
Tesla Semi - runesoerensen
https://www.tesla.com/semi/
======
nwmcsween
Ok as a mechanic a few million questions:

* What happens when a wheel seal goes? Do I have to remove all that ridiculous plastic on #2,3 axels??

* What happens when a tire blows? Is it going to destroy all that plastic and take out a few more tires in the process?

* Why all the glass? I've spend entire days replacing windshields for a 12 or so truck shop which generally come in two (drivers and passengers), the Tesla semi would require a crane and expensive replacements.

* Why is there no bumper or frame attachment points? Bumpers save the truck from damage, no one wants to buy $xxxxx front end, lights, etc when a deer in the bushes jumps into the middle of the road.

Honestly from my point of view it seems Tesla tried to apply personal EV to a
semi. Did they do any research from tractor shops or mechanics? There is a
HUGE reason tractor/trailers are easy to service.

~~~
njarboe
He states that they have spent a lot of time talking to truckers and truck
companies. I would guess they believe that with an electric drive train
repairs and maintenance will be an order of magnitude lower (not sure how that
works for tires and wheels). Body damage should also be much lower with
automatic breaking and other features of enhanced autopilot. As Musk said,
broken glass is a big cost for trucking as you can drive with a broken
windshield. They think they have a super glass that is "nuclear blast" proof.

~~~
PinguTS
Over the last centuries there were a number of truck and bus manufacturers who
tried the single/middle seat design. It was never a seller for any of those.

If you take someone with you, you don't want to sit him/her to sit behind you.
You want them to sit next to you. If you are on the road in the city, you have
often colleagues with you, like in a moving company and alike. Such trucks are
used in construction work where things damage easily because someone else
crashes in your truck. No assistant in your truck will prevent that.

Honestly, it seems they may have talked to some friends or their delivery
companies, but not with companies from the industry.

~~~
dnzm
Could it be that this semi just isn't meant for those in-city hauls, but more
for the longer-range highway hauls?

~~~
celim307
I would say no because they currently have no sleeper cabin in their design

~~~
cm2187
And I don't see where they can hang the traditional playboy calendar.

~~~
Yetanfou
On one of those big screens of course, even that calendar has to go with the
times after all.

------
SigmundA
Anyone else find it odd they don't talk about the battery?

500 miles of range at 2kwh a mile is a 1000kwh battery which is 10 model S
batteries.

Model S battery weighs 1,200 lbs lets assume they somehow improved on that by
20-30% so this is a 10,000 lb battery. Not sure how much the motors weigh, the
Tesla motor and inverter are about 350lbs so lets say another 1000lbs.

A Diesel engine, transmission and fuel for 500 miles is about 5,000 lbs.

So I guess they made up 6,000 lbs in lightwieght materials? Or does it have
less carry capacity since the trucks can't weigh more than 80k total?

Then there is the cost of the battery. Tesla is currently saying thier cost
are below $190/kwh. At $180 that battery is $180,000 dollars cost! They must
be counting on the Gigafactory getting it down to $100 kwh, still $100k cost
just for the battery. The battery cost is as much as a new Semi's price.

The Megacharger is 400 miles in 30 minutes, that would be a 1.6 megawatt
charger. They have to be built out across the country.

I am pretty impressed, I honestly didn't think they would do a megawatt
battery. 500 miles is what you need minimum for "long haul" or a solid days
driving even though most diesel semis have 1000 mile+ ranges.

Just not sure how the economics work out, but I hope it does.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
If you take the Model S and scale it up then people have said the battery is
half the cost of the car, and therefore the battery alone is roughly the cost
of a normal car. I don't think it would be suprising if the same is true for
the semi.

There's at least one rural delivery man who bought a Tesla Model S and paid
for it by using the mileage payments he gets for his job. So as long as your
route fits, the same kind of high up front cost being amortised over time
applies. The more miles you drive the better the economics works due to lower
fuel/maintenance costs.

Non-Tesla companies are making pretty much the same pitch in regards to
battery busses, again targetting fleet managers who have the spreadsheets in
place already to plan and manage this kind of expenditure.

~~~
SigmundA
Urban buses are very different and a more obvious target. Stop and go slower
avg speed regular short routes with a home base to charge.

Much smaller batteries and taking advantage of regenerative braking.

It is an obvious use case for batteries right now.

~~~
sebleon
How effective is regenerative breaking?

~~~
cptskippy
Oddly good.

My commute is ~25 miles one way. In my Leaf, going 65+ mph, I usually burn
25-35 miles off the charge. If I'm in stop-and-go traffic half the way I
usually burn 10-15 miles for the same trip.

I've taken quite a few trips where I arrived at my destination with the same
amount of battery as when I left. I've yet to arrive with more charge but
maybe one day...

~~~
mikestew
That’s probably due more to the aerodynamic drag of doing >65mph than it is
the regen braking in stop-and-go traffic. Mileage efficiency takes a big drop
in our Leaf above 60mph.

EDIT: as a side note, efficiency takes a big drop in your ICE vehicle, too, I
just notice it more in the Leaf with its gee-whiz telemetry.

------
mncolinlee
It's bizarre that the Semi has way less attention than the Roadster on HN.

