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Tesla Will Reveal Its Electric Semi Truck in September (techcrunch.com)
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.
It has to have the capacity for a driverless upgrade out of the gate or it's going to be an expensive, outdated piece of awkward shit.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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Nothing says long haul trucking like a vehicle with a 200 mile range and a 6 hour recharge time.
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.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
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!!
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...
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.
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.
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.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"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.
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 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 an EV pickup is going to be a tougher sell than a family sedan.
Don't get me wrong, 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.
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 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 projecting hood often obscures the driver's vision of the road. The ICE wouldn't need to be big enough to fully power the vehicle while towing a tall load at highway speeds, it would just need to provide enough range extension to give you, say, 300 miles loaded range. Then you could recharge the battery at a charging station, or let the ICE recharge it, while you eat, etc.
Of course, most of the time I'd keep the ICE parked and use the truck as a pure EV. Give me a couple hundred miles of unloaded range and my everyday driving is covered, and then some.
For camping, I'd drop the ICE in and hook up the camp trailer and take everything up to the mountains, then drop both trailer and ICE at the camp site. The ICE could act as a generator, if needed (though my camp trailer has solar panels), and I could roam the hills on electric power, with the very low center of gravity provided by that big battery along the very bottom of the vehicle (and the big steel plate underneath it). When the battery gets low, back to camp to recharge from the ICE.
What would make it even better is if you could power the vehicle with hub motors, and put the wheels on four independently-suspended extensible jacks. That would dramatically increase the net clearance, with no axles or down-hanging differentials, and would allow the truck to be lowered close to the road for better efficiency on the highway or raised for greater clearance off-road. You could even lift one side for traversing a hillside. And you would no longer have to raise or lower trailer tongue jacks. Lower the truck, back the ball under the tongue or gooseneck and raise the truck. No need for pneumatic levelers, obviously. Granted that there are a lot of challenges with hub motors, since they're unsprung weight, but I think it could be done and there would be huge advantages.
For boating, most of the time I don't go far so I'm sure I could leave the ICE home. But this raises the possibility of getting an electric boat... which the truck's ICE could also be used to recharge on extended trips. I'm a little skeptical of the practicality of an electric ski boat, though. Given how they burn
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