The Tesla Cybertruck achieves its futuristic looks with modern lighting elements and its slab-sided stainless steel design. Naturally, it needed a wheel and tire package to match. To that end, Tesla designed a set of wheel covers for the model to complete the chunky cyberpunk aesthetic. Except, it hasn’t worked out so well.
Forum users on the Cybertruck Owners Club Forums have been reporting that Cybertrucks have been shipping without wheel covers at all in recent months. “I was delivered my CT on the 24th without covers,” said ConcreteTilt. “Tomorrow is the 1st and I just received another message that they won’t be delivering because they are investigating all the covers and they won’t be delivering the caps until March.” Some noted they’d been advised Tesla had undertaken a “parts containment pending new revision,” while others noted they’d been advised the covers are currently backordered. There’s no recall in place though—the NHTSA presently has nothing on file for the Cybertruck.
It turns out this may be due to a very simple problem. Brian from YouTube channel T Sportline has an excellent explainer that shows us what’s going on. It’s all down to those seven rectangular “spokes” set into the Cybertruck’s wheel covers. Or, more accurately, the rubber extensions that protrude out from each “spoke” of the wheel cover.
Brian starts by pointing to one of the protrusions where it sticks out past the rim and over the tire sidewall. He notes they’re flexible, made of a different material to the hard plastic of the main wheel cover itself. Near the top of the tire, the rubbery extension has a small gap—maybe 1/8th of an inch or so—to the tire sidewall. However, at the bottom of the tire, it’s a different story. Here, the tire bulges out slightly thanks to the weight of the vehicle. In this position, the rubbery extensions can be seen touching the sidewall, or even slightly digging into it. With a few thousand miles on Brian’s Cybertruck, there are already visible marks gouged into the sidewall in the area of each protrusion.
It’s worth noting that each wheel of the Cybertruck has seven of these protrusions. Furthermore, depending on tire pressures and load and so on, each one could be pressing itself into the sidewall on every rotation of the tire. Now, let’s do the math. Take a Cybertruck on its standard 33.5″ diameter tires, doing 60 mph. That wheel is doing around 10 rotations per second, or 600 rpm. Each spoke could be poking the tire sidewall 600 times a minute on the highway. Just a little, but it’s happening.
It’s a unique problem for the Cybertruck, given that the futuristic wheel covers are a design statement for the model. It’s kind of surprising that Tesla didn’t discover this issue in testing. It’s kind of like when your friend goes to Autozone and fits cut springs and plastic flares to their car. You have to expect something’s going to rub, and you need to check.
It may have been that test mules ran without the wheel covers, or that the damage simply wasn’t noticed. It’s worth noting that it may have taken some time for a wheel cover to wear through a tire enough to cause serious damage or a loss of pressure.
It’s true that you’d have to chew out a lot of sidewall to cause a leak. But really, who wants to find out? Ultimately, it’s not safe to have something chewing through the rubber like that, let alone at multiple points on each tire. Anyone concerned about the matter should consider removing the wheel covers. There may be a small aerodynamic penalty involved, but it’s probably safer than having them poking into the tire sidewall on every rotation.
It’s not the only problem the covers have had, either. Electrek noted the case of a production candidate Cybertruck in September last year that saw its wheel cover fly off while driving on San Francisco’s 101 Highway. Despite flying through the air, thankfully, the cover did not appear to cause immediate harm to surrounding traffic. It’s possible that this issue may have been related—it’s easy to imagine a tire undergoing compression, with the bulge pushing into the cover and popping it off the rim.
Amusingly, Brian notes there is one small benefit of this problem. Owners that have the offending wheel covers now likely have a rare, “limited edition” accessory now that Tesla is likely changing the design.
Here’s the deal. If you’re fitting wheel covers of any kind, you need to check clearance. If you’re a young engineer, or just a bad one, take particular heed. You don’t just go up to the vehicle, whip out a ruler, and check the gap in one spot, and call it good. You have to check it all over, at each spot. You have to remember that cars are dynamic things. You have to understand things like tire deformation. Then you have to check and account for them. Even if you forget all this, simple testing and observation will reveal what you missed.
In any case, we’ll be interested to see how Tesla redesigns the wheel covers to avoid this problem. Can it save the protrusions, or will it abandon them entirely? If it were my company, I’d just go with turbofans and just rad the thing up. Just my two cents.
Image credits: Tesla, T Sportline – Tesla Upgrades & Accessories via YouTube Screenshot
I am completely convinced that lower and mid-level engineers knew all about the problem during design and testing, but that this design element was loved by Elon himself so it was impossible to do anything about it from inside the company.
Chrysler has been producing the jeep for 80 years or so.
Remember just a few years ago when they were delivering them to customers without the lateral front axle link welded to the axle? Steering input would cause the the axle to shift under the vehicle, instead of actually applying steering angle to the wheels.
That shit was totally forgivable, everyone makes mistakes.
