Tesla Unveils 500-Mile Range Semi Truck, 620-Mile Range Roadster 2.0 373
Rei writes: During a live reveal on Thursday, Tesla unveiled its new electric Class 8 Heavy Duty vehicle. As most people familiar with Tesla products would expect, the day cab truck features staggeringly fast acceleration for a vehicle of its size. It can accelerate 0-60 in 5 seconds without a trailer and 20 seconds with a 40-ton gross weight while being able to pull its maximum payload up a 5-degree grade at 65mph (versus a typical maximum of 45mph). The 500-mile range is for the vehicle at full load and highway speeds (80% of U.S. freight routes are 250 miles or less). Tesla also boasts a million mile no-breakdown guarantee; even losing two of its four motors it can out-accelerate a typical diesel truck. The total cost per mile is pegged at 83% of operating a diesel, but when convoying is utilized -- where multiple trucks mirror the action of a lead truck -- the costs drop to 57%, a price cheaper than rail. Tesla went a step further and stole the show from their own event by having the first prototype of the new Tesla Roadster drive out of the back of the truck. With the base model alone boasting a 620 mile range on a 200kWh battery pack with 10kN torque, providing a 1.9 second 0-60, 4.2 second 0-100, and 8.9 second quarter mile, the 2+2-seating convertible will easily be the fastest-accelerating production car in the world. Top speed is not disclosed, but said to be "at least 250mph." The vehicle's release date, however, is not scheduled until 2020.
Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Informative)
Energy consumption is stated at "under 2kWh/mile", which is reasonable. So a 500 mile range would be a 1MWh battery pack. The larger the battery pack, the more you approach individual cell energy densities, so they're probably getting around 200Wh/kg. Hence the battery pack (the heaviest portion of the tractor) probably weighs around 5 tonnes. Given that a typical semi tractor weighs about 8 tonnes, the two should be comparable.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Metric tonne or Imperial tonne?
I prefer the fucktonne myself.
Re: (Score:2)
So is that a UK long ton or a USA short ton?
Or perhaps I will just take a metric tonne which is somewhere in the middle and easy to visualize at being almost exactly one cubic metre of water. Any errors will be due to temperature and purity fluctuations :-)
The joys of a consistent set of units. Unlike the Imperial system the USA seems wedded to, though oddly they call them English, which is really odd because their wacko take on the Imperial system has not been used in England since well, before the revolut
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Funny)
By definition tonne is metric and ton is imperial.
However the US confuses things by calling a tonne, a metric ton.
Well, that is the long and short of it...
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Also note that regenerative braking is huge boon for big rigs. A lot of energy is stored in the moving mass and wasted every time you have to slow it down.
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Interesting)
I once read about a high altitude mine that had a custom built electric truck haul ore to where it could be processed and shipped out. The truck actually had to discharge at the bottom, not charge, as the energy it consumed going up empty was less than the energy it recovered going down full.
Re: (Score:3)
Reality says you're wrong.
https://electrek.co/2017/09/17... [electrek.co]
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:4, Informative)
https://electrek.co/2017/09/17... [electrek.co]
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Informative)
"Someone on youtube commented that the batteries add about 20,000 or 40,000 lbs extra weight compared to a diesel truck. That will reduce the total capacity of payload these trucks can carry, won't it?"
That's why they removed the large Diesel motor, the transmission, cooling, fuel and water tanks .....
Also I read a few days ago, that some mining companies use giant electric trucks to move 60 tons of materiel down the mountain (generating electricity) and empty back up the mountain, so they generate more energy than they use.
They have to go to the power outlet only once after each shift, not to load, but to _unload_ their surplus electricity.
Re: (Score:3)
"Someone on youtube commented that the batteries add about 20,000 or 40,000 lbs extra weight compared to a diesel truck. That will reduce the total capacity of payload these trucks can carry, won't it?"
That's why they removed the large Diesel motor, the transmission, cooling, fuel and water tanks .....
Parts which, collectively, don't even come close to weighing 10-20 tons.
And that's just the batteries, how much do you think the electric motors, capacitors, high-voltage cabling, et al weighs?
