Does the Tesla semi seem dumb to you...

Truck driver here... unless it can go four hundred miles with a thirty minute charge time (or battery swap), it's DOA.

This. They can't even figure out their manufacturing process out yet, let alone think about the economics of using a 500mi hauling semi.

it definitely has potential, but it prepare to only see these as short trip haulers in niched metropolitan areas such as the bay area and east coast cities.

Also, the supplemented energy source will have to come from somewhere (powerplants) if they decide to do away with diesel.

They'll love it in Phoenix... they're really gay about emissions there.

I mean we are talking about the company that wants to use rockets to take people to different sides of the world

That, at least, is a pretty solid idea. If the rocket can be made to be as reusable as an airplane anyway. The idea has been around since ICBMs became a thing.

It's beyond foolish. Not to mention no time will be saved considering people have to be transported to remote locations and shit before even being hurled by a rocket. Also, there's all kinds of shit which can cause a launch to simply be canceled.

It doesn't make any sense at all. Only retards find it kewl and le futuristic and reddit interesting kys.

>considering people have to be transported to remote locations and shit
and when you take the plane you don't have to be transported to the airport?

This, we should just go back to supersonic planes.

Concorde was top tier.

Question: do these things have big solar panels on the tops of the cab and trailer? They should.

No it won't, because the cost savings on diesel will be enormous.

Companies will always adapt if it means saving money.

This.

Literally every single automobile is going to be electric some point in the future. Its not a dumb idea, its just the first generation tech of that sector. Everyone who knows anything knows you never buy first generation tech. Let the morons beta test it and buy the next version with all the bugs worked out.

>solar panels on the tops of the cab and trailer?

Did some rough math real quick. A large semi (53 feet) would produce 39kwh of energy per day if it had solar on it's trailer's roof.
>from wiki ~ "1 US gallon of fuel is equivalent to =33.7kwh, according to the US Department of Energy.[6] This electric truck uses 2 kilowatt-hours per mile"
Seems adding solar panels only be dead weight.

It can go 500 on a charge apparently, and at least one company has preordered some for midrange routes on the west coast.

>Liions are low energy density as fuck.
Semis are specialized at carrying large, heavy loads. They can take as many batteries as they need. 500 mile range, charges to 400 miles in 30 minutes, compared to 15 minutes to refuel a diesel. It's true that diesels have a longer range, but the drivers need the rest stops anyway.

Because they consume a lot of energy, it's a big deal to save on energy cost, a much bigger deal than for the typical domestic car.

The specifics on the Tesla semi look really good. The performance, reliability, and safety features are huge. Diesel semis have a real performance problem. It makes them hard to drive in traffic and, as Musk pointed out in the presentation, they're stuck at well under highway speed on a 5% incline. Being able to go 65 mph uphill makes these an immediate must-have for mountain routes. With reversible, direct-drive motors on every wheel, the traction control is incomparable. I believe them when they claim that jackknifing one of these trucks will be impossible. And with the schedule pressures truckers are under, the ability to stay in lane and slow to a stop if driver input is lost will save many lives.

But it's reusable...

Interesting. So we're going to need a fuck-ton more generating capacity. do you have any ideas on how we"ll be able to get the tree-hug crowd to embrace more nukes plants?

>be me
>reading truck thread
>see "kwh"
>trucks
>read it as "kilo wheels"
>"You think those 18-wheelers are road-hogs, check ut my new 39,000-wheeler good buddy!"
>chortle slightly

Recuperating from surgery, need the entertainment I can get.

Ford already cucked Tesla out of that market

Hyperloop for 390000 wheelers when?

It can. 400 miles charge, 80%, in 30 minute.

>get in cab
>back of the truck is at origin
>drive forward ten feet
>front of truck is at destination

>unless it can go four hundred miles with a thirty minute charge time
That's exactly what it can do.

It can also go 65 mph up a 5% incline, has reversible motors on each wheel giving it unprecedented traction control, and can stay in the lane, slow to a halt, and put on your four-way blinkers if you fall dead asleep at the wheel, or just keep you from drifting out of your lane if you conk out for a few seconds.

