Pretty cool factory paint

[glhs837]

Tesla's evident paint shop improvements lie within Quicksilver from Giga Berlin

Tesla's Model Y in Quicksilver shows how it has overcome many of the paint issues that several owners once complained about.

www.teslarati.com

Scroll through the gallery. Pretty neat effects.

 

[Kyle]

So... They learned how to paint?

 

[phreddyp]

Got to have something to look at while it sits charging for hours.

 

[glhs837]

So... They learned how to paint?

Or more properly, bought a top end painting system from a Japanese company....

 

[PeoplesElbow]

They definitely needed to do something. Looking at the Tesla's in the parking lot at work I could do the job theirs have.

 

[Sneakers]

The Aptera I'm waiting on (now looks like the end of 2024... ) has decided to go with wraps instead of paint. Yeah, lots and lots of discussion on that one....

 

[glhs837]

They definitely needed to do something. Looking at the Tesla's in the parking lot at work I could do the job theirs have.

Mine won't have paint.

 

[Sneakers]

Mine won't have paint.

Turquoise Blue and Primer Gray? Cheech and Chong.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Mine won't have paint.

Too bad those panels aren't aluminum.

Batemans Custom Coatings | Jackson NJ

Batemans Custom Coatings, Jackson, MI. 5,547 likes · 499 talking about this. Specializing in all your aluminum anodizing needs. We offer great service and amazing pricing!

m.facebook.com

 

[glhs837]

Too bad those panels aren't aluminum.

Batemans Custom Coatings | Jackson NJ

Batemans Custom Coatings, Jackson, MI. 5,547 likes · 499 talking about this. Specializing in all your aluminum anodizing needs. We offer great service and amazing pricing!

m.facebook.com

Even with a coating, I dont think aluminum will be as tough as 30x (Somewhere around 4 maybe, but its a custom alloy with no assigned number yet) cold rolled stainless, and I'm not sure how thick it would have to be to be as strong. Lots of folks plant to wrap, some are talking about heat treating, I'm happy with the plain surface. Part of the draw is no surface care required.

Wonder what some of those aluminum treatments would cost over an object that size.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I was thinking more about the cool look.

Stainless isn't especially strong, I sure wouldn't heat treat it, the vehicle is designed for crashworthiness as is. A stronger hood panel could end up decapitating anyone driving in a minor accident instead of crumpling.

 

[Sneakers]

I've never been fond of plain stainless surfaces. They tend to mar easily, scratch, minor dents, impossible to keep fingerprint-free.

 

[glhs837]

I was thinking more about the cool look.

Stainless isn't especially strong, I sure wouldn't heat treat it, the vehicle is designed for crashworthiness as is. A stronger hood panel could end up decapitating anyone driving in a minor accident instead of crumpling.

Agreed, the heat treat folks are really focussed on color, not the fact that they would be changing the material. And 4mm cold rolled is pretty strong that's what they are making Starship out of after all....

I've never been fond of plain stainless surfaces. They tend to mar easily, scratch, minor dents, impossible to keep fingerprint-free.

I think this stuff should fare better than the sort of stainless we normally deal with, at least against scratches. This isn't thin cladding like a fridge or Delorean but plate almost.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Agreed, the heat treat folks are really focussed on color, not the fact that they would be changing the material. And 4mm cold rolled is pretty strong that's what they are making Starship out of after all....




I think this stuff should fare better than the sort of stainless we normally deal with, at least against scratches. This isn't thin cladding like a fridge or Delorean but plate almost.

Depends on what they do to the surface, I'd like a bead blasted surface. Scratching has more to do with abrasive properties, not how strong it is. Titanium scratches easily.

I think in the end a lot of people won't be happy with a stainless finish.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

To explant I think a lot of people are going to try to mirror finish their cyber trucks and with all those flat panels I see blinded drivers from the sun, headlight reflection etc.

People just don't think things through sometimes.

 

[glhs837]

Depends on what they do to the surface, I'd like a bead blasted surface. Scratching has more to do with abrasive properties, not how strong it is. Titanium scratches easily.

I think in the end a lot of people won't be happy with a stainless finish.