Re: (Score:3)
20-40 klbs seems a huge overestimate.
A 85 kWh battery pack for the model S weighs 540 kg. A 1 MWh battery pack of the same construction would weigh 6352 kg. The electric motors weigh in the region of 90 kg each (going by the weight difference between the Models S 90 and S90D).
A Volvo D16 engine weighs 2700 kg [volvopenta.com] and needs a transmission (several hundred kg), a retarder (ditto) and 500-1000 kg of diesel fuel.
So the extra weight of the Tesla is in the region of 3 tons (metric), not 20 tons.
Re: Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Funny)
OK, let's get them started:
500 mile range at 250 mph means you have to stop every two hours, that's pathetic compared to gasoline cars.
(OK, I'm outta here, have fun)
I beg to differ (Score:5, Interesting)
Not according to this. [diseno-art.com]
At top speed, a Bugatti Veyron would drain its 26 gallon fuel tank in 12 minutes, having covered only 51 miles.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Informative)
Electric wins *more* in hilly terrain because it can climb grades faster, and regens on the downslopes.
Salt isn't going to attack electric vehicle tractors any more than ICE tractors. And the vehicle uses a smooth belly pan anyway, it's not like the underside is a bunch of exposed wiring.
Batteries that are discharged over the course of 7 hours are not "stressed". And Tesla batteries have superb longevity [google.com] (check the charts/graphs tab).
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Cue the Musk haters in ... (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, because there's absolutely no rusted out shitbucket internal-combustion vehicles throughout the midwest and northeast US due to road salt. Not a single one. Salt only attacks electric vehicles!
On a hill, the electric truck will win every single time - no rapid downshifting to keep engine RPMs up, no tough hillstart climbs that require a lot of skill or extra mechanical devices like crawler gears or hill-start assist magic that prevent you from sliding your trailer into the family of 4 behind you, torque for days to pull the steep grade faster than 10 mph and regenerative braking to get the power back on the other side of the hill - in a diesel you just burn more diesel getting up the hill, and then wear your brake pads and drums even more going back down the other side.
There's a lot of smoke and mirrors when it comes to these launches, but some of what they did here makes a lot of sense.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
and then wear your brake pads and drums even more going back down the other side.
Brake pads should get very little wear going down a hill. Apparently you need to take some driving lessons. You are supposed to shift into a lower gear to keep your speed down when descending a hill.
In the case of a car, the the butterfly valve that controls the amount of air entering the engine stays closed until you open it by pressing on the accelerator pedal. This forces the cylinders to work against a high vacuum pressure. By down shifting you increase this vacuum pressure.
Diesel engines work by th
Just Like Knight Rider, Eh? (Score:3)
Overextending themselves (Score:2, Interesting)
Not saying that they shouldn't try to venture into new markets, but considering they've still got heavily negative cash flow and have still not been able to introduce a new car without significant technical and production-related teething issues they probably should down a bit. All in all the whole thing is starting to remind
Re:Overextending themselves (Score:5, Interesting)
At the same time, they're dependent on scale. It's estimated that a doubling of battery production rates equals a 17% reduction in battery costs. Hence it's in Tesla's interest to sell as many batteries as possible - whether in Model 3s, stationary energy storage, or Semis. It's also notable that Tesla is doing the exact same thing with drive units: Semi uses the exact same drive units as the Model 3 - just 4 of them.
Roadster 2.0, by contrast, is more of a halo car. Pricing hasn't been announced, but it's clearly the sort of vehicle where "if you have to ask, you can't afford it". Hence Tesla's target of 2020 (ages by Tesla's normally overly-aggressive timelines) seems to be "pushing capital expenses down the road".
Re:Overextending themselves (Score:5, Informative)
Pricing I've seen is $200k base price for the Roadster, with a $50k reservation fee. The founder edition is $250k.
Not cheap but not expensive for a car with that kind of performance.
Re: (Score:3)
Pricing I've seen is $200k base price for the Roadster, with a $50k reservation fee. The founder edition is $250k.
Not cheap but not expensive for a car with that kind of performance.
