This is the new Tesla Semi. This is the long range 500 mile model. Putting the driver in the middle of the cab so we could actually have a rounder front face and narrower upper portion of the cab just so we could be slicker through the air. We cut about 1,000 lb out of the truck. And this long range truck, the 500 mile version, is about on par. And in part because it's got a 2,000 lb weight exemption that electric vehicles have. This truck can charge at 1.2 megawatts. So, we can recover about 60% in 30 minutes. The economics are right. The product is ready. We have the factory standing up, but we have ample demand on a per mile basis. This truck is 50% cheaper to run here in California.
Welcome to the episode of JL's Garage. We're outside my garage today because the vehicle we're going to be showing you is too big to fit inside. This is the new Tesla Semi. This is the long range 500 mile model. We have a smaller model with us too. With us is Franz. You know him. He's the director of styling at Tesla and Dan the semi director, right? The whole project. Come on in, guys. How are you?
Great to see you. Great to see you.
Yeah. Yeah. Very cool. I'm sorry about all the noise. We're at the airport, so we're going to hear some planes in the background.
Well, let's talk about design. As a designer, you design everything in the whole Tesla range, the sports cars, the sedans, and the semi as well. The idea that something looks aerodynamic is not really aerodynamic, is it? Aerodynamics is a totally different thing than what people think.
Well, on something like this, it's really important to get aerodynamics and the drag coefficient as low as possible. And we thought about that from the very beginning and made some really unique architectural design ideas like putting the driver in the middle of the cab so we could actually have a rounder front face and narrower upper portion of the cab just so we could be slicker through the air as we get back to the trailer. And you know if you remember when we debuted this semi years back...
So, you just keep going and then you'll feel it when it clicks in. Keep going. There we go.
Now, give it a little throttle. I don't even feel like I'm pulling anything.
Yeah, it's amazing. You know, we're pushing a good load back there. 60, 70,000 lbs gross vehicle weight and you're not feeling it.
They got to make Albuquerque by morning.
We said the drag coefficient was lower than a Bugatti Veyron, right?
And we've through those years, we've actually improved on that.
From the last time we saw you, it's a 7% improvement on the aero efficiency from before. So it's the CD is about .4.
About .4, that's great. Because I remember when this sort of cab with the, I don't know what you call this top piece there, when they put that on gas powered and diesel powered trucks, truckers thought it was ugly. They hated it but they realized they got like 20% improvement.
Well if you think about it you're trying to move a big box through the air and so the more bullet-shaped nose you can put on the front of that box the better.
Well, it's funny because what we think of is aerodynamic. Like my Lamborghini Countach, people think it's a brick. It's worse than a Volkswagen. I mean, the only good thing is it's like an upside down wing, right? So, at least it's got...
Yeah, but it's not aerodynamic at all. And what is aerodynamic is so much different. A Prius, right, for example, aerodynamic. And this is really just pure aerodynamics, isn't it?
The architecture of the truck is really designed around that. So, if you think about a traditional truck has a big motor in the front, transmission down the middle, you have to sit on the side and therefore you end up being a really wide cabin. We didn't have any of that. You know, the battery is down low. It's underneath the floor. We could put the driver anywhere. So, we thought, let's put them in the middle, really create a narrow cab that, you know, slowly widens out bullet shape back to the trailer and really maximize efficiency. If you were to go back and look at how can you put a more aero-efficient nose on the front of a box, right? I mean, it's hard to get more aero-efficient than this truck.
Well, Dan, let me ask you, you're the director here. Is your job to convince... I mean, there's no more old school than truckers. The trucks have looked the same since 1918. The first different truck was the Corvair with the engine in the back and that was just what I mean people just rebelled. Even when they did the Ford F-150, they had trucker door handles and you know manly things and no touchscreen, none of that. I mean, you're really trying to change a whole culture with this, aren't you?
Absolutely. Yeah. And we spent a lot of time interviewing drivers, listening to them, collecting feedback, both before we unveiled the original one, but then in the last few years, we've collected a lot of fleet feedback from all the drivers that have spent time in the truck. And they really appreciate the electric design because it's quiet, it's smooth, it's a really good place to work. They're spending half a day at a time in the truck. And so, it's a really important work and office space, not just the thing they're moving down the road. And so, we wanted to make it extremely comfortable, give them really good visibility. You're right that sometimes we get some skeptical drivers, but when they get behind it and they see all the benefits, they come around really quickly and that's a theme that we've continued to see over and over.
