Tesla Class 8 Semi Truck Thoughts

[Rowan256]

I hope they design the trailer compact so that it fits European use with a maximum total length of 25.25 meters and 50 mtons. That means almost flat front to utilize maximum amount of cargo space.

I hope that too and I also hope they get a swappeble battery and a trailer that can brake/regenerate mainly, and also do that by communicating electrically instead of mechanically like the current trailers and trucks. That way they can drive loads more fast and loads more safe.

 

[Model 3]

Helping the grid is actually far more important in my opinion, as well as the time, green energy (solar and wind energy) can't work 100% without a massive overcapacity, or batteries, or both. Trucks don't work without batteries at all.

Well, in a transition to renewable energy there is no way around that we will need some massive storage on the grid, so the *grid* will need some big batteries or other forms of storage anyway. And it will need some massive overcapacity at ideal conditions (the sun shine and/or the wind blows) to feed this storage so it does have a surplus under less ideal conditions (night time and/or no wind++). Truck-batteries in a swapping station will help a bit, but is far from enough for this...

 

[wdolson]

I think 1200 kW from the grid each truck/bus, as well as the plug problem as well as the weight of the cable for a human are all much bigger problems as most people think, on top of that I think a battery swap is simply loads more fast compared to charging.

The Netherlands has a peakload of about 21gW, that's a max of about 17.000 trucks charging at the same time if nobody else uses energy (for his car/house/compagny/...), the Netherlands got about a 100.000 trucks. Well do the math.
And please note that The Netherlands actually got one of the most stable grids in the world (and about the dirtiest electricity).

Robert Llewellyn's YouTube channel Fully Charged has addressed the changes to the grid necessary for EVs. It's less of a disaster than people think. The grid as it is today is an on demand structure with a lot of idle power generation sitting there waiting for demand to go up. A lot of EVs that don't need to charge at peak times can charge off peak and those plants that normally idle 23 hours a day can increase their output to meet the increased demand. With proper load balancing you could probably double the load on the system, or more and not need to build any more power plants.

Add to this the renewable energy revolution happening now. The Netherlands is not the most sunny country in the world, but the North Sea has abundant wind power available. Off Scotland they are installing massive wind mills that generate huge amounts of power for each turn of the blade.

The key element in renewable energy is some kind of storage system to store energy when the sun shines or the wind blows and then feed it back to the grid when demand goes up. This has many advantages over the current power plant model. You don't need power plants idling and burning energy 24 hours a day waiting for peaks in demand. The energy is simply there when needed.

Stationary batteries are one solution, but there are many others being worked on right now. In places that have mountains and hills, pumping water uphill when there is extra energy is one way to store the excess electricity. PG&E in California has done this for decades to store excess hydro power generated at some dams in Northern California. Other methods being explored are flywheels and that gel used in hand warmers.

Renewables have come along right at the right time just as demand is going to increase dramatically as the world goes with electric vehicles.

I expect most of the EV truck fleet in the Netherlands will be driving less than 300 miles (480 Km) a day and will be able to recharge during the night. This will definitely be true for EV delivery trucks. Those are usually idle for half the day.

Tesla might also reintroduce battery pack swapping for long range trucks. Those swapped out packs will be able to be recharged off peak and put back in when the truck comes back through the same station. For human driven trucks, it's probably not as critical, but when the roads have autonomous trucks running 24/7, it will be necessary.

 

[dhanson865]

The connector talk made me wonder if there was a more industrial standard (at least for North America). Come to find out that for EV buses and medium/heavy duty there's J3068, which is still under development, which actually looks like the european type 2 ccs connector.

Funny thing is I only first found out about it via a teslamotorsclub post, What is a J3068 charger?),

Info is hard to come by but digging through some long presentations I was eventually able to find some info on it (as well as on google:

https://epri.azureedge.net/documents/Day One Presentations June2016.pdf (search for J3068).

One thing the standard is doing is to ensure that the higher 3-phase voltages and currents work with the connector. Max is 160A for a potential max of 160 x 3 x 277 (480y) = ~132kW A/C. Possibly more if you're in Canada. It can also do DC charging ala CCS.

It would be interesting to see what kind of connector they use for the Tesla semi. Given its more commercial application I wonder if they will use this standard vs the Tesla connector.

