The Tesla Cybertruck is the first stainless-steel vehicle since the ill-fated DeLorean â here's a closer look at both (TSLA)
With the exception of a few one-off promotional cars, the auto industry has never used stainless steel to manufacture vehicles.
With two notable exceptions: the DMC DeLorean, made from 1981-1983; and the newly unveiled Tesla Cybertruck, which could go into production in 2022.Â
A stainless gulf of numerous decades separates these vehicles, raising the question of why undeniably durable stainless hasn't displaced good-old-fashioned regular steel.
For DeLorean, the stainless proposition was that scratches could be easily buffed out, but of course the car's shimmering skin was marketing.
For Tesla, marketing is also a factor, although the company's sibling, SpaceX, has been developing new stainless applications for its spacecraft.
As a practical matter, no automakers use stainless to build cars these days, so there's no supply chain on any magnitude.
While the CyberTruck and the DeLorean have one big thing in common, they also have some little things. But in other ways, they're utterly different.
Here's a rundown:
