Elon Musk with all his ideas and inventions always excited people's minds. All his ideas and projects carry a deep meaning that is not always immediately visible and understandable to others, but not one of his projects leaves anyone indifferent.
Elon, being a creative person, always strove to create. Accordingly, Elon Musk became a creative inspirer for millions of people.
His last creation was Cybertruck. To date, we have all seen Cybertruck, but only a few were able to enjoy the trip in it, only a part of the people who were present at its disclosure were awarded this incredible joy. Even Elon Musk is so proud and pleased with Cybertruck that he already rides it.
I want to introduce you to James Hobson.
James is an extremely talented and creative guy. Four years ago he quit his full-time job as an engineer to pursue YouTube as a career. He uses his YouTube channel the Hacksmith to inspire youth around the world into science, technology, engineering and math by taking fictional ideas from comics, movies and video games and creating real working prototypes. They’ve made working prototypes of some of Iron Man’s gadgets, Batman’s tools, and even items from popular video games like Half Life, Overwatch, Apex Legends, Rainbow Six Siege and more.
He sincerely hopes that his teams engineering examples will inspire people to get out their tools and create and invent new things.
"Today's science fiction is tomorrow's science fact" - Isaac Asimov. With these words, the presentation of James begins.
James preordered the truck as soon as it came out. "I think it's a fantastic vehicle and I'm excited to own one, it might take the public a while to get used to it, but I’m totally ready to use the Cybertruck as my daily drive!" he exclaimed.
A few days after ordering the Cybertruck, Bogdan Malynovskyy (one of his lead engineers) and James started thinking... how hard would it be to build a half scale version of Cybertruck in the meantime?
The team is no stranger to electric vehicles having created a few electric go karts and bajas in the past. With the idea for the half scale cybertruck, he reached out to his neighbour’s electric motor company Accelerated Systems Inc -- as it turned out, their CEO Bill Jager is a huge fan of Tesla (he also pre-ordered the Cybertruck). They agreed to help provide thousands of dollars worth of electric motors and speed controllers to the team for them to build their Cybertruck. A fully loaded tri-motor design, just like the real thing.
Using the dimensions given during the Cybertruck reveal presentation, Bogdan was able to reverse engineer the Cybertruck from a few side view images and create a fairly accurate 3D model of the vehicle. Adapting the shape to sheet metal they determined they would need over 300sqft or nearly 28 square meters of 304L 1/8th stainless steel sheet to fabricate the body of their Cybertruck.
Once the design was complete, they started collecting the other drive train components they would need by salvaging several electric golf karts and purchasing other automotive parts from local stores. In just one week, they managed to have the entire body roughly assembled. You can see the progress in the video below:
James and his team plan to spend another 2-3 weeks to finalize the car. It is currently finished being welded, but still requires a lot of polishing, as well as a full install of the drivetrain, and of course, adding all the accessories like LED light bars, and bullet-proof glass. You can follow along with the build by subscribing to the Hacksmith’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/thehacksmith
Bogdan (also a huge fan of Elon Musk) hopes that once the truck is finished, that Elon Musk himself might like to see it in person, or possibly invite the team to see the real thing at the next press event.
Elon Musk and his companies have inspired people to create, think differently, do different, and be unapologetic about it. Tesla creates truly fantastic things that encourage us to develop. We develop creatively, mentally and emotionally.
Safety isn't something one considers when overly excitedly testing the #halfscalecybertruck for the first time...
— the Hacksmith (@thehacksmith) December 10, 2019
No he didn't get hurt, yes we added extra sound effects for dramatic effect. pic.twitter.com/Ot7Bwatog1
Thanks to James for helping with this article.
Order your Tesla CyberTruck today with only $100 deposit!
https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