The Roadster is a $250k car for people with money to burn. It doesn't seem to
drastically change the equation from a Rimac Concept One with six-year newer
battery and motor tech and savings from volume and automation. The Roadster is
the shiny thing that sells less sexy vehicles.

The Semi has the potential to change an entire industry if executed right.
They don't need to be perfect if the cost savings are real and reliability is
high. We'll see if they get practical details correct and whether production
models arrive within 2-3 years of target-- a common Tesla worry. But I feel
this has more margin potential than the Model 3 at this stage in Tesla's
development.

~~~
rvshchwl
It may possibly be because the Roadster was a surprise reveal, while the Semi
was expected to arrive this year anyways.

Regardless, I am really looking forward to seeing the Semi's on Highways,
although I believe that a main roadblock to it will be the lack of Tesla
charging stations across the country. Semi trucks drive throughout the US on
all major highways, and they have to coordinate their routes according to
where the Weighing stations are in each state. Having to add super-charging
stations to their routes will certainly complicate their routes, so it should
be a bigger priority for Tesla to address those first.

------
tsomctl
Unlike their cars, if they want to be successful they will need to release
factory service manuals and sell parts to repair them. It's not going to be
acceptable to send it to some far away service center to be repaired, at least
for small outfits that heavily use all their equipment. When a critical piece
of equipment is down, the mechanic is going to be working through the night
hacking it together, possibly waiting on parts that are being overnighted.
Diesel mechanics tend to be ridiculously intelligent and very resourceful.

~~~
tty7
I have read the _same_ comment (slightly modified) on HN since telsa announced
their first vehicle.

Tell me, have you actually worked on a new model truck? Because the days of a
service manual and a backyard shed are over

~~~
gaustin
Tesla will be selling into a very complicated industry. You think enterprise
sales of software are hard, just wait.

Tesla say their system includes all the functions necessary. I haven't seen a
list but I doubt it. Even if they do it will literally take enterprise
integration projects to hook them up to the largely bespoke systems used by
existing trucking company backends.

(E.g. 20 year old ADP systems)

~~~
ni-hil
I don't know if the timing is right, but I think what you have to understand
here is that all of this is the beginning of the end for the trucking company
as you know it.

~~~
gaustin
Sure, but that end was coming before Tesla was a brand name. The trucking
industry is surprisingly innovative, despite overall conservative practices.

Go look at Volvo concept trucks over the last few years.

------
vincnetas
EU will like these huge windshields, because of the pedestrian safety.

"Contrary to passenger cars, there are currently no direct vision requirements
for trucks. Direct vision – what you can see with your own eyes – has a number
of benefits compared to indirect vision (mirrors and camera’s). To measure
direct vision the Commission should use a standardised methodology."

Very nice summary on truck blindspots :
[https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publicat...](https://www.transportenvironment.org/sites/te/files/publications/2016_07_Trucks_direct_vision_briefing_FINAL_0.pdf)

~~~
Diederich
Huge windshields are good for pedestrian safety, enhanced autopilot with every
truck sold is fantastic for pedestrian safety.

------
dchuk
I'm a product manager at a telematics company. I've talked to a lot of folks
in the long haul trucking space, from drivers to back office folks to service
managers. I'll be surprised if this truck catches on. The trucking industry
has a huge urge to do everything themselves, all the big guys have full
service garages in their many yards across the country. This truck seems
essentially unserviceable by anyone other than Tesla, which will be a
showstopper for many of the big guys at least for a while.

I will say that I'm impressed by their charging numbers if they can hit them
though. Fuel is a huge concern for carriers, they reroute to save a cent on
the gallon constantly. Getting enough super chargers in place will be key for
these things.

Also, as a side thought: they could have had a much more impactful reveal by
having one of the big carrier's trailers hitched to that thing. Makes me
wonder how much they even went and talked to their potential customers,
especially drivers, who are very...particular...about their machines.

~~~
Niksko
This sort of response REEKS of near sightedness.

"The big guys won't go for it. Therefore, it won't succeed". That's a recipe
for somebody who isn't a "big guy" to start their business literally this
instant, and outcompete the "big guys" in five years because they were able to
throw off the shackles of tradition and learn from the past _as well as_
embracing current technology.

~~~
hobofan
The harsh truth is that most times it _does_ work out for the "big guys".

5 years is a lot of time for the "big guy"-compliant suppliers like Daimler to
catch up (I can't personally evaluate if there is even a lot of catching up to
do, as Tesla tries to present). Especially in low-margin industries like
transportation that are also highly dependent on overall market strength, the
odds are stacked very much in favor of big players that are able to position
themselves for slow and stable growth. Close-to-worst scenario for the big
guys is that a new player gains a significant market share and they have to
purchase them for a big premium.

It also seems that you underestimate the willingness to embrace new
technologies in the trucking industry, which they have ingrained to survive in
a low-margin industry. They won't like it not because it is any kind of
innovation, but because they would be giving away significant control. The big
guys are so resilient and successful because they try to have a hold of the
supply-chain as much as possible, to be more independent of outside forces,
which is exactly the same game Tesla (and Apple, etc.) are playing with their
manufacturing partners.

