
Tesla Semi made it ‘across the country alone’ - evo_9
https://electrek.co/2018/08/25/tesla-semi-drove-across-country-supercharger-elon-musk/
======
carbocation
The headline is clickbait. As 'twic pointed out, this means "no escort or any
accompanying vehicles" [1]. It does not mean that the truck was self driving,
which is strongly implied by the headline.

1 =
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679)

~~~
nimbius
speaking as an automotive mechanic for a small chain of truck repair/wash
stations across the midwest, I get how people could mistake it as a self
driving truck but the fact that it made it across the US unescorted is a
bigger deal than you think.

this means a driver managed pass every pre-flight check after stops, passed
inspection stations in roughly a dozen states, weigh station checks despite
also carrying a massive battery pack, and safety inspections from state
troopers that likely had no clue what the hell it was. The truck was capable
of hauling a _commercial load._ meaning the axle weight adjustments were
properly executed and most importantly, Teslas answer to jake braking (engine
braking) is a success. No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or
air system with enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without
shifting to a lower gear and employing the engine to help some. In my opinion,
however tesla achieves this, is the real breakthrough.

~~~
stephengillie
> _weigh station checks despite also carrying a massive battery pack_

I'd hope an empty electric truck is light enough to pass the weigh station
check. Else it would be useless when loaded.

> _No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or air system with
> enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without shifting to a lower
> gear and employing the engine to help some._

A drivetrain that size should have impressive regeneration supplementing the
mechanical brakes. Apparently this is about equal to engine braking in gas
trucks. Though these trucks were empty.

Have we seen a fully-loaded Tesla truck yet?

~~~
Latteland
I don't know about fully loaded but elecktrek has other articles where tesla
said they were using it to pull loads between the giga factory in nevada and
the main factory in california.

------
Animats
All this really says is that Tesla has enough charging stations to drive coast
to coast. That's progress. They're going to need huge charging stations at
truck stops once this gets going, but that's OK.

I wonder when the day will come that you won't be able to drive long distances
in a gasoline car without preplanning.

~~~
agumonkey
funny, I never thought about this.. car took off when stations were numerous
enough. As you say the day this parameter goes below a threshold ICE may drop
in market value super fast.

~~~
Retric
US is ~3.1 million square miles. If driving 15 miles to the nearest gas
station is considered reasonable that puts the minimum around 4,400 stations
which is less than I expected.

Math is off as your driving along roads and you don’t need even distribution
etc. But, this does suggest Gas is going to be viable down to ~5% of cars.

------
Theodores
...to visit an important potential customer rather than to carry loads of
stuff. Must have been a fun day though for the office guys in the company HQ.

Hopefully there will be a bit more of this Tesla Truck on Tour going on,
pleasing crowds all over the globe. I would go outside to check out a Tesla
Truck if one rocked up in town. I would probably skip past F1 cars, fire
engines and other novelty performance vehicles to do so.

It seems that the Tesla Truck is specifically for hauling big loads on very
long distances rather than any other use case, with most truck manufacturers
having half a dozen models with untold engine variants for the many other use
cases.

I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck
having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending a
lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I am
intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as per the
customer visit going on here.

~~~
stephengillie
Deadheading[0] is probably easy on the battery. Yet even empty, the
Supercharger network doesn't reach far enough yet, and apparently the truck
had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super" chargers. Do things
that don't scale, indeed.

> _Musk jokingly added that they used a 1,000-mile long extension cord, but he
> is actually referring a system made of extension cords that they have used
> to charge Tesla Semi prototypes at Tesla’s regular charging stations.

...

People who have witnessed Tesla Semi prototypes charging at Supercharger
stations have told Electrek that the system made of extension cords plugs into
several Supercharger stalls at the same time and into several charge ports on
the truck._

Gas semi trucks can take 30 minutes to fuel, and electrics usually take vastly
longer than gas vehicles to recharge. Megachargers will be the key to making
these trucks actually viable. If they could get recharge times below refuel
times, it would be a great advantage.

\---

> _I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck
> having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending
> a lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I
> am intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as
> per the customer visit going on here._

Regenerative braking stops helping when the battery is full - on my Camry
Hybrid, after going down about 600 feet of vertical drop, it actually starts
the engine to engage engine braking.