0-100 mph in 4.2 seconds and "at least" 250 mph top speed is pretty much Formula 1 racing car performance or as fast as a $2million+ Bugati.
So, yeah, relatively inexpensive.
How do they figure it's cheaper than Rail (Score:3)
I seriously doubt that strictly on a milage basis this is cheaper than rail. Rail is incredibly efficient. And for that matter you could electrify rail the same way.
Where rail breaks down is the last mile. Rail works out of depots. SO you need to offload these onto trucks in the end.
plus then there is the crew size. it take a couple people to drive an entire train. But it would take one driver per semi.
Re: How do they figure it's cheaper than Rail (Score:2)
From what I understand this system is basically a train on the road. You basically have n number of trucks following each other with a single driver.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's a great video that explains a lot of the cost factors in rail:
tl;dr highlights
Staff - rail has more people involved (on train, at stations, maintenance)
Usage - trains have to accommodate peak usage, but spend a lot of time way below capacity.
Land acquisition - land has to be bought initially
Trains and carriages (or cargo trolleys) are expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re:How do they figure it's cheaper than Rail (Score:5, Insightful)
Trucking companies mostly avoid the first three problems by taking advantage of one of the largest socialist programs in the USA: government-provided roads.
Re: (Score:3)
That doesn't nearly cover the damage they do to the roads.
Typical toll roads would charge a truck several times that amount to go about 5 miles. (And toll roads probably overcharge automobiles relative to to trucks as well.)
Re: How do they figure it's cheaper than Rail (Score:4, Insightful)
Not so much in the US. Very little rail freight in the USA is electric from what I understand.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even in the US heavy rail is electric. The diesel just turns a generator.
Model 3? (Score:2)
Re:Model 3? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is "Model 3?" a question?
if you're asking how production is going: spyshots and VIN tracking currently suggests that they're up to about 100 per week. It got a bit weird because the VIN count stalled out for like a month in the lower 500s, but then suddenly leaped to nearly 1100, and then has been counting backward, filling in the gap. But there's been a real flurry of activity in the past week, week and a half. Multiple parking lots filling and emptying on a near-daily basis with Model 3s of differing VINs. So while it's not clear what exactly got uncorked, something clearly did.
Re: (Score:2)
That sounds like something automated was improperly configured and required them to go back from the discovery of the error and fix each car.
Re:Model 3? (Score:4, Informative)
It could be. Or it could just be that they had a chasis surplus but were missing parts to fit them out.
There's no single problem that's hit them; it's been a number of different problems. They had a supplier which fell behind on supply. They had a couple mechanical and electrical problems in vehicles which they had to go back and repair. Automated battery manufacture took them a long time to get right because the tooling they'd been given didn't work properly. There were some paint shop delays, although they don't appear to have been serious. They've had overheating problems when they try to ramp up the speed on the automated welding (they use ultra high strength steel (in addition to high strength and mild steel) for part of the frame, and UHS steel can be very finicky about welding). Etc. Just all around growing pains. But either way, it's good to see that production rate finally starting to angle up.
Re:Model 3? (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently they didn't get of the naggers since you keep bitching about them. =P
How many can they make now with current funding? (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
With a market cap of over $50B, Tesla basically can't "run out of money", unless investors suddenly change their minds and decide it has no future. Obviously, they don't want to dilute stock, but they can whenever they need to.
As for timing: first deliveries are scheduled for 2019.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
With a market cap of over $50B, Tesla basically can't "run out of money",
What are you talking about? Of course they can run out of money - their market cap is not income. Hell, it's not even what a company is worth.
Re: (Score:2)
It appears that the electric motors have been done right, as they announced a whopping ONE MILLION MILE drivetrain warranty during the launch.
As for the driving from the left seat, it's to give you better perspective of the whole road in a vehicle that is low to the ground - it's the same effect you get in right-hand drive cars while driving on the left side of the road. Center-seat in a commercial vehicle probably works nice because you are up high, and it would give you a perspective for guiding that lar
Re: (Score:2)
It's not so much that the motors can't fail, as it is the fact that you have four of them, so it's okay if one or two fail.