------
awjr
I've been making the point that fuel duty and car taxes (if your country has
them) need to be removed and road pricing brought in.

Price per litre of diesel in the USA is about $0.75 vs $1.64 in the UK. Given
that Tesla stated that the truck would pay for itself within 2 years ($200,000
in diesel savings), we're talking 11 months in the UK.

The implication is that eHGVs will radically reduce the tax revenue of
countries that have focused on fuel duty creating a significant problem for
road maintenance.

Dynamic road pricing, based not only on time of day, but also vehicle type, is
probably the only way forward.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>Dynamic road pricing, based not only on time of day, but also vehicle type,
is probably the only way forward.

Wouldn't want to let poor people with inflexible work hours go un-screwed...
/s

I don't know why everyone sees reduced tax revenue as a problems. Less money
to spend means more critical evaluation of how it gets spent.

~~~
berbec
Like what happened after every American "big tax cut". Reduction in income
instantly exposed massive waste in government, and the tax cuts were found to
be deficit-neutral! /s

------
austenallred
Can someone with more experience in the field talk about the pricing of the
Tesla semi relative to other semis? Musk said it was cheaper to operate from
day one, is that not amortizing purchase price into each mile? Seems a little
too good to be true.

~~~
mrep
I assume they are amortizing costs since a quick google search says new price
semi's cost 80,000-150,000

------
orsenthil
I like Elon Musk's presentation. It is nothing like Steve Jobs or any other
CEO presentation. It seems like an enthusiast telling other the features and
how cool it is. Also enjoyed the part that he told the audience to break the
barriers and come and see it.

------
alexdumitru
It seems like it will require a $5000 deposit (with a $50,000 "full deposit")
and the truck will cost between $200,000 and $250,000, according to the page
source.

~~~
pythonaut_16
Well shoot, if they can deliver full self driving capabilities, can I just buy
one of these to live in instead of a house, cruising the freeways endlessly?

~~~
bluthru
Top of the line Winnebagos are $500k. You might be on to something:
[https://winnebagoind.com/products/class-a-
diesel/2017/grand-...](https://winnebagoind.com/products/class-a-
diesel/2017/grand-tour/overview)

Someone pair up with a tiny house company or a prefab design/build
architecture company and start making some housing trailers for Tesla Semis.

~~~
Smushman
I Googled it and it is possible.

The easiest way is to use AAA who will handle all the DMV work for the
conversion of title from commercial vehicle to something else.

So who is in on this? If that is the price this will work well.

------
alexdumitru
I'm really curious if it comes with big differences compared to modern trucks
(except for being all-electric).

I also wonder why they try to push multiple models and niches when they can't
even build enough Model 3s as they had expected.

~~~
mrep
They have always known that the first few months of production were going to
be "production hell" for the model 3. While the model 3 production has been
worse than they hoped for (elon musk always underestimates timelines so if you
know how his companies normally operate, it's normal) but a 3 month delay for
a massive hardware engineering project is not end of the world.

------
ksec
I wonder how does Frozen Container works with this? I would be a huge drain to
battery.

~~~
beagleman
Are those normally run off of the prime mover's engine? I'd never even thought
about that.

~~~
josephagoss
Every refrigerated container I've seen has its own cooling unit and does not
use the trucks power.

~~~
rkangel
I've always wondered about this. Do they have their own fuel tank and engine
to run the compressor for refrigeration?

~~~
PuffinBlue
Yes.

And they have electrical hook up point for times when they are stationary. If
you think it through, the time a refridgerated container spends actually
connected to the truck is not all that big. It will spend more time in a port
or on a ship, or even stationary at the departure point or destination.

All of the reefers I've seen have electrical hookups to power them when on
ship/land and they have their own diesel powered generators to power them
whilst attached to a truck.

There a a couple main reasons they have the diesel powered generator whilst
attached to the truck:

1\. Efficiency of the generator (truck companies don't want to spend more on
fuel)

2\. The truck is often stopped with the engine off (rest periods etc)

So in the short term attaching a refridgerated container to a Tesla semi
wouldn't need and change in operation. In the longer term I guess it's
possible that these containers will replace generators with battery pack to
remove that emmission source, but they're likely to still be built into the
container for the same reason outline above.

~~~
tmzt
Could that eventual hvac trailer take regen power from the semi, given the
extra weight.

It might be the case where battery in trailer makes sense.

------
micheljansen
"The quickest acceleration—from zero to 60 mph in 20 seconds, fully loaded."

 _sound of cargo falling over_ :P

But serious question: how important is acceleration for trucks?

~~~
Voyage_wanderer
Merging into freeways is always a problem and a hazard to everyone involved.
Quick acceleration makes highway safer. More pulling power also means less
slow trucks on grades and less jams around them.

It is of course irrelevant for the bright future where are no human drivers.

~~~
JabavuAdams
For quantifying discrete objects, you should use "fewer", not "less". "Less"
is used for aggregates, continuous media, and numeric values. So, "fewer
people", but "less water".

~~~
tialaramex
You needn't do this. Some random bloke thought it'd be a good idea years ago,
wrote it down in a book. A certain type of pedant says to themselves, oh
somebody wrote it down in a book - that's the rule them. Nope.

