“I can’t consider it’s been 5 years,” exclaimed Tesla boss Elon Musk as he took the stage to introduce the manufacturing model of the Tesla Semi being delivered to pilot clients Pepsico and Frito-Lay three years later than promised on the first Semi press convention in 2017. “There’s been rather a lot that’s occurred since then, to say the least,” he added.
The Semi will probably be out there in each 300-mile and 500-mile driving vary variations, and the corporate confirmed a video of the truck touring 500 miles whereas pulling a load that totaled its most allowable 82,000-lb. gross mixture weight. Nevertheless, the driving force’s hat obscured the speedometer in a lot of the video, casting doubt on the velocity the truck was driving in the course of the demonstration, wherein it stays resolutely in the appropriate lane and is handed by different vehicles.
The Semi’s three motors drive the 2 rear axles.
“It isn’t like, ‘What tips did they pull?’” Musk insisted. “There have been tips we might have pulled and didn’t.” Perhaps so, however a video claiming transparency that isn’t clear doesn’t assist that assertion, least of whereas when the corporate doesn’t launch the battery pack capability.
The corporate did say that the truck’s effectivity is 1.7 kilowatts per mile, so to go 500 miles it could want 850 kilowatt-hours. As we discovered driving the 205-kWh GMC Hummer EV, massive batteries demand robust chargers to refill them in a sensible period of time. Tesla introduced plans for 1-megawatt chargers for the Semi and the deliberate Cyber Truck pickup.
To push a lot energy by means of a fairly sized cable required some ingenuity, in line with Dan Priestly, senior supervisor for Semi truck engineering. “You’re immersing the conductor within the coolant,” he stated, explaining that the brand new chargers will bathe the cable’s conductor in a water-based coolant to allow a thinner conductor. “We are able to shove plenty of present in a really small house. That is key for high-power purposes.”
Telsa’s 1-megawatt Superchargers will immerse the charging cable conductors in liquid coolant.
The Semi employs a 1,000-volt battery pack that contributes to each its driving vary and skill to cost rapidly, Priestly stated. The corporate says that this may deliver the roughly 850 kWh pack to a 70 p.c cost in half-hour. That will be 595 kWh of juice in half an hour, which might be roughly 5 instances sooner than the 105 kWh we had been capable of put into the GMC Hummer EV in 24 minutes utilizing a 350 kW Electrify America charger, so it looks as if this could possibly be a little bit of Musk’s signature exaggeration, however we’ll see.
The Semi employs a trio of electrical motors, with a single motor offering steady major energy on the main axle on the rear pair and the 2 helper motors performing on the rearmost axle as wanted.
“On this tri-motor system, certainly one of them is continually engaged,” stated Priestly. “That is for optimum effectivity. That one’s doing the majority of the work and it’s working on the peak effectivity level of the complete drivetrain. The opposite two items are for torque and acceleration.” These two motors have clutches to disengage them once they aren’t wanted in order that they don’t apply any parasitic drag to the drivetrain.
When all three motors pull collectively, they’ll propel the Semi up a 5 p.c grade at 65 mph whereas hauling the truck’s most 82,000-lb. gross mixed weight.
The truck’s 300-mile or 500-mile vary choices are appropriate for a lot of trucking routes as a result of 80 p.c of truck routes are 250 miles or much less, in line with Tesla. The Semi has a day cab, with no sleeper behind the driving force as a result of it isn’t supposed for the long-haul work that necessitates such tools. Tesla Semi drivers will sleep at house every night time and drive quick routes from a distribution hub reminiscent of these employed by Frito-Lay and Pepsico.
