Elon Musk has revealed details of the long-awaited Tesla Semi truck, claiming that it will be cheaper to run from day one than comparable diesel lorries. 
At an event in Los Angeles which also saw the launch of a new Tesla Roadster, CEO Musk claimed the Semi will be capable of 0-60 mph in five seconds with no trailer attached. Towing the maximum weight allowed on US highways (about 36 tons), the truck can reach the same speed in 20 seconds. According to Tesla, the Semi will have a range of 500 miles when fully loaded and travelling at highway speed.
“We also have four independent motors,” Musk told the crowd at SpaceX’s Hawthorne facility in southwest LA. “So there’s a motor on each of the rear wheels, and an independent front suspension, so it’s incredibly comfortable to drive this truck.”
The Semi’s enhanced autopilot features will include automatic emergency braking and lane keeping, as well as forward collision warning. On top of this, the truck will also be equipped with a system to prevent jackknifing.
“Jackknifing is usually the worst nightmare of a trucker,” said Musk. “The truck will automatically stop jackknifing because it’s got independent motors on each wheel and will dynamically adjust the torque on each wheel so that jackknifing is impossible.”
Musk claimed that filling the tank of a diesel truck takes in the region of 15 minutes. By comparison, the Tesla Semi will take a 400-mile charge in 30 minutes at one of the company’s Supercharger stations.
On the road, the Semi has a low centre of gravity that reduces rollover risk. The driver will sit in the centre of the cab protected by a windshield made from Tesla Armour Glass, which according to Musk can withstand a nuclear explosion.
“The reason this is important is because truck windshields are huge and they crack about once a year,” he said. “And if the truck windshield is cracked, you’re not allowed to drive. So it’s truck off-road if you have a cracked windshield.”
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Cost of ownership is something that Tesla was keen to focus on, and Musk laid out some figures during the event that claimed the Semi would be cheaper to run overall compared to a diesel competitor.
“When you take everything into account, when you take the lease cost, the insurance cost, maintenance, all of the factors, the fully accounted for true cost of trucking, a diesel truck will be 20 per cent more expensive to run than a Tesla Semi,” he said.
“From day one, having a Tesla Semi will beat a diesel truck on economics.”
In a piece of theatre taken out of the Steve Jobs playbook, the event was topped off by the appearance of a new Tesla Roadster emerging from the trailer of a Semi. The company claims it will be the fastest production car ever made, with 10,000Nm of torque enabling 0-60mph in 1.9 seconds and 0-100mph in 4.2 seconds. The four-seater Roadster’s 200kWh battery pack will deliver a range of 620 miles, or around 1,000km.
According to Musk, the Roadster will be available in 2020, while the Semi will hit the roads in 2019. However, the company has a habit of missing production deadlines and recently announced that it is three months behind schedule on its Model 3 commitments. Tesla has blamed the delay on problems at its Gigafactory battery assembly plant in Nevada.
How many kWh’s are used to do 0-100mph in 4.2 secs?
Much better to transport freight long distances by train, so this is all a bit pointless. I am also very sceptical about the claims for recharge time. To charge his 200 kWhr car battery in 1/2 an hour will take 400 kW, so how many power stations will be required to charge his lorry battery?
….and that’s assuming 100% of the energy charge is recovered!
The tyres must have a coefficient of friction greater than one… or this car must generate a lot of down force.
The limit for big motor cycles is around 2.8 seconds (one G) unless they have some very sticky rubber
It is very easy to produce a vehicle that uses electricity. That is not the problem. The difficulty is hinted at in the article itself. Half an hour of charging after 500miles (under what conditions, where and what load), at THEIR supercharger stations. Are they going to build these every 50 miles or so across the whole road infrastructure? How does a half hour charge cycle at unpredictable times match with driver’s hours and WTD regulations?
In any event, 500 miles in a large artic fully laden would need something of the order of 50 gallons of diesel. This equates to 500KWH of energy. If we take a diesel engine at 35% efficiency and an electric one at say 80% (very rough fag-packet analysis without writing a technical paper) then an electric vehicle would actually need to be provided with approx 220kWH. So over half an hour it needs to be supplied with 440KW. How many trucks could be charged simultaneously and how would this amount of power be supplied for non-technical amateur users. Thinking of the current and voltage at the connector, let alone the grid implications.
Instead of focusing on fancy vehicles we need proper debate about how we get that sort of power across the country. And how on earth is that vehicle supposed to be recharged if it runs out of fuel and is therefore immobile?
Assuming your 50Gallons equates to 227Litres, then at 10.56Kw/h per Litre that comes to 2,400Kw/h. Many Tesla Superchargers in the Uk utilise energy storage on site to avoid maximum demand charges from the DNO, likely the maximum KVA required to run multiple superchargers isn’t available from on site mains supply either in some cases.
If the vehichle were to run out of charge, it would have to be either charged by a “Mobile Battery” or using Regen while on Tow.
Would it not be prudent to fix the problems with the present models (particularly Model 3) before adding yet more to the engineering workload.
Sorry, but you guys are always complaining, I think you all work for the oil companies!
Good on you Elon Musk, you don’t care about convention you just get on and do stuff.
There are no freight trains, there are no proper debates!
Elon delivered and installed the largest battery bank in the world to South Australia and did it in some 120 days if I’m not mistaken. How many Tesla charging stations are already in the UK?
Wrong,
There are lots of freight trains. Twin stack 125+ container trains are in operation in the US & Canada. 10-20,000+ tonne trains operate moving minerals and coal in Australia and China. In Europe freight trains have to compete with high densities of passenger trains but still retain a significant market share although it needs to be a lot better. Dumping all of rail freight onto the roads is not a credible option. Get real.
