No snorting… Decibel level pretty low.
Haven’t seen much news on the semi lately.
How many tesla semis have been built? Are the semis still in the testbed stage or is this the final version?
Pretty snertzyRig, that TESLA ![swg] I Watched the video several times. Have Got mixed feelings about an electric truck(?). My OTR time was in the period from 1962 thru 1999, after P.I. Boot Camp. Drove some International gas jobs to start. Graduated to diesels; my first diesel job was a 1955 B-61 Mack, all of 221hp, was 330" wheelbase,it had been a transit mixer, in its previous life: triple framed( Very heavy, and rode rough on a 60K Hendrickson tandem)Quadraplex tranny (5x4). we used it to haul pilings, to the then under construction job; on the I-40 Bridge at Memphis. loads were 90’+ concrete pilings; required a crane to lift trailer around corners in downtowm Memphis. [sigh]
On OTR trips you could only get “legal” (55’, and 73,280#) with a38’ trailer. It was a beast, but it taught a young greenhorn a lot! It really made me appreciate upgrades, and moves into newer trucks as time went on.
With that Tesla T-T (IMHO) it is going to really require some ‘schooling’ in handling; for a driver. And body work too, if the thing is used in the real world, and not just a pretty show toy. Skeptical, You Betcha! [|(]
What does it offer over conventional diesel trucks as a business advantage? Does it have a lower operating cost?
Looks more like an overgrown yard tractor-might be a real good use for a battery powered rig. I have a few questions-what is the tare weight on that thing-batteries are heavy! What is the range, and what is the range when the temperature is closer to zero? I must say I can’t see pulling 90-95K out of a muddy corn field and manuvering narrow county roads and farm grain setups with one of those. And the sound-I would rather listen to my C15 than that whining sound. Maybe there is a cost advantage to shifting from burning diesel to recharging batteries with coal generated kilowatts, at least it would shift the pollution location. Oh well, I am sure I won’t be driving any more by the time something like that makes it into agricultural settings.
PR
Can it operate 10 hours over the road on a single charge?
According to this report, the new truck will be extremely cost effective, with fuel savings paying for the truck in 1.5 years. It sounds like another miracle.
To RK Farms points: I am copying the following from the linked site:
FTL:"…there’s a lot that could go wrong.{a remark that can go down in the annals of understatement!!}
It’s no mean feat to produce an EV that large with a range of 300 to 500 miles (the battery will be gigantic__), {advantage;NO Fuel onnoard} and a lot of Tesla’s math is predicated on the assumption that diesel prices remain the same. [alien] (a varience of $1.00(+) can be seen in seasonal shifts of diesel fuel types available).
If there are unforeseen technical hurdles or diesel becomes cheap, the Semi’s value may go down the tubes.( a statement of marketing genius, but not very comforting to a buyer who wants to buy one to work , and earn its value back.)
However, it’s not often that customers suggest a vehicle maker is underselling its product[YEAH! Right.] – while caution is definitely warranted, this bodes well for the future of electric trucks…" { My question is: Is an extension cord part of the OEM equipment, as well as a vehicle to carry it? }&n
The range is calculated using flat road driving only…lol.
Sorry but I have to see it in service first before I get overly excited. It is fairly easy to impress a trucking company executive…much more difficult to impress an investor.
…and even harder to impress the driver.
Quoting Sam "question is: Is an extension cord part of the OEM equipment, as well as a vehicle to carry it? } "–I think extension cable is more likely.
You could always tow a second trailer with a generator on it!! It would be selfcontained. Oh!, wait, that would make it, nevermind.
My boss looked at the literature Tesla is putting out on their Truck. He laughed at it. Why as of now the weight of the truck ready to roll is 24k lbs with the lower output battery pack and an estimated 26K lbs with the higher output pack. Cost is 400 grand to start and over half a mill for one that would work for an OTR carrier. We can get almost 3 2019’s for that price. Range in the mountains before needing a charge Tesla is saying 200 miles. They can not even make it across Wyoming before needing a recharge. Cold weather reduces that even further. Also the DOT is giving them hell about the center driving position along with them trying to make regen brakes the primary braking system. So basically you have a truck that can not run far enough to make it a day long trip for the driver the battery is to freaking heavy and in winter your range is cut in half along with running in the mountains. Yet they think it is perfect for OTR trucks.
I wonder if Mr. Musk knows anything more about OTR trucking besides what he sees on the highways.
Does Mr. Musk know as much about trucks as he does about space travel and travelling in pods in tubes? Can he make a car where you can actually use the air conditoning on hot summer days? You can’t in a Tesla. It’s all about the taxpayers’ subsidies, isn’t it? A charlatan if ever there was one.
Also if Telsa does what they are doing with their cars aka requiring all repairs to be done at a Tesla Service Center or they decertify the vechile from being able to supercharge among other things any hope he has with making inroads in the OTR community are done. You so much as need a light bulb changed it has to be done at a Tesla service center or they will cut off your car from supercharging.
All their parts must come from them or the same thing they make Apple look good on how they treat people.
Musk’s real contribution is that he’s lighted a fire under the conventional truck builders to develop their own models. Freightliner, Volvo and the others don’t want to lose market share to an upstart like Tesla… The current Tesla truck is really just a primitive version of what an electric truck could be. Over the next 20 years they’ll get the bugs worked out of it… lighten it up… and have the infrastructure in place to make electric trucks a commercially viable option to internal combustion.
Until electric vehicle manufacturers develop a standardized, replaceable battery pack that the owner can obtain at one of thousands of highway services areas (think gas station) and thus get a fully charged battery in 10-15 minutes and continue on their way - EV’s will remain a curiosity and toy in the transportation industry.
Over the past several years there has been a globe hopping racing series known at FE or Formula Electric. Up through the 2018 competition year, a ‘pit stop’ was the driver coming into the pits and changing from one car to another. For the 2019 competition year the battery capacity is being expanded to last the full distance of the race - but still no quick change battery packs.
As long a electric vehicles are constrained by a single unreplaceable battery they will continue to be viewed as a amusing toy.
Let alone a single primary battery with an energy density approaching that of gasoline and using inherently pyrophoric chemistry.
Of course a more amusing toy is a truck with a multiple-ton primary battery that has to be swapped out like an RDC engine at … typical truck stops. That business model works for Rhino gas tanks. If anyone here has learned something from the intermodal-tire-tread thread, you will understand why it will NOT work in trucking.
I had very high hopes for the more practical alternative, the Nikola One, when it used a borderline-practical fuel. They have now gone to hydrogen and seem to be claiming that a “network” of 16 stations gives them national reach.
This is a shame because a Class 8 truck is right in the ideal range for a Karman energy-storage transmission, and there have been a number of interesting KERS experiments to implement things like regenerative braking without enormous battery banks (fixed or otherwise). If I remember correctly, Wal-Mart had figured out that KERS would avoid a tremendous amount of diesel-engine cycling in typical city or delivery service (speed transition under load is one of the chief places pollutants and contaminants cause trouble in these engines) but … crickets chirping for quite a while now.
I could see their use in city deliveries, or as a yard goat, but ‘on the road’? About as likely as an electric locomotive hauling a 15K ton train.