The Tesla Semi is lastly right here, and it’s formally a beast. “For those who’re a truck driver and also you need essentially the most bad-ass rig on the highway, that is it,” stated Tesla’s CEO at a supply occasion on the firm’s Nevada Gigafactory, simply earlier than he handed over key playing cards to 2 PepsiCo executives.
EV pundits have been utilizing barely extra respectable adjectives comparable to “disruptive” and “game-changing,” and that is no hyperbole. Class 8 vans are liable for an enormous chunk of the world’s air air pollution, and electrifying them may have a serious affect.
Moreover, not like passenger automobile consumers, truck fleet operators are extra motivated by {dollars} and cents than by fashion or coolness (although the Semi has loads of these attributes too). The potential financial savings from electrifying are so nice (Tesla estimates the gasoline financial savings alone in comparison with a diesel at as much as $70,000 per yr) that after fleets begin deploying EVs, rivals shall be compelled to comply with swimsuit.
For no matter causes, it took Tesla 5 years to proceed from the Semi’s unveiling event to the primary buyer deliveries, and rivals together with Volvo and Daimler (in addition to lesser-known gamers comparable to Orange EV, which has been promoting electrical terminal vans since 2015) beat it to market. However the creation of the Tesla Semi is a serious milestone nonetheless.
Final week, Tesla took the Semi for a 500-mile demonstration drive (this distance is broadly thought-about the candy spot for a long-haul semi) with an 81,000-pound load. The corporate claims that power consumption is 1.7 kWh per mile, which interprets to a battery capability of round 900 kWh (Tesla hasn’t revealed the precise capability).
Tesla is presently producing the Semi in Nevada, and hopes to ramp up manufacturing to 50,000 items per yr by 2024, which might make the corporate one of many largest Class 8 truck producers in North America.
There have been few surprises on the supply occasion, however there was a powerful video of a loaded Semi handily passing a diesel truck at a 6% incline on the Donner Go. Just a few new options have been revealed, together with air suspension that may decrease the tractor to make trailer hitching simpler, and a spacious cab through which the driving force can arise.
— Tesla (@Tesla) December 2, 2022
Dan Priestley, Tesla Semi Program Supervisor, defined the Semi’s tri-motor drivetrain, which is analogous to that used within the Mannequin S and Mannequin X Plaid. One of many motors is for cruising, and is optimized for peak effectivity at freeway speeds. The opposite two motors ship most torque when accelerating, which Tesla says will create a far smoother driving expertise than the jerky judder of a legacy Class 8 truck.
We’re very to listen to extra concerning the Semi’s new charging system, which includes a liquid-cooled cable and might ship energy ranges of as much as one megawatt charging. Maybe the most important revelation on the occasion was that Tesla plans to supply this expertise on Cybertruck, which is scheduled to enter manufacturing in 2023. Now, that may simply be referred to as a “killer app,” because it might give Cybertruck roughly triple the charging pace of something out there for passenger autos right this moment.
We’ll have to attend for the solutions for some vital questions. How will Tesla incorporate the megawatt charging plug, which is way bigger than both Tesla (NACS) plug or the CCS Sort 1 plug, right into a Cybertruck? Will Tesla’s new charging system be appropriate with CharIN’s Megawatt Charging Standard?
And what concerning the worth? Again in 2017, Tesla stated the 300-mile Semi would value $150,000, and the 500-mile model $180,000. Nonetheless, the costs for Tesla’s current autos (and quite a lot of different issues) have gone up considerably since then, so we’ll see.
Sources: InsideEVs, Bloomberg, Electrek, Reuters, EVannex