You can't use fewer in some places, but the insistence that if you can use it
then you must is an zombie rule. If "less" sounds right it's fine.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Thanks for that, but it doesn't sound right.

------
Voyage_wanderer
There is also issue of highway funds. Tax on fuel goes into roads maintanence.
There is no current mechanism in US to tax electric vehicles. I wonder if
Tesla culculated non-yet-existing taxes into operational casts.

------
colek42
He mentions that the mega chargers will all be solar powered. I don't know how
this will be possible as the user base grows. The amount of energy needed for
even a small fleet will be huge.

~~~
mkempe
In the year to 2017-Aug, total US solar generation was 72.1 TWh, amounting to
1.80% of total US electricity (predicted to reach 5% by 2022; in 2016 US solar
capacity almost doubled from the year before).

Tesla semi consumption: < 2 kWh/mi

One charge: 500 miles => < 1 MWh

There are about 2 million semi trucks in the US (tractor trailers). Assume
that each semi fully charges once a day, 300 days a year.

The conversion of all of the country's semis to Tesla vehicles powered with
solar generation requires under 600 TWh a year, eight times current US solar
level; still only 15% of current total US electricity generation. Likely
within 10 years, or sooner.

~~~
rand77763
There’s a lot of surface area on top of a trailer, just saying.

~~~
Dylan16807
30 square meters, laying flat. So maybe 3kW. While the engines need more like
100kW.

You can't effectively power any vehicle with 15% efficient solar panels.

~~~
larkeith
One note, your second claim is not entirely true - while land vehicles are a
ways from being feasible to power with photovoltaics (although I would have to
do the math for trains, which may be close), we already have primarily [1] and
exclusively [2] solar-powered aircraft.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse#Solar_Impulse_2_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Impulse#Solar_Impulse_2_.28HB-
SIB.29)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Prototype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Prototype)

~~~
Dylan16807
Those aircraft limp along at a tenth the speed of a typical commercial flight.
That's the main reason I said "effectively". I mean, there are useless pure-
solar cars too.

Trains might be closer but when single locomotives are measured in megawatts
I'm not very confident.

------
splouk
Does anyone with some technical knowledge of batteries and solar panels know
whether it would be possible to put solar panels on top of the trailer and
charge the battery that way?

~~~
rainbowmverse
Here's a discussion I found on the subject:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/4h7gd1/solar_panels_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/comments/4h7gd1/solar_panels_on_18_wheelers_or_large_trucks/)

------
oent32ntoerc
WTF? It's just a countdown and a place to enter an email. Why would I want to
give my email to Tesla without having any idea what this is about?

~~~
runesoerensen
_" It can transform into a robot, fight aliens and make one hell of a latte"_

[https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/930875739397791744](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/930875739397791744)

------
daguava
The page source seems to include all prices, and links to at least one pdf
with details on semi reservation.

~~~
daguava
"formattedDeposit" : "$1,000", "hamsterDeposit" : "$5,000",
"hamsterFullDeposit": "$50,000", "hamsterTotal1" : "$200,000", "hamsterTotal2"
: "$250,000",

Is the listed US prices

~~~
tyingq
Curious what "hamster" means in this context.

~~~
labster
Instead of batteries, semi is powered by several hamsters on wheels.

------
abtinf
Is a center seating position common for truck drivers?

It looks _amazing_ , but it is different enough from my normal consumer
driving experience as to make the entire product a non-starter if it were in a
consumer car. I've developed decades of training and muscle memory sitting on
the left side of the car.

I wonder if there will be a measurable impact on accident rates.

~~~
paulsutter
Mclaren is a consumer car with a center seat:

[https://www.google.com/search?q=mclaren+center+seat&tbm=isch](https://www.google.com/search?q=mclaren+center+seat&tbm=isch)

~~~
LeonM
It was, actually, because the McLaren F1 you are referring to was produced
until 1998. Also those cars are changing hands for well over 10 million USD
nowadays, so I'd hardly call is a 'consumer' car.

------
flurdy
:/ The centre driving location, not sure if that is a terrible idea for
pedestrian and bicycle safety. Or the opposite as closer to the other side.
Guess time will tell if a lot gets squashed against fences like bikers often
do in London.

~~~
rvshchwl
Also don't like that there aren't passenger seats, or at least they don't show
in the interior pictures.

~~~
JeffL
On a YouTube stream we were watching, I saw at least one fold down passenger
seat in the truck cabin. Not sure how comfortable it would be, though.

------
alkonaut
What's the axle pressure compared to traditional semis?

Semis are going to be less and less popular in the EU when more countries add
fees for distance driven which is proportional to wear, which is twice for a
semi compared to a non-semi.

------
pasta
Even if they sell 5 of them it will be a success I think.

Tesla will gather a lot of (electric) truck data no one has. And at the time
countries decide to ban polluting trucks Tesla will release an upgraded model.

------
yohann305
they should have used this line: "it's a beauty and a beast"

~~~
davzie
If you're not in marketing you need to be!

------
maelito
Is the next release a bus ?

~~~
rvshchwl
Doubt it. Busses are most often used by local governments than by businesses,
and most cities are less likely to spend that much money on a more expensive
form of transportation.

