Tesla Will Reveal Its Electric Semi Truck in September (techcrunch.com) 273
From a report: Elon Musk just let us know when we'll get a look at the electric semi truck that he's teased in the past: The Tesla transport vehicle will be revealed in September, the CEO said on Twitter on Thursday, noting that the team has "done an amazing job" and that the vehicle is "seriously next level." Plans at Tesla for an electric semi truck have been in the works for a while now: The vehicle was first mentioned back in July of 2016, when Musk revealed part 2 of his fabled "master plan" for his electric vehicle company. The Tesla Semi, as Musk called it, is designed to help reduce the cost of cargo transportation, and improve safety for drivers, according to the CEO at the time.
Driverless (Score:5, Insightful)
It has to have the capacity for a driverless upgrade out of the gate or it's going to be an expensive, outdated piece of awkward shit. That's where we are now: an electric lorry would be awesome, but we're seriously waiting for a driverless lorry in 2020. Promise an upgrade to driverless at significantly less than the full cost of the vehicle and close to the cost difference between it and a driverless model of equal specification when the tech becomes available and you're good to go; require replacing a probably 5,000,000 mile vehicle 500,000 miles into its lifespan to get the driverless tech (bigger than electric tech) and you're getting nothing.
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" expensive, outdated piece of awkward shit."
Just like every other Semi Truck ever made.
Re:Driverless (Score:4, Informative)
It has to have the capacity for a driverless upgrade out of the gate
Please note that Tesla is now building every new car [tesla.com] (Model S, Model 3, and Model X) with full self-driving hardware. This includes 8 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, a forward-facing radar, and computers adequate for self-driving (they claim 40x more processing power than the previous "Autopilot" computers). In the future, every Tesla car sold this year could be software-upgraded to full self-driving.
So, call me crazy, but I think Tesla might have thought of your point and is probably on top of it.
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This includes 8 cameras, 12 ultrasonic sensors, a forward-facing radar,
I am very interested going forward to know what the maintenance is going to be on this stuff. A relative who owns a garage maintains a fleet of 100 vehicles for a company and says that a significant part of his work is related to sensors that have nothing to do with driving, e.g. mass O2 sensors. Self driving cars depend on absolute values for all these sensors. How many can become non-functional before the electronic brain goes into lockdown because it doesn't have sufficient info? We like to think that th
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What if they need a different set of hardware bolted on to meet future DOT guidelines for unoccupied autonomous vehicles?
We already have those (Score:2)
A driverless truck/lorry won't happen (at least not for several decades if not centuries) because the existing infrastructure won't support it. A good percentage of the places where trucks have to unload their goods aren't actually built for trucks to park and unload. I regularly see tractor trailer drivers ma
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Is it cheaper to pay $12/hr for a driver to make a 3-day cross-country drive, or to pay $12/hr for a driver at the destination to get into each truck and park it as it arrives?
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Sorry to burst your bubble, but its already happening and the industry can't wait for it to happen mainstream. Check out the stories of OTTO and their shipments of Budweiser using driverless technology.
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It has to have the capacity for a driverless upgrade out of the gate or it's going to be an expensive, outdated piece of awkward shit.
Not at all. What you are not taking into account is that electric vehicles requires significantly less maintenance and electricity is cheap. Paying less for maintenance and powering it will result in saving money much faster than your typical car.
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My point was that electric vehicles require less maintenance, so buying an electric vehicle is (presumably) an investment spanning decades; if your business risk appetite and tolerances are tuned such that you're willing to risk the cost of using old-style diesel to stretch for a few years to upgrade to driverless lorries without having to somehow sell off your (now severely-devalued) electric lorries at a huge loss, you might decide to wait 3-5 years to save yourself hundreds of millions of dollars with o
Supply and demand (Score:2)
> Not at all. What you are not taking into account is that electric vehicles
> requires significantly less maintenance and electricity is cheap.
Electricity is cheap *TODAY*. Diesel fuel used to be a lot cheaper than gasoline. Then diesel cars became common, and the resulting demand pushed up diesel fuel prices. A big switchover from diesel fiel to electricity for trucks will push up electricity prices, and possibly lower diesel fuel prices. It's the demand side of supply and demand.
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Plus, a terrorist could load it full of explosives and program in the target and turn it loose like a smart bomb.
Trucks are more expensive than suicide bombers. In fact, I'll wager that hijacking autonomous vehicles to deliver bombs will remain more difficult and expensive than brainwashing "martyrs" into doing the job.
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"I'll wager that hijacking autonomous vehicles to deliver bombs will remain more difficult and expensive than brainwashing "martyrs" into doing the job."
