Tesla Unveils - Semi Truck and next-gen Roadster

[aubryscully]

Tesla just had a livestream where they announced both the new Tesla Semi along with the next-gen Roadster.

 

Here are some specs for both of them. This info came directly from the livestream. I will update this with written sources as they become available.

 

Semi:

-500 mile range

-400 mile charge in 30 min

-"nuclear bomb proof" glass

-Dual touchscreens

-Enhanced autopilot comes stock

-More economic than transport via rail

-Production begins in 2019

-0-60 in 5 seconds (no load attached)

-0-60 in 20 seconds with full load

-.36 drag coefficient (lower than bugatti chiron)

-Can handle a 5% incline at 65mph

-4 motors

-1,000,000 mile powertrain guarantee

-Regenerative braking means that brakes never need to be replaced

-Almost 0 maintenance needed

-Very easy to drive

 

 

 

Reuters has a good article that elaborates on all of this and offers some other neat information: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-truck/tesla-unveils-electric-big-rig-truck-in-midst-of-model-3-factory-hell-idUSKBN1DG1LW

 

Quote

Old Dominion Freight Line Inc (ODFL.O), the fourth-largest U.S. less-than-truckload carrier, which consolidates smaller freight loads onto a single truck, said it would not use the Tesla truck.

“We met with Tesla and at this time we do not see a fit with their product and our fleet,” Dave Bates, senior vice president of operations, said in an email, without elaborating.

 

Roadster:

-0-60 in 1.9 seconds (this is only the base model too)

-620 mile range

-200kwh battery

-4 seats

-3 motors (all wheel drive)

-quarter mile in 8.9 seconds (base model)

-0-100 in 4.2 seconds (base model)

-can go faster than 250mph

-convertible roof

-available in 2020

 

http://www.tesla.com/roadster

 

I was blown away at this unveil. I am admittedly a Tesla fanboy but only because of the great work that they do. I am stoked to see these on the road in a few years.

It will be interesting to see how the Semi will disrupt the market... According to the data given by Musk, the diesel competitors are in some real trouble.

As for the Roadster, that beast is totally next level

[Bigbootyjudy]

WHAT

 

I expected tesla to get into normal SUV's and vehicles comparable to a Chevy tahoe or yukon before they went big. This does sound really cool though as it will lower costs of transporting goods(if it becomes a thing). It might also be good for the drivers if the autopilot is good enough because then they won't get so fatigued after driving for so long.

 

That roadster also sounds crazy. 0-60 in under 2 seconds? faster than 250mph? I'm no fan of tesla but geez

[ravenshrike]

If they can get the charging stations set up and avoid any seroius production problems, that semi truck is where it's at. Course, those are a couple of very big ifs.

[AlwaysFSX]

18 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

If they can get the charging stations set up and avoid any seroius production problems, that semi truck is where it's at. Course, those are a couple of very big ifs.

It's not hard setting up a charging station outside of a major city along the interstates.

[mariushm]

Too small battery for the truck imho. and it takes too long to charge, so i guess it would suck for long trips.

 

I see truckers on Youtube doing 60 miles an hour and driving for 10-12 hours with 30 minute obligatory break or something like that, basically getting up at 6 am and finding a parking spot somewhere at around 5-6 pm (before they fill up)

With 30min+ charge time, that's enough for 30 min obligatory break but with pre-trip checks and everything it could go up to 45m-1h of pause... not to mention that a lot of truckers have diesel powered generators to warm up the trucks over night in the winter, or to heat up food or watch some tv.

So i guess these aren't really designed for long trips but more like 50-100 mile long trips at a time at most ?

 

 

[Taf the Ghost]

Long-haul is probably forever out with battery tech. Would need massive shifts before that happens. However, this could be very interesting for short-haul and local-haul. 

[aubryscully]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Too small battery for the truck imho. and it takes too long to charge, so i guess it would suck for long trips.

 

I see truckers on Youtube doing 60 miles an hour and driving for 10-12 hours with 30 minute obligatory break or something like that, basically getting up at 6 am and finding a parking spot somewhere at around 5-6 pm (before they fill up)

With 30min+ charge time, that's enough for 30 min obligatory break but with pre-trip checks and everything it could go up to 45m-1h of pause... not to mention that a lot of truckers have diesel powered generators to warm up the trucks over night in the winter, or to heat up food or watch some tv.

So i guess these aren't really designed for long trips but more like 50-100 mile long trips at a time at most ?

 

 

Elon’s logic was that you are supposed to take the break every 5 or 6 hours. In that time, you can drive ~400 miles. Then in your 30 minute break it charges itself back up. Theoretically it shouldn’t take away any of your time unnecessarily

[RedRound2]

OP, add some pictures. I don't know if it's only me, but the Roadster looks fucking epic (both looks and specs)

Even the Semi looks like the immediate future.