But this hubcap shit is fucking outrageous.
Who knew that a company that refuses to do pre-production testing and troubleshooting LIKE EVERY REAL CAR COMPANY ON THE PLANET would not find obvious faults with their products until those products are in customer’s hands and bring complaints to them?
After a while, one can no longer blame just the
techcompany and it’s bloviating & distracted CEO doing what they do.The
customersfanboys who throw tens of thousands of dollars in excess of what’s necessary at the company for the supposed privilege of being beta testers deserve their part in it too.There are Cybertruck Owners forums? Of course there are.
Indeed, of course there are. There have been make- and model-specific forums since long before Elmo ever got into cars. vwvortex.com? *checks whois* Registered in 1997. saturnfans.com? 1999.
Good to see a shoutout to Saturnfans! Saved my ass when my gf showed up with one—then suddenly I was caring for ( I think? ) 7 of them for her friends & their families
I think I was PNO TECH on there back then
For almost every car, I’ll bet.
How is it that no one mentions the gap between the backside of this abomination of a wheel cover and the wheel and tire itself? Any mud or snow getting in there and the vibrations would be crazy. Then once you get up to speed, it would start flinging it all over. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by something dumb on a dumb vehicle.
I am quite surprised that the fact that sidewalls flex was missed.
I know that there’s a desire to find new ways to build vehicles, but let’s not forget that we’ve been mass producing cars for more than a hundred years and sometimes, a component is about as highly evolved as it can be using conventional engineering.
This seems like one of those times. How do you fuck up a hubcap?
WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED.
Stupidity…maybe design stuff normally and use things that work like a regular wheel and not for hype of an overweight behemoth cYbErJuNk
This is a simple problem with a known cure… I can’t believe I’m the first to mention it: To remove the deformation on the outside sidewall and hence the wear, you just need to stance the hell out of it. This way stancing will wear out the tread long before your sweet hubcaps-from-the future wear the sidewalls out.
Aw yeah. Monthly subscription stance package.
Genius
This is literally only a cosmetic issue (that should be fixed). It will not cause tire failure. I’m not one to defend Tesla, and the whole concept is done only for cosmetic reasons, but the outer rubber of a tire sidewall is only there for cosmetics. The structure is internal and will not be affected. You could do way worse by running up along a curb.
Sure, it’s a minor problem that can potentially turn into a major problem, but this is a brand new vehicle that spent 6 years in testing. This is an incredibly stupid problem to have two months into deliveries and I’m willing to bet Tesla was aware of it, but chose to ship them anyways.
“…6 years in testing”
Perhaps in terms of how long ago they began actual work on the design and production, and fixing those issues (between special projects like doing the CEO’s bidding in taking over a social media platform, digging holes in the ground, exploding rockets) – but not in terms of actual pre-production testing (unless taking a prototype to Cars and Coffee can be considered testing)
They have been road testing the truck for four years. This isn’t a problem that should exist in the first place, and with how apparent the problem is on production models, that tells me they didn’t bother testing the wheel covers/special tires,
I bought my Toyota Van, one of the most popular minivans ever, 6 years into production.
I still had to get a few recalls done at the dealer, and Toyota is possibly the best overall at initial quality.
Meanwhile Tesla brings out this truck with so many features that have never been done before, and because they have a wheel cover issue 2 months into production, they are incredibly stupid.
Remember when GM, Ford and the like were trying to put chrome wheels on everything? They couldn’t figure out how to produce them with high enough quality to get through the warranty period. They gave up and started just gluing plastic chrome wheel covers onto a plain alloy wheel. Dealers would even tell you you’re buying chrome, then when you pick up the vehicle, you realize they are actually “chrome-clad.”
That kind of shit is unacceptable, especially when they’ve been selling trucks for a hundred years.
> Tesla brings out this truck with so many features that have never been done before, and because they have a wheel cover issue 2 months into production, they are incredibly stupid.
I think what people are reacting to is that many of these features are questionable or downright stupid (viz. these wheel covers), which compounds the design issues they have. I.e. not only are they stupid, they’re poorly made and cause entirely avoidable issues on parts that have been issue-free across the industry for decades.
They’re like an own-goal by a player showing off how they can run backwards.
While I see your point, I appreciate innovation, even if only for cosmetic purposes.
What I’m saying is that traditional automakers tend to mess up things that they’ve been doing fine for Century, and there’s no real excuse for that. Almost every single new car has recalls, even with no new innovation, and this is pretty much the same thing.
Another thing I want to make clear is that I’m not here to change anyone’s mind about the Cybertruck.
Harvey Park illustrated my point. This is not an issue that should exist in the first place, and it’s definitely an issue that would have been refined during testing if it is this apparent in the production model, which tells me that they didn’t really test it with the wheel covers to begin with.
I want a Cybertruck, partially because I think the wheel covers are cool, so there’s that.