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't say it's "ok" but it definitely is better than if your diesel takes a shit on you in the middle of the desert. Only idiots argue against reasonable redundancy.
Re: (Score:3)
Still it strikes me as odd that we all drive from the left seat in America and on the right side of the road. It would seem to increase the chances of the drivers being killed
While in a partial head-on accident (the most dangerous sort for a given speed) driver survivability is probably reduced by being on that side of the vehicle, the greater visibility afford to the driver by being nearer to the centre of the road greatly reduces the likelihood of an accident at all.
It nets out at fewer deaths per mile, even if individual outcomes per crash suffer slightly.
Re: (Score:2)
I hear they sell cars, that sounds like a revenue stream.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
There is a difference between making a profit and investing it (what Amazon actually did) and not generating adequate revenue to cover costs even before research (what Tesla is doing now),
The key term here is cash flow. Profit is a choice a business can make, cash flow keeps them in business.
Re: (Score:2)
500k a year (not counting Model Y, not counting the 700k that Tesla thinks they can get if they actually start advertising), with an average sale price of $45k, and a 25% margin. $5,6B profit on sales per year. Explain to me again why Tesla "can never pay off" its debt?
Re:They'll just issue bonds or shares (Score:5, Informative)
Their margin on each S and X is approximately 25%, but don't let that stop you from making things up.
Re:How many can they make now with current funding (Score:4, Funny)
It's fueled by millennials? Do they have a big furnace in the basement or something?
If it's only 250 MPH, it won't be fastest. (Score:2)
The Bugatti Chiron can do 250 now, and they claim that after eventual fettling and tuning they will get it to do 300.
It might be the quickest production car, though, which is not the same as fastest.
Re:If it's only 250 MPH, it won't be fastest. (Score:4, Interesting)
The Bugatti Chiron can do 250 now, and they claim that after eventual fettling and tuning they will get it to do 300.
It might be the quickest production car, though, which is not the same as fastest.
Bugatti - Spends two years and thousands of man-hours on developing an internal combustion engine and transmission to squeeze a gain of 25MPH faster than the previous model. Eventually becomes a not-so-useful one-seater that runs out of gas in 3 minutes at top speed.
Tesla - Slaps in a bigger battery. Tells customers to hold on tight.
Yeah, I think we know how this race is gonna end...
(FYI, Koenigsegg Agera RS tops out at over 280MPH, so Bugatti already has some catching up to do.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Imagine what happens when Bugatti make an electric hypercar, which is probably what they will do next.
Personally I'm not championing even this round of Roadster advancement by Tesla.
Spoiled children who have spent more time in a dentist chair than behind the wheel of a car. The wealthy elderly who probably should have had their license taken away years ago. These are your future Tesla hypercar owners. Do you honestly think we're going to feel safe as a driver or pedestrian with them driving a car capable of 0-manslaughter in less than 2 seconds?
Sorry, but this race to ludicrous speed really needs to stop
Re: (Score:2)
Is it important that a truck - presumably intended for long hauls rather than Tom-Slick-style racing - be able to accelerate like mad? Once, Ettore Bugatti, when asked about the brakes, quipped "I want it to go, not stop." From what speed can the Roadster 2 stop, safely?
Re: (Score:3)
I think the point is that it can accelerate like mad, not that it needs to. This is demonstrating that it is technically superior in almost every way.
Therefore, it should nearly always be running well within its performance envelope, which I imagine has benefits in terms of longevity of the components etc.
Re:If it's only 250 MPH, it won't be fastest. (Score:5, Insightful)
Where it gets important is when you have a trailer with 60,000 pounds of cargo in the back, and you need to go from 0-60 up a hill. That takes a Diesel tractor minutes to do, where this thing could keep traffic flowing reasonably.
That's the point.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the truck is the more interesting story here, but I didn't have anything interesting to say about it.
Anyway, I think we can expect another couple of ICE-based 300 MPHers before the ICE is dead, dead, dead.
Re: (Score:3)
Is it important that a truck - presumably intended for long hauls rather than Tom-Slick-style racing - be able to accelerate like mad?
