the cybertruck, Elon Musk’s steel car… not so stainless

This stainless steel vehicle from the Tesla brand is supposed to never rust, yet motorists complain of rust stains, far from the revolutionary brand image.

“Tesla’s best product”, had promised Elon Musk, the CEO, about the latest innovation from the Tesla brand, the cybertruck, a futuristic stainless steel car supposed to never rust. Except that, already, Many owners report rust spots on the bodywork, sometimes after just two days in the rain.

Owners who wonder if they haven’t been cheated a bit by spending between 50,000 and 90,000 euros for a stainless car which oxidizes after a few days. On the condition that we can talk about a car about a monster of scrap metal on wheels, halfway between an armored truck and a tin can.

A “surface contamination”, according to Tesla

To defend the cybertruck, a long-time Tesla employee downplays the problem, citing not real corrosion, but “surface contamination”. Surface rust, nothing to panic about. Besides, doesn’t everything end up rusting in life, like the Eiffel Tower?

Except that this affair is a new outing for Tesla, whose stock has lost more than a quarter of its value since the start of the year. While the driverless car promised by Elon Musk is still awaited, vehicle recalls due to dangerous assisted driving software are increasing, as are component shortages. We are therefore very far from the revolutionary brand image of Tesla for whom everything got off to a flying start.

A return of 40 years to the past

Especially since these stories of rust are not new. An American manufacturer had already tried to launch a stainless steel vehicle in 1983. The famous Delorean replicated in the film Back to the future by Robert Zemeckis. At the time, the main problem with this luxury car was already steel corrosion.

Elon Musk, like Doc Brown and Marty Mac Fly, therefore seems to have succeeded in taking us not into the future, nor to Mars, but 40 years back. It is therefore impossible not to think of this very ironic statement from the great author of the Mars TrilogyKim Stanley Robinson, about Elon Musk who according to him is only“a cliché of science fiction from the 1920s, a few decades late”.