Cybertruck Engineering, State of Auto & Predictions for 2024!

I was lucky to work with Sandy back at McDonnell Douglas on the C-17 in 1995-ish. He taught us engineers how to improve quality and cost by part count reduction. We ended up reducing the cost of each airplane by $50M per unit. The engineers had fun learning and achieving success in these redesign projects. I was one of the leaders from McDonnell Douglas and had some one on one time with Sandy. It’s where I understood the role of change agent. Sandy and I would talk about cultural pushback on doing things differently. I’ve been a change agent ever since. Finishing up my career at Boeing in January 2025. Sandy was an important waypoint in my career.

Hi, Ricky. I also have watched most of Sandy’s videos, and even chatted with him at the Takeover. Your questions and the ensuing discussions are clearly the best, for me. I also am an “engine engineer”, and just love sitting in on a chat between two legit engineers. Cheers.

I can’t get enough of Sandy and I thank you for hosting him. I think he did avoid a point about the government making policy that may miss the mark. I agree with that assessment 100%, but possibly for different reasons. I worked for a major aerospace company for 43 years and about 5 of those years I had direct interactions with one of the company’s lobbyists (I wrote a number of programs to provide ammunition to the lobbyist that aggregated and charted data relating to our company’s presence by state and various countries). I have to tell you that government policy is determined by how much the company can spread the wealth, not necessarily how efficiently the product can be produced. This is a reality that is pretty much forced on the company to stay in the race. I found that sinful and every time I see the government making a major investment, I shudder at the thought of the maneuvering and palm greasing that happens behind the scenes and the resulting escalation in the final price. Prime example is the cost of the government run space program as compared to that of private space endeavors (I don’t think that I have to point out any specific companies). That doesn’t reflect on NASA, they are an incredible organization, but they have to navigate that same swamp. Thanks for a great video!!! 😊😊😊. I have to retract my comment about Sandy’s early comments — he covered my point later on in the video, so we are in complete agreement after all. 😊😊😊

2 of my favorite creators.........talking about engineering together?..........Yes please!!!

Love how well managed your videos are. This one with Sandy is as good as it gets.

I always evaluate the content I watch on YouTube, with the question “Did I learn something from this”? And I not only enjoyed the awesome discussion, but also learned new stuff. So worthwhile. Thanks!!! 😊

DeLorean owner here: I think I kinda recall what Sandy was saying about the window fire thing. But there were plenty of electrical problems with DeLoreans that time has also not been kind to lol. But Sandy's point about the DeLorean trying to solve problems that the Cybertruck is asking today. To think.. a car from 40+ years ago was thinking of problems that effected cars of the time (rust, fuel efficiency, etc) and it took a complete revolution of the auto industry with Tesla and EVs to build up to a Cybertruck that addresses these problems once again. Just astounding. And the additional items like steer-by-wire, the ethernet loop, etc.. are going to go down in automotive history as notable accomplishments that future engineers to look back at as a pivotal moment.

Love this. Sandy’s right on point. Recycling is important. Where regulations are needed is to ensure things like the battery packs are serviceable not just replaceable.

Two really intelligent honest engineers...!!

Great stuff, 48V POE is a game changer not only for the automotive industry but also for industrial control as a whole. Once companies like Rockwell and Siemens make this a standard it will unify industrial and automotive automation bringing costs down and quality up.

I love most videos of two bit da Vinci. But this, this is special.

Thank you! This video is great! I know you did significant editing, but the necessary information was well highlighted. I had been wondering why Tesla was getting bad press. Now I’ve a better understanding of the situation.

I luv listening to Sandy reiterate things I’ve been saying for years. . . And, having spent quite a few years in the “Newspaper” business, I can verify Sandy’s “News Hole” statement. Among other things, I was the guy who would decide how many pages an issue would have, depending on the amount of advertising that had been sold.

What a great segment. A "Thumbs UP" is just not enough. Well done!

I like that: "I am not against the Union. I might be against the Union management." Thank you Sandy, that makes sense to me.

What a way to end the year! Fantastic conversation among amazing engineers. Thanks for sharing knowledge

I'll watch any vid with Sandy in it. He always has interesting things to say.

Ricky, great episode!! Love the way you approach everything from an engineering perspective. I think you hit on two excellent future topics during this video - "Which companies would Sandy invest in???" and "How does government regulation help and/or hurt the transition to a renewable energy future?" As an engineer working in cybersecurity for factory automation, we deal with the government regulation stuff on a daily basis and it is definitely a story of good vs. bad. Keep up the awesome work!

Fantastic conversation and content. The 48 minutes and 54 seconds felt like only a five minute video. Was sad that the conversation ended…

There’s a lot to like about the Cybertruck; 48v, Ethernet, steer by wire, four wheel steer. Sure four wheel steer has been done before, but the others are game changers. Where I struggle with the Cybertruck is that it weighs 3000kg, has a ~120kW battery and has more power than god. In a resource constrained world, what part of those numbers represents engineering efficiency. Then we come to it’s utility as a truck. What kind range do you think it’ll get if you hook up a trailer and tow something with it? Sure it’d be interesting to check out small towns for an hour or so while it recharges, but at some point that’d get old. So ok, most people won’t use it as an actual truck and will love it for its dynamic capabilities. If that’s your use-case, a Tesla with half Cybertruck’s weight, half its power, half its battery capacity and half its recharge time would also have amazing dynamic capabilities.