One of the most dangerous things modern trucks often do is allow themselves to accelerate downhill and decelerate up hills - partly to capture energy as momentum that would otherwise be lost to braking - but also because they are often underpowered and couldn't maintain speed all the way to the top of a hill without the running head start. Ultimately, the inability of diesel trucks to efficiently maintain a constant speed is a major contributing factor to the lowering of their speed limits relative to other
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, fast acceleration in a semi would be a game changer. Trucks could mix freely with cars in urban metroplexes without blocking traffic.
It sounds like Convoying has huge % benefits to costs, so companies will definitely want to use it and maximize the size of their convoys for greatest efficiency.
Convoying will definitely affect traffic; Think of having to wait for a tightly-locked convoy of 150 trucks to pass in order to merge onto the highway. This causes what in networking what is referred to
Re: (Score:2)
Musk said Roadster 2 will do >250mph. So it's in the same category as the Chiron. Until the production release we don't know how much faster than 250mph either of them will go.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming you can get it there and you can build a really good road for it, it should go way faster than 250 on Mars, as there is much less air resistance, which is the main limiting factor for speed. However you'll die at the first corner because it will have the same momentum but only 1/3 the gravitational downforce (and little opportunity to use aerodynamic downforce) so it would look like a fish, move like a fish, steer like a cow.
CDL (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:CDL (Score:5, Informative)
I didn't have room in the summary to cover charging (tried to fit in as many specs as I could!), but I probably should have made room: 30 minutes to 80% when empty. And you can install those chargers (quite compact, and don't need underground tanks) at depots; they trickle charge to fill a battery buffer, when then surge charges a vehicle when it connects, so it doesn't even mean stops "on the road". Tesla is however planning to expand their current supercharger network to include these new "megachargers", starting on the busiest trucking routes. And since 500 miles range is like 7 hours driving, you're going to want a break either way. In the EU they make you take 45 minutes of breaks every 4 1/2 hours driving.
I think it'll be really neat once they make a sleeper cab. No more awkward hacked-on solutions to avoid idling; the climate control is electric to begin with, and the cab has all the power you could dream of.
Also, contrary to most peoples' expectations, modern EVs tend to deal with cold extremely well. They lose range, of course (not as much as most people expect** when you use a well thermally-managed powertrain like Tesla does, but still some), but you never have any issues with "difficulty starting" or the like. You get in and it just goes - even if the vehicle has been idling for days not plugged in and the pack is completely cold (the only "symptom" with that is you can't use regen until it heats up, and peak acceleration is reduced). Packs are generally rated for storage at -50 to -30 and usage at -30 to -20, depending on the chemistry, and utilize heaters (or in Tesla's case, deliberately-created waste heat in the motor re-routed by heat exchangers) to protect against out-of-spec conditions when necessary.
** - The instantaneous power consumption upon starting is much higher as the vehicle uses power to heat up; however, once it's reached its temperature and heating is only needed for maintaining temperature, power consumption is greatly reduced. And it should be all the easier for Semi, with its very high power demands creating a lot of waste heat (even electric drivetrains have some waste heat, which a good system like Tesla's recaptures; Semi should kick off about 10kW of waste heat when cruising at highway speeds), and its high volume to surface area ratio means that it should be extremely easy to outpace heat loss.
Re:CDL (Score:5, Insightful)
I didn't have room in the summary to cover charging (tried to fit in as many specs as I could!), but I probably should have made room: 30 minutes to 80% when empty. And you can install those chargers (quite compact, and don't need underground tanks) at depots; they trickle charge to fill a battery buffer, when then surge charges a vehicle when it connects, so it doesn't even mean stops "on the road".
I wonder if they're also planning to support the obvious (to me, at least) option of putting an additional battery in the trailer. Trucks often run loaded less than 100% capacity so trading off some cargo volume/mass for additional range could make a lot of sense. In fact I'm kind of surprised the battery capacity in the tractor isn't more modular. Battery swapping doesn't make so much sense for consumer vehicles, but it seems perfect for commercial fleets with maintenance depots. I'd think a smallish internal battery, good for short trips, plus a bay where additional capacity can be installed with a forklift would make a lot of sense -- and the ability to add additional towed battery capacity, perhaps up to non-stop coast-to-coast range (for full self-driving, which on freeways is probably achievable with only cameras and radar).