Yeah. What's the most surprising thing? You talk to some guys and oh, they do yoga on the road, you know, to truckers doing yoga, you know, but because it helps them in their job because they're sitting all day. I mean, was there feedback where you went, 'Oh, we didn't expect this at all. Is it pretty much what you thought?'
There are kind of two pieces to it. On the operational side, folks are really happy with the range and the performance of the truck. We're starting to get away from the misconceptions that electric is bad, and we've done that on the light duty side for years. But now for the truck side, it's got the range. It has the power and the efficiency to do their job. So, it enables their job, and that's the bare minimum requirement. They're really satisfied with how that has gone. And now it's about what's the experience. And the feedback there has been stellar. Again, it's quiet. They love the seat. It's really smooth. So, just the power delivery and how easy it is to drive is another thing that has been, you know, a nice confirmation of the thesis we had at the start.
Is this the kind of vehicle an independent trucker could buy for himself or is it just mostly fleet sales, you know, FedEx and that kind of thing? Because I think as an independent trucker, their big thing is fuel cost. Like now they're going crazy because fuel is up 10 cents a gallon, 15 cents a gallon. That's their whole profit when you're using 3,000 gallons of fuel. You know, can an independent buy this and use it as an independent trucker?
Yeah, absolutely. And we actually have seen a large surge in interest from smaller regional fleets along with independent owner operators. And that's because one, electric prices are more stable. They're less likely to have those fluctuations that diesel prices do. So, it gives them some assurance. Secondly, we've been really public about our intent to put charging out into the world. So, we're launching a mega charging network for the semi so that there's charging beyond what might be where the truck is parked overnight. And also, we have service to go along with that. We already have service centers. We have charging stations down here in the Los Angeles area. So, by putting those things out into the world, those independent drivers have confidence that they have the support they need to do their job.
Yeah. I remember when Elon came in 2007 with the original Roadster. We're going to build this electric car. I'm going to have charging stations all along the road like to San Francisco. I'm going, yeah right. And you know, really until recently even major manufacturers, 'Oh you can charge anywhere.' No you can't. You know, I mean you guys are the only ones that were building the infrastructure as you were building the car which I just thought was pretty amazing. I mean it's hard enough to build a car and while you're doing it you're convinced it's going to be so successful you start buying property. Yeah, I think that's great.
Well, I think it also helps people feel convinced about the product, right? Knowing that there's a service center, if there's an issue they can go somewhere, that they can charge it if they can't charge it at home, they can charge anywhere, they can go cross country right at the beginning. So that ease of mind, like the range anxiety goes away, right? And now you can go anywhere just like...
Yeah, the odd thing to me is that electricity has become political. I'd like one but I'm a Republican. I don't get why it's political. It's electricity. And to me I have gas and electric. I have both. And when I go to the airport, I have to take a long trip. I take the electric because sitting on the 405 in a '66 Coronet with a Hemi is not really very... it's not fun and it's a lot of money, right?
Let's talk about tires. If you own one of these, do you use ordinary truck tires or you have to buy special Tesla low rolling resistance? You know what I mean?
Yeah, there's nothing special or unique that's for this truck. So, we can use off-the-shelf tires. We have a recommended set that help you extend your range because the rolling resistance is a large piece of it, but you can put any set of tires on that work for your operation.
Does this weigh more than the equivalent gasoline truck?
Yeah. So, since the last time we were here, we cut about 1,000 lb out of the truck. And this long range truck, the 500 mile version, is about on par. And in part because it's got a 2,000 lb weight exemption that electric vehicles have. So, payload par is very possible for most applications. What we hear from customers is they usually like to haul about a 45,000 lb payload, and we can definitely do that with this truck. It's out doing it every day. The standard range, which we'll see later, is even lighter and really has a good potential to slot into basically any weight equivalent operation.
Well, the thing that amazed me was the Cybertruck is two tons lighter than the Hummer. Electric. I mean, two tons. Yeah. I assume they'd be about the same batteries or batteries, but they're not. You're really making a low...
Well, the battery size in the Cybertruck is half that of the one in the Hummer. So, the equivalent energy at the end of the day. Yeah.
