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Tesla Truck 'Quite Likely,' Says Elon Musk (bgr.com)
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Boy Genius Report: If you think Tesla's plan for world domination begins with the Model S and ends with the Model 3, you're sorely mistaken. While the Model 3 is of course the mass consumer vehicle Elon Musk is betting the company on, the Tesla CEO is certainly open to developing other types of vehicles in the future. During a recent interview in Hong Kong at the StartmeupHK Festival, Musk briefly touched on the potential for Tesla to build an electric truck. "I think it is quite likely we will do a truck in the future," Musk said. "I think it's sort of a logical thing for us to do in the future." While this might appear to be outside of Tesla's wheelhouse at first glance – the Model S is a luxury sedan, after all – the amount of money to be made in trucks is immense. To wit, the three best-selling vehicles in the U.S. in both 2014 and 2015 were all pickup trucks.
Will it be a truck like the Model X is an SUV (aka, not really one -- can't beat it up offroad like you can a 4Runner, Highlander, etc)? If it's a real truck that can go offroad, then that would be great. But that's a big step versus where they are now with the X...
At some point, I'm going to have to buy a truck to get to remote sites for wind/solar/hydro power generation, so something like this is very interesting.
I'd like it if it had a "spare battery", not just a spare tire, too.
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Just like Tesla's other ideas, a luxury sports car proves that it can be done so other people can copy it. It makes sense that a truck would be the next thing for Tesla to prove feasible. I don't think Tesla really wants to build cars or trucks but rather wants to run a think tank to prove it can be done. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla open sourced his car plans at some point so other people could manufacture them for him (and he can sell batteries to them, of course)
how could they miss that opportunity. Model T
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Wouldn't they need to fix the power storage problem before creating a fully electric truck? A lot of people have trucks for hauling things.
Look, the guy is amazing but he still has to ramp up production on the delayed Model X, get the Model 3 out, get the Falcon 9 landing and taking off again, finish the first giga factory and its extension, probably update the Model S by then, finish the hyper loop test track, get another giga factory started, convert the global energy supply to solar generation and local storage, fly and land the Falcon Heavy, scale Model 3 production up to 10 million cars a year, build a global micro satellite internet system, build another giga factory, send enough supplies to Mars to sustain a human habitat, build a Mars capable spaceship in orbit, and finally get himself to Mars before he becomes to senile to complete the trip.
As my mum always said, finish the project you're doing before you go start another one.
You are going to lug around a "spare battery" in your electric truck powered by a battery? I wouldn't go to remote sites with an electric truck. That isn't what they are for. These are more for city trucks (delivery, trash, etc).
Electric trucks make a lot of sense... if you can get the price down.
Trucks benefit from having lots of torque for pulling, towing and hauling. If you went with a hub motor design, each wheel independently powered and each on a motorized jack, you could create a phenomenal off-road vehicle, able to adapt to all sorts of terrain.
The challenge is that trucks also need decent range even when pulling a heavy load. My pickup has a 600+-mile range, not because I need to drive that far but so when I'm pulling something that cuts my fuel efficiency in half I still have a 300-mile range. In an EV, this means lots of batteries, which means lots of $$$. A Tesla Model S P85D's 90 kWh battery is probably 1/2 the size you'd need for a half-ton pickup, and you'd need to go even bigger for heavier trucks. I don't know how large the market for $150K pickups is.
No, the truck is to hold the snowmobile and the cross country skis. I'm looking at regions that have 30 meters of snowdrifts across highways that don't get cleared for weeks. If that happens, you leave the truck. And all the sites are - by definition - on the grid.
Seriously you city boys sure are whiners.
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Most school buses, mail trucks, parcel delivery trucks, can go electric. Most of them stay close to their base station and can be charged over night. Further they are suitable for "swap-the-battery and continue" mode of operations. Deliver fleets could build battery swap stations for their trucks to swap batteries when needed.
Currently these options are not being pursued because the price is too high for the cost savings. As gas prices fall they become even more unviable. But these are the first ones that will be peeled off when the battery price break through comes along.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Us "city boys" are the ones who are designing your stuff, and I can tell you carry a "spare battery" around is idiotic. Anyhow, Musk is talking about things like city DELIVERY trucks. Trash trucks. He isn't dumb enough to build the type of vehicle you are wanting. He is talking about city vehicles.
.. empty pickup trucks. Business expense my ass.
There are good reasons why trucks get less gas mileage than cars- weight, tire patch, aerodynamic drag. These will not change with an electric truck. Right now the Tesla is on the ragged edge with battery cost, range, charge time etc and these issues will be double on a truck.
love is just extroverted narcissism
I don't need much more than a standard winch. I grew up in the mountains. Not carrying heavy loads for the most part, just need it to function as needed. Big trucks are for heavy loads and full cabs of workers. Would still buy it, given range and conditions.
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Since you have so much room in a truck, you can put a lot more batteries in it. I'm pretty sure Tesla could make an electric truck with at least quadruple the range of their cars.
Wait, what do you mean by "cargo space"?
Ironically, you're going 50 years back.
The UK had all-electric vehicles doing local milk, bread, etc. delivery since at least the 60's. We call them milk floats.
They were generally lead-acid powered but the newer models use Li-Ion and other technologies, and because they generally did morning rounds, they could charge all day and night to get their runs done early the next morning.
Many a child woke up with the motor-whine and bottle-jingle of the milk float coming down the road. They died out around where I live about 10 years ago, with the advent of local supermarkets and online shopping.
Everything goes in circles.
Up to 40 tonnes of load, long distance . Big fan of electric but for shear grunt power that old tank of enriched carbs is hard to beat.