That's not CCS, that is Mennekes.

Please don't use the term CCS to describe non CCS charging systems. Both Tesla and Mennekes connectors are superior to CCS and you'd be confusing people by making a reference to a standard you aren't talking about.

 

[EfficientWatts]

That's not CCS, that is Mennekes.

Please don't use the term CCS to describe non CCS charging systems. Both Tesla and Mennekes connectors are superior to CCS and you'd be confusing people by making a reference to a standard you aren't talking about.

geez, sorry i mis-typed there. can't fix it now though.

I meant to say J3068 for that part. FWIW CCS would be used by J3068 for DC charging (I didn't see any option for J3068 to do DC-Mid charging without those extra pins in all the presentations I've seen).

 

[jboy08]

Pic posted from Reddit...

Not much more info, but here's the link. Shout out to m_marie8 for the pic!

Tesla testing electric semi • r/teslamotors

 

[jboy08]

Sorry the OP deleted all her stuff...but others saved the original and added a cropped version zoomed in.

 

[MartinAustin]

Well... certainly an elaborate hoax if it's a hoax. I can't understand why they'd leave it out in the open without a cover.

The headlights look distinctively Tesla.

Surprised that there are no covered wheels at all. (for aerodynamics) Maybe there are covers for the rear two axles that just weren't attached at the moment the picture was taken.

 

[mongo]

What's going on with the more conventional white tractor pointed the opposite way with a huge box strapped to the back? Prototype with high mount battery? Weight box for load testing? Worst case drag competition?

 

[J1mbo]

Surprised that there are no covered wheels at all. (for aerodynamics) Maybe there are covers for the rear two axles that just weren't attached at the moment the picture was taken.

It's a mule ... the wheels are probably not final.

 

[AssortedBread]

Photoshoped a trailer and added the roof piece on. Looks epic.

 

[Reciprocity]

There doesn't seem to be enough space between the wheels for a very large battery pack.. 1MWh+. Possibly stacked behind the cab where the driver sits? Could be 150KWh between the Axels for smaller loads and local deliveries, while having the range extender pack behind the cab. Also seems very low to the ground for aerodynamics, I don't believe I have ever seen that even with the more futuristic designs from companies like Daimler. I would assume it would be a simple thing to do, gotta wonder if there are other reasons existing manufactures don't do it. Definitely as sexy as a semi can look.

Edit: the more I look at it, the harder it is to determine where a very large pack would go. This makes me think that the pack size will not be in 1MWh+ range. You could maybe pack in 200KWh between the wheels from front to back and then maybe 2 power pack sized cabinets with 200KWh each behind the cabin for a total of roughly 600KWh. I could see a real world range of over 300 miles from that combination of packs. Super cooled hyper charger comes up from the ground pumps in coolent as it charges at 2c or 1200KW. 0 to 300 miles in half an hour sounds nice.

 

[wdolson]

I was just thinking, if they plan to do pack swaps, they could have two battery packs, one more permanently fitted and one that can be swapped out. For a distribution center, that would allow a truck to drop its road battery at a charging area and then move off to be parked on the power in the smaller battery. They don't need to put in chargers everywhere for all the trucks, the charging can be centralized in one area.

I have no idea if anyone would want to do this in the real world, but it is possible to do.

 

[Alketi]

Any thoughts as to what we're seeing here? Three of them appear to have a white name/logo. They look vaguely like superchargers.

I'm not sure what the circular black object is on top. Could it be a spool for extending the cable?

I've always imagined the Semi would use parallel supercharging, so I'm probably seeing what I want to see ...

 

[wdolson]

Maybe they are part of some kind of robotic arm?

 

[3PHASE]

Looks kinda small to me compared to the semi next to it. What do you think?

 

[jhm]

Looks kinda small to me compared to the semi next to it. What do you think?

It's clearly photoshopped. So size comparison is meaningless.

 

[J1mbo]

They look like parts of a vehicle lift to me?

 

[MartinAustin]

It's clearly photoshopped. So size comparison is meaningless.

Yes. In fact this photoshop job should not travel any further... it's damaging for it to look so teeny-tiny. It's like a weiner-truck.

 

[MartinAustin]

They look like parts of a vehicle lift to me?

Nice find.
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