Space-grade Cybertruck exoskeleton made of Starship steel as Tesla hits 1.5 million pickup preorders

A year ago, Tesla's Cybertruck electric pickup preorders surpassed the 1.2 million mark, bringing Tesla US$80 billion in potential extra revenue. At the time, this was more than the market cap of storied legacy automakers like BMW or Ford without a single Cybertruck being delivered yet. Its release has since been postponed for 2023, but that left time for Tesla to amass even more preorders, whose number just crossed the 1.5 million mark.

By the time Tesla launches the Cybertruck next summer, that figure will probably be closing in on 2 million units in early sales, bringing a potential profit bonanza. After all, Elon Musk warned the pickup can't stay at its original US$40,000 starting price given the inflation in raw battery materials and the supply chain challenge to deliver basic components. There have even been rumors that Tesla will only be able to ramp up the mass Cybertruck production in the last quarter of 2023, leaving a lot of late adopters waiting for their delivery for months on end.

There is one Cybertruck part that Tesla may have no problem procuring, though - its exoskeleton - and it just became clear that Elon Musk's car company may use body steel forged for his space exploration company. At the new Tesla exhibit in the Peterson Automotive Museum, the Cybertruck's description reads that "both the Starship exterior and the Cybertruck body utilize steel produced by Steel Dynamic Inc."

Previously, the Texas-based Steel Dynamics denied that it will be delivering material for the Cybertruck -also assembled in Texas - directly. That could very well be true, as the final Cybertruck exoskeleton material seemingly gets its last treatments where SpaceX's Starship steel does, too.

In any case, at the Cybertruck  section of its website, Tesla only mentions that its exoskeleton is crafted out of "Ultra-Hard 30X Cold-Rolled stainless-steel structural skin," leaving the tiny detail that it is made of Starship exterior-grade metal for its Peterson Automotive Museum exhibit. The Tesla exhibit there will run until October 22, 2023, and it already revealed other Tesla secrets like the 1 second Roadster acceleration, or the arrival of the Apple Music app to Tesla's infotainment system.

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