They can rent as many trucks as they want, lots of companies do it that way too.
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A lorry is a large vehicle which attaches a 40-foot shipping container to produce an 18-wheeled vehicle-plus-trailer with over 12,000kg of gross vehicle weight. They typically drop off a trailer at a loading dock and take a new, empty or pre-loaded one (generally a pre-loaded one if the place has incoming and outgoing shipping; empty at termination points, loaded at distribution centers).
A driverless lorry could park a trailer accurately, correctly, and safely at a loading dock. The sensors would tell
Humans can part a trailer just fine (Score:2)
A driverless lorry could park a trailer accurately, correctly, and safely at a loading dock.
So can one with a human driver. They do it every day all over the world with excellent results. Nothing wrong with letting the computer do it but let's not pretend humans can't handle the task.
The sensors would tell it exactly how it aligns and moves, versus a human who uses some visual information and some prior information (intuition) to estimate without a real data stream.
You think there are no sensors on trucks to assist the human drivers in docking? You need to go visit a warehouse sometime.
Re:Humans can part a trailer just fine (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing wrong with letting the computer do it but let's not pretend humans can't handle the task.
I've met humans. They're dumber than they look.
Re:Humans can part a trailer just fine (Score:5, Insightful)
"So can one with a human driver. They do it every day all over the world with excellent results. Nothing wrong with letting the computer do it but let's not pretend humans can't handle the task."
But not 24/7 without any pay.
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^this
"So can one with a human driver. They do it every day all over the world with excellent results. Nothing wrong with letting the computer do it but let's not pretend humans can't handle the task."
While working at a Coke bottling plant as a student job, one of their drivers would backup his truck (2 45-footers on it) in one move. in 1988 I'm pretty sure he didn't have any electronic assistance, and yet everytime he would dock perfectly, maybe an inch or so between the dock and the second trailer.
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A lorry is a large vehicle which attaches a 40-foot shipping container to produce an 18-wheeled vehicle-plus-trailer with over 12,000kg of gross vehicle weight.
Isn't "lorry" just British for "truck"? A semi truck is a heavy truck with a 5th wheel instead of a truck body. A semi trailer is a trailer with no front wheels, thus requiring a 5th wheel that can support a significant load. While the combination is often called an "18-wheeler", actual wheel count may vary.
I'm skeptical that Tesla can deliver the reliability expected in this market. The Model S just got off Consumer Reports's shit list, and the Model X is still on it.
Kudos to Tesla if they can may this
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A semi truck is a heavy truck with
A semi tractor is a ...
Where's my edit button?
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"Lorry" is British for a specific kind of vehicle. "Truck" is American English for a bunch of unrelated things.
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I'm skeptical that Tesla can deliver the reliability expected in this market. The Model S just got off Consumer Reports's shit list, and the Model X is still on it.
I think Tesla (or any manufacturer) has an easier time making a reliable semi tractor than any luxury car or crossover. They're very much brute force vehicles, with size, weight, and performance constraints so broad, they're barely constraints at all. There aren't going to be any happy, slappy self-extruding door handles or falcon-wing doors (the downfall of the Model X) on this thing. It'll be a thin wrapper around a gigantic pile of batteries and one or two ridiculously powerful electric motors. Admit
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Indeed... and a driverless truck wouldn't decide to just start to change into your lane when you are behind its cab but still beside its trailer on a two-lane city road.
Damn scary sometimes, those truck drivers.
At least bus drivers shoulder check.
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It can't drive up to a loading dock to load/unload.
Why not? Tesla cars can self-park, so why would trucks be any different?
If anything, it should be easier with trucks. If a company is going to invest in self-driving trucks, they will also be willing to add some standardized markings to their loading docks to make it easier to park them.
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...so why would trucks be any different?
The trailer makes quite a difference when backing up. Hang out at your local boat-launch to see examples of amateurs giving it a shot.
The big problem is that the world we live in isn't designed for big trucks. Large vehicles have to break all sorts of traffic rules just to navigate most cities. Accommodating for a trailer often requires making turns from one lane over, or even driving into oncoming traffic first. There are docks that can only be backed into by pulling across two or four or even six lanes
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a terrorist could load it full of explosives and program in the target and turn it loose like a smart bomb. Too much at risk here simply to put a few truck drivers out of work.
Living in fear like a good citizen.
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And they will self-unload in 5 years.
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It definitely could, in fact that task is one of the most trivial it could perform. The loading dock will be complete with its own transponders to let the truck know exactly where to position the trailer to the nearest mm and may also include metadata like height etc.
