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Tesla Semi

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Re: Tesla Semi

#451

Post by pgt »

SigmundA wrote: post #373

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…

What about the Supercharger network? Fewer highways make it logistically easier to plan for well-positioned charging stations so they can produce smaller batteries that have to be charged more frequently. And the Semi could always hook on a battery trailer for longer hauls.

Re: Tesla Semi

#452

Post by grecy »

dchuk wrote: post #420
grecy wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how much servicing do you think it needs? New tires and rarely new brakes and you're good to go. I'm sure any "servicing yard" will be able to handle that.

Yep, big rigs are just a couple of tires and brakes. No glass, shocks, computer systems, hitches, cabling for trailers, lights, body pieces, or anything else. Just brakes and tires.

I get what you are saying, but do remember Elon made a huge point of saying they are going for massive reliability, and have a 1,000,000 mile warranty on this thing.

He explicitly addressed glass (doesn't break)

Re: Tesla Semi

#454

Post by nikofeyn »

et1337 wrote: post #134
nikofeyn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla is not a car company. what does this even mean?

Tesla is a battery company.

doesn’t panasonic make tesla’s batteries? even if tesla does make their own batteries, their primary product is automobiles. are other car makers engine companies? (of course some car companies do sell their engines to other car companies, but i think the point i am making is still clear.)

Re: Tesla Semi

#455

Post by Robotbeat »

gallerdude wrote: post #435

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

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.

Re: Tesla Semi

#456

Post by emptyfile »

ajmurmann wrote: post #402
jameshart wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - I was going to ask if I took an American truck mechanic to Europe and stood him by a highway, he’d look at all the trucks and say ‘those will never work, the windshields are too big and the engine’s inaccessible and all those fairing panels look fragile.’

I believe the main reason for why European trucks look soi different is regulations. European trucks have a length limit that covers the tractor as well as the trailer. Because you want to maximize the cargo space, the tractor is made as short as possible and gets this very un-aerodynamic shape. The truck in essence gets the shape that best fills in all permitted space. In addition they don't have plows or similar th…

Huh, how do American trucks look?

Re: Tesla Semi

#457

Post by gaustin »

psergeant wrote: post #186
gaustin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

A more complicated industry than SpaceX sells into?

Because of its ubiquity, I would put them on par. However, there are many, many more players in trucking than in aerospace which complicates things.

Re: Tesla Semi

#458

Post by gaustin »

rebuilder wrote: post #234
gaustin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

So if Tesla has trucks, and is developing self-driving capability, and the trucking industry is a mishmash of legacy systems, what pieces does Musk need to just go into the trucking business direct?

This is a huge question. It depends on so many things. We can make assumptions on viable strategies given Tesla's finances and past behavior. But that still leaves us with a lot of solution space.

First you have to accept that the trucking industry is conservative. The mom and pop distributors, the big guys, everyone. The people who own, lease and operate the trucks. There are all sorts of legislative hurdles to deal with.

I think a winning strategy is to start with city or county distributors. Lease out trucks at _very_ competitive rates. Do this with an agreement that your backend (accounting, maintenance, inventory) systems will replace _everything_ at the distributor. At first you'll probably have to compromise on this and integrate some things.

On top of that you pretty much have to integrate your onboard sensors/telematics with consumable manufacturers. Unless you're going to manufacture your own tires and such too.

Re: Tesla Semi

#459

Post by cptskippy »

sebleon wrote: post #449
SigmundA wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How effective is regenerative breaking?

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...

Re: Tesla Semi

#460

Post by bkeroack »

notatoad wrote: post #176
bkeroack wrote: post #123

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.

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

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).

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