Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
Tesla is reportedly planning a reveal of its self-driving robotaxi on the Warner Bros. lot amid widespread anger in the industry over the brand’s controversial CEO, Elon Musk, resulting in a rejection of its cars.
What is the problem with glued panels?
Well for one glue breaks down at borderline random amounts, could last one year could last a hundred also imagone if one came off going 70 on the 15.
Adhesives are used in many aerospace applications to bond panels and structural elements. Some Lotus racing and street cars chassis are bonded aluminum! Lotus are racing chassis specialists, making chassis for other racing teams.
The space shuttle’s bottom tile heat shield, which withstood insane temperatures and stresses, were glued.
Adhesive science is pretty cool. You may want to read up a bit.
Take a look here. I’ve used their adhesives and 3M, also an impressive range, in a signmaking business I used to own. Not a single sign has failed in decades, weathering rain, snow, wind, very hot summers. We are talking pretty big surfaces, under pretty big loads and stresses.
I find your post very cool but I still have skepticism about the application of adhesives here, specifically because they seem to be used on this truck in many places where they don’t need to be. Why use an adhesive over a fastener? In my mind, you generally wouldn’t.
Also I think signage is a decent comparison to an automotive application but it isn’t a perfect one. You’re basically comparing a mostly static load scenario to a completely dynamic one. It’d be more akin to the aerospace example but even those adhesives are in a very different use case. These cybertruck adhesives have to last 7+ years of thermal cycling and dynamic loading. If these adhesives hold up over time, I’ll be very impressed.
Im vague aware though my interests lay with metallurgy and old pieces of tech, these two kinda feed into eachother. Anyways my point shouldve reflected moreso on the fact that Tesla has shit build quality that makes the Ford Pinto look like an M1 Abrams in comparison, do you really think they are using decwnt quality adhesive for their vehicles?