Compared with automated driving on roads, backing up to a loading dock is the easiest of all tasks.
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Why do you think that it couldn't pull itself up to a loading dock?
Nothing says... (Score:5, Funny)
Nothing says long haul trucking like a vehicle with a 200 mile range and a 6 hour recharge time.
Re:Nothing says... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Wasted snark opportunity (Score:5)
Nothing says long haul trucking like a vehicle with a 200 mile range and a 6 hour recharge time.
Who said it was a long haul truck? And if you're going to make up bogus numbers for range at least try to make them credible. Be more clever with your snark next time.
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Who said it was a long haul truck?
It's implied by the descriptive term "semi truck".
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Formerly a professional semi driver, Currently a programmer.
It is only your implication it is not the implication by those that drive the semi's or manage the fleets.
I spent 10+ years behind the wheel of large vehilces and most semi's I knew of drove in a radius of less than 400 miles as the crow flies. Hell I know thousands of semis that drove in a radius of less than 100 miles on a general basis. If he has made a Semi capable of 200 miles and a six hour recharge than he has great market potential. Please
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Well, considering the cars do more than 200miles, I hope the lorries do too. Also, I'd be very surprised if they didn't have quick replace batteries. Reach the stop- drop off the spent batteries, pick up freshly charged ones. No reason to stop any more frequently than your current vehicles.
Re:Nothing says... (Score:4, Informative)
San Francisco's electric trolleybuses can run all day and all night without stopping to recharge.
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Re:Nothing says... (Score:5, Informative)
Nothing says long haul trucking like a vehicle with a 200 mile range and a 6 hour recharge time.
I guarantee you that this thing is going to have a fast-swap battery pack.
The Model S already has a battery pack that can be swapped [tesla.com] in about 90 seconds by a computer-controlled machine. It turned out [fortune.com] that very few Model S owners wanted to pay for the fast battery swap service; the Supercharger service is adequate to most people's needs. (By the way, the Supercharger is much faster than your suggested 6 hours of charge time, for existing cars at least.)
So if range and charging time is an issue, companies will have the option of buying extra batteries and setting up battery-swap hubs at key locations on long haul routes. Or Tesla will do it like they tried for the Model S.
And hey what do you know, Tesla is investing heavily in a battery "gigafactory" [wikipedia.org] and is going to bring the cost of batteries down as much as possible, as soon as possible.
So your joke was amusing but you have not actually identified a real problem. It's almost like Tesla knows what it's doing.
Re:Nothing says... (Score:4, Interesting)
An electric motor can cover that huge torque vs speed range without any gears. At some point the extra weight of the transmission with all those gears is more of a burden than the losses you get from converting the ICE's mechanical energy into electrical to drive the electric motor. In that respect, even if the truck isn't 100% electric, it could offer some serious advantages. e.g. No low gears - the ICE engine only drives the truck at higher speeds. At lower speeds it's powered by an electric motor, whose battery is recharged by the ICE.
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Tesla cars have nothing in the front but an extra trunk [google.com]. A Tesla tractor-trailer rig could fill the space traditionally used for the engine with additional battery capacity.
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Charge times for EVs are under an hour. As the battery gets bigger, you can charge it at higher currents to keep the charge time around 40-50 minutes.
The fuel and maintenance savings offset extra stopping times for commercial use. My old Leaf is a taxi now. With self driving it becomes even less relevant.
Speed is not usually a big factor. Most deliveries are not time constrained.
Re:Nothing says... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Nothing says long haul trucking like a vehicle with a 200 mile range and a 6 hour recharge time."
Nothing says long haul trucking.
Nothing says 200 mile range.
Nothing says 6 hour recharge.
Your argument aspires to strawman status.
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You do know that semi-trucks are supposed to carry cargo right? If the trailer is full of batteries you don't have room for that cargo.
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Details, details! They'll fix that with the next software update!
Re: Nothing says... (Score:5, Interesting)
If the trailer is full of batteries you don't have room for that cargo.
It doesn't have to be "full" of batteries. If you devote 5% of the space to batteries, you can have a 1000 mile range.
If it takes one hour to recharge after 6 hours of driving, that is a total of four hours/day of downtime. With a human driver, the max legal limit is 11 hours per day of driving, followed by at least 10 hours of downtime. So the SDT has less total downtime, faster deliveries, and no driver to pay.
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Hey, it kinda looks like a... (Score:4, Interesting)
Given how critical aerodynamics are for ev's, I wonder if they'll be able to streamline the vehicle without it looking like a phallus on wheels.