The killer feature is a convoy function, where two self-driving semis can follow a human-driven leader for a long highway haul. While this is likely to be allowed only on select routes, it is likely to be allowed almost immediately when these come onto the market.

well, elon claimed in a Ted talks interview that the truck;

"could beat a conventional diesel truck in a tug war, going uphill"

and that

"it can turn like a sports car."

"i drove it around a parking lot, and i couldnt believe how easily it could take sharp turn"

its supposed to be a truck specifically designed to rival the diesel ones. should we trust our goyim elon? he hasnt lied about the physical details of any of his shit before

>at least physical details, scheduling is a whole other thing.

so its roughly 16 miles for every equivalent in Kwh that a gallon of fuel has? so effectively 16 miles to the gallon.
thats fucking insane, average semi trucks get like 5-8 miles per gallon

boys, is elon really amping up his green game?

>how much stored energy does it hold?

?
It's going to cost fucking 500,000+ for the huge amount of batteries needed
These high density batteries are fucking bombs too

so far his electric vehicles are just vanity memes for liberals, and hopefully they lose their tax credit so we aren't subsidizing those liberals

Like, they can't produce enough batteries for small cars, but they can manage to make semi's? Why do they announce shit thats 5+ years off

not even just stop, these things are supposed to be getting some of that self driving stuff in too. and in december or so he said they where gonna have the first self driving car drive from l.a to new york with no one touching the wheel the whole way there, they also plan on dynamically changing the route to make it harder for the car.

this thing can get about 16 miles per "gallon"
(1 gallon of fuel = roughly 33.7 kwh, the trick can get a mile out of 2 kwh)
it also has a surprisingly high horsepower, enough to consistently be able to move faster and maneuver quicker than a diesel even with a full load.

he said it has two battery configurations as well; one for 300 mile trips, and ond for 500 mile trips on a single full charge.

boys, it doesnt even have to refuel in 500 miles with the long haul battery pack full charged. is the future finally getting here?

first boston dynamics fucks the worlds perception of clanky slow robots with the new spotmini and atlas videos. now this?

Internal Combustion Engine

hvae you seen the new mega factories he is making? he has already halfway built one, and is planning starting the building of around 4 new ones very soon. with how quickly only half of the first one is churning out. its safe to say he is very much getting to the lithium battery supply problem

I am 100% up for shitting on Elon Musk.
Jokes aside though the this was most likely just a giant PR shit by tesla to get more media attention and reddit worship

This

>so we aren't subsidizing
>we
Don't act like you aren't a NEET/undergrad, you're on fucking Veeky Forums

>so far his electric vehicles are just vanity memes for liberals
They're pretty nice luxury cars, and the customer base is far from just "liberals". Tesla got started in sports cars, remember.

It takes on one fifth of global petroleum need basically, they can make a scooter, sure, but that doesn't make any difference.

> Can even cars.
Tesla makes cars for about $35,000
The power cell alone costs THEM $10,000 to make.
You can pick up a low range standard for about $20,000
You're telling me he's doing cars wrong?
Keep in mind all production is based in the USA, one of the most expensive places to produce anything.
Elon's goal is to get the cost down as they fine tune production.

Explain to me why a car with currently VERY expensive parts, is on par with a Toyota 4runner with cheap shit parts that has been made in China by slave labor, and will have an ever increasing cost to run, compared to a car that has nothing as a running cost?

> A truck that will not need a driver to operate.
> Drive better than a human could.
> longer range quicker driving.
Why are these guys so retarded?
Whose going to want to load up a truck, that you can drive across the country without stopping for fuel or driver sleep or eating breaks, all for cheaper than the cost of the old fashioned way?

35,000, with a 10 grand subsidy that will disappear soon

> Futuristic
A flight from London to New York use to take 3 and a half hours.
> Half a CENTURY ago......
> We have the ability now to do it in about half that.
> People DON'T want to get places fast!!!!!!
> That's why we all travel by pony and hot air balloons.

A....A-are you retarded?

Ask anyone in business class if they want to get there in half the time for double the price.
Ask sports stars and the political class if they want to do a trans Atlantic flight that takes less time than their dinner on the flight, but it will cost TEN times the amount.