------
MistahKoala
So we've had the Model 'S', 'E' (or '3') and 'X', and now the 'Semi'?

------
philjohn
One downside to the centre driving position - what about if you want to take a
companion with you on the road?

~~~
bryanlarsen
There's a jump seat behind and to the right of the driver.

Large agricultural vehicles have always had a central driving position.

------
tzm
I want to buy a Tesla Semi and convert it to a land yacht.

------
alexdumitru
It's got a 500 mile range, which is pretty decent, compared to the rumored 300
mile range.

~~~
tyingq
It shows both on the product page. 300 standard, the 500 is an extra cost
option: [https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new](https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new)

------
bonestamp2
I hope Tesla builds the next gen USPS delivery trucks to replace all of those
loud little trucks that sound like a space shuttle launch between each
mailbox.

~~~
ttepasse
Germany's biggest postal service, the Deutsche Post (ex state monopolist)
searched for an electric delivery van and couldn't find one. So they bought a
startup and developed their own:

* [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germ...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-24/even-germany-s-post-office-is-building-an-electric-car)

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StreetScooter)

------
tlrobinson
How does the mileage and recharge time compare to a traditional semi-truck?
And are there enough charging stations along trucking routes?

~~~
ZeroGravitas
In the presentation they suggest they are targetting customers who can get
from A-B in one charge, and then charge while they are unloading/reloading the
truck. Those customers actually save time on fueling.

~~~
loceng
Otherwise he states 400 miles charge in 30 minutes. So with assumed breaks
every 5-6 hours for food and bathroom, and with apparently legal requirements
for drivers to take breaks - it seems like it won't be an issue (so long as
there are charging stations at enough locations).

------
gallerdude
I'll be really curious about how this pans out. It seems like they vastly
over-engineered it, but maybe I'm wrong.

~~~
Robotbeat
They need a huge battery to make long-haul feasible (both from a range
standpoint and a charging speed standpoint) and to make the battery last
longer even on short trips.

And you have less resistive losses if you use multiple motors (or, say, one
large motor) than one motor (or a small motor) for the same load due to: Power
loss from resistance = I^2*R (resistance increases, but current decreases
proportionally for the same load, so your power loss reduces).

So if you're going for efficiency and long-haul battery life, you already need
a big battery and lots of electric motor power. You can leverage that for
really strong regenerative braking, which translates to extremely long brake
life and further efficiency (as well as being quieter). This also means you
can go faster up AND down hills (speed down hills for trucks is limited by
brake heating... if you're doing regenerative braking, very little heat is
generated).

Also, by using multiple model 3 motors, they can get access to economies of
scale that a small-run truck usually can't, which means you can afford to
spend more on putting more motor in there.

So you end up with a truck that can do 0-60 in 20s with full load due mostly
to other engineering considerations.

------
thecompilr
What I would really like to see is a smaller version of the truck, and a
collaboration with U-Haul. Now that has market value.

------
smoyer
This would have been a great product to announce on April Fools day - then
continuing to announce it as real afterwards.

------
maxander
I predict that when the Semi Unveil happens, they’ll only unveil half of the
actual vehicle.

------
vanderZwan
I was wondering if the best early markets to target might be in the European
Union. First of all, at least on the PR-side of things we seem to be a bit
more into sustainability; more companies might want to get these just to get a
good public reputation. But aside from that it might make more economic sense
too.

So I tried a rough estimation.

 _TL;DR:_ I made a very, _very_ rough estimation which suggests that _if Tesla
's original cost per mile number is accurate_, it could be _very_ successful
in a handful of European countries, for companies that do not transport cargo
internationally.

Making worst-case assumptions about the average costs at each step, switching
to the Tesla Semi would be a net _increase_ in costs of 19¢/mile on average.

Making slightly-more-lenient assumptions about electricity costs, switching
would give a 28¢/mile savings on average (compared to their claimed 25¢/mile
in the USA).

The best-case scenario for Tesla would be a trucking company in Norway that
only delivers inside Norway, because then that number improves to somewhere
between 59¢/mile to 80¢/mile.

Also, they need to give more context for the $200k+ fuel savings claim,
because it seems a bit suspicious: they claim a savings of 25¢/mile, but fuel
cost is only a fraction of that. So you would need to travel like a million
miles before you reach that amount, which would take over two to three decades
at the average distance covered by a truck each year.

I'm not an economist, and a lot of ridiculous assumptions were made in these
calculation, so don't take it too seriously.

Still reading? Down the rabbit hole we go...

In the reveal video Tesla claims a cost of $1.51/mile for diesel vs $1.26/mile
for their semi[0], so a 25¢/mile savings (I'm going to ignore the convoy
savings for now). This assumes fuel costs of $2.50/gallon and 7¢/kwH.

Oh, BTW: the estimated average miles per year is 45k in the US[1]. So at
25¢/mile that would be $11.25k saved per truck in the US on average - which
presumably includes costs saved on repairs. Again: where does that $200k+ fuel
savings number come from?

Now, in Europe gas prices are (on average) much higher than the USA. What
would be the price per mile here? Well, to estimate that that we must also
look at how the price of electricity compares between Europe and the USA.