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A lorry has a giant plastic scoop on top that serves no purpose other than to provide fairing for the big, box-shaped shipping container. Seriously, it's a third of the cabin's height.
Wind resistance doesn't care (Score:4, Interesting)
Given how critical aerodynamics are for ev's, I wonder if they'll be able to streamline the vehicle without it looking like a phallus on wheels.
Aerodynamics are just as important for gas powered vehicles as they are for EVs. Wind resistance doesn't care what you have under the hood. Besides, EVs have an advantage there because they don't need a radiator up front screwing up the air stream.
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EV's have more flexibility in location of the radiator but I believe some if not all still have them. The battery packs have to be climate controlled to stay stable and the cooling is most efficiently handled via water cooling using a radiator. Aerodynamics are important to gas powered vehicles but arguably more important for EV's because of the range constraints from using a battery. Whereas putting a larger fuel tank in a gas powered car is trivial both in difficulty and expense.
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And the size of the car
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Given how critical aerodynamics are for ev's, I wonder if they'll be able to streamline the vehicle without it looking like a phallus on wheels.
The problem with truck aerodynamics is:
A. The trailer is not always owned by the trucking company.
B. Boxy trailers have more usable space than aerodynamic ones. Because of this, most trucking industry analysts look at "freight efficiency" (how far a unit of mass can be moved with a unit of fuel). That leads to some interesting trade offs. The most aerodynamic truck is not always the most efficient at moving freight. This can even vary based on what the vehicle is hauling, or the route taken.
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Tesla will flourish if complexity is reduced... (Score:5, Interesting)
I say to Tesla: Reduce the complexity and(or) the gimmickry and see cash flow into your coffers. Folks, how about creating a near "normal" car with better range and more competitive pricing?
I for one know I'd be a sure customer. I also know that I am not alone. Who needs a car whose handles will pop out? These get "stuck" sometimes...and in a dusty environment, it gets worse!!
Re:Tesla will flourish if complexity is reduced... (Score:4, Informative)
Model 3: $35,000. Bolt EV: $37,000. Volt PHEV: $33,000.
Seems like Tesla is in the same MSRP class as Chevrolet.
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The standard fusion, hybrid, and EV (energi) all have the same body. Perhaps i'm biased, but i think they look pretty damn good.
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the exterior of the 3 looks like a mazda with its grille sealed up. Not a bad choice of cars to rip off, but not exactly inspired.
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Bolt availability for purchase - today
Model 3 availability for purchase - sometime after 2020 at the earliest
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They're delivering in July of 2017.
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Based on what? They're already taking orders at the $35,000 price, on which they're contracted to deliver. There are already EVs with better range and acceleration near the $35,000 price point. There's no reason to believe the Model 3 will cost over $35,000.
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Folks, how about creating a near "normal" car with better range and more competitive pricing?
Then why would I buy Tesla instead of a Renault Zoe or one of the many EVs several companies are going out of their way to release? The thing that sets Tesla apart from everything else is the amazing about of car you get for your dollar. Aside from the model X screwup they have a good thing going.
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My regular, non-popping car handles sometimes get covered with ice in the winter. I'm pretty sure a Tesla owner wouldn't be able to open his doors at all.
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Haven't had this problem with the Tesla in spite of the doors being covered in ice/snow. Seems to break through just fine. (OTOH, my Land Rover door handles regularly get iced up and require hot water to thaw them out.)
Re:Tesla will flourish if complexity is reduced... (Score:4, Informative)
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It's called the Tesla Model 3.
Smaller, less complex, fewer gimmicks, great range, $35,000
You'll have to get in line, though. 400,000 people have already put down $1000 deposits.
Deliveries start in a few months.
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Re:Tesla will flourish if complexity is reduced... (Score:4, Insightful)
Tesla quite literally can not build cars fast enough to meet demand.
The Model 3 is already the most successful consumer product launch of any kind in history (forget cars), and it won't even start shipping for months. It has years worth of pre-orders in the backlog.
Acquiring customers is far from their problems.
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I like it when I walk up to the car and the door handles pop out. Makes me feel special.
(Yes, I am an old guy with waning sex appeal so this does keep me going.)
Naming fun (Score:2)
From the article:
Tesla's not the only company targeting electric drivetrains for transport vehicles; Nikola revealed its One vehicle last year, too, though that's a hybrid that also uses compressed natural gas in addition to its electric battery.
Hehe.. I'm sure Nikola & Tesla will get along nicely...