I'd prefer a Tesla Wagon over a truck. For family usage a wagon is a lot more useful than a sedan or a truck.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
Yes, I know TFS says, "the three best-selling vehicles in the U.S. in both 2014 and 2015 were all pickup trucks."
But I would think a luxury SUV would be a more likely step.
Musk has made great improvements to battery capacity and life for his automobiles, but I suspect trucks require more power and range than is practical with current battery technology.
The problem with electrical vehicles in the US is the range. With the exception of commuter vehicles they need to have a minimum 300 mile range per charge. We desperately need some kind of practical electrical storage.
Plenty of stuff gets designed out 'In de Shticks', when you don't have a megacorp waiting to take your cash and pander to your every need you have to get inventive :)
T'would be nice if they could throw a manual box into this. Only 3, maybe 4 gears needed at the most or maybe just a transfer box with a low range. Combined with an electric motor this would give you a serious amount of torque.
And a frequent-stop application, like milk delivery, postal delivery, package delivery, public bus, etc, is the perfect application for electric power because a fuel-based solution wastes energy slowing down at each stop that an electric solution can recover through regenerative braking.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
If you think Tesla's plan for world domination begins with the Model S and ends with the Model 3, you're sorely mistaken.
Oh, really? And there was me thinking a car company would just stop making cars once they've made one they thought was good enough.
Sheesh...
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I generally drive at least 32 miles per day minimum. That's work and back. A lot of my co-workers drive 100 or more miles round trip commute per day. That's not the problem though. If I have to take care of business after work it'll mean a lot more miles. At least one day per week I can count on up to 80 to 100 miles extra. That leaves aside weekends. I don't live in an urban area but it's not rural either. My county has about 140 thousand people and the county directly North of mine has a population around 155 thousand. Several cities and towns encompass this area and traffic in my county shows tags from 5 or 6 other counties. A lot of traffic in a region that has one city of around 100,000. The city is Macon, GA and it's the center of a lot of commercial activity including multiple counties with a combined population of over half a million people. To be a non-urban area the traffic can be hell. I often drive 300 miles and never leave the area. I wouldn't mind having a little battery powered commuter car for work and back but for a truck being used to run deliveries I'd really want 300 miles on a charge.
The trucks would be cheaper to run than their internal combustion countereparts.
However, the recent drop in gasoline price is goint to stall e-vehicle development for a while.
(||) Nehmo (||)
The model S and roadster use modified 18650 cells. They're 65.2mm long, and 18.6mm in diameter. They're mostly stacked end to end, so you're looking at about 2 cm per layer + armoring.
At least in my truck, there's room to put a battery box/structure under where the current bed is, and you'd want to keep SOME bed structure to protect the batteries as well as to support the load.
As for the protective compartment idea - I'd continue with what tesla did. The protection is built onto the bottom of the battery, and the battery bolts into it's support structure. That way you can just unscrew the bolts and replace the battery without worrying about other protective structures.
I don't read AC A human right
There are many times during the year when I may need to drive 300 miles round trip. If it won't make it then it's a non-starter.
Two things makes this realistic:
- vehicle size: In a bigger truck, there's more room to store aditionnal batteries.
Whereas extending a Model S would necessitate fill the front and back trunk with additional batteries (increasing weight and killing potential cargo), on a truck you could realistically use more space for additional batteries while still having plenty of room left for cargo.
- also, electric motor are less complex and cheaper than internal combustion engines. Model X and newer Model S have two motors. European high speed train don't even feature a locomotive because *the whole train* is motorized - every single coach.
This increase either efficiency or (in P85D Tesla S) the peak performance.
So, to further the above point: On a "Tesla T" you could have the whole trailer motorized and with its own battery, dramatically increasing the potential range.
Tesla would need "simply" to design a flat-bed with motors and battery similar to its current dual-motor Model T/X platform, with the necessary point to attach a standardized shipping container for cargo.
- unlike a gaz tank, battery are swappable and it's a rather fast procedure.
Musk has always wanted to supplement Tesla's network of free super-charger, with a network of (paying) battery swaps.
In other words, planty of opportunity for electric trucks in some point in the future.
So by applying the same approach and
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
To heck with pickups. What the world needs is decently driven trucks. Actual tractor trailer rigs (variously called 18 wheelers, articulated lorries, semis, big rigs) that move product around the country. ... or Scania, Volvo ... [insert list of manufacturers here]?
In big countries, Australia, USA, Canada, Russia, not mention Europe, there are long distances to be covered by said trucks. They are currently driven by often exhausted, sometimes drugged, human drivers. Most of the travelling is not challenging - freeways and the like.
The rigs are seriously expensive, and having them sitting about while the driver sleeps is a waste of investment (and slows delivery). Replace the driver with a machine and it'll drive for 24 hours per day.
A halfway mode is possible - with a fairly standardised route, the driver could sleep in the back of the cab, and get called to duty for the tricky bits - cities, loading/unloading.
Result - better use of investment, faster delivery, safer roads.
So how about it Tesla
"Cats like plain crisps"
I've been to large factories where it's a bit of a hike to get from one side to the other. As I was delivering or unloading parts, I'd drive right in (and hopefully not clip anything overhead w/ the trailer).
But there were also various pickup trucks and such to move mid-sized things between stations, besides the forklifts for larger items and golf carts for just moving people around.
Electric pickup trucks would be great for this sort of use -- you're never getting up to high speed, you're not going all that far, there's plenty of electrical connections nearby if you need to top it off, and you can reduce the need for venting the exhaust.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
No, just switch the pack, city boy.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.