the first electric semi-trucks have been delivered to Pepsi by Tesla despite some skepticism that it
was feasible this semi's astounding efficiency is one of its most amazing features a fully loaded
Tesla semi for instance has a fuel efficiency that is more than twice that of a Ford F-150
if you're comparing a half ton pickup truck like the Ford F-150 to A Class 8 semi truck
which weighs around four to five times as much as the F-150 it stands to reason that the F-150
would be more efficient on petrol or diesel the Tesla semi though is surprisingly more effective
and what is the secret let's find out and explore Tesla semi-truck's massive battery system hello
everyone welcome back to Elon Musk Evolution where we bring you the most recent news about Elon Musk
and his multi-billion dollar companies space news and the latest science and technology but before
we begin make sure you subscribe to our Channel and click the Bell icon so you don't miss any
of our amazing videos Tesla's first master plan unveiled back in August 2000 and six highlighted
the firm's intentions to construct a wide range of EVS after the 2008 release of the Tesla Roadster
including affordably priced family cars it was the blueprint that foreshadowed Tesla's goals to
build an extended array of electric cars in the 2010s that is after a period of catering to deep
pocketed early adopters with the company beginning off at the top end of the market the Roadster was
that high priced low-volume electric vehicle at the time and the model S which catered to a
larger but equally wealthy Market followed it down the road were cheaper automobiles nearly a decade
later in July 2016 the car maker unveiled master plan part due outlining its goals for what it
called self-driving capability and battery energy storage solutions for residential solar panels the
second iteration of the company's strategic Vision outlined the expansion of Tesla's model portfolio
as well as the reasonably soon introduction of more advanced levels of autonomous driving
technology that would allow your car to produce money for you while you aren't using it the EV
manufacturer is currently preparing the Third Edition of its master plan which
will be released during the company's investor day on March 1. this comes after a distinctly
mixed track record of achieving the objectives of 2016 which the manufacturer is now preparing
for on March 1 what long-term plans might the manufacturer reveal the first step would be for
Tesla to provide more information about the intentions for its low-cost EV project which
aims to be priced far less than the model 3. the once planned 25 000 car as it came to be
called over the years was rumored to have been canceled at one point or at the very least put
on the back burner while Tesla concentrated on opening numerous new factories and giving other
models priority the upcoming EV vehicle also known as the model 2 was initially teased in a
sketch as Tesla prepared to design and manufacture the upright hatch in China regarding plans for the
car in 2022 Elon Musk remarked we have enough on our plate right now quite frankly but he did not
explicitly say that the business had abandoned the project however the proliferation of Chinese
EVS priced well below the 25 000 threshold which further undermined the model's commercial case is
thought to have caused Tesla to lose some interest in the project over time but given the pressure
competitors in other markets are putting on Tesla the tiny and reasonably priced Tesla EV project
might still succeed this decade the Cyber truck which has been spotted more frequently lately
might possibly be showcased by Tesla on its investor day in a production-ready form some
evolutionary alterations to the Cyber truck have been seen in recent sightings including
modified front and rear fascias boxier sides and other production ready features the Cyber
truck which allegedly had the Ford F-150 has a benchmark at one point is now anticipated to go
go into production at the earliest in late 2023 and more likely in early 2024 after undergoing a
lot of improvements both inside and out given that the Cyber truck has long been the most
anticipated new Tesla Model the possibility of its production-ready announcement during investor day
would not represent a significant change in the company's strategy per se but it would pacify
some of wall Street's concerns about the project at a time when more Rivals are coming on the scene
to overshadow the intended model nearly 10 years after its initial tease the Next Generation Tesla
Roadster is another Contender for inclusion in the third iteration of the company's master plan
the second generation Roadster was once expected to go into production in 2022 a rendering of the
vehicle from 2017 claimed that it would have a 1.9 second launch time and Rocket assisted handling
among other things but even with a two hundred thousand dollar price tag as it was formerly
listed on Tesla's website a pricey Roadster with a big battery and some sort of Compressed Gas firing
mechanism doesn't signify a significant strategic shift for the car maker for a business that has
been moving in the direction of more reasonably priced automobiles rather than ones geared at
early adopters a second generation Roadster might potentially be an expensive Diversion
the EV manufacturer is currently perceived as chasing volume rather than focusing on releasing
completely new platforms after consecutive record quarters this fact has become obvious as Tesla has
easily surpassed its own expectations for launch dates over the previous five years
Tesla's recent Focus has been on making more of the same cars although with minor interior
