Photo: Sawyer Merritt
Tesla has acquired a 15-year patent on the design of its wheel caps for the Cybertruck, as spotted by @Sawyer Merritt in filings with the design patent office.
The documents show various angles of the wheel cap’s design, dated for original filing on November 21, 2019.
Merritt notes in the thread that the filing doesn’t necessarily mean the Cybertruck will include the wheel caps, or that they’ll make it to production at all.
Note: This filing does not necessarily mean the wheel cap design will make it to production. Companies often file patents for things they never end up bringing to production. Tesla could use a completely different design in the production vehicle, though I hope this design is at…
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) March 7, 2023
Still, @Ryan McCaffrey noted in the thread that a recent prototype he saw on display included the wheel covers, arguing that they were likely to end up in production with the upcoming truck. Additionally, McCaffrey says, the Cybertruck may be unlikely to offer any other options at all.
Either way, the design looks similarly brutalist and rugged to the overall design of the Cybertruck, and many pointed out how much they hoped to see them in production with the vehicles.
The news also comes after a few other patent applications showed the “ultra-hard” steel used for Tesla Cybertruck, which CEO Elon Musk later called a “new metal.”
Check out a few different angles of the Cybertruck wheel caps from the patent design office’s images below.
Photo: U.S. Patent Office
Photo: U.S. Patent Office
Photo: U.S. Patent Office
Photo: U.S. Patent Office