Re: (Score:2)
Re:CDL (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine electric trucks, when fully optimized for aerodynamics, will resemble art-deco steam locomotives in appearance.
Has a special coating (Score:2)
Star Wars inspiration? (Score:2)
The white one in profile looks little like a stormtrooper mask, especially with the blacked out windows.
1 seat and no sleeper? (Score:2)
Seems to limited in that part
Tesla has a profitability problem (Score:2)
The more cars it sells, the more cash it burns [battleswarmblog.com]. That's not a problem you can make up with volume. Then there's the racial discrimination lawsuits, the drive to unionize, and a host of other economic problems.
Maybe Musk should have concentrated on making one business profitable, not start a half a dozen more.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually it is something you can make up in volume if you understand where they're losing money vs where they're making it.
They make money on every single car sold, actually among the highest profit margin in the industry. They just happen to spend even more on expanding their business. If Tesla slowed down their rate of expansion their profitability would go up. They could be profitable right now if they wanted to, but they're more focused on growing than on profitability.
I personally think that Tesla are
Matching trailers? (Score:2)
I can think of two extra features you'd like your trailer to have with one of these: cameras which talk to the tractor, and regenerative breaking. Some sort of trailer camera standard would be great whether the tractor is electric or ICE. If you're towing a standard trailer, do you need extra airbrake hardware, or does the trailer contain all of that?
Good to see the E-vehicle haters in full voice (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember back when the Tesla Roadster had just been released, and certain parts of the Slashdot crowd were boldly predicting that Tesla would be bankrupt in months. And then Musk borrowed a bunch of money from the US government, and they boldly predicted Tesla would be bankrupt before it paid back a penny. Then Tesla paid it all back and released the S model, and the same crew (with additions) predicted Tesla would be bankrupt in months, and Elon Musk would be begging on street corners with a cup. Then the SUV, and Space X safely landed a bunch of first stage boosters, and the Model 3. Then Tesla open-sourced quite a lot of its patents, and the shrieks of rage could be heard for miles. How DARE they!
And at every stage, growing ever larger as the alt right decided Slashdot would be a worthwhile acquisition, the same group confidently predicted the ruin of Space X, Tesla, and anything else Elon Musk did. And every time they've been proved wrong. It appears they now have been moved to redefine "success" as "anything Elon Musk does not do".
So now Tesla proposes to produce and sell a full-on long-range tractor, and once again, a significant percentage of the comments here are all about how it will fail, and it's ugly and people will die and the world will end when electric trucks take over...and they will, though not for a few years yet.
So I'll just head off to the office now, expecting to get modded down because it's 8:30 EST, and that usually means people without jobs (cough...alt right...cough) will be hanging around. And I'll smile because I know I'll be seeing a fair number of electric trucks on the road before I retire.
Life is good.
American Truck Simulator (Score:2)
Be an interesting vehicle choice in ATS - where 500 mile journeys are well under the average distance I try to deliver.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They can software limit the top speed if necessary. The computer's already controlling the power flow, tapering off the power as it approaches the speed limit is fairly trivial.
Trucking companies could also have speed limiters installed if they wanted to manage how their vehicles are driven and vary the limit based on local laws.. The could even have the system programmed to automatically limit the hours driven to comply with various laws as well. For example, combining GPS with driving time could determine if the driver can make the final destination, based on road conditions, traffic, etc., and require a stop at a rest area or truck stop to avid exceeding driving time limits. Th
Re: (Score:3)
In Texas trucks can go up to 85mph on freeways. In Nevada, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming it's up to 80mph. Only about a third of US states have separate speed limits for trucks vs. cars on interstates. 55mph is the slowest of these speed limits, and only in California and Puerto Rico. See here [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Arguably, the real limit for responsible drivers is the speed rating of the tires. With some ad-hoc Google research I find no tires for heavy trucks that are rated more than speed class "M", which is 81 mph or 130 km/h.
