Tesla unveiled the Semi 5 years ago 11/16/2017 and today Semi is a finished product and is delivered to its first customer. At the delivery event, Elon Must provided some key details about the truck and reviewed why they made the product. According a Tesla slide presented at the event, Semi trucks are low in volume at 1% of US vehicles but they burn a lot of diesel fuel and have high up time and account for 20% of US vehicle emissions and a whopping 36% of US particulate emissions. Tesla is providing a much cleaner and climate friendly solution to this with the Semi, solar panels and Megapack battery storage.
Here are some highlights about the Semi.
- haul full load at 82k lbs
- Range options 300 miles or 500 miles.
- 1MW Supercharger liquid cooled cables. Cybertruck will use this too.
- Recharges 70% range in 30 minutes
- Estimated fuel savings of up to $200k in 3 years.
- 0-60 mph 20s
Tesla did a something very smart and reused proven components from other Tesla vehicles. The motor or drive units are from the Tesla Model S Plaid. Semi uses the same Infotainment display and software system. AC provided by heat pump. Inverters are same as other Tesla models. Reusing components and proven technology increases reliability for the Semi and also lower cost through economy of scale and reduced R&D effort.
The Semi uses a tri-motor setup, 2 in the front and 1 in the back. The dual motor acts as the acceleration unit and drive left and right independently. The single motor is named the highway drive unit and is permanently connected. The acceleration units can disengage from the axel or drive wheel instead of free spinning for max efficiency. During highway driving only highway drive unit is active. During acceleration, the dual motor acceleration units engages automatically.
The Semi looks to be a well designed product and will help make long haul transport more climate friendly.