WOW: Tesla’s Cybertruck looks weird because otherwise it would break the machines that make it.

As Musk and designer Franz von Holzhausen demonstrated on stage, the Cybertruck is built for abuse. Instead of using stamped aluminum or steel like Tesla’s other cars (and most other vehicles on the road), Tesla is using 30X cold-rolled steel.

Tesla’s Cybertruck design differs from traditional autos because it uses a stainless steel exoskeleton instead of a traditional body-on-frame design. In the traditional design, the car body doesn’t have as much structural integrity and is mainly used for aerodynamic and styling purposes, and to protect occupants from the elements.

In the Cybertruck’s design, the entire vehicle exterior is used as a stressed member, allowing it to do double duty as both the body and the frame. This reduces complexity, and, since Tesla is using ultra-hard steel, increases sturdiness of the vehicle exterior.

This is why the doors were able to resist a sledgehammer swing from von Holzhausen, and were shown to be bulletproof in a demonstration video shown by Tesla during the reveal event.

The problem with this hardened steel exterior is that traditional auto-body stamping machines are made to deal with much smaller, more malleable pieces of sheet metal.

Bodyshops that can work on a Cybertruck will be few and far between.