Tesla Semi All-Electric Truck to Be Unveiled in September

Epic| said:
??? If you can make diesel from air brakes you deserve a pile of greenbacks.
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Not sure if you are joking or what. Regenerative breaking technologies already exist for non-electric vehicles. They typically do not use the same primary energy chain used to drive the wheels.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/auto-parts/brakes/brake-types/regenerative-braking4.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_energy_recovery_system

I'm not familiar with 18-wheeler tech, so I was sincerely asking if they use any form of regenerative breaking. If not, this is one advantage that electric big rigs might gain (up and down hills)
 
TAP said:
Reality is technology is reducing the workforce. It always has and it always will. To suggest that somehow technology is going to suddenly be thwarted by the "warrior mentality" has already been proven wrong. The automotive plant near me produces more cars than 30 years ago with less than 1/3rd the workforce. Truck driving will be no different. The failure of Google Glasses has no relevance really.
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Google Glasses failed because the "market" rejected Google Glasses. Similarly the "market" will also reject self-driving cars and trucks

What happens on the highways effects virtually every working American. Software crashes and hardware malfunctions will happen and people will be hurt. Millions of people will lose their jobs. The "market" will demand change and politicians will respond by imposing crippling regulation to ensure public safety. A tiny minority cannot impose their will on the greater majority.

A "we can do want we want" and "let them eat cake" attitude has lead to revolution time and time again throughout the centuries. Like Google Glasses there will be massive resistance by the greater public...
 
thejokker said:
Google Glasses failed because the "market" rejected Google Glasses. Similarly the "market" will also reject self-driving cars and trucks

What happens on the highways effects virtually every working American. Software crashes and hardware malfunctions will happen and people will be hurt. Millions of people will lose their jobs. The "market" will demand change and politicians will respond by imposing crippling regulation to ensure public safety. A tiny minority cannot impose their will on the greater majority.

A "we can do want we want" and "let them eat cake" attitude has lead to revolution time and time again throughout the centuries. Like Google Glasses there will be massive resistance by the greater public...
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To sell a product you have to solve a problem with it. If the company selling has to convince you there is a problem, it wont survive the market. Toys and entertainment are the exception, but only slightly.

An electric semi could solve a problem one day where fossil fuels are too expensive or prohibitive, but currently it is not a problem. I think they should market electric cars more toward, you leave every morning on a 'full tank'. I hate having to put gas in my car during rush hour.
 
Ducman69 said:
Have you seen the douchebags they have been hiring to drive these around? Just last Thursday, an 18 wheeler that was stopped five cars behind me saw all the other cars pulling up on the shoulder to bypass the heavy traffic illegally (cheating a-holes), then he decided to do the same and when a car tried to block him he called their bluff and floored it with his horn blaring.

Not to mention that truck hijackings seem to be the latest fad with Islamists.

Locked down automated big rigs will certainly eventually not only be far safer, but they will be able to drive 24x7 which will drastically increase their utility. Convoys would also be able to draft each other just inches apart and be able to form virtual trains, breaking off trucks to diverge and join other "truck trains" along the way for different routes, all able to brake and accelerate in unison.

Its just a matter of time.

I don't see why they need to be electric though, and would definitely stick with diesel. They don't even need to be hybrid, since they should be cruising 99% of the time.
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If you can leave a parking lot, make a right turn, drive one block, make another right turn, and park the truck without hitting anything you've passed the final test at some of the truck driving mills. The government subsidized training, so schools were forcing as many though as they possibly could.

Dan Rather, "Queen of the Road"

 
Verge said:
…
Huge changes are coming, i don't have kids but if i did I honestly don't even know what career i would steer them towards
…
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Yeah, I've thought about this one. IMHO politics is totally the way to go. Regardless of your economic system or economic situation, politicians always have a job, and seem to be remarkably well-suited at making sure that their needs are collectively met. Only downside is if things get particularly bad, it's politician's heads who literally roll.
 
