Electric car maker Tesla on Thursday held an event to announce the start of deliveries of its semi-trailer electric truck, after a delay of nearly five years.
Tesla founder and CEO, Elon Musk, had revealed a prototype of the Class 8 semi-trailer electric truck in 2017. It was planned to start production in December 2019, but for many reasons that did not happen.
During its financial earnings report for the second quarter of 2021, Tesla said it had to postpone production to 2022 due to supply chain challenges and limited availability of battery cells.
And at the beginning of last October, Musk tweeted, saying that the production of the truck had begun, and the company would start delivering it to customers as of December 2022, which is what actually happened, but the company did not disclose during Thursday’s event the price of the electric semi-trailer truck, which will be Pepsi is the first customer, in addition to other companies, such as UPS Shipping Company.
Semi specs from Tesla
Tesla had said in 2017 that its semi-trailer truck would support its Autopilot driver assistance system, but yesterday it did not mention it, nor did it address any automated driving capabilities in the truck.
The Semi truck has the ability to travel 800 km on a single charge even when fully loaded, and at a speed of 105 km per hour.
Tesla had previously said that the truck could accelerate from 0 to 95 km per hour in just 20 seconds when fully loaded, which was confirmed by the company on its official website.
The truck uses the same powertrain as the Model S and Model X, which are based on a three-motor system. According to the company, one of the engines is constantly working to achieve maximum efficiency, while the other two are dedicated to torque and acceleration, which can be useful when the driver climbs onto the loading dock or wants to overtake another vehicle.
Tesla said the truck is capable of hauling a 3.72-tonne load even though its single-axle motor is only the size of a football, but because of its energy density, it is about three times more powerful than diesel engines.
Inside the cockpit, there is a seat for the driver in the middle, and it is wide in a way that allows the driver to change his clothes while standing inside, and there are also two screens, in addition to many other pieces of equipment.
As Tesla promised five years ago, its semi-trailer electric truck will support charging with a megawatt-class charger that supports the next generation of immersive cooling systems, and the charger will be similar to Tesla’s supercharging network. In addition to the chargers, the company will install Megapacks energy storage systems designed to conserve electricity when charging from the public grid.
This and the electric semi-trailer truck battery can be charged up to 70 percent if charged for only 30 minutes.
