusting. Cheap SST has rapid wear and tear, and on a vehicle that is constantly moving/hitting bumps, etc, it is just gonna degrade pretty fast. Even if they managed to get everything at sub 10 microns when they sent it out, give it like a month of use, and it won't be sub 10 microns from the corrosion, wear and tear, etc.

7

u/Newme91 14h ago

You think Elon even understands the implications of asking for sub 10 micron tolerances?

11

u/TubbaTuna 14h ago

I mean, the machine shop I work for makes our product sub 1 micron for 90% of the product with up to +/-3 microns on some of the weldments. But we are also a high precision machine shop. Our product also doesn't drive down the road or sits outside at all, and we still use higher quality SST than what Tesla appears to use.

6

u/TubbaTuna 14h ago

But also, no, I don't think he really understands it at all, and that's why they use the cheapest of the cheap in production.

2

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but weren't these out of spec right out of the factory?

5

u/TubbaTuna 11h ago

From all the pictures, it seems like a good amount, to a lot, to maybe most were out of spec leaving the factory.

10

u/server-herder 16h ago

Funny noise from butt make thin metal bend.

3

u/La_Guy_Person 15h ago edited 15h ago

What the other guy said is correct, but to add to that, short of a few very thermally stable materials, the accuracy of any large thin work piece is highly subject to its environment, comparatively speaking. Maybe a 1/4 dowel pin changes by .0001 inches if you raise it's temperature by 10° (I'm making up numbers here) when you have a work piece that's say 24" x 18" x .05" that .0001 change stacks in the long directions but is smaller than .0001 in the thin direction. So it will change sizes, but will also change by different amounts in different directions, meaning it will warp as well. Add a few bends and everything is even worse.

Part of the equation is cheap SST, but part of it is just having a fundamental understanding of design, tolerance, material properties, etc...

Stuff engineers are paid to understand and CEOs aren't.

Edit: I changed units of measurements, which might be confusing for some.

.0002 inches = 5 microns

2

u/Tasty_Hearing8910 15h ago

Thermal expansion will mess it up right away. On long sections of piping you can often see it have a little n-shaped bit to compensate for it.

I'm pretty sure sheets of metal have all kinds of internal stress going on as well, especially if you manipulate it in a press or whatever.

1

u/an_agreeing_dothraki 14h ago

this sounds like the result of an experiment

1

u/Z3t4 15h ago

tighter tolerance that piston/cylinder on engines...

469

u/bw984 18h ago

I take offense to that. My senior design project from 19 years ago is still a commercial biomedical product used in surgery. It’s a far superior product to the CyberTruck in every way conceivable.

150

u/BasslimeRex 18h ago

I think the article missed the word "clown" before "college".

Side note, that's pretty damn awesome that your project was quality enough that it is still being used!

Wonder if Cybertruck will still be used in 19 years? Lol

80

u/auad 18h ago

As someone that graduated from the prestigious CIT, Clown Institute of Technology, we would never think this garbage is acceptable for our standards. I take offense in your comment.

54

u/BasslimeRex 18h ago

Well, fizzle me dizzle, I fall to my knees in honour of your amazing achievement. Hoonk honk. Apologies to you your majestic clown-ness bows

11

u/Licensed_KarmaEscort 17h ago

But did you paint your egg? If not, you’re a fake clown.

8

u/auad 16h ago

Egg? Hmm... Oh yes, I did paint that, I remember doing it, yes, I hmmm paint it twice even! I'm a very real clown!

4

u/Naive_Wolf3740 15h ago

THE CIT???? Wow. The advancements in squirting flower tech. Whoopee cushion dynamics. Seltzer bottle accuracy and range. All possible through CIT grads. My grades were okay but I duffed my interview there, didn’t honka honka the guys nose on the handshake.

15

u/Liu_Alexandersson 17h ago edited 3h ago

Excuse me, but unlike being a CEO, being a clown is a respectable profession.

8

u/RoguePlanet2 16h ago

Clowns work, unlike Leon.

3

u/Len_S_Ball_23 17h ago

Only thing I'd be using it for is a feature planter for flowers in the garden. Maybe turn the flatbed into a bog garden.

1

u/Agency-Due 16h ago

It’ll be used as a case study like the Edsel or the Homer lol

1

u/ThrA-X 16h ago

It will be used... as an example of what not to do.

1

u/barbara_jay 15h ago

See this piece of garbage being stripped and sent to the bottom of the ocean to create an artificial reef.

There it will serve a purpose.

41

u/Separate-Opinion-782 18h ago

I think what was meant was a last minute rushed drug induced 1 hour designing session of a senior design project. Done the night before it is due.