I want a pickup (Score:2)
I get that this could be useful, but where if they can make a semi-truck it seems like they could make an electric pickup. Something capable of hauling around a family, the occasional lumber load or appliance, and towing trailers in the 3000-4000 lb range (a LOT lighter than a semi).
At least in my area it seems like at least half the vehicles on the roads are trucks, and most of those people actually use them for doing "truck things". Even the most efficient trucks on the road though are still not getting
Pickup buyers are the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
I get that this could be useful, but where if they can make a semi-truck it seems like they could make an electric pickup.
I think the problem there is that the typical buyer of a pickup is... ummm, rather conservative so it's a harder sell. It's a big market but the typical buyer tends to have some rather backwards notions about what makes for a drool-worthy vehicle. Go pick up a copy of Diesel Power [trucktrend.com] magazine if you don't believe me. These are people who all too often think getting 12mpg while belching smog is just fine and think they "need" 800ft-lbs of torque even though they rarely haul anything. I think selling them on
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I'd buy an EV pickup in a heartbeat. My daily driver is a pickup and I'd happily replace it with an EV if one was good enough. All sorts of advantages to electrification of a truck. Tons of torque, electric power on tap to run power tools, more cargo space, fuel efficiency, etc. What's not to love? Though I have to admit that in many cases a hybrid pickup might make more sense especially as a work truck.
Yup, you could fit some nice long batteries under the bed of an electric pickup, especially with no exhaust or drive linkage (individual motors on wheels would make four-wheel drive a few lines of code). The "more cargo space" would be even better than that -- you'd get something sorely missing on most pickups: an enclosed locking trunk space like a car has, via the front hood no longer having an engine [google.com]. Now you have someplace to store more expensive tools.
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Yeah, an EV pickup would be awesome... but still too expensive, I think.
I think you're being a little too pessimistic. Prices for battery packs are falling and in a few years when someone (Tesla?) bothers to do this sort of truck I think the economics of it will be fairly reasonable. Pricey at first to be sure like any new technology but I think there is cause for optimism looking forward.
I agree that in a few years it will be feasible.
You'd need a 200+ kWh battery to have reasonable range while towing.
Not if you made it a hybrid. I think a hybrid actually makes more sense for a pickup anyway, especially for a work truck. Problem is that nobody has bothered to do an electrified pickup properly yet, hybrid or pure EV. But if we go pure EV, GM has stated that their costs for battery packs are already around $145/kWh [fool.com] which would put your 200kWh battery pack at around $29,000. Expensive sure, but not prohibitively so. If they can build the rest of the truck for under $30,000 (and we know they can) then they are competitive with current high end pickups right out of the gate. Make it a hybrid and you could cut the cost of the battery pack by more than half.
I'd like a hybrid with a detachable ICE which is placed in the bed, up front like a large truck box so it wouldn't interfere with fifth-wheel or gooseneck towing, and with extendable legs so you can jack it up and drive the truck out from underneath it. This would allow you to eliminate most of the front hood; you'd still need to keep a bit for a crumple zone, but wouldn't need much. That would be a huge improvement for off-road driving, where the big projecti
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I used to get 30mpg in my Ford Ranger 15 years ago if I was doing mostly highway miles. Of course, Ford decided that if they did away with the Ranger in the US everyone would buy bigger trucks instead. So I've been driving cars ever since and they haven't been Fords.
I have heard they're considering bringing back the Ranger to the US, if they do, it might be my next "car" if they can improve the fuel efficiency in it to the same degree they have other cars. I loved my Ranger, best "car" I ever had, althou
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I think Tesla is planning a pickup truck since they are very popular. I don't know why since most of them that I see on the road are empty in the back "pickup" part.
I guess people are enamored with the idea that some day they might want to put a board in the back and drive home and do some home improvement work... someday...
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I wouldn't really look at the bed of trucks coming down the highways as to whether or not they're used. I get plenty of use out of mine, but the bed is still empty most of the time. My truck is my daily transportation first and foremost, but occasionally I'll need to haul something. I tow a boat fishing at least every other weekend, and I'll end up needing to haul something at least every 3 or 4 weeks, but still, the most common time you'll see my truck is when it's empty and I'm just driving it to work.
How they improve safety of drivers (Score:2)
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Work from home long haul trucker.
Pre-Announcement Announcement (Score:2)
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that's just downright racist.
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Statistically speaking? The ones who do the worst at English.
Already done and it works look: (Score:2)
http://www.wrightspeed.com/tec... [wrightspeed.com]
Tesla co-founder. Perhaps they are working together? I don't know why Tesla would try to recreate what their co-founder is already doing -- why not work with them? Old grudges? Planning on merging and the deal fell flat?
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