Now drop some concrete blocks on it

Something something composite and aluminum load beds are trash. Here's a carbon fiber option and tailgates are now $10,000 when they get stolen.

Not gonna lie though, I'd probably like using it as a workbench.

But it saves 62lbs! Nevermind that the truck weighs over 5000lbs

The tailgate seems full of good ideas, and it seems like a nightmare to repair/replace.

GM only offering this as an option on the Denali assures that no pointy things will ever be thrown into the bed.

I'm likely not tall enough to use that as a workbench. 

Every time I see how tall the tailgates are on new trucks I like my dakota even more. My knees do too.

Grizz said:

Every time I see how tall the tailgates are on new truck I like my dakota even more. My knees do too.

Truth.  My 2K Silverado is ok, but I took the blocks out of the rear suspension.

EastCoastMojo said:

I'm likely not tall enough to use that as a workbench. 

I'm 6'4", and that berkeleyer looks too tall for ME to use as a workbench. 

As a GM technician, I shudder at the thought of working on this whole mechanism

CF bed starts around 14 min.

Like the Swiss Army knife of tailgates.

HUD, trailer cams, trailer TPMS pressure/ temp looks cool.

What does quality mean to you?

not a Chevy. 

Mahk  is my hero. 

undergone more testing and validation than any tailgate in GM’s history" and is capable of supporting up to 375lbs

What i'm hearing is that this tailgate cannot be safely stood upon by a significant proportion of full-size truck owners in my home state of Texas.  

I'm actually disappointed I made it all the way through the press release and there was no mention of "Forged Carbon Fiber" as it was the hot thing for like 10 minutes in the watch community.

Why do OEM's not get that a higher bed floor is not better?

Sorry, right, CF. Right. Let's talk about that instead. So CF is great, but 62lb is basically nothing on the truck, and the workbench thing is higher than the bedfloor anyway. I'm gonna pass.

CF has a place.  This is not it.

Interesting in a Rube Goldberg sort of way. Would be easier to just build trucks with a lower bed height and not have to resort to designing slick band aids to overcome the giant-ness of the truck.

I like that they spent a year or more poking fun at Ford's aluminum bed and touting their superior steel beds and now they made a bed out of nylon. Basically it's a bed liner that doubles as the bed. Yay.

How much does the plastic bed and fancy tailgate add to the price?

This really isn't carbon fiber as we know it. This is plastic with some carbon in it.

tuna55 said:

Why do OEM's not get that a higher bed floor is not better?

 

I think it is at least partially a consequence of the combination of ever increasing payload capacities and making the truck ride comfortably, even unloaded.  Can’t make the rear springs too stiff, so they need a lot of travel.

Fiber reinforced plastic isn't carbon fiber, it's old as dirt run of the mill technology found on economy cars going back 35+ years. 

In reply to Vigo :

Carbon fiber is generic short hand for any type of carbon fiber reinforced plastic, just as fiberglass is generic short hand for any type of glass fiber reinforced plastic.  Thus if the fibers reinforcing the plastic are carbon, then it is indeed 'carbon fiber'.

First aluminum now carbon fibre. I never thought I'd see truck bed dick waving. 

I've been thinking about these aluminum & carbon fiber beds, but I've decided to hold out in hopes Dodge releases a Red Copper bed in the near future.

Will these carbon fiber beds explode on impact in extreme cold like the old Saturn plastic body panels used to?

Unlikely... because that isn't really a thing.  

I'm okay with this.  non-painted, theoretically scratch proof, basically negates the need for a bedliner.  I'm sure the bedliner industry will still advocate for bedlinering on top of this, making the whole thing kind of moot.  So at the end of the day it's a little bit lighter, strong enough, and probably cheaper to manufacture.  

I do wonder at end of life if it decreases the recyclableness (is that a word?) of the truck though.  Most automobiles are quite effectively recycled via scrap currently.  Though I guess most trucks are already ending their lives with a thick coating of bedliner chemicals adhered over the metals currently used that's probably equally bad to melt.  

fanfoy said:

So wait, it is a really fancy composite of a bunch of different materials and the outside skin is still going to rust off in the northeast after 8 years like any truck from any manufacturer?  Well I guess the newer Fords are excluded from that statement, but we'll see how they age for a variety of reasons.  Sure light weight is awesome but the biggest thing for me with the new materials would be to keep a vehicle looking decent after several years.  I know that is the minority with most folks replacing them on a more regular basis.  I get used to a truck and I don't want to change, just like an old pair of jeans.