For diesel, I looked at globalpetrolprices.com[1][2]. It does not provide an
average for all of the EU (nor prices per US state, for that matter). Truckers
will often plan in such a way that they fill up in the countries on their
route with lower gas prices, so let's err on the side of caution and make it
$5/mile. To compare the relative difference I'll take the current average US
price, which is $2.83/mile. So gas is 1.8x more expensive at the moment, on
average.

Now, we do not know the MPG Tesla assumed for diesel trucks. Lets go with the
worst-case comparison again, which would be 8 MPG. Increasing $2.83/gallon to
$5.00/gallon, that mean be an increase of 27.12¢/mile. Making the improbably
assumption that all other costs relevant to this calculation are equal, we can
just add that to Tesla's number of $1.51/mile, and end up with $1.78/mile for
diesel in Europe.

For electricity I looked up the official governmental statistics provided for
electricity USA and European Union[3][4]. Taking the provided national
averages, and converting the Euro to US dollars at the current rate of 1.00 to
1.18, I get these numbers:

EU: 15.51¢/kWh domestic, 8.01¢/kWh industrial (second half 2016)

USA: 12.90¢/kWh residential, 9.89¢/kWh transportation, 7.23¢/kWh industrial
(August 2016 - more recent statistics exist but I figure we should compare the
same time period)

Note that these numbers make Tesla's claim seem a bit fishy, since they
assumed 7¢/kWh for the USA, which you don't even get with industrial scale
costs.

Europe does not distinguish transportation from other sectors yet, but the
worst-case scenario would be using their domestic prices compared to the USA's
transportation prices. That would be about 1.5x more expensive, still not as
much as diesel.

(I added industrial electricity prices because perhaps a large transportation
company with a fleet of electric vehicles and their own charging stations
would use so much electricity that they would need industrial energy
contracts. At that point the comparison obviously gets a whole lot rosier)

We don't know how much of a factor fuel price is in the price per mile
calculation of the Tesla Semi. If we take their claim of lower maintenance
costs at face value, it should be a bigger portion of the total. Now, the
even-worse-that-worst case scenario would be assuming it's _all_ of it, since
that would give the biggest adjustment, and that the relative difference is
equal to the domestic price difference:

$1.26/mile * (15.51¢/kWh / 9.89¢/kWh) = $1.97/mile, for a net _increase_ of
19¢/mile.

If we take the relative difference between domestic prices as our starting
point, it becomes better again:

$1.26/mile * (15.51¢/kWh / 12.90¢/kWh) = $1.51/mile, for a net savings of
28¢/mile.

So, using the worst possible adjustment for diesel and electricity prices,
worst MPG, and worse-than-worse price-per-mile adjustment for Tesla, the
economic benefits of switching to these will still be bigger in Europe.

Now lets look at the country with (probably) the best numbers for Tesla:
Norway. Despite being an oil-exporting country, it has the highest price per
gallon (except Iceland), and lower price per kWh than the USA:

Diesel: $6.99/gallon, electricity: 11.30¢/kWh domestic, 6.28¢/kWh industrial

Keeping everything else worst-case-scenario for Tesla as before:

(6.99-2.83 $/gallon) / 8 MPG = 0.52¢/mile, for a total of $2.03/mile for
diesel

$1.26 * 11.30 / 9.89 = $1.44/mile for Tesla, or 59¢/mile saved.

If we assume domestic-to-domestic, the ratio becomes 11.30/12.90. The worst
case scenario here would be assuming equal percentage of price per mile as
diesel:

$2.5/gallon / 8 MPG = 31.25¢/mile, or 31.25/1.51 = 20.7% of total price per
mile

(($1.26 * 79.3) + ($1.26 * 20.7) * 11.30 / 12.90) / 100 = $1.23/mile, for a
total of 80¢/mile saved.

... for a total of 80¢/mile saved.

Of course, a proper cost calculation would be much more complicated, since it
would depend on the routes your transport company takes, where you are
located, how big the company is, etc.

With so many countries I can only assume it requires more red tape to get
their semi through all the required tests in Europe (even with EU-wide
standards simplifying things there), but it would probably worth it for Tesla
to target specific countries with higher fuel costs and lower electricity
costs.

Tangent: in the process of looking this up, I discovered that fueleconomy.gov
does not have a section for semi-trucks[5]. I wonder if that was blocked by
the automotive industry on purpose.

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONx_dgr55I&t=14m](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nONx_dgr55I&t=14m)

[1] [https://hdstruckdrivinginstitute.com/semi-trucks-
numbers/](https://hdstruckdrivinginstitute.com/semi-trucks-numbers/)

[1] [http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/North-
Americ...](http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/North-America/)

[2]
[http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/Europe/](http://www.globalpetrolprices.com/diesel_prices/Europe/)

[3]
[https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...](https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_5_6_a)

[4] [http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-
explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics),
[http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_204&languag...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_204&language=en&mode=view),
[http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_205&languag...](http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/product?code=nrg_pc_205&language=en&mode=view)

[5]
[http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/search.shtml?words=semi](http://fueleconomy.gov/feg/search.shtml?words=semi)

------
aeleos
Wow not just a semi truck but a new super car? I always wondered what they
could do if there weren't trying to make the cars affordable to most of the
population, I guess this is it.