Lith1um said:
If you can leave a parking lot, make a right turn, drive one block, make another right turn, and park the truck without hitting anything you've passed the final test at some of the truck driving mills. The government subsidized training, so schools were forcing as many though as they possibly could.
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Just this December on route to my work, we had a semi take an overpass too fast and flew off the side, similar to this guy:
https://fat.gfycat.com/OddWeakAxolotl.webm

Luckily, didn't land on anybody as often happens, and just shut down the highway for most of the day.
 
rgMekanic said:
Model X, 250 mile(ish) range, at 5400lbs. 425lbft of torque.

Semi, 1400 mile (ish) range, at 80,000lbs, and 1200-2000lbft of tq.

How long are your batteries gonna last? How many batteries are you gonna need to generate that kind of power?
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http://jalopnik.com/here-is-how-much-torque-the-tesla-model-s-p100d-makes-o-1792688704

At least 900 lb-ft of torque on two axles in the size of a sedan. 2000 lb-ft of torque on 3 much larger axles seems quite plausible to me. 50% more axles means 50% more torque, putting you at 1350 lb-ft, and the larger size of the truck means you can have larger motors, which again translates to more torque.

The range issue is still the one that plagues any kind of purely electrically driven vehicles.
 
Tsumi said:
http://jalopnik.com/here-is-how-much-torque-the-tesla-model-s-p100d-makes-o-1792688704

At least 900 lb-ft of torque on two axles in the size of a sedan. 2000 lb-ft of torque on 3 much larger axles seems quite plausible to me. 50% more axles means 50% more torque, putting you at 1350 lb-ft, and the larger size of the truck means you can have larger motors, which again translates to more torque.

The range issue is still the one that plagues any kind of purely electrically driven vehicles.
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And 2000lb-ft is equal to 141981.0185 watts.

Tesla specs their batteries at 375 volts. So to get that kind of wattage you would be drawing 378 amps. Now say it was possible to have cable thick enough in a vehicle to deliver that kind of current, rough math says you will need about a 212,500 amp hour battery to run it for 8 hours.
 
serpretetsky said:
Do modern diesel semis have some type of regenerative breaking?
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They have all kinds of gadgets to reduce consumption. Like software that knows the terrain, and accerealtes just enough for the truck to make it over a hill with the least amount of fuel used. It also decides what's better, to roll in neutral in a hill to get momentum, or to use engine braking or exhaust brake, to minimize consumption. But as far as I know there is no commercial truck on the roads yet that would use any kind of regenerative breaking.
 
I think electric trucks should be useful in distribution. As in low mileage jobs with lots of intermediate stops. But I don't really see it for long haul where they just go hundreds of miles uninterrupted.

As for self driving, the issue is that currently drivers are responsible for loading / unloading the truck as well. If there is no driver who will make sure that the cargo is securely loaded and tied down? Because the shippers will sure as hell not do that.
 
Do you think Tesla should be valued higher than Ford? Over $500,000 per car sold? Does that sound right to you?
 
rgMekanic said:
And 2000lb-ft is equal to 141981.0185 watts.

Tesla specs their batteries at 375 volts. So to get that kind of wattage you would be drawing 378 amps. Now say it was possible to have cable thick enough in a vehicle to deliver that kind of current, rough math says you will need about a 212,500 amp hour battery to run it for 8 hours.
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IMO pure electric makes sense if:
1) Mostly in stop and go traffic, with a lot of idling and red lights.
2) Trip distances are short, mitigating the need and expense of a lot of batteries for far range, or need for super fast charging
3) The vehicle is very lightweight, so much energy isn't needed in the first place, like golf carts

Big rigs seem to me like the exact opposite of this in that:
1) Mostly highway cruising for the majority of a freight's voyage.
2) Trip distances are usually very long, so you need a ton of batteries for max range and super fast charging
3) The vehicle is extremely heavy

Diesel is the no-brainer in that scenario IMO, but especially right now diesels are under attack from many governments (not sure what's really behind it).
 
Verge said:
Well as it stands it's illegal to operate this type of vehicle via software, and i seriously doubt it changes anytime soon.

You can kill alot of people with one.



