The stainless steel body of Tesla's Cybertruck is reportedly leading to issues with gaps in between the panels

Sandy Munro said buyers shouldn’t worry about the panel gaps and smears that have showed up in sightings of Cybertruck prototypes. Courtesy of MuddyRuttzz

• The Cybertruck’s stainless steel body has made it difficult to align its panels, WSJ reported.
• The EV has faced a series of delays since Elon Musk first announced it.
• Tesla set initial deliveries of the Cybertruck for November 30, but volume production is a ways off.

The Cybertruck’s stainless steel body has been difficult to work with, especially when it comes to the vehicle’s fit and finish, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The stainless steel has been difficult to shape into panels without gaps or alignment issues, the publication said, citing individuals who had worked on the Cybertruck.

The Journal said the stainless steel is made in “coils that resemble giant rolls of toilet paper.” As a result, the metal is prone to curving and attempting to resume its previous shape, even when it has been flattened, the Journal reported.

A spokesperson for Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report ahead of publication.

The Cybertruck has been plagued with delays since Elon Musk first announced Tesla would build an electric pickup truck in 2019. In October, Tesla set a delivery event for the first Cybertrucks for November 30 after two years of delays — and there’s signs the truck will have a smaller release than initially expected. Tesla’s global director of product design, Javier Verdura, said last week that the company would deliver only 10 Cybertrucks at its delivery event.

The stainless steel, futuristic design is all part of Musk’s plans to create a “tough” truck that would be ideal for an apocalypse. The billionaire has said the vehicle’s stainless steel body will be bulletproof and even comes with an option for fixed bulletproof windows.

Meanwhile, Musk has warned that it will be difficult to scale production due to the vehicle’s unusual design and said the company aims to produce about a quarter million Cybertrucks per year by 2025.

“When you’ve got a product with a lot of new technology or any brand new vehicle program, especially one that is as different and advanced as the Cybertruck, you will have problems proportionate to how many new things you’re trying to solve at scale,” Musk said during Tesla’s earnings call last month.

The Cybertruck is the first vehicle to be made out of stainless steel since the DeLorean was produced in the 80s.

Giorgetto Giugiaro, the designer of the DeLorean, said earlier this month that he anticipates the Cybertruck will be a success.

But, while the DeLorean is now a cult classic, it faced a series of production issues, including concerns about its stainless-steel body and panel alignment. Despite early enthusiasm from prospective buyers, the company only produced about 9,000 of the vehicles, MotorTrend reported.

Early sighting of the electric-pickup truck have generated quite the buzz online and the company has over 2 million reservations, according to a September tally by Electrek.

Yet despite the enthusiasm, some Tesla fans have already taken to criticizing the design, including the vehicle’s enormous windshield wiper and images of its finger-print smudged doors, as well as misaligned panels.

Auto expert Sandy Munro previously told Insider it’s unfair to judge the vehicle based off of images of early Cybertruck prototypes.

Munro has also pointed out that the thick stainless steel body has several perks for owners.

“The thing about stainless steel is it hangs around a while,” he said. “Now if I want to polish that car, I can make it so that it shines like the sun for a while. I can buff the daylights out of it without having to worry about a new paint job. If I get a scratch, I can get that scratch out no question.”

Do you work on the Cybertruck or hold a reservation for the vehicle? Contact this reporter from a non-work email at [email protected]