Also, there's a limit in the rate of how much velocity energy can be converted
to electricity by regeneration, per second. For instance, slowing from 65 MPH
to 64 can take over a second using only regenerative brakes.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage)

~~~
djrogers
> apparently the truck had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super"
> chargers.

No, these were multiple connections to Tesla Superchargers - not ‘regular’
chargers. This is necessary because the Tesla Hyperchargers that are being
developed to quickly charge the Semis are not deployed anywhere yet.

~~~
stephengillie
How many "non-Super" chargers does a single truck take? Does it take up the
entire station?

How soon are the Megachargers planned?

~~~
Latteland
they have only announced them they will build them when the tracks are out.
they have continually built their superchargers, keeping up with demand. this
year with their incredible increase in vehicle production for the model 3 they
have also increased their rate of new superchargers. See supercharge.info for
some details. But it will still be hard for them to keep up with new vehicle
production.

~~~
stephengillie
So how will they charge the numerous trucks they've sold before the full
Megacharger network is available? Will a truck roll into a Supercharger and
take up half the chargers?

~~~
jakobegger
Maybe early adopters will set up their own charging infrastructure? Seams
feasible if you limit it to few routes.

~~~
stephengillie
I'll bet Tesla's EULA forbids setting up your own Megacharger station.

~~~
Latteland
It would be stupid for tesla to reduce charging opportunities which are a
crucial need for a new truck. an example of how telsa deals with this is that
tesla sells adapters so you can charge a tesla at a high speed chademo charger
today, and also for j1772. tesla asked for a higher amperage j1772 standard
that any car manuf. can support but only tesla really uses it (80 amp 220v).

------
cma
Why was the story about Tesla staying public artificially buried? It dropped
off the front page like a rock.

~~~
tntn
Probably flagged by people worn out from musk frenzy.

~~~
craftyguy
Seriously. Tesla/Elon are one of the many dead horses around here that HN
readers like to beat. There are other interesting things going on in the
world.

------
aurizon
Once we have full AI and autonomous trucks, they will soon escape and form
breeding colonies for all manner of free roaming mechs...

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Artificial Life will find a way...

------
lykr0n
I think if Tesla can pull this off, they will be in a great position. Self
Driving cars are years away (I think), but I think self driving trucks are
not.

I've driven down highways and passed massive distribution facilities that are
just off the highway. It's a lot less complicated to have a truck drive along
a highway, stop at a charger, and continue on to a distribution center. Low
risk, boring, driving. If Tesla can role out a truck where they can say "It
will cost $3,000 to move this trailer from our interchange facility (or the
customers warehouse) here in North Carolina to our interchange facility here
in Nevada in 24 hours" that's big.

I don't think you will be able to replace human drivers at every step (at the
moment), but if Tesla can replace the long haul drivers- that's big. When the
Electric Car market hits an inflection point, Tesla is going to be playing
catch up but if they can get into trucking before anyone else does, and with a
solid long haul self driving truck, we're going to see a lot of chance.

~~~
konschubert
The article doesn't mention self-driving anywhere.

Am I misunderstanding you or did you not read the article?

~~~
Mountain_Skies
"Tesla Semi made it 'across the country alone'" in the title does imply that
it was self driving though the article clarifies that in this case 'across the
country alone' actually means with only battery power and connections to
SuperChargers. None of this refutes poster's point of the greater value and
likely simpler use case for automated trucking versus the consumer
transportation market. It just makes them not relevant to this particular
article.

~~~
twic
In the embedded tweet [1], Musk clarifies that "alone" means "no escort or any
accompanying vehicles". Which seems like a pretty unimpressive feat to me.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352)

~~~
jsjohnst
While maybe unimpressive to some, that means they have a lot of faith in the
truck not having issues on the road needing support vehicles to handle.

------
onetimemanytime
_> >CEO Elon Musk taunts them by claiming a Tesla Semi prototype drove ‘across
the country alone’_

Musk, tell us what really happened, but only after getting 8 hours of sleep
for a week in a row [https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-
working...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-
working-120-hours-a-week-like-elon-musk-really-does-to-the-body/ar-BBMhKiH)

