Tesla is facing issues with the bare metal construction of the Cybertruck, which Elon Musk warned was as tricky to do as making Lego bricks
Tesla is facing issues with the bare metal construction of the Cybertruck, which Elon Musk warned was as tricky to do as making Lego bricks
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.
He’s probably hyper self conscious about people ripping into Teslas over their clearances (with inconsistencies 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.
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.
Elon: “Stacking” tolerances? No, we will not tolerate anything less than micron precision on every aspect of the design.
Micron, as in 0.00004"? Yes you COULD hold it, with second ops and temp control.
The article states “sub 10 micron”, which I interpreted to be +/- .0004" in practice
The total tolerance is .0004". In equally disposed bilateral tolerancing it will be ±.0002".
Eh, if someone tells me to reduce a tolerance from 5 to 10 thou at work, it’s understood that it’s +/-5 and 10. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone use the full range of a tolerance in conversation. If the tolerance isn’t bilateral, it would be said like plus 5, minus zero. Anyways, +/- .0005" is our standard tolerance on the span of all dowel hole pairs.
On the dowel hole point, just measuring this stuff is going to take at the bare minimum an automated and purpose built CMM, which will drive the cost up even more. If we are to assume +/- 5 microns for every single part - we are talking about the level of manufacturing that Mitutoyo or Starrett have. This will be a multi-million dollar vehicle that noone would buy.
Just curious… what does Starrett have that Tesla will need?
Starrett isn’t known for quality precision metrology.
Well, in terms of for real metrology, you are correct. A better comparison would have been Brown and Sharpe. However, Starrett has more than enough reputation of everything that they produce being of a very high standard- primarily layout tools like calipers, precision levels, etc.
ETA: This could very well be my bias as an American showing.