I don't know if I'm more annoyed at the physics baloney, or the obvious fact it was at least partly written (not merely edited!) by AI. The paragraph starting "The second possibility..." is a naked LLM hallucination that confuses cause and effect. The LLM seems to have been tasked with answering that question in several parts, and catastrophically lost its attention halfway through.<p>(<i>"The second possibility is that while magnets do not directly affect stainless steel corrosion, the type of stainless steel, whether magnetic or non-magnetic, correlates with its corrosion resistance. Austenitic stainless steel (non-magnetic) resists corrosion better than ferritic or martensitic stainless steel (magnetic), which Tesla uses with the Cybertruck."</i>)
The way stainless steel resists corrosion is the reaction of chromium and oxygen in the air to produce a protective chromium oxide layer. If you mess up the surface with a magnet you're trapping water in the interface, pushing that chromium oxide layer aside, and probably causing micro scratches.
I thought that the Cybertruck alloy was an austenitic (non-magnetic) stainless steel. A 301 derivative. Did they change the composition of the alloy? If magnets are sticking to it so well, maybe they've switched to a ferritic steel? Or are they rolling it so severely that the austenite is mostly transformed into martensite?
This isn't because of magnetism: it's water in contact with straight iron and stainless steel. (Saved you a click - the owners identify this).<p>A classic stainless steel failure mode is if it gets contaminated by iron particles (i.e. regular steel) during processing (you have to use not Fe grinding discs, keep posts separate etc).<p>The magnet trapped water, and the particularly low grade stainless used in the truck did the rest.<p>Yet another entry in this is literally the stupidest vehicle on the road though.
I can't imagine paying six figures for this vehicle. There's nothing aesthetically pleasing about it. It's a "truck" but also somehow more worthless than other modern trucks/bro-dozers on the road today. Have seen a few videos where towing reduces the battery life significantly. In some very cold climates, the vehicle becomes absolutely useless.<p>Living in a city that absolutely glazes Tesla and their CEO (ie, frequently encounter Teslas), they look even worse in person. A CT owner made the mistake of parking next to the dumpster where I throw my dog's shit, and threw the bag of shit into the trunk. Probably a video out there of this incident.