Comment on Slate Truck is a $20,000 American-made electric pickup with no paint, no stereo, and no touchscreen

• SteevyT@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  At the cost of the mold to do something like that (and the machine to even run it), I’m reasonably sure that stamped or brake pressed frame rails make more sense cost wise. I’m not sure that volume will ever drive the cost of that low enough to be worth it within the life of a mold like that. Like, I can picture the design to make it a basic two plate mold (I think, I’m more used to parts that top out a bit over a foot in the largest dimension), but then the gate size and shot volume I’m picturing to fill the thing is just bonkers, although apparently there are a few machines in the world that could theoretically do it if I’m reading their specs right from a quick search.

  Unless your thinking a carbon fiber layup, which is feasible, but I believe metal becomes more cost effective again at that point.

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  • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    It sounds like you’d know better than me, haha. Since they’re talking about being capital-lean I’m guessing they must outsource the frame pressing. Having a rare super-specialty injection molding machine would not be lean.

    IIRC they mentioned fibre reinforcement, but it couldn’t possibly be the aerospace-style precision product, exactly because that would cost a lot.

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    • SteevyT@beehaw.org ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      They might be doing some sort of glass chop in areas (actually, i wouldnt be surprised if this is what they mean by “composit body panels”, open molds would be cheap as hell, and parts are cheap too), but I used to use that more for body panels or exterior details than anything super structural. I guess they could do fiberglass frame rails, but that still feels like it would be a strange choice at what just doing basic ladder frame in steel would cost.

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