[mariushm]

Just now, aubryscully said:

Elon’s logic was that you are supposed to take the break every 5 or 6 hours. In that time, you can drive ~400 miles. Then in your 30 minute break it charges itself back up. Theoretically it shouldn’t take away any of your time unnecessarily

You may not have "fuel stations" every 400-500 miles, so you may be forced to top-up after only 250 miles or something like that. so you could end up charging 2-3 times a day, taking out more than 1 and a half hours of your day.

As far as I learned from youtube truckers, there's strict regulations like maximum hours of driving, 30 min breaks, obligatory 14 hours of break or something like that every so many hours of driving. Some truckers also have to stop at sunset, not being allowed to carry certain materials during night, or for other reasons so  i guess multiple top-ups would eat into their daily driving time.

 

Same reason why i can imagine not being attractive for companies that distribute stuff on small distances. You probably have a driver paid for 8-10h daily shifts and he fills up the tank when he leaves the yard and that's enough for whole day, but that's no longer valid with this Tesla due to its 500mile limit.. with diesel he doesn't have to go out of his routes to find a charging station and charge 2 or more times a day. Oh not to mention there's no guarantee whatever charge station he arrives at will actually have a charge point available for him .. he may have to wait 15-30m for another truck to finish charging, just like you would with regular trucks these days (you wait, but you also fill the tank in minutes, not 30 minutes).

[aubryscully]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

You may not have "fuel stations" every 400-500 miles, so you may be forced to top-up after only 250 miles or something like that. so you could end up charging 2-3 times a day, taking out more than 1 and a half hours of your day.

As far as I learned from youtube truckers, there's strict regulations like maximum hours of driving, 30 min breaks, obligatory 14 hours of break or something like that every so many hours of driving. Some truckers also have to stop at sunset, not being allowed to carry certain materials during night, or for other reasons so  i guess multiple top-ups would eat into their daily driving time.

 

Same reason why i can imagine not being attractive for companies that distribute stuff on small distances. You probably have a driver paid for 8-10h daily shifts and he fills up the tank when he leaves the yard and that's enough for whole day, but that's no longer valid with this Tesla due to its 500mile limit.. with diesel he doesn't have to go out of his routes to find a charging station and charge 2 or more times a day. Oh not to mention there's no guarantee whatever charge station he arrives at will actually have a charge point available for him .. he may have to wait 15-30m for another truck to finish charging, just like you would with regular trucks these days (you wait, but you also fill the tank in minutes, not 30 minutes).

Elon said there will be a “megacharger” network that would make it so that there is never a huge gap between chargers. You do make a good point about the short distance drives, but I do have to point out that, according to elon, filling a diesel truck takes 15 min which isnt actually that much less than charging the Semi. That would *somewhat* nullify the last point about waiting in a line to charge. Not trying to sound like a huge fanboy or anything either, just trying to think about this stuff from different angles

[8uhbbhu8]

That roadster though...  GIMME!!!!! *looks at price* *runs for the hills*

[dizmo]

Haha, sick. That roaster looks stunning, and the fact that it can fit 4 people is nuts! I wonder if it can actually fit 4 people, or if the rear seats are virtually unusable like every other high performance car. I notice they don't say 4 adults, so I'm assuming the rear seats are for little people.

 

Personally, I can't wait until they release that pick up. Your days are short lived Raptor.

Though most offroaders are hicks and will never give up another way to burn animals. Them fossil fuels though.

 

47 minutes ago, Bigbootyjudy said:

WHAT

 

-snip-

That roadster also sounds crazy. 0-60 in under 2 seconds? faster than 250mph? I'm no fan of tesla but geez

I was more impressed by the 0 - 100 in 4.3. And four seats!

43 minutes ago, ravenshrike said:

If they can get the charging stations set up and avoid any seroius production problems, that semi truck is where it's at. Course, those are a couple of very big ifs.

I think it also depends hugely on the cost. A lot of truckers are private, and if the truck is priced too high it'll be hard for it to gain traction. 1,000,000 mile warranty might seem crazy, but it's actually pretty short in the scheme of things.

17 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Too small battery for the truck imho. and it takes too long to charge, so i guess it would suck for long trips.

 

I see truckers on Youtube doing 60 miles an hour and driving for 10-12 hours with 30 minute obligatory break or something like that, basically getting up at 6 am and finding a parking spot somewhere at around 5-6 pm (before they fill up)

With 30min+ charge time, that's enough for 30 min obligatory break but with pre-trip checks and everything it could go up to 45m-1h of pause... not to mention that a lot of truckers have diesel powered generators to warm up the trucks over night in the winter, or to heat up food or watch some tv.