This said, if you look on old forum threads like http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=97985 [straightdope.com], you can find statements like this:
No, it's not a myth. A company I worked for had trucks that would go that fast. We had several tractors with Caterpillar 3406B engines set at 425 horsepower. One was always getting worse fuel mileage then the others. We had the local Cat dealer check out the tractor. They went into the computerized fuel system on the engine and were able to show how fast the driver had been running with it. He had been hitting 118 out on I-10 through Arizona pretty regularly. With a few keystrokes they cut his top end back to 85 MPH and the fuel mileage improved a lot. A lot of the tractors on the road have Detoit Diesel 60 series engines set at 500 horsepower and they will also easily run over a hundered if they are geared right and haven't had the top speed set down. Is it smart to run that fast? No way. It takes a lot more distance to stop as you get rolling faster. Trucks running close together to "draft" are just an accident waiting to happen.
But I guess in 2001, speed limiters were not as widespread as today...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is it legal? Because it is, in many jurisdictions. [wikipedia.org]
Or are you asking about the actual legislative process by which speed limit laws are passed?
I can't drive 55/65! (Score:2)
I can't drive 55/65!
Re: (Score:3)
Does it need to be pretty? Or better - does it need to be pretty for everyone? Because, in all honesty, it's not only a matter of taste (like the Model S and X were) and it's also completely OK by contrast (all semis are horrible IMHO), and I doubt drivers really care. After all, the part everyone sees the most on a semi is their trailer's back and sides...
Re:Gee, that semi is ugly. (Score:4, Insightful)
Does it need to be pretty? Or better - does it need to be pretty for everyone? Because, in all honesty, it's not only a matter of taste (like the Model S and X were) and it's also completely OK by contrast (all semis are horrible IMHO), and I doubt drivers really care. After all, the part everyone sees the most on a semi is their trailer's back and sides...
It's a matter of appealing to the buyer of trucks. Truckers are very passionate about what a truck should look like. However, I'm guessing fleet sales are the initial target and economics will overcome "it doesn't look like a truck" in the end. Even for owner operators the ability to save on operating costs, if big enough to cover buying a new rig, the economics would win over being a Mack/Peterbuilt/Freightliner person. 17% savings on the per mile operating costs is significant, in addition if you get older trucks off the road not only would the savings be greater since operating costs go up as tucks age but you'd cut down on the pollutants they emit.
Since an electric truck doesn't have to have the same cooling system an ICE requires they can be more aerodynamic, if you could combine that with trailers designed for improved aerodynamics the savings could be increased. For a set of driverless trucks yo could draft to cut down on drag with the first and last ruck designed for improving overall aerodynamics of the truck train.
I'd like to see Tesla enter this in the semi truck racing circuit. It would be like the turbine car at Ind, without the breakdown.
Re: (Score:3)
It's really hideous. Couldn't they come up with something watchable?
How much time do you spend staring at trucks?
Re: (Score:2)
The absolute last thing on the intended customer's mind is how it looks. The very first thing is operating cost per mile, and the second thing is the initial capital outlay.
It could look like it drove through the ugly forest ripping down every branch over the road, but it it has a lower operating cost per mile, they'll sell a whole lot of them.
Re:Typically Tesla (Score:5, Insightful)
Whenever there has been too much bad news for a while, they announce some pie-in-the-sky plan or they 'launch' a product that probably won't ever exist, just to get some positive buzz and to deflect attention from their major problems.
Give me a fucking break. I've lost count of the number of "concept" vehicles that have been paraded around by every other auto manufacturer for the last half-century that never made it to an assembly line, and often served as nothing more than marketing hype.
This concept is hardly new or unique to Tesla.
Re: (Score:2)
So the two trucks, and the car that they actually drove into, and out of the event, don't exist.
They must have some next-level hologram technology they aren't launching then. Or you don't know what you are talking about.
Re: (Score:3)
So what products has Tesla announced more than a couple years ago that haven't since come to exist?