And touching back on the aerodynamics, part of why it's so important is that if we want to do a certain amount of range in the day, 500 miles in this case, we need a certain amount of energy to do it. If you make the truck more aerodynamic, that's less battery on board, lighter truck, more payload you can carry. There's a really great compounding effect there. And this does regen also as it goes down the road.
Yeah, that's right. So, we've got full capability for regen to go down steep grades at highway speed and keep you in control. So, whether that's like Grapevine, which you've got here locally, or some of the other big passes, you can descend those comfortably and never touch the brakes. And we've got ample power both to take you up the grade and down the grade without ever changing from the speed limit. So, you're never a dog in the right lane and everybody's flying by you and going down. You never have to touch the brakes. It's like a more modern version of engine braking, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Diesel truck.
Exactly. Yeah. But much finer control and cruise control will keep you at that speed using that regen to do it.
Well, it's interesting because you guys were here two years ago with this. And in that time, you've made what, a couple of thousand?
We made a few hundred of them. Yeah.
A few hundred of them. But I just like it's just a quiet roll out. Just see how it goes. I mean, I've seen a few, wonder why isn't there more publicity on this? But it's sort of just R&D, isn't it, the whole time?
Well, it's also about exposing it to our customers and getting them comfortable and we've got a lot of feedback and that's why now we feel is the time for scale. The economics are right. The product is ready. We have the factory standing up, but we have ample demand and the fleet that's been out there now with a few hundred trucks has driven more than 13.5 million miles. Our lead truck is at almost 440,000 that they're out running really hard every day doing good work. These aren't just demo show trucks. So there's a lot of confidence that's been built up.
And your maintenance is no oil change obviously. There's no brake fluid maybe.
No, because these are air brakes. So yeah, maintenance on them is really low and the service team has been exceptional with our fleet time is usually up 95% uptime. Almost 75-80% of breakdowns if you have one are returned back to the customer in less than 24 hours and it's actually almost half are back to a customer within an hour. So, we're right there with rapid response and we've designed the truck to be easy to maintain because the truck makes you money. So, even if you're a fleet or an owner operator, you've got to get that truck and that tool back on the road.
And what is the most common breakdown? I mean, electric motors don't really require any maintenance at all, do they?
Pretty much no. The drivetrain is extremely reliable. Whether it's the battery pack itself or the motors, those are the extremely reliable components. But trucks do a lot of different work and get a lot of stuff thrown at them. And so we do have the occasional wear out issue. You can get some lines rubbing for example. And we've taken all those learnings and fed them back into the updated high volume design that we've got here today. And the level of engineering has really upped that and improved the reliability substantially.
And this can drive all night because there's no... a driver doesn't have to stop at 500 miles or get his wife to drive the other half. You know those teams that do it. So that's an advantage, isn't it? If it's autonomous.
Yeah. So we as a company really believe in autonomy and autonomy has an opportunity to increase not just the convenience for the driver but also a huge amount of safety. And that's really where we're coming with a lot of the features that we're introducing. And it's safety both for the driver that's operating at start but also for everybody else on the road is we have a lot of sensors. We use the cameras on board to ensure the vehicle knows its surroundings. And then we use all the integrated software that Tesla's been developing to keep the vehicle in control. And it's really about safety is our primary goal there.
Let's say you're going to Salina, Kansas. You got your 500 miles. You pull into a... Is it sort of like an airplane coming in? Does someone say a Tesla truck coming in for refuel or recharge? How does that work?
I mean, you could have an attendant that would plug it in, for example, but we also see an opportunity for doing automated charging in the future as well.
Yeah. Something we're working on with the cars. So...
Oh, it just pulls in automatically. I guess like a thing you drive over.
Okay. How long does a 500 mile charge take?
So, this truck can charge at 1.2 megawatts. And so, we can recover about 60% in 30 minutes.
Yeah. So, the idea is there if with a 500 mile charge, driver can go out and do their day. Now, for some areas, 500 miles is ample for your entire operation. But let's just say you need to stop and charge. You do that during your mandatory 30-minute break, and you can recover up to 300 miles of additional range to extend your day. So, it really covers a huge majority of the envelope of truck operations within a single driver shift. And there's no penalty for charging. You're never stopping exclusively for charging, right?
Oh, I see. Oh, well, that's pretty amazing.