Ok?

there is not enough cobalt and lithium for all these powerpacks so the price will rise and rise and rise. fine for your 100k sportscar but can you electrify the planet? we will see

They won't though. They'll have to take a slow boat ride of 1 hour to some platform out in the ocean, be loaded on the rocket, then have the launch canceled due to some small aircraft screwing around 10 kilometers from the platform.

Retard.

It's not reliable, economically sound, safe, or anything.

The batteries need to be replaced after a max of 150,000 miles, and they run $45,000 apiece just on their sedans...so, (conservative estimate) figure $100,000 replaced six times over the typical million mile lifespan of a typical long haul semi...compare this to $150,000 for a Cascadia, with maybe $100,000 in maintenance costs over that time...

We saving money yet? kek

Don't forget regenerative breaking can double fuel efficiency.

that's fucking genius

>Ask anyone in business class if they want to get there in half the time for double the price.
They don't. That's why Concorde had a hard time making a go of it.

Think of it this way: with a little thoughtful scheduling, you can take an 8-10 hour flight in business class with a spacious, reasonably comfy bed chair, and get a good night's sleep you needed anyway, so it effectively takes no time, or you can ride sitting upright in a cramped seat for 4-5 hours, and miss every hour you spent as a loss.

With a half-hour rocket ride, you don't have to plan it around your sleep schedule. You can just go. And if they can compete with economy ticket prices, that's a whole other story. Long economy rides are hellish.

>They'll have to take a slow boat ride of 1 hour to some platform out in the ocean
They can do all of the processing and customs stuff on the boat, so it won't be worse than going to an airport, where you have to be there early.

>then have the launch canceled due to some small aircraft screwing around 10 kilometers from the platform.
That's not something inherent to rocket launches, that's just the protocol left over from when rocket launches were rare.

Hey now, Toyota is pretty much the most American car you can buy, at this point.

Also, serious feels that pic related will never be sold again

>itt people who don't understand market forces
If Musk makes a thing, it's because that thing is going to do something else, or make him some money so he can do something else. He doesn't do memes.

Keep your shit taste in vehicles on another board, please.

concorde was a lot more than double the price for not half the travel time
And it wasn't profitable at the prices it charged either

>Does the Tesla semi seem dumb to you?

They are not living creatures and thus can not speak, ergo they are dumb. If you give them some AI and a speaker then they wouldn't be dumb. The real question here is, "OP is a faggot". I guess that is more is a statement of fact than a question.

>mega factories

"Gigafactory"

I'm an Electrical engineer for Ford Motor Company. I'm based out of Dearborn MI. Elon and Tesla is a meme. It won't be in 50 years but it is now. He has no clue what he's doing getting himself into mass vehicle production and he's shitting the bed royally.

They have headhunters trying to poach from Ford, Chrysler and GM daily. They are fucking hemmoraghing money and literally can only stay afloat with the carbon credits they sell us.

I turned down a job as a production manager for them for a 3rd time a few weeks ago. NA auto manufacturers are letting him weep and took getting it going and we'll just observe and get her knowledge.

Hybrids will dominate the next 50 years. After that it'll be a different energy source.

Ford may or may not be working on supercaps and also be heavily invested in fusion.

If anyone wants the guys email for a job let me know. You need a degree and experience in manufacturing and heavy automation. They'll take fucking anyone.

The problem is trucks in the first place when we never should've destroyed the rail networks

Yeah, I was just thinking about how efficient the rails are in comparison to planes and trucks. They just can't go everywhere because no rails. Wouldn't it be cool as fuck having rails and tunnels literally everywhere? Like if we never invented cargo trucks or cargo planes. We just made trains and rails better.

That's basically what Europe and North America was like 120 years ago

>I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals
You'd have sounded older than 14 to some people if you left out the stuff about supercaps and fusion.

Really fucking stupid. It may work in America because it's not as cold and doesn't have as many steep inclines and declines. In Canada this shit is gonna be fucked-having to drive on ice, steep inclines, super heavy loads, little to no visibility in the winter. This is suited for coastal cities where it doesn't get as cold, and light loads or heavy ones over a small distance. They're also suited for small range routes where you can go and come back within one charge.

