r/wallstreetbets • u/ShirlLotJack • 22d ago

News [Fortune] Elon Musk's Tesla reportedly halts Cybertruck deliveries as owners complain of metal sides falling off

https://fortune.com/2025/03/14/elon-musk-tesla-cybertruck-delivery-halt-owners-complain-of-metal-sides-falling-off/
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u/anonymousbopper767 22d ago

Adhesives can be great.

Knowing Elmo, he just arbitrarily decided to stop applying them properly thinking he knows better than the manufacturer.

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u/sdoorex 22d ago

Yeah, but it’s the same company that used non-automotive, aka heat sensitive, adhesive in their touch screens.

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u/stinky_wizzleteet 21d ago

How a vehicle built like a Big Mac box was ever approved for the road I have no idea. Oh wait Elon is co-president.

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u/Fantastic-Newt-9844 22d ago

I haven't looked into the touch screen adhesives, but not using automotive rated items isn't necessarily a problem. If industrial rated parts were used, the industrial heat specs are generally a higher range than automotive heat specs 

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u/totpot 22d ago

He didn't. He bragged about using off the shelf stuff that you find at Office Depot and laughed at everyone else for wasting money.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LEFT_IRIS 22d ago

Pfffffttttt hahahahahahaha god damn that’s so fucking funny. People truly have no idea how complicated adhesives can be lol

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 20d ago

[deleted]

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_LEFT_IRIS 22d ago

If it wasn’t likely to kill us all I would be laughing about that too

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u/aure__entuluva 22d ago

I mean, you'd imagine some of the engineers you hired would lol.

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u/squngy 21d ago

Doesn't matter what they know if no one listens to them

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u/Fantastic-Newt-9844 22d ago

Lol thanks for the context. Hilarious. Shoulda figured he went with the commercial spec 

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u/HammerTh_1701 22d ago

If you're VW, you hire at least 3 adhesive techs per current car model who do nothing but work out the right adhesive mixtures for each application.

If you're Tesla, you use some standard industrial glue for everything and hope for the best.

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u/HomeGrownCoffee 22d ago

*Elmer's glue stick

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u/itscool222 22d ago

I absolutely agree adhesives can be great but to not put 1 or 2 bolts or clips in trim pieces is stupid.

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u/topdangle 22d ago

adhesives made specifically for this purpose can provide more than enough of a bond for panels. they remain very tightly bonded even at very high and low temperatures.

either used a cheap adhesive that worked where they designed this piece of crap but not at wider temperature ranges, or they didn't follow instructions so that they could rush the cars out the door without a proper bond. panels properly bonded would not peel off like this. you'd break something before managing to detach it from the glue with just force.

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u/sentrypetal 22d ago

Not if the two metals had different thermal coefficients and expanded at different rates. The stresses would so large micro cracks in the metals would occur resulting in eventual failure

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u/topdangle 22d ago

maybe in theory but not on a brand new bond.

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u/snugglezone 22d ago

Something something ocean gate?

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u/dasunt 22d ago

Ocean gate had a bunch of things happening with their design that basically boiled down to untested, unique design, that left its occupants as human guinea pigs.

Which may not be too far from Tesla's philosophy.

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u/jabroni4545 22d ago edited 22d ago

The stainless panels are glued into steel frames and those frames are secured the vehicle frame with bolts or clips. The problem part for the stop sale seems to be the thin strip over the doors.

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u/Techun2 22d ago

Plenty of real car frames are basically glued together

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u/kadren170 22d ago

He's using Elmo's Glue, not Elmer's

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u/RaNdomMSPPro 22d ago

Why are you using so much glue? Just a few drops so I can make an extra $.47 per “truck.” If it falls off, add another drop.

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u/GravyPainter 22d ago

Hes all about cutting costs... Maybe too much

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u/Inevitable_Vast6828 19d ago

Exactly, the Lotus engineers they brought over early on knew what they were doing with adhesives. They probably ditched this disaster a long time back now and no one there knows what they're doing now.

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u/SpirtualSherbert481 19d ago

Wait. The left says Elon not that smart or special since he doesn’t actually build cars and rockets. He has engineers do that but when something goes wrong, it’s Elon fault?

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u/anonymousbopper767 19d ago

the engineers do know what to do and then Elmo shows up and orders them to do it wrong because he is high on his own bullshit. Or he will set impossible conditions and no one wants to tell him it’s impossible. “

Mind you he tweeted a few weeks ago thinking planes flying in non-straight lines is just a fixable inefficiency.