It's really impressive. And we talked a little bit about the architecture and still sticking with the center driver, right? Dan talked about how the interior cabin is actually the office for the operator. And when you go inside, you'll see you can actually stand up. You can have multiple people in that space. That would be the same footprint as a normal truck where you only have the ability to sit in your seat. So, a lot more flexible space on the inside. But in the front end of the truck, we updated the graphics. We have a much more modern light bar now that we didn't have on the previous version similar to Cybertruck and Cybercab. So really kind of pushing this new design direction. It feels more modern I think and we've just like we touched on we've been working on the aerodynamics of the truck and just improving, improving, improving. So there's a lot of...
The general shape of the truck looks the same.
We've made a lot of engineering improvements since the last time we were here and it's been mostly in the name of moving towards high volume. So that's updated designs for high manufacturability and tooling, but also we've taken a lot of the engineering from other products and brought it into the semi. We've gone from a hydraulic steering system, hydraulic assist to now it's a fully electric assist. So it's still a connected system. It's not steer by wire, but we've brought over the Cybertruck actuators, beefed them up a little bit because of the steering loads, but we've brought that over. It's a 48 volt architecture now throughout the vehicle on low voltage. So we still do local down conversion for 12 volt accessories that a driver might need for example, but we've brought that next generation 48 volt architecture that Cybertruck debuted with because it's just more efficient and it's a lot less mass and wiring harnesses. We've updated communications. There's been a huge uptick in the engineering to bring this truck really into the same portfolio that the rest of the products are that we have.
And are these lithium ion batteries or even something more advanced than that?
Lithium. So this is lithium ion and we're leveraging the same cell type that we use in the Cybertruck. It's arranged in a different array within the truck, but it's all into modules and then packs that are low to the ground so it keeps center of gravity low. It's integrated really densely with the overall chassis to maximize structural performance and keep the weight down. So we're taking a lot of the same lessons from the car side, including the cell itself into the battery design here.
And how rebuildable are these? I mean lithium ion, could the battery last the life of the vehicle or is it, you know, half a million miles that's what you need to do battery pack?
The battery is designed to last a million miles. You will see some degradation over time, but we see that it can last in its original duty cycle a million miles.
Well, you know what's interesting? I have that McLaren P1 and that has a hybrid system in it and my battery is 12 years old and it's 92% still. Because I keep it on a charger. I know other guys are on their third battery because, you know, they go to Europe for a month and they come back and things dead and then they've got to shock it back to...
Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is. So, if you have a vehicle like this, is it better to keep it on the charger all the time?
Well, the best thing to do is actually get it on the road all the time because that's how it makes you money. So, the cells and the battery is actually designed, we think about it, it's a little bit more like one of our energy products like our Megapack or Powerwall on wheels. It is doing a lot of discharges. It does like one a day. So, it's up and down. It's not like a car where you might only be doing 10 or 20% a day. The benefit here is that you've got a cell and a battery that is designed for that throughput. You really want this on the road. The more energy throughput you are putting through the system, the greater fuel savings you have compared to if you were doing that work with diesel. So, it's really about getting it on the road as much as you can.
And the thing that amazed me was I always wonder, well, how could they have a center driving position because you can't have it in a car because there's no way for the airbags. But trucks don't need airbags or any of that, do they?
I never knew that. I just assumed all vehicles produced in the United States had to have an airbag, but trucks don't.
Trucks do not. Yeah. There's actually very few overall safety regulations. Like brakes are highly regulated. We do some testing for that, but there's no mandatory crash testing. There's no airbag requirement. Even the advanced safety features are far behind what is mandatory on the car side. So, we're...
Scary place to work, right?
Yeah. So, we're really leaning into the safety side on this and trying to make it the safest truck on the road, both for the occupant, but also for everybody else around.
Well, very cool. Now, this is, as you mentioned, the long range truck. It's a little bit bigger. We have a smaller one over here, right? And what's the range on that one?
That one does about 325 miles on a single truck.
Okay. That mostly for running around the city, part of LA, go to... Right.
Because it's so funny here in California, you know, I used to think Disneyland was 120 miles from there because it took 2 and 1/2 hours. It's 38 miles, but when you Google it, it's 2 and 1/2 hours. So 3 hours. I go, how could that be? I just assumed it was 100 miles away. I went, no. Okay. So that's the one we're going to drive, the smaller one. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Well, let's go. Let's go check it out. Let's do it. Come on.