Off the top of my head? I'm sure this is only a small sample of the many missed targets:
- Hands free on-ramp to off-ramp driving (announced as coming through software within the next few months in 2014)
- The car picking you up anywhere you happen to be on private property (announced as coming through software within the next few months in 2014)
- Car meeting you at your front door on private property based on reading your calendar (announced as coming through software within the next few months in 2014)
- Car
Re: (Score:2)
That wasn't "more than a couple years ago". And you'll see it in a couple months.
Re: (Score:2)
Funny, could you boldface for me where he promises in that statement a $35k Model 3 in 2017?
So to you, "a couple months" means "under 1 1/2 months". Interesting.
Re: (Score:3)
.... which was unveiled on 19 october 2016. And delivered in its basic form, although the updates for the "upcoming" expanded capabilities certainly have been well behind schedule. But most certainly not something from "more than a couple years ago".
That said: I'm actually very much a doubter about full self driving, and if there's anything I think Tesla will fail on, it will be this.
Re: (Score:2)
They're not that close together; you can cut in-between them, and they're designed to deal with that.
Re:Seems dangerous. (Score:4, Informative)
Not a solid line; they leave a gap between each truck, and are designed to deal with vehicles moving in and out between them.
Re: (Score:3)
No, the whole reason that they're convoying is so they don't have to pay a driver for each vehicle.
They showed pictures of the convoying. The space between vehicles was quite large.
Further, even if they did close up tight, there's no reason the self-driving systems couldn't see your turn signal and open a space for you to get in / through. Unlike human drivers, computers don't become inattentive or annoyed.
Re: (Score:3)
They'll probably have to run special courses for all the BMW drivers who don't even know their cars have them.
Re: (Score:3)
...You in no way want a semi truck that accelerates like that, you want something that can have an enormous amount of TORQUE...
F=ma. Acceleration is directly proportional to torque.
Re:The Tesla Semi takes 7.2 megawatt hours per cha (Score:5, Interesting)
That is in fact why this truck exists. See, the U.S. is weird in that it measures fuel efficiency in MPG. That's actually the inverse of fuel efficiency (which would be GPM, or how many gallons does it take to drive 100 miles). Because MPG is the inverse, it leads to a numerical inversion which tricks a lot of people into thinking what's small is big. (The rest of the world uses liters per 100 km to avoid this problem.) Say you needed to drive 100 miles. How many gallons of gas do you need?
Notice how every time MPG doubles, the amount of fuel saved is only half that of the previous doubling? In other words, the majority of the fuel savings comes at smaller MPG. The +25 MPG jump from a sedan to a Prius only saves you 2 gallons. While the +12.5 MPG jump from a SUV to a sedan saves you 4 gallons. Even though the 12.5 MPG delta seems smaller than the 25 MPG delta, it saves twice as much fuel. How? Because MPG is the inverse of fuel efficiency. Bigger is smaller, smaller is bigger.
So econoboxes like the Prius are actually the worst possible place to put a hybrid or electric motor. The car is already very fuel efficient. You're adding a lot of complexity and cost for very little fuel savings. The best place to put these technologies is in the gas guzzlers - SUVs and tractor trailers. Raising that 6.125 MPG tractor trailer's MPG to 6.67 MPG (a 9% increase in MPG) yields just as much fuel savings per mile as doubling a Prius' MPG to 100 MPG (a 100% increase in MPG).
This whole obsession with high MPG vehicles like the Prius is misguided at best, a terrible waste of money and resources at worst. Musk has done the math and knows this, and knows that the best way to really cut the country's fuel consumption is by improving the efficiency of gas guzzling vehicles like tractor trailers. Which is why he made this electric truck.
HP = constant * Torque * RPM. That's right, the HP and torque curves for an engine are one and the same, just both axes are scaled differently. (The value of the constant depends on what units you're using.)
Also, an electric motor deals much better with the huge range of power output that a truck needs. From low power at cruise speed, to high power during acceleration. Electric motors are so much better at this than transmissions that pretty much every modern train locomotive is electric. Even if the train still uses fossil fuels, it's energy isn't sent directly to the wheels via a mechanical linkage. It's converted into electricity, which then powers an electric motor which drives the wheels. AKA the diesel-electric locomotive.