>80%, in 30 minute.
is this true? sounds dangerous

In olden times more companies used to have a rail connection.

Trucks should precede rail in most cases, where heavily trucked routes should yield a rail-line in most cases.

Freight trains still take at least 40% of all total tonnage of cargo in the USA. The USA is unmatched in its cargo rail despite us lagging behind in trains for people.

How much does coastal / river shipping take?

How about coast-to-coast via Panama canal?

What are you talking about? It has much more power to climb up slopes (can do 65 mph where diesels can only do 45 mph), and the fast-response, reversible motors on each wheel give it far better traction control on ice than any engine-driven truck could have.

And the range is 500 miles (800 kilometers), a full day's driving, if you're not doing overtime. It's true that this would be ill-suited to some routes to remote locations, but that's not most of the Canadian trucking business, and nobody said they had to replace all of the diesel trucks everywhere.

All you need is a charging station every 600 km, connected to grid power, then they can go beyond the last one another 300-400 km. They only need 12 stations along the Trans-Canada Highway for the first Tesla trucks to be able to ship from Halifax to Vancouver.

>Electric Cars in Canadian Winter

This I would like to see.

well they use Diesel which is 38kWh per gallon. So it's more like 19 mpg up from the average estimate 6.5

why doesnt Elon musk use his spacex rocket to launch our trash into the sun

Just keep the batteries warm, and there's no problem. Charging and discharging them both heat them.

Temperature effects on batteries are a much bigger problem for personal cars that spend most of their time parked than for working vehicles that are driven most of the day, most days. And it's also a bigger problem for small vehicles due to the square-cube law. A large battery pack has less surface area per unit volume, so it will take longer for unwanted cooling to happen and cost less to keep it heated.

Anyway, people in cold places like Canada and Norway have been driving Teslas for years, and don't consider the cold to be a major problem.

Wrong, and it'll be cheaper overall.

Even if Tesla fails (and Musk certainly seems to be hedging his bet that it will, look at how he's diversify and pushing out new concepts so quickly) if has already changed the paradigm of your cuck companies that are married to oil. EVs are now a thing, when they weren't 10 years ago. But Tesla isn't out of the game yet, and you're all scrambling to catch up.

what the fuck is wrong with that bicycle

one of these things would make a great dungeon for a post-apocalyptic rpg

oil and ore mostly. oil trains are rolling bombs and like to blow up ore is around mining installations.

I think it has an easy way to keep standing once the rider leaves the seat.

That's right.

The car is built by a German startup (founded out Uni Aachen) in coop with the German postal service. They are using them quite succesfully. You can buy one for 32k€. Range is limited to 120 km though. Production is scaled up to 20000 a year by the end of 2017. There's a huge demand, like hot pockets.

We were talking about the bicycle.

Can't to apply there as a "charred dead birds cleaner".

I know, but I wanted to write about the car.

>Can't to apply there as a "charred dead birds cleaner".
whaaat

friendly reminder to invest in lithium and cobalt mining they will make bank

It has its own share of problems.
ecomento.de/2017/08/14/kritik-an-streetscooter-ist-der-elektro-transporter-der-post-unsicher/

youtube.com/watch?v=yf5ZNDggF2I

I bet they'll kill or overengineer and ruin it. Like so many projects in recent times.

latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html

Road runner skeleton cleaner.

wrong techology bud

No, it seems like the best move to get a cut of the largest employment sector in the united states.

You have no idea what getting a cut means.

It means skimming off exponential growth and giving quasi linear growth as return.

That's a concentrated solar thermal-electric power plant. They don't use solar panels, they use a big field of mirrors to boil water, like burning ants with a magnifying glass. Solar panels don't kill birds.

Nobody can tell what you're trying to say.

Growth in many fields would be exponential.

Banks and Taxes flatten that curve massively.

Okay, sure, but what has that got to do with a battery company trying to get a cut of the trucking market by improving performance and safety and lowering fuel cost?

Well freight curve could have already flattened out so the impact is limited unless this is massively cheaper.

Maybe tesla should build a train too?

Should have made a driverless semi that can back trailers, and some driverless forklifts to go in the back.