Late last year, Tesla founder Elon Musk rolled up to his press event in a semi-truck, unveiling his latest project to the world.
The electronic semi-truck aims to reinvent the gas-guzzling reputation of classic commercial vehicles. The electric trucks are the latest addition to Musk’s vision of an electrically powered world.
How much of a game changer is Musk’s electronic truck? He’s been busy hyping the innovative vehicle, assuring those on Twitter that it would “blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension.”
If you’re interested in learning more about this new breed of electronically powered semi-trucks, read on. We’ll cover everything you need to know about these brilliant new machines.
Let’s Start With The Obvious
The electronic semi-truck is a lot like a normal semi-truck, except it runs on a battery instead of diesel. That’s the main big difference between Musk’s innovation and the traditional twelve-wheeler.
These trucks are also automatic, meaning they’ll be no shifting gears or transmission. That makes them easier to drive for those without semi-truck experience. It also means, theoretically, that they’ll need less maintenance than their traditional companions.
A shift to electronic-based trucking could have huge environmental benefits. The trucking industry is booming, but the big trucks used emit a notoriously high amount of carbon. Though they only make up 7% of vehicles on American roadways, they consume over 25% of all fuel. The EPA has already made moves to crack down on the lack of efficiency in these vehicles. There’s a chance that the electronic truck could beat them to the punch.
The Exterior Design
In many ways, the Tesla semi-truck takes a lot of cues from the design of the Model 3, Tesla’s electronic car. The truck is literally built on the bones of that model, utilizing two Model 3 engines and Model 3 style doors.
Tesla’s semi has sides covering all electronic parts of the vehicle, including the grille. There are traditional mirrors on the sides of the cab, though internal screens also provide views of the truck’s sides through mounted cameras. These function as part of the autopilot system, which we’ll discuss more below.
The front of the truck has a trunk that contains room for storage as well as access points for service repairs. All doors and access points include Tesla’s patented flush-mounted handles.
The glass of the windshield consists of what Musk has referred to as thermo-nuclear explosion-proof glass. The durability of the vehicle as a whole is one of the semi’s big strengths. The truck monitors itself and can alert a driver when there’s needed maintenance far ahead of any breakdowns or errors.
The truck appears sleek, futuristic, and cool, as you would expect from any Tesla product.
Inside The Cab
As you might expect, the interior of the Tesla cab is something of a fancy affair. The cab has enough space to allow full standing room for an individual and to bring along a passenger if need be.
The most notable design choice in the cab is the placement of the driver’s seat. Instead of sitting to the far left of the cab, the driver’s seat and the wheel are dead center. This placement improves visibility. The seat sits further forward than Freightliner and International trucks.
Two touch screens flank the driver on either side and provide blind spot monitoring and navigation aid. These screens also serve as a point of contact and tracking between drivers and fleet managers. This allows for tighter tracking, scheduling, and communication.
Under the floor of the cab are battery packs mounted for stability.
Two rear axles with electric motors attached on either side sit behind the cab. These come from the existing Tesla models. This design provides a center of gravity that is lower than diesel-powered trucks, while still providing high-speed stability.
Can The Electric Trucks Self-Drive?
Kind of, but not really.
The semi-truck isn’t autonomous, though it does have Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot system as one of its features. Enhanced Autopilot includes automatic emergency brakes, lane detection, and lane departure warnings. These features are helpful to a driver, but the vehicle still needs someone behind the wheel running the show.
The trucks also come equipped with sensors that can detect instability and adjust each wheel to prevent jackknifing.
Semi-Truck Performance
Elon Musk has stated that the semi-trucks design is like bullets. This seems true when looking at the truck’s specs: they have a 500-mile range and the ability to go for 0-60 MPH in about five seconds. Even when carrying 80,000 pounds worth of material, they’d still be able to make that shift in about 20 seconds.
The electronic semi-truck can travel up to 400 miles on one-half hour of charge. Though exact numbers haven’t come out yet, it’s estimated that the truck is 20% more cost-efficient by the mile than a traditional semi-truck.
Musk stated he believed the trucks could go over one million miles without any sort of breakdown, though there is no way to know if this is true.
Production and Release
The Tesla electronic semi-truck will begin production in 2019 for rollout in late 2019 and early 2020. Trucks are currently available for order today, with about a two-year wait-time from order to delivery.
Several companies have already placed large orders.
The electric truck has the potential to lower leasing, insurance, and maintenance costs in the industry. This could be especially true if Tesla offers a leasing program to compensate for the higher cost of purchase. Adoption of the trucks is likely to hit and impact smaller, direct port-to-port routes first.
The Tesla Electronic Semi-Truck
Electronic trucks have the potential to change the trucking industry. The true scope of their impact will come into focus when they roll out late next year.
Needless to say, the innovations exhibited are likely to have a big influence on the way we think about semi-trucks in the future.
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