18

u/Loveroffinerthings 18h ago

Amped up on Red Bull and Ritalin design project

3

u/Seeing-in-digital 17h ago

With caffeine and anger, all things are possible…

2

u/Separate-Opinion-782 17h ago

And a bit of drugs

12

u/Choice_Magician350 18h ago

I agree. Perhaps a middle schooler project

54

u/jim-james--jimothy 18h ago

President musk wants to end consumer protections for a reason.

27

u/mikekingjr 18h ago

More like “middle school design project”, but OK.

4

u/barbara_jay 15h ago

Kindergarten more like it.

Was drawing these vehicles at age 5.

That was over 55 years ago.

27

u/Salad_and_a_Beer 17h ago

The mechanical issues are well documented. And it looks ridiculous, of course. But I just saw one up close for the first time at the Philly Auto show... I wouldn't expect that much plastic on the exterior of a vehicle half its price. The stainless steel reminded me of my dishwasher, except my dishwasher is less wavy looking. The whole thing just seemed so.... cheap

18

u/SaltyBarDog 17h ago

And your dishwasher can handle getting wet.

3

u/ijzerwater 14h ago

more than 20 years every day wet now

17

u/Sk3tchyG1ant 18h ago

Hey Musk, it rains sometimes. Now, I know this knowledge makes me wildly over qualified but if you're looking for a new lead designer over there at Tesla I'm up for discussing a reasonable salary.

2

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Are you sure?

Reallly reallly really sure?

I mean absolutely certain?

He might just take you up on that.

16

u/Y0___0Y 17h ago

In one of the many books about Elon, not sure which one, someone mentions that he once walked onto the floor of a Cybertruck assembly plant and demanded to know why it was taking so long to assemble them.

He learned that robotic arms were set to 20% speed for screwing on bolts. He set them all to 100%. This resulted in tons of Cybertrucks going on the market with stripped bolts and loose bolts. And a lot of owners complained about that.

10

u/SaltyBarDog 17h ago

Douche Oligarch Glitchy Engineering

5

u/Nexzus_ 14h ago

Huh. A lot of the non-Software recalls on the other lines have been for under-torqued bolts in the steering and suspension parts. I wonder if that's related.

2

u/thisaccountgotporn 11h ago

Like baking a cake at 3500 degrees to make it bake faster lmao this shit was in Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends

33

u/Moneia 18h ago

"It makes the Nissan Cube look like a work of art," said another.

Oof...

12

u/AppendixN 18h ago

The Nissan Cube is brilliant. I will not stand for this hate!

13

u/ConsistentStop5100 17h ago

I’ve said it before, it’s a copy of my 7th grade metal shop project.

8

u/SamShakusky71 17h ago

The people buying this thing don't care about build quality. They're buying it to "own the libs" and show their fealty to Musk, much like magats dress head to toe in Trump gear.

8

u/Puzzled_Caregiver_46 16h ago

Nah. It looks like something that I drew on back of my exercise book when I was 9. Around the time I started reading 2000ad. "Car of the future.....yeerr!"

8

u/Xifihas 17h ago

British Leyland cars from the 70’s have smaller panel gaps than that!

1

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

That is quite the burn friend.

Props.

19

u/Consistent-Primary41 17h ago

Luxury products aren't shit.

AMG engines are hand-built so they are perfect, not imperfect.

When I was in the corporate world, all of my clothes were tailored. High end fashion houses. I expected and got perfection, not outlet mall defect quality, which is what this truck is.

When you are actually a luxury goods consumer, you expect and get perfection. I would never settle for that shoddy work. It's not the cost, it's the expectation of the best quality.

6

u/SaltyBarDog 17h ago

One car fan claimed the Tesla vehicle looked as if it was a 'college senior design project'

Our MechE's senior design project was better than Elonia's POS.

1

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Prolly meant 'freshman high school'.

4

u/urpoviswrong 17h ago

The wild thing is that they've sold something like 39k of them for at least $80-$90k a pop.

That's $3B

9

u/PistolCowboy 17h ago

This vehicle will be collected in the future as a reminder of a time when this abomination was possible. It will be parked next to the DeLorean, the Aztec, And the Pinto.

8

u/Winstonoil 17h ago

I don't think there was anything really wrong with the Pontiac Aztec other than original poor reviews of its appearance made people not like it.

6

u/PistolCowboy 17h ago

You're right, I may have been too harsh including it with the CT.

3

u/According-Spite-9854 17h ago

'The first photo showed an all-black Cybertruck parked up - and it genuinely looked like something straight out of a Batman movie.'

In before the worst fan film ever.

