Tesla Semi Trucks Could Change Transportation Industry Forever

Recently, what seems to be a brand new prototype of Tesla Semi was spotted in Sacramento, California. But what is Tesla Semi exactly, and why are people so hyped about it? Find everything you need to know about Elon Musk’s latest automotive innovation in Super Freaky Science.

[INTRO]

Electric vehicles are said to be the vehicles of the future, and visionary Elon Musk does not only knows this —he also contributes for these words to turn into reality. In 2006, he invested 6.5 million dollars on Tesla Motors and became CEO of the firm in 2008. Now, Tesla is his most valuable company, the fifth most valuable company on Wall Street since the beginning of this year, and the most valuable carmaker in the world after it surpassed Toyota in mid-2020.

However, Elon Musk wants to build something more than electric cars for personal and sports use. His Master Plan includes the expansion of Tesla’s creations to all segments of vehicle categories in order to replace conventional, polluting means of transport. So he got Tesla into the transportation sector with Tesla Semi, an electric truck originally designed by French mechanical engineer Jerome Guillen, who also led Tesla S’ production.

Unveiled in November 2017, Tesla Semi is the first Class 8 truck made by Tesla Motors, and it’s full of promises.

Let’s start by saying that “Class 8” means that it has 3 or more axles and weighs over 33,000 pounds, so it’s ready for heavy and severe duty applications. Actually, this rig can carry huge loads that don’t seem to have a negative effect on its performance. Tesla Semi is able to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 20 seconds when it’s fully loaded to America’s legal limit of 80,000 pounds. When unloaded, it takes it only 5 seconds to reach that speed. This is twice faster than conventional diesel trucks.

How does it do that? Well, Tesla Semi happens to be propelled by 4 independent motors on its rear axles, although it only needs 2 to run.

The motors are not only used for movement, but also for braking. Now, if you’ve got some sort of previous experience with electric vehicles, you may be thinking: “This is nothing new”. But Tesla Semi’s braking system is not your typical engine braking. It’s actually called regenerative braking —because it regenerates most of the kinetic energy used to slow down the vehicle and turns it into electrical energy that is used to recharge the battery. It’s almost like a smart braking system that makes this action no longer a waste of energy. One more up for Tesla Semi.

Let’s be honest, energy matters. And electric vehicles are much more cleaner and cost-effective in this regard. In fact, Tesla Semi is designed to consume less than 2.0 Kw per mile at highway speed when fully loaded. This means that depending on the battery pack configuration of your Tesla Semi model, its batteries will allow it to run from 300 to 500 miles before you need to stop by the Megachargers.

These are Tesla’s intended global network of charging stations for electric trucks, which Elon Musk expects to be able to fill 80% of battery capacity in half an hour, only with solar power. After all, most electric cars in the United States use electricity from renewable sources, and his trucks couldn’t be the exception to this.

Keep in mind that Tesla is not just an automotive manufacturing firm. Tesla is more about sustainable energy in general, and electric vehicles are part of it —along with the solar panels and roof tiles that the company commercializes at a large scale in the U.S. through its subsidiary SolarCity.

But let’s go back to Tesla Semi. If you haven’t understood the hype about it yet, just think about what its specifications could entail not only for the environment, but mainly for the transportation industry.

One of the biggest worries in the sector is related to self-driving systems that could make thousands of truck drivers lose their jobs. However, as full self-driving (FSD) systems are not 100% ready for strong real-life application yet, Tesla Semi is equipped with a semi-autonomous autopiloting system that involves 360º cameras, sensors, touchscreen displays, and advanced driver-assistance software that helps truckers with parking, lane centering, automatic braking, collision prevention, and other actions, without depriving them of the necessary role they play for the trucks to travel the roads safely.

They’ll only be more comfortable as they’ll be able to relax in a sleeper cab with living accommodations from time to time, and they’ll be more protected against accidents with the active safety systems and the almost panoramic view from the driver seat, which is located strategically in the middle of the cab. Lastly, due to the truck’s performance, they’ll probably reach their destination earlier and less tired, avoiding burnout, which is always bad, but it could be deadly in this occupation.

On the other hand, operators will save money on fuel —as much as 200,000 dollars in 1 million miles (which is actually the lifespan of the average truck). They’ll also save money on the technical maintenance of their fleets, as electric trucks don’t need much of it (at least not that often). All in all, productivity is expected to increase while the operating costs are expected to decrease. This could lead to lower shipping rates for the products we buy or maybe lower prices for the products themselves.

It’s probably under these prospects that big companies in need of daily freight carrying and delivery, like United Parcel Services (most known as UPS), FedEx, PepsiCo, Walmart, Anheuser-Busch, City Furniture, Loblaw, and J.B. Hunt Transport Services —they all have pre-ordered several Tesla Semi trucks for their businesses with an advance payment of 5,000 dollars per unit. Does this sound like a lot to you? It’s probably not if you take into consideration that the overall price of the truck is 150,000 to 180,000 dollars, depending on its battery’s autonomy.

But apart from a few prototypes that have been test-driven in Nevada and California, the truth is that no one knows when these trucks will come out to the roads officially. There are always delays, and particularly Tesla’s projects are known for failing to accomplish the due dates they set. When they revealed Tesla Semi to the public eye in 2017, it was expected to hit the market in 2019. Later that year, they stated they would start producing it in 2020. In 2020, they said that production and delivery would be delayed until 2021. And now that 2021 is here, mass production is restricted by the lack of batteries.

Tesla Semi uses Tesla 4680 battery cells, a more powerful version of current Tesla batteries that are more accurate for transportation trucks, given that they supply them with the right autonomy for longer distances and they’re estimated to last over 2 million miles. Because they’re built with cheaper materials, they also cost less, but Elon Musk has recently said that Tesla simply “doesn’t have enough cells” for their new products. And the Semi truck requires five times the number of lithium-ion battery cells that put other electric cars into function.

Tesla 4680 battery cells are relatively new, and they’re not being produced as massively as the company needs. That’s basically bottlenecking the awaited release of the Tesla Semi. As Elon Musk stated, “it kinda would not make sense for us to do the Semi, but it will absolutely make sense for us to do it as soon as we can address the cell production constraint”.

We’ll have to keep waiting.

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