620 mile range is disgustingly insane, I wonder how they were able to pull it
off. I can't imagine cramming more batteries would help weight and speed,
maybe it uses some kind of different battery technology to get that kind of
power storage.

~~~
petre
Tesla isn't really that affordable. It's more like the iPhone of electric
cars: they're trying to make the best electric car everybody wants.
Renault/Nissan are the ones trying to make it affordable. I read the Zoe is a
best seller, although in rather too low volumes compared to ICE cars.

------
wayanon
I wonder if the strong glass is the same material used in the solar roof
tiles.

------
Geojim
Looks like a re-run of Knight Rider...

------
shrewduser
model S, 3, X, then the D, now a semi... what's elon trying to tell us.

~~~
amiramir
S3X DRIVE could be a cheeky pun along the lines of The Boring Company.

------
bkeroack
When you have hundreds of thousands of customers with paid reservations
waiting for Model 3s, why on Earth would you spend resources launching another
product line? It’s madness.

~~~
notatoad
Because the "make a new product" teams and the "fix the battery manufacturing
process" teams are mostly different teams. Engineers are not entirely
fungible.

~~~
bkeroack
It's not just battery manufacturing, it's everything manufacturing. It's clear
that Musk (therefore Tesla) is addicted to the rush of developing and
releasing new products but are loathe to dedicate time towards the boring,
iterative process of manufacturing optimization. To the point of farming out
as much manufacturing as possible to third parties (Panasonic, China).

It's clear they want to be a design shop in the vein of an Apple, as opposed
to an industrial manufacturer like GM/Ford/GE. I would not be surprised to see
them offshore manufacturing more and more in the future (see their recent
China deal).

------
jjcm
Details for those that couldn't watch the live stream:

-500 mile range on a full charge. On empty 30 min of charging will get you 400 miles.

-Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

-They're claiming cost per mile is less than rail for shipping goods.

-2019 availability

-Lane centering + other features (jack knife prevention)

-1,000,000 mile guarantee

\----------------

Also they surprised announced a new roadster:

-New plaid mode (beyond ludicrous) 0-60 in 1.9s.

-620 mile range

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

I LOLed at this one. Supercars want lots of downforce so they don't constantly
go off the road and you die. They're not built for low Cd. A Toyota Prius has
35% lower drag coefficient than a Bugatti Veyron.

It's like when the "superfruit" people go "look at this amazing berry, it has
20% more vitamin C than a lemon!" Well yeah, an orange has 70% more vitamin
than a lemon. Marketing wank for the uninformed masses.

> On empty 30 min of charging will get you 400 miles.

I did a double take here. To do that we're talking ~ 1000 kWh drawn from the
grid in 30 min; that's pulling 2 megawatts of power. None of the existing
Supercharger installations come close to providing enough power for even one
truck.

It also means that on the distribution grid, a charging station for 8 semis
will need a dedicated 20 MVA 33/11 kV distribution transformer, plus 4
11kV/480V transformers. Unless you manage to keep those charging slots filled
90% of the time, that's going to be bloody expensive electricity.

~~~
csours
> Lower drag coefficient than a bugatti veyron

Also, the coefficient is then multiplied by the frontal area of the vehicle. A
semi has a helluva frontal area.

~~~
JorgeGT
Also, drag scales with the square of the velocity [1], and a semi is a helluva
slower than a racing supercar.

\---

[1] drag = 1/2 x air_density x frontal_area x drag_coefficient x velocity^2

------
tim--
The poor guys are self-DDoS'ing themselves.

They keep requesting
[https://livestream.tesla.com/haveReservationsStarted](https://livestream.tesla.com/haveReservationsStarted)
every 30 seconds. Most of the requests are failing with 502 HTTP errors.

~~~
acchow
Why are they hosting their own streaming service instead of using YouTube?

~~~
azhenley
Elon plans to go to Mars, surely he can handle video streaming...

~~~
mandeepj
These are two very different things

~~~
username223
Yes. One requires attention to a huge number of details, to be certain that
many systems work together flawlessly. The other, you can just reload if it
screws up.

~~~
sangnoir
I don't think you can reload a rocket ;)

------
runesoerensen
Product page up now:
[https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new](https://www.tesla.com/semi/?new)

~~~
sdenton4
Nice! Fun to imagine this with bog standard random shipping container in the
back... Or will everything have to switch to shiny silver tesla shipping
containers?

------
kenhwang
Getting a 502 response. Also Tesla should probably update nginx since v1.10.2
is at EOL with an outstanding CVE.

~~~
mds
Really happy not to be the Tesla DevOps group right now.

~~~
nodesocket
I bet they outsource these live event streams.

~~~
MoBattah
USTREAM

------
chickenbane
Can't get anything from tesla.com, but this livestream works!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJV1AqRd8g](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvJV1AqRd8g)

------
Gustomaximus
Asking for an email to watch? For something like this? Are they planning to
spam people after to try and sell product? Some marketing manager is being a
bit old company on this one.

------
austenallred
I love Tesla, but there’s something poetic about even the livestream being
delayed by 10 minutes

~~~
mandeepj
Their events are always delayed

------
tyingq
The live stream is moving on to the roadster now.

