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The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

bradmunchen.substack.com

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Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#111

Post by toomuchtodo »

Element_ wrote: post #6

> Tesla uses the the tri-motor system from the Models S/X Plaid on one axle of the Semi, which seems both dangerous and needless, given the lack of concern among Semi users for quick acceleration Jay Leno did an interview with one of the Tesla Truck engineers the other week, I believe he mentioned each axle is geared differently. One specifically for highway speeds and the other one disconnects for optimal efficiency…

That’s standard for Tesla drivetrains on their cars to avoid transmissions: one axle for low speed, one axle for high speed, blending power to the motors and idling one when the other is primary.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#112

Post by thinkmassive »

uoaei wrote: post #5
candiddevmike wrote: post #2

> The constant use of the battery pack is unprecedented and is causing reliability problems for Tesla and other EV truck makers I don't understand why this is a surprise and why they think they can muscle through it. I didn't think our current battery technology is built for this scenario. > During the installation process, the Megachargers took down the power grid for a good chunk of the city This is my fear with ev…

> This is my fear with everyone eventually plugging in their electric vehicles at 5pm Household- or neighborhood-scale battery banks make a lot of sense in the near term. Because they are stationary they don't need to emphasize light materials and can focus more on cost efficiency and charge/discharge rate than mass or energy density using more readily available materials and cheap production methods. With relatively…

Like a Tesla Powerwall

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#113

Post by theodric »

ReactiveJelly wrote: post #46
thsksbd wrote: post #12

Batteries on semis dont make much sense to me. Hybrid systems on heavy inner city vehicles make a lot of sense. As do hybrids in mountainous areas. But long distance hauling? BS. Semi engines are large with very low power to displacement ratio -> they are very fuel efficient. Truck builders' customers are very sensitive to fuel consumption. I find it very hard to believe that marginal grid power (ie thermal plant), t…

Priuses manage to get 50 mpg highway without depleting charge or plugging in but I guess the same optimizations can't work on a big diesel as on a little gas engine?

Priuses are slippery little kammback hatches with hard tires and a drivetrain designed to minimize Cd and stop-start traffic fuel consumption. A semi is a brick that bullies the wind out of the way all day every day for two million miles before needing a rebuild. They're very different animals for very different use cases.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#114

Post by jjulius »

enragedcacti wrote: post #106
jjulius wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And it's not at all possible that someone making a blog post forgot to put the word "passenger" before "ICE" there?

the big mistake isn't missing "passenger", its claiming that 100% of vehicles on the road will be BEV when the regulation says 100% of sales will be BEV. The average age of cars on the road is about 10 years so a substantial number of vehicles will still be ICE in California in 2035.

Eh, I got the word wrong (switch it to "sales") but it doesn't really change my point.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#115

Post by fastball »

jojobas wrote: post #45
protastus wrote: post #30

It's a prototype at the edge of what state of the art battery technology allows. Kudos to Tesla for having the guts and endurance to try. This is relevant for Tesla and for the industry.

Except Musk was all out saying how it was production ready six years ago.

Honestly "Musk always gives timelines that are completely unrealistic" is a pretty tired criticism at this point. Is it true? Absolutely. Does it matter much? Not really.

They're clearly making progress. Not sure what more you want in real terms.

Not being able to stick to self-imposed deadlines isn't ideal, but its also not a crime.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#116

Post by theteapot »

wilg wrote: post #43

The author clearly has an angle here. Tesla's obviously in some kind of beta mode. They've even said (in the Leno episode) they're going to rev the thing before going into full production. Plus battery degradation is well understood. Plus it's known there are multiple range editions of the Semi, they aren't all the 500mi version. Also obviously the taxpayers aren't paying for this vehicle program somehow. Wait a year…

Completely agree. This is why they are doing small scale closed doors trials in collaboration with a single private company ... Problems seem normal. "Hot mess" seems normal. They're not in production.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#117

Post by _aavaa_ »

peyton wrote: post #105
01100011 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" (the west) need to go below net zero as it's clear that most of the world isn't concerned with curbing carbon emissions(quite the opposite, it seems). Note that "need" here is in the context of meeting the climate goals we've chosen to impose on ourselves. I'm not going to debate the wisdom of that choice here.

I haven’t heard the Saudis say they will cap their wells when we stop paying them.

The problem isn’t pumping oil out of the ground, it’s burning it and putting the rest in the atmosphere. Treating oil as a feedstock to other products which ultimately do not end up in the atmosphere should be thought of just like any other resource we extract from the ground.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#118

Post by toomuchtodo »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #44

I love that the Semi is just about as reliable as my Model X, which has been in for service 10 times, and even just this morning I got in to discover it completely dead with black screens. I can't wait to get rid of the damn thing.

This is a huge bummer to hear. I have over 100k miles on an ‘18 Model S with almost zero problems. Tires and wiper fluid is all she’s had done, almost exclusively supercharged.

As sibling comment said, lemon it.

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#119

Post by henrikschroder »

jacquesm wrote: post #66

I think the thing that Tesla misses when it comes to semi construction is that unlike with the roadster and the model-s launches the customers are unlikely to be impressed by the tech-bro bit and will first and foremost look at ergonomics, safety and economics. Image isn't on the front burner at all and I think the number of actual truck drivers at the Tesla design department approaches zero. If they mess up the laun…

> If they mess up the launch of the semi in terms of early adopter customer satisfaction

Only Tesla thinks of this as a regular consumer product with a "launch".

In reality, the competition is already offering electric trucks of various sizes, today, not in beta, not pre-production, but actual products you can buy. And since their competition understands the trucking business, they already know exactly how to slot EV trucks into existing fleets, complete with logistics systems and maintenance contracts and a billion other things that Tesla has zero clue about. They're doing the usual Silicon Valley "winging it", thinking it'll work in this market as well.

Pepsi accepted the pilot program because of

1) Free publicity, although with Elon's recent public political statements, the value of that is quickly turning negative, and

2) Free trucks they're not paying for, California taxpayers are.

And yet a lot of people still believe Tesla is the market leader and that everyone is just waiting for Tesla to come and disrupt the trucking business.

https://www.freightliner.com/trucks/ecascadia/

https://www.mercedes-benz-trucks.com/en_GB/emobility/world/o...

https://www.volvotrucks.us/trucks/vnr-electric/

Re: The Tesla Semi from an Insider's View After One Year: "Hot Mess"

#120

Post by Schiendelman »

derekp7 wrote: post #98
enragedcacti wrote: post #73

> During the installation process, the Megachargers took down the power grid for a good chunk of the city [imagine what happens when 100% of ICE vehicles have switched over to BEV in California by 2035]. A little bit tangential, but 2035 marks the ban on new passenger ICE vehicles. Given the average age of cars in the US, California probably won't even be at 50% passenger BEVs by 2035, let alone 100% of ALL vehicles.…

My question is what happens to gas stations as the changeover is underway? They make razor thin margins and rely on selling a lot of gas to turn a profit, which leads me to believe there will start to be fewer gas stations even when only 20% of cars on the road are electric (just my conjecture, but it seems to make sense to me). Now as gas stations start to thin out, that would put a damper on people buying gas cars…

As of the news yesterday, Tesla now has contracts with two of the largest gas station chains in the United States to install superchargers.
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