No telling, but they certainly have the metallurgy chops to make it resistant to scratching. They have access to the SpaceX Starship engineers who have been working these last two years down at Boca. Whether that can be done cost effectively at scale is the main question. Lots of questions we don't have answers for yet, just speculation. Just working this sort of steel in these sizes for automotive production line speeds hasnt been done that I know of. The presses will make the giant castings at a pace of between 90-120 seconds each, so I would imagine the process for producing an exoskeleton will need to be as speedy. Cut raw sheet, score, fold, and weld. Gonna be interesting to see it how the process works.

What do you think they will be unhappy with? Given we really don't know much about the alloy and its behavior.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

No telling, but they certainly have the metallurgy chops to make it resistant to scratching. They have access to the SpaceX Starship engineers who have been working these last two years down at Boca. Whether that can be done cost effectively at scale is the main question. Lots of questions we don't have answers for yet, just speculation. Just working this sort of steel in these sizes for automotive production line speeds hasnt been done that I know of. The presses will make the giant castings at a pace of between 90-120 seconds each, so I would imagine the process for producing an exoskeleton will need to be as speedy. Cut raw sheet, score, fold, and weld. Gonna be interesting to see it how the process works.

What do you think they will be unhappy with? Given we really don't know much about the alloy and its behavior.

I think they will be unhappy with the fact it is bare metal. You said people are already talking about heat treating for color.

It won't age great out in the weather, won't stay smooth feeling etc unless it has some sort of coating.

Due to crumple requirements I doubt they will make it ultra strong, stuff that goes into space doesn't have those sort of requirements.

 

[glhs837]

I think they will be unhappy with the fact it is bare metal. You said people are already talking about heat treating for color.

It won't age great out in the weather, won't stay smooth feeling etc unless it has some sort of coating.

Due to crumple requirements I doubt they will make it ultra strong, stuff that goes into space doesn't have those sort of requirements.

Some people are, but a lot of people wrap or paint new cars, while most leave it alone. I just posted a poll in a FB group with 136k members, of which at least 136 are most likely not GM/Ford/Ram trolls explaining why its not a "Real Truck" tm and cant do Real Truck Stuff tm like hauling a trailer with a Cat D6 on it, like all the F-150s can And yes, I've been told that its not a real truck for that reason

Might be coated or treated, we just dont know.

Crumple I think will be handled by scoring the plates to guide crash energy, just like crumple beams in conventional auto bodies do now. So front and sides will collapse in a designed way. And the stuff they are sending into space isnt unlike other things that have gone to space in that these are fully reusable with an expected lifespan of years with tens or hundreds of launches so durability is a requirement for Starship. That was one of the reasons they went with steel, these new rockets are not throwaways.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

Some people are, but a lot of people wrap or paint new cars, while most leave it alone. I just posted a poll in a FB group with 136k members, of which at least 136 are most likely not GM/Ford/Ram trolls explaining why its not a "Real Truck" tm and cant do Real Truck Stuff tm like hauling a trailer with a Cat D6 on it, like all the F-150s can And yes, I've been told that its not a real truck for that reason

Might be coated or treated, we just dont know.

Crumple I think will be handled by scoring the plates to guide crash energy, just like crumple beams in conventional auto bodies do now. So front and sides will collapse in a designed way. And the stuff they are sending into space isnt unlike other things that have gone to space in that these are fully reusable with an expected lifespan of years with tens or hundreds of launches so durability is a requirement for Starship. That was one of the reasons they went with steel, these new rockets are not throwaways.

A fun little face about DeLorian, they assumed a tooling life similar to regular steel for the stamping presses. It turned out the stainless wore the dies may way faster than the standard auto body steel. If he hadn't gotten caught up in the cocaine charges the company would have probably gone under anyway. They also had issues with engines and transmissions but those ones are well understood. There was no way the back to the future car made it up to 88 mph in a mall parking lot.

 

[glhs837]

Yep, even in that thin gauge they used, curves were a bad idea. That's why the CT has none. You try that, you need presses way more powerful, and you will still break the steel. So it's flat planes. Which is what folks don't get. The eight-bit styling falls out of the material choice.