Says 1/4 mile is 8.9 seconds, which is just nuts for a car you can buy off the
lot.

I'm guessing insurance might be high on that car.

~~~
perilunar
[https://www.tesla.com/roadster/](https://www.tesla.com/roadster/)

~~~
tyingq
Ahh. $250k, so insurance isn't really an issue if you can buy it in the first
place.

------
andrewksl
The site is showing in Chinese for me. It really irks me when sites don't
respect the browser's language. Surely this is a solved problem?

~~~
psergeant
This is 1,000% an unsolved problem, with an extra helping of fuck you Google
and Facebook.

I browser without cookies and generally from Asian VPNs, and as far as I can
tell, nobody is remotely respecting the browser’s language. Google have also
recently started showing English language search results in Thailand with
archaic Thai-language dates, which is also insane.

------
mrep
youtube stream for those getting errors:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA)

------
jordache
How are they doing this without triggering a browser prompt to allow my
location to be sent by browser? The result for me was very accurate. Why
wouldn't all the ecommerce sites use this method? I keep denying their prompts
to access my location otherwise.

[https://location.teslamotors.com/geoip/v1.0.3/city/](https://location.teslamotors.com/geoip/v1.0.3/city/)

~~~
tim--
That just looks like Maxmind's GeoIP.
[https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/whats-new-in-
geoip2/](https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/whats-new-in-geoip2/)

------
nodesocket
Yikes. NGINX throwing 502 errors. No bueno from a company with a market cap of
52 billion. Plus they seem to be running over 10 minutes late.

------
Xcelerate
The video is livestreaming for me, but it's stuck on "Standby for the Tesla
semi unveil". Anyone else seeing this?

~~~
RoboTeddy
Yep same here. Don't reload -- I tried opening the stream in a second window,
and couldn't get in at all (stuck on submitting the "watch event" form)

------
coding123
Since I can't see anything except a spinning wheel on the button and "Event in
progress" here are my questions for others: What is the payload (tongue)
capacity? What is the tow (pull) capacity? Is there any mention of being able
to pull a fifth wheel?

------
karlshea
Plus surprise supercar announcement?

------
soheil
working youtube stream:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFN4BfbqlbA)

------
chrismorgan
This live stream consistently causes the first crash I’ve noticed in ages:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418059](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1418059).
Yes, when you use Firefox Nightly as your browser it does just _occasionally_
cause trouble. But mostly it’s just awesome.

------
jwilliams
Er. So is this actually on? I'm getting hold music that feels straight out of
Knight Rider.

~~~
MoBattah
I'm liking the music. Can anyone identify it? Would love to use this during
work.

~~~
jwilliams
Shazam giving me zip, sadly.

~~~
Daneel_
I wonder if it'll come round on SpaceX FM?
[http://www.spacexfm.com/](http://www.spacexfm.com/)

They have a lot of custom audio for bits and pieces like this. It's a neat
little loop though, and I want it.

------
austenallred
The new Tesla Roadster "Founders Edition" costs $250k, paid up-front, and only
1,000 are made.

In other words Tesla just put $250 million in the bank by rubbing rich
peoples' egos.

~~~
taneq
And making a really really nice limited-edition car, apparently.

~~~
austenallred
Of course, but they effectively get three years at zero interest to make good
on that.

~~~
taneq
Kickstarter for the 1%.

------
gridscomputing
still playing the "standby" slide at 2012 PST. i assume this to mean the event
was scheduled to begin at 1900 PST?

~~~
gpm
I believe it was meant to launch at 2000 PST, that's when it was counting down
to.

------
cameronhowe
<nevermind>

~~~
azhenley
Clicking the play button just takes me to the (down) Tesla page.

~~~
cameronhowe
yeah, my bad, I guess it's not a shortcut

------
un_montagnard
New car as well!

------
hateful
This is only a semi-reveal. Maybe the stream will work after they do the
complete reveal?

------
asimpletune
Can we talk about that music?

------
bra-ket
yuck, what a soulless piece of crap

------
untilHellbanned
Jack of all trades master of none. What is Musk doing? This guy is all over
the map.

~~~
bobsil1
Methodically going after sources of anthropogenic climate change

------
balozi
Probably not a popular opinion but this Tesla business feels like what I
imagine being cult or Ponzi scheme would feel like.

------
anonu
The fact that diesel semis have a 1000+ mile range was conspicuously left out
of the unveil. I had to do a bit of research.

I suppose it's all marketing in the end and Elon cherry picked the facts that
would suit him.

Yes, I understand 80% of trips are under 250 miles. But is an almost 50%
reduction in range that easily shrugged off?

~~~
Tepix
Since you're legally required to take a 30 minute break every couple of hours,
_does it really matter_?

------
kraig911
It's cute. No trucking company is going to add it to it's fleet though...
after thinking about SigmundA's research and coming from a family of Truckers
- I can't see how this will help/work. It's just a cool thing to see and boost
company image. Trucker's don't want to drive a lone. Trucker's usually have
people along for a ride or a sleeper cab. Sitting in the middle would suck. I
sincerely doubt this thing can haul loads of more than 12.5tons.