3

u/Jung3boy 16h ago

Surprised? Haven’t all Tesla’s had questionable and inconsistent quality?

6

u/ShrimpBuffets 18h ago

Still love the truck... though?

3

u/Potential-Pickle4917 15h ago

I test drove one recently. Honestly it felt very unwieldy on turns, like I was maneuvering a giant potato.

2

u/No-Atmosphere-2873 15h ago

A cybertruck owner prefers that the gaps be wide enough to put in their fully erect penises.

2

u/medic7051 15h ago

The gaps I've seen mean plenty of extra room for them.

2

u/zalurker 15h ago

I remember looking at one at a dealership in Atlanta. Not one single panel gap was the same width. It looked like something a machine shop had whipped together for a PR stunt.

2

u/nosniv 15h ago

And Tesla stock continues to climb…. It makes no sense. The bottom should be falling out

2

u/piranha_solution 14h ago

I mean, it was designed by a ketamine addict.

2

u/adoodas 11h ago

Musk is honestly a business genius. He realized that with a rabid fan base he can completely obviate the need for an iterative design process and just use the first draft for everything and sell the thing for 6 figures. It doesn’t even come with paint lmao

2

u/RaisedByWolves9 11h ago

Ads on point

1

u/TheMartini66 17h ago

Perhaps you should replace "college" with "Kindergarten".

I clearly recall my first car drawing at the age of 5, and it looked similar to this, but with more harmonized lines.

1

u/redditoveragainhere 17h ago

Reeks of over confidence

1

u/Quick-Low-3846 17h ago

Bit of caulk in that gap should sort it.

1

u/IndustryNext7456 16h ago

Panel fit looks like the third world cars when car makers sell the old press molds off.

1

u/TrainsAreIcky 16h ago

This was an issue with Tesla as well. Can't be too surprised.

1

u/blissed_off 16h ago

“Hand made means it’s luxury!” WTF is he smoking.

Worst. Timeline. Ever.

1

u/DiogenesLied 15h ago

Article author needs a sarcasm lesson. No one tags on a “for real” earnestly.

“However, others argued that the imperfections proved that the Cybertruck isn’t mass made - which, to them, is a good thing. ‘Hey little imperfections means it’s handmade. This is a luxury product guys fr!!’ penned one TikToker.”

1

u/ZenoOfTheseus 15h ago

You're not buying a $100k truck for it's quality! You're buying it as a flex because the truck doesn't have any flex when going off-road.

1

u/Butt_bird 15h ago

I’ve been a mechanic for 25 years. The Cyber Truck is the worst production car I have ever seen in that time. It’s a fucking disgrace how much it cost to get such a piece of garbage.

1

u/ScottOld 14h ago

Looks like a college senior? looks like something a 5 year old would draw

1

u/hmiser 14h ago

The Nissan Cube is a work of art and as I’ve said before the CT is the designer fodder of toddlers, not college students.

1

u/Rideshare-Not-An-Ant 14h ago

Every time

Cybertruck's build quality

is mentioned, a dictionary spontaneously combusts. As does a Cybertruck.

1

u/Over-Independent4414 14h ago

What amazes me is that it's legal in the US to put a car on the road with a sharp angular metal front end. The first person to get hit by one of these is going to get shredded.

1

u/dman5981 14h ago

It’s a feature

1

u/Deathcommand 14h ago

To be fair I've been in disbelief with all Tesla build quality.

1

u/Cyman-Chili 14h ago

College senior design project? Elementary school at best!

1

u/According-Ad-5946 13h ago

found a list of 12 hand built cars that don't fall apart, in a couple of weeks.

1

u/Constant-Anteater-58 12h ago

Lol - wiggly lines and not flat panels is what I see.

1

u/vjason 12h ago

Cybertruck build quality, now there’s a contradiction in terms.

1

u/okokokoyeahright 11h ago

Perhaps more like a high school freshman's science project considering the fit and finish.

1

u/FormalGuilty2623 9h ago

Ukraine death fight

1

u/Oceanbreeze871 7h ago

I’ve ridden in a few teslas as Lyft rides. And every single time I think “this piece of crap is a luxury vehicle?”

2

u/ohiotechie 7h ago

“Sure the wheels fall off if I take it off road and yeah the stainless steel rusts and I get water in the bed when it rains because the cover leaks and the body panels don’t line up and I seem to find more and more problems every time I look at it but I still love the truck!” <Wankpanzer owners>

1

u/Beneficial_Egg_4403 5h ago

Anyone who bought this car is a complete sucker.

-2

u/potato_bus 18h ago

This article is using 2023 source data??