There is no one thinking of conserving energy in these electric vehicles. It’s always doing 0 to 60 in 2 seconds instead of say 0 to 60 in 10 seconds average and going further distance such as 1000 miles. All manufacturers should be looking to increase range rather than super speed. A smaller motor would do this plus with more self charging methods on board they should be able to extend the range with out having to stop for charging!
And, how heavy would the tractor unit be and how much would it cost?
If it’s anything like a battery electric car, it will cost around twice as much to run overall than an equivalent diesel and not 20% less.
And, assuming there is some truth in the acceleration figures quoted, these lorries will be a public liability.
Obviously the Trucks will be limited/restricted, if they weren’t the Tyre Wear rate would be extreme. The main point of the power output is Hill Ascents with Heavy Loads. Artic Trucks in the UK are speed limited, my ex Royal Mail van also is.
I refuse to believe that a road vehicle with 0-60 in 1.9 secs has anyone in charge of it….things happen so fast at that acceleration your reactions cannot keep up with it if v. quickly needed…stupidity outside a dragstrip
And what happens if the battery pack is ruptured in an accident? We have all seen the intense heat generated when computer batteries and even tablet batteries catch fire because there is so much energy stored in a small space.
A thought on charging – supplying 400KW is not very practical over existing 220V cables (more than 1800 Amps for only one truck) or even 440V 3 phase. Will it require a lot more 11,000V distribution with transformers to minimise transmission losses?
Do the numbers add up? 500 miles at, say, 60mph takes over eight hours. Eight hours on a 200kWh storage capacity means an average of 25kW. Can a fully loaded truck operate on 25kW?
I also doubt the windscreen could withstand a nuclear explosion.
The truck will have a 1000Kwh Battery pack, Tesla has said consumption is 2Kwh per mile.
The Megacharger will use solar panels and Tesla battery packs and will deliver 1600 Kwh charge rate, guaranteed at $0.07 Kwh
You get a full refund if the windscreen doesn’t survive a Nuclear Explosion 😉
Tesla Roadster does 0-60mph in 1.9 sec! It costs $200k. A Bugatti Chivron does 0-60mph in 2.5 sec and cost $3000k!
It is suspected that Tesla is using some sort of new battery technology as its top of the range Tesla Model-S P100D can only squeeze a 100Kwh battery pack into its chassis whereas this smaller and lighter Roadster has a 200Kwh pack, presumably to get the record breaking 1.9 sec 0-60mph, 620 miles range is irrelevant in this class of car. Interesting times…
Concur with John D. No matter how annoying, let’s answer all the critiques:
1. Charging stations: upgrade existing diesel fuel stops. That network is already optimized for distance, hours of driving, ease of access, etc.
2. The fact that the truck can accelerate to 60 mph in 5 sec, does no mean that it will be used in live conditions. Do you drive your sports car at 200 mph in street or even highway traffic? No. Even if you are driving in Germany. If you do, somebody should take your driving license away, as you are a public danger.
3. What happens when the battery runs out? Is this much different than running out of diesel? First, the driver gets better training in paying attention to its truck or find another job. Second, most probably a mobile unit will come and charge the truck for the minimum charge needed to get to the next station, distance that the driver will get from the truck’s computer.
4. Does one need to be an expert to take the charger cable out and plug it in and then do the reverse? Is the truck driver the non-technical amateur user who is not capable of those two simple actions? If any of them are in need of help, there will be a simple sketch showing how to charge his/her truck.
5. What happens if the truck is set on fire by the battery? The same that happens when the fuel tank sets the truck on fire. You get the extinguisher out and put down the fire. If that does not work, you just watch the truck going down in flames in a much smaller ball of fire than the diesel explosion.
I am sure nobody thought about fire hazard at Tesla before putting any vehicle on the road.
6. Speaking of explosions, nuclear ones, that is just testing our sense of humor. Is it so difficult to see that?
7. Production issues at Tesla. Yes, they have some, but do they cause order cancellations? No. Why isn’t everybody more concerned about all the other vehicle manufacturers that do not make EVs at all or bad ones? If we are to believe investors, Tesla is a winner, despite its much smaller production capacity and much shorter history than the left behind:
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/teslas-market-value-zooms-past-another-car-maker-2017-06-09
If I forgot to answer something against the Tesla truck, let me know.
I read this with interest. Indeed electric semis make a lot of sense, especially for certain types of logistics such as supermarket chains making deliveries to stores out of a regional hub depot. 500 miles is probably enough range and the trucks can return to a hub each night for charging, or charge up at an overnight stop by a store. The problem that is being ignored is the local electricity supply infrastructure. Imagine a regional hub with 20 or more semis and they all want re-charging at the same time. Even with some management, such as staggering charging through the night, that is a huge amount of power required every night. Somebody tell me please, what has happened to hydrogen fuel cells? That’s got to be the long term answer to so many problems with plug-in battery vehicles.
Electric vehicles are 3x more efficient than hydrogen and the technology is simpler and cheaper than hydrogen. Also electric charging infrastructure is cheaper and faster to implement than hydrogen. Hydrogen cannot compete although before Tesla it was a good promise for the future, but like Fusion it was always 20 years away….
10 000 nm (nano-meters)!?
I think you meant Nm (Newton meters)
Indeed. Corrected now.
We’ll have a choice of electric trucks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-13/this-electric-truck-will-probably-beat-tesla-s-to-market
Will there be a scaling-up of charging infrastructure? Yes. Is the future of mobility, of any kind, electric? Looks more realistic, every day.