JUST LAST WEEK at an event in Los Angeles, Elon Musk unveiled Tesla’s latest electric vehicle, a semi-truck.
Tesla Semi Truck is a futuristic and aerodynamic looking hauler – it reminds me of Japan’s bullet trains – and like many of the concept cars we’ve been seeing at motor shows lately, it features a central driving position. It is set to go into production in 2019.
It has four independent electric motors, one for each of its wheels, and a regenerative braking system that “gives it basically infinite brake life”, Musk said.
At the unveiling, Musk said “We want a vehicle that accelerates like nothing else.” The truck’s smooth shape and 0.36Cd drag coefficient – which is actually less than the 0.38 coefficient of the Bugatti Chiron – will go some way towards helping to achieve this and its other impressive quoted performance figures.
Those figures included a range of around 800km (500 miles) whilst hauling 80,000lb and a 650km (400-mile) range from just 30 minutes of charging. The Semi Truck can also hit 100km/h in just over 5.0 seconds, which is better than most hot hatches.
Musk also said that “every truck we sell has Autopilot as standard.” The Semi comes with Enhanced Autopilot, the second generation of Tesla’s famed semi-autonomous technology, equipped with automatic braking, lane keeping, and lane departure warnings.
Perhaps a little less useful is the ’explosion-proof glass’ that the Semi is fitted with, although it’s great to see Musk living out his 007 fantasies.
Elon is also saying that the truck will have the “lowest energy cost per mile” which should save over USD$200,000 and a two year payback period. This is a huge plus point as trucks are big business in the States. Trucks carry 70 per cent of all goods shipped in the US and the industry is expected to grow by 3.4 per cent annually until 2023.
There has been mixed reaction from the motor industry regarding the truck. With regards to Autopilot and Musk’s claim that it makes it the safest truck ever Wired.com reports:
That may be true – about 4,000 Americans die in truck-related collisions every year, and human error is responsible for many of them. Self-driving trucks will certainly change lives.
Autoblog.com is also welcoming of the new Tesla Semi saying:
Electric trucks, including the Tesla Semi, are inevitable and welcome; making trucking more efficient and safer for drivers, fleet operators, and the environment benefits the entire world.
Regarding that central driving position, Musk’s argument is that “you’re positioned like you’re in a race car.” He added: “You have complete visibility of the road and all your surroundings.”
But ex-trucker Jonathan Ramsey isn’t too keen on this setup saying: “I don’t see how that helps a trucker.” He explains that:
What I need is a commanding view of my own truck, which the central seating position compromises. The worst blind spot in a tractor is next to the doors; in the Tesla Semi, I can’t lean over to see if there’s a Toyota Corolla camped out beside me.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Tesla launch without Elon having a surprise up his sleeve. And the surprise was the show-stealing new Tesla Roadster sports car, a refresh of its original 2008 Roadster which itself was based on the Lotus Elise.
Tesla claims the Roadster is “the quickest car in the world, with record-setting acceleration, range and performance.” Musk owns a McLaren F1 so this probably influences his obsession with rapid acceleration. The F1 also has a central driving position much like the new Tesla Semi Truck.
And the Roadster does indeed accelerate faster than many super cars, including Elon’s beloved F1 ( which does 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds). The Roadster can go from zero to 100km/h in an eye watering time of around 2.0 seconds. That means the Roadster will outpace the Ferrari LaFerrari, the Koenigsegg One:1, the Porsche 918 and the Lamborghini Aventador by more than a second.
The all-electric four-seat Roadster gets a 200kWh battery pack (twice the capacity of any current Tesla model) and has a 1,000km one-charge range. It has a massive 10,000Nm of wheel torque and comes with four-wheel drive. The price is a rather reasonable USD$200,000 for such an impressive machine. It is expected to become available in 2020.
As he unveiled the car, Musk said:
“You’ll be able to travel from LA to San Francisco, and back, at highway speed without recharging. The point of doing this is to just give a hardcore smackdown to gasoline cars. Driving a gasoline sports car is going to feel like a steam engine with a side of quiche.
And whist this does seem all rather impressive, people have been asking if this launch is a way of distracting people from the problems facing the company regarding the production of the Model 3.
Brad Erickson, KeyBanc Capital Markets (Sector Weight) noted that:
We’ve seen this movie before. Tesla was struggling with manufacturing problems plaguing the Model X crossover in early 2016 when Musk revealed the Model 3 at a splashy event also held at the company’s design studio near Los Angeles.
the company is announcing a foray into an entirely new market outside of passenger vehicles seems to be just distracting from what its primary focus should be, which is building the Model 3.
Jeffrey Osborne, an analyst at Cowen & Co, wrote in a report the day after the launch:
All last night’s event did was add to Elon Musk’s shopping list of things he needs to spend money on at a time when the company is having difficulty making its base vehicle (Model 3) and its equity and debt has traded off.
Neil Briscoe of CompleteCar.ie says:
The truck and the Roadster will add a great deal of gloss to Tesla’s image, but serious question marks will remain over Musk’s abilities to guide an upstart start-up through to profitable mass-production.
Of course, the distraction worked and by Friday morning, the day after the reveal, shares of Tesla were climbing 2.8 per cent to USD$321.59.
Reservations for the Semi Truck and Roadster are already coming in which will give Tesla a cash injection to help speed up the production of its Model 3 which has failed to meet its targets. The company made 260 Model 3s in the third quarter, far fewer than planned.
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