After almost four years of work, the Tesla Cybertruck is nearly ready to be used. Since the company just finished building a prototype of the vehicle at its Austin, Texas, plant, the truck is in its final stages before sending it to the customer. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has told his workers to make sure that the Cybertruck is built even better than the company has done in the past. Cybertruck Owners Club shared a leaked email that said Musk wants all parts used in the final building of the vehicle to have tolerances of less than 10 microns. Tolerances are the amount that a claim can change from its planned design. That’s 100th of a millimeter. Musk writes in his email that Cybertruck’s shiny metal and straight lines make it stand out. “All parts of this vehicle, whether in-house or supplied, must be designed and built with an accuracy of less than 10 microns.” He said all part sizes must be given in millimeters to the third decimal place, and tolerances must be given in microns with only one number. Can we do it if cheap things like LEGO and soda cans can do it? Perfectionism means being very accurate. Almost every business that makes things can now measure things accurately. The problem is that goods with tighter tolerances tend to be more expensive, and Musk’s tolerances are about half the size of a human hair. Bugatti, which makes million-dollar hypercars, uses 3D scanners to check tolerances of 5 microns after making them. The more exact something is, the harder it may be to do it the same way every time. Each of these things could be expensive to make in terms of production. When it comes to tools, precision equipment is usually expensive. However, consumable goods, like stamping dies and machining tools, wear out over time and must be changed. As the parts get farther out of tolerance, changing the tools could cause a lot of waste. One example is changing a casting body, which Tesla often does when making cars. Also, it’s expensive to make things with a micron-level of accuracy using methods like laser cutting, which Tesla said would be used to score the sheet metal of the Cybertruck’s armor so it could be folded like “origami.” Precision prices are also going up in the area of labor. A production line can only make a certain number of cars each day, and people are usually the slowest part. When people work faster, their work may not be as good. Also, if techs are at the end of the assembly line to check tolerances and other quality control measures, the number of cars that need to be fixed before they can be driven off the lot may go up quickly. Even though it’s unlikely that Tesla will use a micrometer to check the gaps between panels and want tolerances of less than 10 microns, Musk wants perfect measures of parts in general. So, this may affect bolts, screws, and other components used in the final production from suppliers or production lines further upstream. Tesla’s reputation for accuracy and perfection isn’t exactly something to be jealous of. Its quality control has always been a problem, but despite improvements, vehicles still need to be given problems like panel gaps and paint chips that are okay if they are less than 2 millimeters in size. The Tesla community has taken on quality checks before delivery, making web tools and standards to make the process easier. It’s good to see that Tesla wants to get better at this. Even though Musk has supported similar quality improvements in the past, the results still need improvement. Trying to do these things reasonably has a lot going for it. Any way you look at it, the Cybertruck will soon be on the road. Tesla plans to have its first delivery event by the end of the quarter in less than a month. Even though there isn’t a set date for the event or the first deliveries, the manufacturer recently added an offer to the delivery event to its app to incentivize people to tell their friends about it.
