I had the chance to talk to the head of the Reaction Injection Molding (RIM) Tesla team that developed the process, machines, materials and production line responsible for the Cybercab exterior (and some interior) plastic panels. What is RIM? Reaction injection molding (RIM) is a manufacturing process that injects two liquid chemicals into a mold to create strong, lightweight plastic parts. The primary benefits to Tesla? Tesla uses Reaction Injection Molding (RIM) for the Cybercab primarily to eliminate the traditional automotive paint shop, which is historically one of the most expensive, space-consuming, and environmentally taxing parts of car manufacturing. Tesla's goal for mass production is a highly compact, parallel modular assembly system called the "unboxed" process. By skipping the massive infrastructure of a paint shop, Tesla can reduce the factory footprint by roughly 50%. Since the colored panels come out of the molds nearly complete, they don't have to follow a strict sequential painting order and can be easily bolted on toward the end of assembly, minimizing the risk of factory scratches. In the Tesla application for Cybercab, the RIM gold exterior body panels have a underlying reinforced plastic inner support panel that is plastic laser welded (& some industrial adhesives) bonded to the outer panel. When I first saw the early production tests, I noticed there were visible "distortions" where the contact points occurred and this detracted from the overall look of the Cybercab. The team worked very hard to address this issue and made a number of production process modifications that virtually eliminated this issue and I can say the Cybercabs I saw and rode in at the Launch Event looked exceptionally clean. Amazing work by the Plastics team to not only develop this process and the machinery and materials used, but to refine the production process to get such an amazing result! Thanks to @XanderSky for making this video clip!