The Tesla Cybertruck will be unlike any other vehicle on the road today, not only thanks to its crazy design, but also the material it's made of and how its structure works.
The Cybertruck will wear a body that's actually an exoskeleton made of ultra-hard cold-rolled stainless steel. Tesla just applied for a patent for the material, and CEO Elon Musk confirmed it.
It has been known from the beginning the Cybertruck was to be made of cold-rolled stainless steel, one of the reasons it's to be so unique. It also won't be painted. The Tesla electric pickup truck will come from the factory in just a single color, and we can only imagine people are going to have a field day wrapping it.
Tesla noted early on it planned to develop its own alloy for the Cybertruck's exterior, which comes as no surprise since it seems the EV maker tries to do as much as possible in-house. Now, the news is spreading Tesla applied for an official patent for the special material.
A portion of the patent, titled “Ultra-Hard Cold-Worked Steel Alloy,” reads as follows: "In some embodiments, at least one exterior panel and/or body of the vehicle comprises the steel alloy. In some embodiments, the vehicle architecture is designed such that the exterior panels of the vehicle also contribute to the vehicle’s structural performance, wherein such exterior paneling of a vehicle may be referred to as an 'exoskeleton.'"
The patent mentions other prospective embodiments, though it seems clear it's all in reference to the upcoming Cybertruck.
If there were any doubt about the materials and their use, Musk may have cast them away. Tesmanian tweeted a link to an article about the patent, and the CEO responded on Twitter with just two words: "New metal."
The Cybertruck is due to come to market later this year, with large-scale production coming in 2024, as Musk also confirmed again. However, there hasn't been any official information about the company or companies that will manufacture the new metal for Tesla, but there's been some talk on social media about a company called Steel Dynamics.
Steel Dynamics has a huge factory in Texas not too far from Tesla's Gigafactory. Hopefully, since early production is expected to start soon, we'll get more information in the near future.