So i guess these aren't really designed for long trips but more like 50-100 mile long trips at a time at most ?

 

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

You may not have "fuel stations" every 400-500 miles, so you may be forced to top-up after only 250 miles or something like that. so you could end up charging 2-3 times a day, taking out more than 1 and a half hours of your day.

As far as I learned from youtube truckers, there's strict regulations like maximum hours of driving, 30 min breaks, obligatory 14 hours of break or something like that every so many hours of driving. Some truckers also have to stop at sunset, not being allowed to carry certain materials during night, or for other reasons so  i guess multiple top-ups would eat into their daily driving time.

 

Same reason why i can imagine not being attractive for companies that distribute stuff on small distances. You probably have a driver paid for 8-10h daily shifts and he fills up the tank when he leaves the yard and that's enough for whole day, but that's no longer valid with this Tesla due to its 500mile limit.. with diesel he doesn't have to go out of his routes to find a charging station and charge 2 or more times a day. Oh not to mention there's no guarantee whatever charge station he arrives at will actually have a charge point available for him .. he may have to wait 15-30m for another truck to finish charging, just like you would with regular trucks these days (you wait, but you also fill the tank in minutes, not 30 minutes).

 

By your own posts you seem to have proven yourself wrong. A trucker can only travel 11 hours out of 14. So that's 3 hours where they'll have to take a break. Simply space that out when you need to charge. Charging only takes 30 minutes, which isn't bad at all. Do drivers drive more? Sure. They're violating the law. Thus, should be ignored.

 

How does a 500 mile range equate to a 50 - 100 mile trip? That makes no sense. As for the additional power for other things, if you're using the microwave you're stopped. Likely charging. Not a problem. I don't see these being used in cold weather climates.

 

Even if you're filling up 4 times a day, you're still well within your allowable driven hours. Musk is pretty good at planning grids, and I'm sure he'll figure out what he has to regarding those as well. Most drivers are paid per haul, not hourly if you're doing long haul. If you're doing trips around locally, I highly doubt you're doing more than 500 miles in a day.

 

 

 

[aubryscully]

It will be interesting to see if the production of the new Roadster will drive down pricing of the Model S P100D since most of the hardcores will likely just go for the Roadster

[Cookybiscuit]

Interesting to see them re-enter the sports/supercar market considering the only people who buy cars in that market are people interested in cars, and most people with more than a passing interest in cars aren't interested in EV garbage. Probably like a lot of other brands they produce a unprofitable "halo" car to increase awareness of the brand as a whole. I guess they'll get the Apple crowd like they've already been doing. Not going to enjoy the increase in "this car is shit it's slower than a tesla xd" spam everywhere from the people who judge cars solely on the spec sheet.

[ashypanda]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Too small battery for the truck imho. and it takes too long to charge, so i guess it would suck for long trips.

 

I see truckers on Youtube doing 60 miles an hour and driving for 10-12 hours with 30 minute obligatory break or something like that, basically getting up at 6 am and finding a parking spot somewhere at around 5-6 pm (before they fill up)

With 30min+ charge time, that's enough for 30 min obligatory break but with pre-trip checks and everything it could go up to 45m-1h of pause... not to mention that a lot of truckers have diesel powered generators to warm up the trucks over night in the winter, or to heat up food or watch some tv.

So i guess these aren't really designed for long trips but more like 50-100 mile long trips at a time at most ?

 

 

you know you can charge while doing the checks, and truckers are supposed to take a half an hour break every few hours, and even with the 500 mile range that gives just shy of 10 hours driving time, which is a full shift.

and you do a slow charge overnight with the charger providing power for the ancillaries. 

[vorticalbox]

2 hours ago, Bigbootyjudy said:

I expected tesla to get into normal SUV's and stuff before they went big.

has anything telsa done not "went big"? 

[Phate.exe]

2 hours ago, aubryscully said:

-.36 drag coefficient (lower than bugatti chiron)

I love the fact they're comparing the Cd between vehicles of wildly different sizes as if it means anything.  Marketing wank at it's finest right here.

 

Don't get me wrong, their semi tractor is massively impressive, and I fully expect to see around town and short over the road routes (think distribution centers for stores like walmart/target/bestbuy/etc) handled by electric trucks in the near future.  The fact that time spent loading/unloading allows for some built-in charging is another huge advantage, along with the ability to re-capture energy that would otherwise be wasted in engine braking.

 

But Cd is only part of the drag equation (primary considerations are Cd, speed, and frontal area).  Yeah the truck is way slipperier than a normal semi, an achievement in itself, but it also likely has a frontal area of like 10+ square meters, compared to the 2-ish square meters of the Bugatti (the Veyron was 2.07).

