The Tesla engineer says the Cyubertrucks' stainless steel body panels are actually attracting surface contamination that is rusting
A week ago, we reported that numerous Tesla $TSLA Cybertrucks were facing a premature rust issue despite being made of stainless steel. Owners say they noticed orange stains on the stainless steel panels of their nearly new Cybertrucks. However, a Tesla engineer is now saying that your eyes are deceiving you, and Cybertrucks aren’t rusting.
Wes Morrill, the Cybertruck’s lead engineer and director of reliability, test and analysis at Tesla, took to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s social site X $TWTR to say Cybertrucks are not, in fact, rusting, according to Automotive News. Instead, he asserted that the Cybertruck’s stainless steel body panels are attracting surface contamination that is actually rusting.
“Stainless steel is reactive and free iron that sits on it will rust,” Morrill wrote. “It’s surface contamination only and can be cleaned off easily.” Musk clearly agreed with Morrill’s Feb. 16 post, because he simply responded “Yeah,” to it.
Morrill’s post was part of a reply to a YouTube video by the Bearded Tesla Guy, according to Automotive News. He called the video “good myth busting” because it showed how the orange specs can be removed from the stainless steel panels with a common household cleaner.
This saga, which has been dubbed “rust-gate,” originated on the Cybertruck Owners Club forum earlier this month when a couple of owners posted images of the small orange specs on their electric pickups. They suggested those specs could be caused by rust or some other form of corrosion.
Here’s some more information on Bearded Tesla Guy’s February 16 video called “CyberTRUCK or CyberRUST” where he tried different cleaning products to remove the rust contamination, from AutoNews:
Window cleaner didn’t work, but a kitchen stainless-steel cleaner did, he said.
”These specks are absolutely everywhere,” Demaree said in the video. “And of course, a rational person would be rather alarmed by this. It’s totally natural if you see this on a new $100,000 truck.”
[...]
Demaree, with 80,000 YouTube subscribers, speculated the orange stains were likely caused by rail dust that could have contaminated the Cybertruck during transport, or maybe even metal dust from the Tesla factory.
Even before “rust-gate” Tesla fans online have discussed how hard it has been to keep the exterior panels clean since they don’t have protective clear coats. Tesla itself recommends cleaning any dirt off the truck almost immediately.
Join 500,000+ readers who start their day with Quartz.
By subscribing, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.
