Existing lorries are speed limited to stop them doing this. Electric ones will too, and it will take no more energy to stop a 30-ton electric lorry from 60 than a 30-ton diesel one. Battery weight isn't really a problem when you get into commercial vehicles. If the batteries add half a tonne to a car, that's a problem. If a truck generating 4x the power needs 2 tonnes of batteries, so what? A diesel tractor weighs 3x that anyway, and every pallet on the trailer weighs a tonne as well.5 Second 0-60 is great PR statement, not so great in real life if it cannot slow down quick enough.
Imagine a 10,000+ kg lorry bombing down lane 3 at 140 mph because the driver needs to clock off early...
Existing lorries are speed limited to stop them doing this. Electric ones will too, and it will take no more energy to stop a 30-ton electric lorry from 60 than a 30-ton diesel one. Battery weight isn't really a problem when you get into commercial vehicles. If the batteries add half a tonne to a car, that's a problem. If a truck generating 4x the power needs 2 tonnes of batteries, so what? A diesel tractor weighs 3x that anyway, and every pallet on the trailer weighs a tonne as well.
Yes, so this makes the 0-60 hype all the more daft.
The lorry still can pick up speed very quickly and is likely to be disproportional to its stopping ability though.
For a 1.5 tonne car, braking power is more aligned with it's ability to go.
5 Second 0-60 is great PR statement, not so great in real life if it cannot slow down quick enough.
Imagine a 10,000+ kg lorry bombing down lane 3 at 140 mph because the driver needs to clock off early...
Tesla is the biggest bullshit company since Enron.
They have failed to produce the number of road cars they promised; they "launch" a truck - which has not yet been built claiming 500 mile range; their 30 minute charging works ony at Tesla charging points which are as rare as hens teeth; thay have failed to do anything other than produce slick advertising.
4.2 to 100 is 1.15g all the way there - reckon that’s stretching realistic expectation of road tyres somewhat, if not credulity. It’s approaching the straightline performance of a top-level hillclimb car, but without the downforce.
I wonder how he'll work the economics ? Are trucks mostly bought (in which case battery price will be a big problem) or leased (in which case battery costs are amortized and maybe not a problem). One thing is for certain - Tesla cars don't make economic sense - they appeal to a mixture of nerdery, posing, and environmentalism. The truck industry is not so sentimental - it's all about dollars and cents. If the Tesla truck doesn't cost less over its lifetime than an equivalent diesel then it won't sell.
Tesla will need to sort out the reliability issues as well - I saw in a recent What Car reliability review the Tesla cars did particularly badly, being the worst electrical car for reliability and one of the worst (perhaps the worst) overall. I suspect there will be couple of reasons for that:
- the expectations that will have been set by the high price and the level of quality that purchasers will have expected compared to other cars they've bought
- while Tesla are the leaders for electrical technology they're not all that experienced as a manufacturer yet
Type approval, as for any vehicle.Everyone has seen what happens when that new phone explodes while charging/being used/sitting there doing nothing.
What are they doing to make sure that 3000KG of battery is puncture proof in these trucks?
Just like petrol will never replace steam, because you have to get petrol in glass bottles from the chemist, for heaven's sake. If you run out of fuel in a steam car, you can get a new bit of coal anywhere, but petrol, well that's another affair.Most countries power stations supply just about enough to power whats there. Where does the extra power to charge all these
vehicles come from? Is tesla investing/building them?