Did anyone else scoff at the video when he talked about the damage to the tires from over 50k miles of use with these covers on?
How in the ever lovin’ heck would anyone get that many miles from the treads on one of these leaden things? Maybe if it drove those miles in a straight line on pure teflon roads. Otherwise, never gonna happen.
It’s roughly (6600-6800) the same weight as a RAM 2500, so about the same as you’d get on that trucks’ tires, I guess?
6600-6800 miles sounds about right for Cyber thing tires. Yes, I know I converted pounds to miles.
This is just piss poor engineering. They should have been testing clearances with a full load in the bed, too. I bet they didn’t do that.
“I’m shocked and amazed to learn that a hard thing put up against a soft flexible thing is causing damage to the soft flexible thing!” said no person with any tiny bit of common sense ever.
Seriously, who came up with th… Ok, never mind, never mind. Dumb question.
Get this, and it is totally counterintuitive, but many (most) times when there is a soft flexible item rubbing/vibrating on a metal object, the metal gets worn away before the rubber part does. I have observed, and been tasked to design a solution for, this type of wear on a few occasions. I have pics somewhere that I should dig out. It’s a weird phenomenon, and depends on many things like temps, frequency, durometer, etc.
Oddly true, in my experience. I work in commercial HVAC, and regularly re-secure wires away from copper refrigerant piping. Usually by the time the insulation wears to the point of shorting against the pipe, the pipe itself has a noticeable place worn in it. We do get leaks from that occasionally
When doing lapping (a very accurate sizing or flattening operation in metalworking), you use a softer metal for the lap, which gets an abrasive pressed into its surface. You then rub the harder workpiece against the lap, and the abrasive (still lodged in the lap’s surface) does the cutting. Same thing here, just with road grit. And much less accuracy.
I regularly replace steel, copper, and aluminum pipes because contact with plastic wire loom has caused them to rub through. The plastic loom is still fine.
The man is a genius. He just invented the wheel, and all you people do is criticise…
I’ve seen other cars with wheel covers that could slice a tire, but it was always the ones on the car next to them, and it was in cartoons.
You mean like these:
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/shopping?q=tbn:ANd9GcQBg4GZ3dNJg_8r7Dvt1pWx5HaWQU3RRCVY3NSFSxcpv1pkUd4WCjZB2UeJuARWBHVOqA9VHvu3-bcF7vl19LtxwYxAHj4vlw
Not wheel covers but you get the idea.
When they’re retracted, sure.
Ben Hur representing
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fpiEOqelbIM/U5bGj2s4NOI/AAAAAAAAqqc/qdNXOIQWyDM/s1600/BH-8.jpg
I am not an engineer. When these covers were on the prototype, I said there was no way they would make it to production in that state because I foresaw this type of issue.
Why has no other automaker made hub caps like that before? Because the tire needs to move, and adjust with air pressure changes.
Look, Tesla is an idea company. If you are hung up on 20th century concepts like using a truck to go places and do things, of course you are going to be disappointed. If you focus on what owning a truck like this allows you to imagine, how it makes you feel about yourself, about your relationship to the company and the Founder, then you’re going to be a lot more satisfied. The fact that people are complaining about “problems” like “catastrophic delamination” this just proves that the wrong people are buying these trucks. It sounds like the people who are complaining care more about driving than being driven.
they are such an unserious company with some of the shit they do.
I commented on this being a problem with the tires and flying wheel covers somewhere the first time I saw it and someone responded with the dumb cliche of someone who’s apparently completely unaware of Tesla’s history specifically and never worked with engineers in general: you think you’re smarter than them? Don’t you think they would have thought of that? No. In fact, even before this satisfying confirmation, I could see they didn’t because it exists. I get that most people would be amazed at how much wheels flex, but tires should be pretty f’n obvious. Then again, we’re talking Tesla and Teslastans, so “obvious” needs an “li” inserted in there.
In Isaacson’s book, he describes Musk “fixing” the problem of Solar City’s slow roof installations by ordering install teams to just cut off any protrusions on customers’ roofs, so they’re wouldn’t have to work around them. As in, all the vent pipes, exhausts, etc.
Point is, we can argue about the stupidity of this engineering decision, but this guy does not even live in the same reality as the words we use.
Thanks for reading it so I don’t have to. What a stupid, stupid approach to everything.
Musk: “Guys, who designed my bathroom? The sink just came off the wall.”
It’s almost like this was bound to happen and other manufacturers don’t do it this way because it won’t work.
Whenever my friends and I did mods to our cars back in the day and they didn’t work out so well (pretty much every time), my friend’s Dad would say “They build them pretty good at the factory, don’t they?” I guess not in this case…
It’s wonderful to see that Tesla has continued it’s tradition of letting consumers handle all of their product testing. This sort of strategy always engenders trust in an organization.
Not just their customers, we all get to participate in their “self-driving” tests.