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Comment by Sammi | Hacker News Reader

The cybertruck was claimed to be a steel exoskeleton. They ended up releasing a car with heavy steel plates glued on.

It's not at all conspiracy theory. It's just same old over promise and under deliver that Elon does.

What you just relayed is another misleading claim purveyed by obsessives. Cybertruck is not a true exoskeleton design, but neither are the steel plates decorative. It is a hybrid -- the unibody shell carries some minimal structural load, but it's not sufficient on its own. The exterior skin is structurally necessary for torsional rigidity and contributes meaningfully to the overall chassis strength.

All major exterior panels are welded and/or bolted on. On the earliest revisions, the thin upper door trim strips were bonded using a bad structural adhesive which became brittle with temperature cycling. These were recalled and remedied with a different structural adhesive plus a welded stud. Such recalls are very common; the current generation Ford Explorer had multiple recalls for exterior panels falling off.

Wow high bar there comparing the Cybertruck to a Ford Explorer.

What's misleading? You just said it's not a steel exoskeleton, and that the panels were glued on. If your point is that a true exoskeleton isn't needed for sufficient rigidity and strength, sure, fine, but you should make that claim and point out why it's misleading, all you've said is that the claim is correct, but that other cars are made similarly.

They said that only the "thin upper door trim" is glued on.

I explained that the exterior panels are structurally necessary and that the major ones are welded or bolted on. The response above somehow recasts that as me agreeing they're just plates glued on. That's not a serious attempt to engage with what I wrote. I think it's reasonable to assert an absence of good faith here.

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