The Cybertruck Supercharging from overhead gives us a closer look at its massive dashboard
JoeTegtmeyer / randomness2646
Recent sightings and leaks have once again ramped up excitement and speculation around Tesla's Cybertruck. This time it's the frunk, or for the non-EV crowd, the big empty space under the hood where the engine used to be. Here's what the Cybertruck's frunk might entail.
Speculations and Early Sightings
Since Cybertruck first appeared on stage in 2019, the frunk seemed massive. However, it is hard to judge this book by the cover, and there's no telling what engineers need to do with the space between the driver's cabin and the front bumper. Then Ford's Lightning upped the ante with a significant frunk on the electric F-150. An image last month seemed to deflate those gigantic expectations as it appeared to show a downsized frunk. Many may have missed it because you were likely looking at the F-150 wrap on the Cybertruck.
Now, new images have appeared thanks to Joe Tegtmeyer and his drone flyover of Giga, Texas. Before we talk frunk, take a look at the size of the dashboard. They should consider putting some solar panels on that thing. Also, notice the frunk liner in the back of the truck.
There are also videos from inside the factory, showing off the Cybertruck's frunk. Yes, someone is risking their job to provide these images to the world. It's a fresh perspective on the frunk's size. The frunk spans the entire front of the vehicle, giving us quite a bit more width and height than anticipated, although the depth of the frunk still seems limited. With the front of the frunk lifting up with the hood, it'll also make loading items into the frunk easier than other Teslas.
Closer to Production
With the Cybertruck seen charging at the solar-panel canopied Supercharging station at Gigafactory Texas, complete with plastic still on the seats and new vehicle barcode labels, it's apparent that the journey towards mass production is underway. The sightings of several Cybertrucks, either test mules or ready for delivery, inside the Gigafactory, suggest that the official launch could be right around the corner.
Elon Musk has said that Cybertrucks will start rolling off the production lines by the end of the third quarter, but we all know how reliable Musk's timetable predictions can be. That said, with the ramp-up in Cybertruck spottings, including Tesla showing a large team at Giga-Texas celebrating the first Cybertruck coming off the production line, it appears these Sci-fi beasts will be on the road soon. With Tesla expected to start deliveries soon, we can look forward to official information, specs, and pricing at the promised delivery event sometime soon, as the third quarter ends on September 30.
Tesla’s FSD V13.2.2 continues its rollout to the HW4 fleet, now complete with holiday goodness that makes it available to all HW4 vehicles. While FSD V13 is capable of some incredible feats, such as three-point turns, there are some additional capabilities Tesla hasn’t talked about yet.
Emergency Vehicle Handling
First up, better handling for emergency vehicles. While Tesla works on gathering audio data to make emergency vehicle detection even better, Tesla improved how it handles emergency vehicles with FSD V13.
FSD previously had issues handling emergency vehicles - sometimes pulling over and stopping on V12, other times requiring driver intervention to do the job. This led to lots of user interventions when an emergency vehicle was detected. Ensuring you’re out of the way of an ambulance can save precious seconds - which is enough to save lives.
V13 now does a much better job of pulling overly safely to the side for emergency vehicles. Check out the video below of FSD pulling the vehicle over to the side of the road.
Another issue that FSD had trouble handling previously was school buses. Previously, FSD would ignore the stop sign and flashing lights and attempt to drive around the bus.
School buses often required driver intervention, but it seems Tesla has dedicated time to training FSD V13 to handle them properly now. Check out this post of FSD now successfully stopping and waiting for a school bus.
FSD v13 stopped for a school bus! Waited till the stop sign folded in and then proceeded forward! pic.twitter.com/ReU4enxnNB
Reduced speed zones, including school zones, have had mediocre handling by FSD in previous versions. Now, some initial speed zone handling has arrived in V13.2. However, while it does handle some speed zones with blinking signs, it doesn’t necessarily handle all speed zones. For now, while Supervising, drivers will need to make sure their vehicles don’t exceed the speed limit, especially in school zones. In the meantime, look at this speed video of the vehicle handling a speed zone with FSD V13.
Slightly better video of FSD V13 responding appropriately to flashing yellow lights indicating it’s temporarily a 20mph zone. It didn’t exceed 25 despite being set to a much higher max speed
As part of V13, Tesla included some interesting features addressing hardware - namely camera cleaning, The initial changelog was slightly vague: “Improved Camera Cleaning” and nothing else.
It turns out this actually refers to the camera heating elements around the vehicle, including those around the B-Pillar. According to FSD engineer Yun-Ta Tsai, this is far more complex than just heating the camera up.
The system integration team does a lot of energy and thermal optimization across the entire vehicle, to optimize autonomy.
This is just one example. The heating is actually more complex than just heating it up.
Yes, real world AI cares about these things, a lot!
The Cybertruck features an automatic tonneau that lets you lock in valuables. It rolls back and forth along a track and is somewhat water-resistant. Tesla never said that the tonneau would be waterproof, but many owners have encountered a lot of water flowing into their tonneau covers.
The place where the glass roof meets the plastic strip - the aero flap- seems to be the location where most of the water gets in, and this has been noted by many as a constant source of leaks - while the rest of the bed stays mostly dry.
Tesla has attempted to fix this by adding additional slats to the tonneau, which ensures that there are slats left over underneath the aero cover, thereby providing some additional water resistance. However, it looks like they’re doing more now to prevent these leaks.
New Rubber Seals
Tesla intends to issue a service code - the term they use for service bulletins to fix common problems - for this particular issue. This service code will include the removal of the old aero flap and the installation of a new aero flap that has additional rubber seals - similar to the ones used on windows. Thanks to theMONK11 on Reddit for catching this and providing the photo.
The service code hasn’t gone live yet, so it looks like Tesla is only testing this new part for owners who have complained about excessive water intrusion. We’ll likely see this new flap, with the additional rubber seals, become a standard part on newly built trucks to resolve this issue.
For everyone else, you’ll need to put in a service ticket with Tesla, but we would recommend waiting a few weeks before doing so. That will give them time to finalize the process and have the new part sent around to service centers across North America. Given that this isn’t a critical issue to the functionality of the vehicle, Tesla likely will not issue a recall for this - so it’ll be up to owners to create a service ticket and have the new applique installed.
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