 

So yeah, the truck has a great Cd, but it's stupid to compare the drag area, which is what actually matters (literally just the Cd multiplied by the frontal area).

[MetEishYa]

The truck is awesome. 500 Mile range at full load is good enought. If you want longer range just add batteries to the trailer and while you at it add solar panel to the top of the trailer to give extra charging. The trailers can also now have regenerative brakes as well. Hopefully the Truck has an air compressor for compatability with normal trailers (Needed for the brakes). I also like the fact that its seat is centered so it can be sold to LH or RH markets.

 

The roadster is awesome except for the center screen as the speedometer, need to try something like that first to see if it gets annoying or not.

[handymanshandle]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

You may not have "fuel stations" every 400-500 miles, so you may be forced to top-up after only 250 miles or something like that. so you could end up charging 2-3 times a day, taking out more than 1 and a half hours of your day.

As far as I learned from youtube truckers, there's strict regulations like maximum hours of driving, 30 min breaks, obligatory 14 hours of break or something like that every so many hours of driving. Some truckers also have to stop at sunset, not being allowed to carry certain materials during night, or for other reasons so  i guess multiple top-ups would eat into their daily driving time.

 

Same reason why i can imagine not being attractive for companies that distribute stuff on small distances. You probably have a driver paid for 8-10h daily shifts and he fills up the tank when he leaves the yard and that's enough for whole day, but that's no longer valid with this Tesla due to its 500mile limit.. with diesel he doesn't have to go out of his routes to find a charging station and charge 2 or more times a day. Oh not to mention there's no guarantee whatever charge station he arrives at will actually have a charge point available for him .. he may have to wait 15-30m for another truck to finish charging, just like you would with regular trucks these days (you wait, but you also fill the tank in minutes, not 30 minutes).

Semi trucks on average have 200-300 gallon tanks in the US, and I believe the flow rate for those pumps are around 40 gallons per minute. The flow rate of the pumps are going to depend on a lot of factors.

 

For SuperValu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SuperValu_(United_States) and other larger grocers, I could see these trucks making sense. On shorter hauls.

[handymanshandle]

37 minutes ago, Cookybiscuit said:

Interesting to see them re-enter the sports/supercar market considering the only people who buy cars in that market are people interested in cars, and most people with more than a passing interest in cars aren't interested in EV garbage. Probably like a lot of other brands they produce a unprofitable "halo" car to increase awareness of the brand as a whole. I guess they'll get the Apple crowd like they've already been doing. Not going to enjoy the increase in "this car is shit it's slower than a tesla xd" spam everywhere from the people who judge cars solely on the spec sheet.

Meh I think EVs are a decent idea, but I don't think that they should outright replace ICE vehicles.

[Bigbootyjudy]

23 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

has anything telsa done not "went big"? 

Haha, I meant both size wise and popularity and technology-wise

[Phate.exe]

Seriously questioning those numbers for the supercar.

 

An 8.9 second quarter mile time, from the factory is literally insane.  It would also be faster than the current electric drag record (for an actual car).  A Rimac Concept One (another batshit crazily fast electric supercar with over 1000 horsepower) goes 9.9.

37 minutes ago, Cookybiscuit said:

Interesting to see them re-enter the sports/supercar market considering the only people who buy cars in that market are people interested in cars, and most people with more than a passing interest in cars aren't interested in EV garbage.

I have absolutely no problem with EV's and hybrids, and actually would love to build an EV of some sort.  I've driven enough RC cars to know that electric motors can be pretty nasty.

 

My problem is that most of them are just soul-crushingly boring to drive.

[Cookybiscuit]

2 minutes ago, Phate.exe said:

My problem is that most of them are just soul-crushingly boring to drive.

Which is why they make no sense in a market where people buy that type of car because of the way it drives. Plus, your average Porsche or Ferrari owner isn't going to take any bullshit when it comes to quality control, something Tesla has suffered with a lot.

[vorticalbox]

3 minutes ago, Bigbootyjudy said:

Haha, I meant both size wise and popularity and technology-wise

sorry my reply was misleading, very badly worded.

 

I meant have they actually done anything where they didn't just go full out.

 

I've really not followed they products so asking out of interest. 

[handymanshandle]

Just now, Bigbootyjudy said:

Haha, I meant both size wise and popularity and technology-wise

Tesla is more or less overpriced garbage.

I'm more interested in something like the Hyundai Ioniq, it shares the same platform as the Kia Niro and right now the Ioniq as an EV has a range of about 124 mile range but I think in 2018 they might be getting that up to 300 miles. But the level 2 and 3 infrastructure is still fairly poor.

 

Hybrids and Plug-in hybrids I think should be seen as that better middle ground but of course not to replace pure ICE cars in general.