How much of the gross vehicle weight of 80,000 lbs us taken up by the battery pack?

Funnily enough, truck operators need to know that, and the load is critical.

It blows my mind that people are dumb enough not to see that this is hype and hookum, not a product launch with actionable specifications.

The only real thing here is Tesla hoping to hook in $50k deposits for a new Roadster, to be uses as utterly unsecured venture capital at zero interest rate instead of being put into a ring-fenced account.

That people can be that dumb also blows my mind.

Let the circus continue.

If reports elsewhere are true (https://electrek.co/2017/11/16/tesla-semi-live-blog/) that the cost will be $200k to $250k, then the payback time versus diesel looks like at least 4 years at 100,000 miles per year (which is on the high side of average applications, which are under 70k miles per year). There are maybe other reasons to buy it, so missing the magic 3 year payback will not be fatal.

No mention of whether this is a day cab or a sleeper configuration, though it looks like the latter.

No mention of energy on board. Assuming 1000 kWh, they must have efficiency down to 2 kWh per mile, which is better than the usual 2.5 kWh per mile for diesel. I assume this is best case, good road conditions are moderate temperatures.

That would put charging rates north of 1 MW. That will be "fun". One plug or two? Or four? North of 1000 V? Time will tell...

OK, so not much technical detail but clearly this is going to take some time. That is to be expected.

With Proterra already putting 0.66 MWh on a transit bus, this should not be so surprising. Two years away seems reasonable. They have lots of work to do in the meantime. The vibration profile is going to be a challenge. The sonically welded fuse wires on the small cells might not survive vibration, so the battery tech might be drastically different compared to passenger cars.

'Congrats on making a truck that will gets it undercarriage torn off in its 5,000th mile at any one of these exits / underpasses within one square mile of a light industrial area in Buffalo. Nice clearance specs.'
https://twitter.com/Valuetrap13/status/931504650238521344

Bragging about 0-60 times for a god damn semi truck is retarded as it disregards the safety of the cargo being subjected to such jarring forces. Just as I own a gas and diesel box truck I purposely accelerate at relatively the same speed to protect the contents of my cargo and securing devices.

In regards to range how will stop and go traffic, high heat, or extreme cold affect range which are unavoidable facts of life. I'd support a hybrid semi-truck before full blown EV as you get the benefit of peace of mind regardless of human operated. As a broken charger station or line for "refueling" means my shipment is late which in a perishable or live animal cargo situation will be costly.

Good to know that you’re looking out for the best interests of the poor fools who can afford to plunk down a $50,000 deposit on a $250,000 car, Davemart.

It’s not like folks with that kind of scratch could figure out the risk profile of that kind of bet, right?

Porsche sold the 918 for $800,000 - $1,000,000. Tesla will have buyers lined up for at least a similar volume production run of a $200-$250k car with better performance.

I saw the Roadster do performance runs on the tarmac Thursday night. If you think Tesla, which already produces the worlds fastest production car, will have any trouble producing the Roadster 2.0, please short them heavily. The market will be happy to take your money.

ECI, maybe I'm being picky, but you should say fastest acceleration. I got really confused for a second.

I always associate fast with speed, and quickness with acceleration.

Hopefully we won't have any 250mph+, 5000lbs+ missiles on the road. The destruction would be insane. The amount of energy, wow.

Does tesla speed limit their cars?

Typical ICE cars are speed limited by the manufacturers based on several parameters...like the tires equipped being the biggest has to do with the speed rating and the heat dissipation, and load properties. Like if you push triple digits speed you need to inflate your tires a lot more.

I imagine, in several years, someone will find a way to sue auto makers for not limiting cars to 80mph, and another person shortly after that sue for limiting the cars speed.

Some cars use track keys, and normal drive keys for sporty features, like running out of EPA parameters on a track i.e not road legal emissions(well not certified), extra boost and so on.

Its really not how fast you go, its how quickly you come to a stop that's what kills you.

It would be interesting to see how tesla handles that, perhaps a legal page right before plaid speed.

I'm interested to know the sales numbers on the bolt and the model 3 as of late. I worry that tesla is going to be in a bad way if they consistently can't deliver on
their promises. I'm not knocking the things they have promised, all of their cars are very much in demand, but its just getting them into peoples hands that seems bothersome to me.

I used to work on preproduction units, and I know startups can have problems, and if one supplier has an issue, it can wreak havoc at everyone else involved. Tesla, even though highly valued likely doesn't have a lot of pull with suppliers. Some cars almost sell 1million units a year, just in the states on a global car, usually its daily almost exponential growth during startup trials, and sometimes it goes very quick, but the 2800 or whatever deliveries speak of trouble. They have had a long while to ramp up since they debuted their Alpha models.

Davemart

Concerning the comments on the acceleration. Last year, The FormulaSAE students from Prauge, Czech Republic built an all wheel drive electric formula car that turned 0 t0 100 Km/hr (62 mph) in 1.513 sec. They were, of course, using race tires and they had fudged the rules slightly to use a total of 100 KW for a demo run while the FormulaSAE rules limit the students to 80 KW during the competition.

It was hard to figure out if that was just a sight gag or a serious peek at some future vehicle that would dominate in the mud-bog crowd.

I agree, ai_vin, a motorhome based on this would be interesting. Hard to know how the solo driver position would go over, though.

Also, megacharging along with the Semis would be less than optimal. Otoh, 240 overnight at an RV park would be easy, if not cheap. This is not just speculation, I've done both with my Model S.

^ Let's support North American manufacturing, please.

Tesla could very well be out of business by 2025 due to committing to too many expensive projects too soon. They really should focus on getting Model 3 production up and running, and leave the pet projects aside for now.

The Tesla semi as shown is not production ready; they've got a fair number of visible non-conformances to motor vehicle safety standards in the concept vehicle, in addition to potential ground clearance concerns that someone else mentioned. Mirrors (you are not allowed to substitute them with cameras! - you can have cameras, but you still need mirrors). Air brakes with the associated mandated gauges and handles, at a minimum. The ability to see and inspect the drive wheels and hubs and brakes. Windows that roll down. The ability to see around traffic when making a left turn without relying on cameras (central driving position is not good for this - and it's not such a critical issue with right turns).

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/autos/news/this-ex-trucker-has-some-questions-about-the-tesla-semi/ar-BBFlrkP

Agree with the principle to support North American manufacturing as long as we can keep a competitive productivity level.

Lower relative productivity produces huge delays and will take TESLA down. Future intelligent robots may help?

TESLA may have to do what Apple (and many others) have done and move some or all manufacturing to Asia where labour is plentiful, less costly and more productive.

Research, design, upgrading and new models testing could remain in USA, for models sold in USA. Models sold in Asia should designed locally.

Tesla used 7 cents/kwh in their ev ($1.26/mi) vs diesel ($1.51/mi) operating costs comparison.

Where do they expect truck drivers to be able to purchase electricity on demand for 7 cents/kwh? Certainly not in California!

I suspect the ev operating cost advantage disappears if they assume California rates (15-30 cents/kwh).

@ eci

Where does it say the pickup would have a solo driver's position? Musk said his pickup would be big enough to carry another pickup: The track width of an F150 is 67 inches ball park, center to center of tire so add say another 8 inches for wheel width so 75 inches between the Tesla’s wheel wells would work. The box would need to be 80 inches on the inside above the wheel wells to fit the F150 body width. With that much width to work with where's no need for a central driving position and you could have 3 people side-by-side up front easily.