
Tesla semi truck announced - simonebrunozzi
http://www.zdnet.com/article/elon-musk-teases-electric-tesla-semi-truck-for-september/
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greglindahl
The title of the article is "Elon Musk releases teaser image of Tesla semi
truck", please change the current click-bait title to the actual title.

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sidegrid
How is it click bait?

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Doxin
Because nothing got officially announced.

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SigmundA
Very interested to see details. I have a hard time believing it will be purely
battery based and able to do "long haul".

Typical semis carry 300 gallons of diesel and have a 2000 mile range. You
would probably need to a 4 to 5 megawatt-hour battery to equal that. At
today's price your looking at a million+ dollar battery that weighs 50,000 lbs
and would take 40 hours to recharge on a super charger. Just makes no sense.

Lets say by "long haul" they mean 500 miles, still at least a megawatt hour
battery that cost 300k, weighs 10k and takes 10 hours to charge. What trucker
would buy that?

Perhaps it will be targeted at urban delivery with a even smaller battery.

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lscharen
Well, a class 8 trucks has a gross weight of over 33,000 pounds. Let's pretend
that Musk gets that 1MWh by slapping some Powerwall 2 units on a truck frame.

The Powerwall 2 has a capacity of 200 kWh, costs $5,500 and weighs ~3,500
pounds. So we're looking at 17,500 pounds and $27,500 for that 1 MWh of
batteries.

That's about half the minimum gross weight of the truck at a fairly reasonable
price compared to the vehicle cost as a whole.

I'm sure there would some significant weight savings using a electric drive
versus the large diesel engine + drivetrain. How much savings? I have no idea,
but it should significantly cut into the battery weight penalty.

Edit: Looks like a typical heavy duty engine (Cummings ISX15) is only about
3,000 pounds, dry weight. The Model S electric motors are only 70 pounds, so
let's say at least one Powerwall is "free" weight-wise.

Also, the ISX15 looks to be >$20,000 for rebuilt engine, so the battery costs
look approximately comparable to a traditional engine price.

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SigmundA
Powerwall 2 is only 14kwh at 270lbs for $5500, or about $400 per kwh. You must
mean the power pack 2 which cost 80k.

Musk wants $100/kwh cost from the Gigafactory, but market is currently above
$300.

Semi tractors only weigh 15-20k lbs your talking a battery that weighs as much
as the tractor. 300 gallons of diesel is 2000 lbs and the engine and
transmission is about 3000 lbs. it would be at least 10k heavier which reduce
carrying capacity since gross is capped at 88,000 lbs total not to mention
space.

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gameshot911
Now throw in the autonomous factor. Subtract driver labor costs and throw in
near 24/7 operation (vs. human drivers which are required to stop for rest
breaks).

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SigmundA
Semi doesn't have be electric to be autonomous, Frieghtliner is already
showing diesel autonomous prototypes.

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gameshot911
True, and to those add the cost of externalities like mining on natural
ecosystems and pollution on climate warming and our health.

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darksim905
So in the comments I see all this blah blah about it being unfeasible. But I
can see this working well if you covered the truck in the highest end/best
technology solar panels out there. You'd pretty much always be able to start
the truck & drive around a few miles till you can charge it, at least.

