The X post that added fuel to the fire of the Cybertruck rusting discussion. Why keep a Cybertruck outside for 5 days in the rain when it can easily fit inside a garage?
Cybertruck discussion forums were also swarming with posts where new owners did not have a clue of what actually these rust spots were and how to clean them cost-effectively.
How the Cybertruck Body Gets Rusted
As the heated debates started across the internet, Tesla’s Cybertruck Lead Engineer Wes Morrill took to X (Twitter) to explain the issue. According to Wes, these are just free iron particles that the Cybertruck’s stainless steel body catches and reacts with.
“Stainless is reactive and free iron that sits on it will rust. It’s surface contamination only and can be cleaned off easily,” Wes posted.
“Bar Keeper’s Friend used here works well, citrisurf77 can also loosen the deposit and simply wipe it off. If anything stubborn use a blue non-scratch Scotch Brite pad as it won’t leave any marks on the metal,” he added to provide tips on removing the rust spots from the Cybertruck body in his X post.
Free iron/steel particles can be present in an environment like a metal workshop or car body shop where metal is cut or smoothed out using a grinder. Another source of iron particles is the wheels of a train. When a vehicle is transported by train, the iron particles coming from the friction of its wheels and the rail can accumulate on its body. When these particles are exposed to water or moisture, they can easily oxidate on the Cybertruck body.
CarWash.com explains rail dust as:
Rail dust is exactly that, when cars are transported by train (rail) from the factory to a city, the metal wheels of the train cars running on metal rails create small particles of metal that fly into the air and land on the horizontal surfaces of the car.
They are hot and will adhere to the paint. Then when they get wet from rain; snow or just dew they rust and create tiny little rust spots which are quite visible on white, yellow, beige or light colored cars.