Okay, we're in front of the shorter range model. I guess this panel is bigger on the other one. This part here, it's a little different. And I guess there's no driver's side either side.
Yeah. Get in whatever side. Can be in the middle like McLaren F1. So there you go.
Yeah. So that's new. The last truck that we had had a single pane and it would tilt out and you'd have to, you know, pass clipboards through and go around. Yeah. So, we worked on getting a drop glass. So, now you can pass through. You can reach out to gates and have access. Just makes the experience in and out much better.
Now, let me ask you something. Let's say I need to go to Minnesota, North Dakota. It's December. I mean, electric cars are somewhat notorious in cold weather for mileage drops 20%, 30%. Is that a problem with this or how is it different?
We do a lot of extensive cold weather testing. Actually, right now we have several trucks up in Alaska doing that and so we try to expose it to different cold temps as well as different types of snow and ice because it all builds up differently on the truck. But the truck performs exceptionally well. Whether that's because it has instant traction control from the benefit of electric motors, but also we've done a lot to incorporate a thermal system with our heat pump that's really efficient. And so we can move thermal energy throughout the vehicle very quickly. We can scavenge it from the outside. We can bring it from the battery pack or the motors that are working hard, put it in the cab. So we can move thermal energy all around the truck to keep it in the most optimal and efficient operating point. So the range drop isn't nearly as big as what is usually thought. You do have it because we can't fight the fact the air is denser, the tires don't roll as well. So you do see a degradation, but you would see a similar effect on diesel trucks as well.
Okay. So, let's say I'm in normal Alaska. I go to a hotel. This truck is essentially running all night, right? Because the heat pump keeps it circulating all the time. Is that...
No, actually, it does go idle and it's not running. But the battery pack actually retains a lot of mass in part because of its shape. So, it's a cube as opposed to a pancake. So, it stays warm pretty much overnight, even in extremely cold temperatures. So, it'll be ready for operation the next day.
Now, I was always led to believe about 74 degrees Fahrenheit is about the optimum, the best temperature for an electric battery. Is that still true today or is that just an old thing?
From an efficiency standpoint, yeah, about that like 20-30C is about where we see peak efficiency. But the battery pack is independently controlled in terms of temperature and it's much happier to actually run at a slightly warmer temperature. You get better performance, greater efficiency of energy in and out of the battery pack. And that's where that thermal system does a really good job of keeping it at its optimal performance temperature.
So it's like a diesel truck, it's a liquid cooled battery system.
Yeah, that's right. So we've brought out a lot of the same componentry that we have from our passenger car side. So, same compressor, same pumps, a lot of the same valves, all so that we have high volume and high reliability, but it's actually a really elegant solution for moving this liquid. It's just a standard automotive coolant throughout the system.
But non-water? It's like a... what is it called?
It's usually a glycol water-based solution.
Oh, it is water. Oh, it is water-based.
Okay. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Well, very cool. How often do you change that? Every half a million miles or I guess never. Guess you never do, huh?
No, it's... I mean, it is serviceable and so if you end up swapping a component that has coolant in it, you might need to top it off, but it's designed to have a system that you don't need to do any service or maintenance on.
It's life of the car coolant pretty much.
Yeah. Very good. And let me ask about... you see a lot of the big food trucks and you're transporting beef across the country. It's got to be frozen. It plugs into the electrical system and the diesel. Same thing here.
Yeah. So on a traditional trailer, they have an independent refrigerated unit that has its own diesel pony motor on it to keep the refrigeration at the right temperature in the trailer. But for us, it just felt wrong. Like why do we have an electric truck that is then also pulling a diesel engine on the back of it? It doesn't make sense. And also they're really noisy. They actually consume a lot of fuel. They're not very efficient. And so we said, let's see if we can power that off of the truck itself. So, we're actually using the same power electronics that we use from the Cybertruck that can power a home, for example, right? We've reconfigured those to power a refrigerated trailer unit. And so, now the whole combination can be electric. And it doesn't just have to be refrigerated units. It could be other electrical high power accessories. So, if you had a production truck, for example, for the entertainment industry, that could power it. It's meant to be a universal interface that folks can use as an electric power takeoff rather than powering accessories off of an independent generator or what they usually do which is like a hydraulic system off.
Do I lose any of my 500 mile range with that electric...