On to the tesla part, i just don't see how this will work. They get 3mpg with a load... it would take a trailer full of batteries, just to pull the trailer behind it.
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That's what I am thinking. My dad is a truck driver and he regularly takes loads that are 40,000 lbs to and from Canada. Since time is such an important factor when it comes to truck driving, stopping to recharge a battery the size of the truck itself could take days even on a supercharger.

If I had to hazard a guess, these trucks are not going to be ALL electric. Elon will probably unveil something that compliments an existing engine kind of like how the batteries for your home are not meant to completely replace your home electricity requirements. If anything, what will likely happen is there is a electric/battery component to the semi with a smaller gas engine to drive the harder bits like going over mountain passes and such.
 
tetris42 said:
People like to get quiet about that part, especially when there are more people that will need retraining than there are jobs in other fields.
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At any point in life you can always choose to see the down side or you can choose to see the upside. For me personally as an American I see the upside, and lots of them.
You don't have to know what people will do, you just have to look at historical patterns. For 10000+ years humans have been making massive efficiency gains that put huge portions of the population out of work. But guess what? For 10000 years humans have just continued to keep finding new jobs to do. If truckers do not have to truck anymore they will pay cheaper costs to buy the things they get off those trucks and they will find other jobs. If no jobs are available they will create new jobs, that will work in the economy. Personally as a person who has had a number of family members in the trucking industry I can certainly see a lot of upsides. Trucking is a horrible lifestyle for a family, gone half the time, always risking your life and the lives of those around you. Automation in this area IMO is a huge plus over the automation we have seen wipe out far more reasonable jobs.

Automation has one major upside for Americans, we live in a first world country and we have lost millions of jobs to third world and developing nations because they have cheaper labor. The cool thing about automation is that its one of the ways Americans can be competitive with cheap labor. In fact its one of the major reasons in combinations with genetic modifications that the American farmer still has a job. American farmers are just incredibly efficient. You can place a robot anywhere in the world it doesn't care about a family or if it lived in a cool penthouse, or on a farm in Vietnam. So that means if other factors are agreeable Americans might actually start to retake some of the industries that have been outsourced due to cheap labor. If a robot can reduce a work force to small fraction of the size of a third world country, and work for just maintenance, then why not save the shipping costs and time and put the robot to work near the purchasing population?

Quality of life, if you are too young to see it your quality of life is massively better than people who lived 100 years ago. Automation helps with that, you can reduce RSI injuries, create more products, reduce human labor in menial jobs. Think about something as simple as a Roomba, you could waste part of your life sweeping a floor, or you could choose to just ignore it and let it stay dirty, but in the coming era your house will stay clean and you will not have to compromise.



M76 said:
As for self driving, the issue is that currently drivers are responsible for loading / unloading the truck as well. If there is no driver who will make sure that the cargo is securely loaded and tied down? Because the shippers will sure as hell not do that.
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At the start yes the shippers and stockers will load and unload the trucks. They will do whatever they are paid to do. In the simplest model many of the guys who used to drive the trucks would be hired to now load and secure the cargo at the start and end of the journey.
 
rgMekanic said:
And 2000lb-ft is equal to 141981.0185 watts.

Tesla specs their batteries at 375 volts. So to get that kind of wattage you would be drawing 378 amps. Now say it was possible to have cable thick enough in a vehicle to deliver that kind of current, rough math says you will need about a 212,500 amp hour battery to run it for 8 hours.
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… It's not that hard to wire batteries in serial for higher voltages and lower current needs. The only technical challenge of an all electric truck (and really any electric vehicle) is energy density of the batteries, which would be a moot point in short distance trucks.
 
katanaD said:
LOL man.. watching that video of the trucker hauling budweiser, when he got up out of the seat and went into the back of the truck while it was moving made me do a WTH kind of chuckle. but interesting to see

as for electric trucks, i have long wondered why they havent gone the diesel-electric route like trains have been for years. especially the long haul trucks
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Most of the benefit of hybrids comes from high-gearing. You have the high instant torque of the electric motor to get you off the line so you can gear the engine for efficiency over low-speed grunt. OTR trucks spend most of the time at speed on the highway and would not see enough benefit from a hybrid system
 
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