and exterior improvements while also aiming to cut costs and complexity the company has been
able to streamline manufacturing as expensive competitors have kept showing up thanks to
the usage of the gigapress an aluminum casting machine therefore the emphasis on manufacturing
technology by the EV manufacturer makes sense as a primary theme for the third master plan
Tesla displayed the chart which illustrates how much battery capacity was required to complete
a 500 Mile real world scenario test drive from Fremont to San Diego at their delivery ceremony on
December 1. as it's visible in the chart the Tesla semi had a starting state of charge of 97 percent
and a finishing state of charge at four percent meaning that it only required 93 percent of its
battery capacity to travel 500 miles just to be clear this is with a combined weight of around 82
000 pounds tuck trailer and load taken together currently there is a significant distinction
between smart range and dumb range as Peter Rawlinson CEO of lucid has previously mentioned
anyone can give a car a lot of batteries and have it have a long range but the Tesla semi
is also incredibly efficient in addition to having an outstanding range although it does
have a sizable battery pack it is quite effective given what it can do for instance the semi uses
less than two kilowatt hours per mile when fully loaded and has a gross combined weight of 82 000
pounds according to the Tesla website naturally less than two kilowatt hours per mile could mean
for example 1.99 kilowatt hours per mile but the electric semi is actually far more efficient than
that the Tesla semi currently has an efficiency of 1.7 kilowatt hours per mile according to a tweet
from Elon Musk on December 2 a clear road to 1.6 and perhaps 1.5 kilowatt hour per mile was also
indicated by him it is some amount of an apples to oranges comparison to compare the efficiency of a
gas or diesel vehicle to that of an electric vehicle so a small amount of conversion is
required to obtain a more comparable figure for this reason the EPA created what they refer to as
a mile per gallon equivalent or mpge for instance the mile per gallon equivalent is a key figure you
can see if you go to fueleconomy.gov and pull up the efficiency of an electric vehicle now when it
comes to figuring out an electric vehicle's miles per gallon equivalent we discovered a zimbrick.com
article that indicates that one gallon of gas is comparable to roughly 33.7 kilowatt hours
of energy the distance a car can go on 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity is therefore a
straightforward calculation to get an electric vehicles mile per gallon equivalent as this
article demonstrates mpge is the distance a car can travel on 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity
so if a vehicle can cover 60 miles for every 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity its mpge would be
60. that would be the equivalent of a gas-powered car getting 60 miles per gallon zimbrick.com
to put it another way if you divide 33.7 kilowatt hours by 1.7 the Tesla truck can cover about 19.82
miles on 33.7 kilowatt hours of electricity the Tesla semi's mile per gallon equivalent comes
out to be roughly 20 mpge if we round up a little one can observe that each of these trucks is less
efficient than the Tesla semi When comparing the efficiency of the Tesla semi to a number
of well-known pickup trucks but bear in mind that the Tesla semi gets 20 MPG equivalent when it is
fully loaded with a gross combined weight of 82 000 pounds the other trucks MPG figures do not
account for efficiency when hauling a trailer or for fully loaded trucks we must first determine
how much the mpg decreases while a pickup truck with an internal combustion engine is Towing in
order to gain a more accurate comparison of the Tesla semi's efficiency therefore
in order to acquire some estimates on this we looked at different automobile review sites
according to the fast lane truck YouTube channel they evaluated the effectiveness of a Ford F-150
with a V8 engine while pulling an 11 000 trailer this video shows the Ford F-150 only averaging
8.4 MPG while Towing that weight a similar 2019 Ford F-150 with a V8 engine was also evaluated
for efficiency and the results showed that the truck's economy while not Towing was around 18 MPG
in this case Towing efficiency for the F-150 was reduced by about 53.3 percent the Tesla semi is
likely more than twice as efficient while Towing as opposed to considerably smaller pickup trucks
if you take the average loss of 53.3 percent and estimate a similar MPG loss while Towing for the
rest of the other trucks that level of efficiency is truly amazing how is it possible that a Class 8
semi truck which weighs four to five times as much as a Ford F-150 is more productive it goes without
saying that this is an amazing engineering success of course comparing a Class 8 semi truck to a half
ton pickup truck isn't really a valid comparison in the real world how does the Tesla semi stack
up against diesel trucks of a similar size the average diesel semi has an efficiency of about
6.5 miles per gallon according to an article from aerotruck.com the Freightliner Cascadia evolution
is likewise one of the current Generations most effective diesel semis on the road according to
information posted on southporttruck.com a semi with a gross weight of 76 000 pounds was able to
achieve an average of about 9.31 miles per gallon but when compared to the Tesla semi it is even
more efficient than the Freightliner Cascadia evolution the mpge figure for the Tesla semi
Compares one gallon of petrol to one gallon of diesel fuel although diesel fuel actually
contains more energy per gallon than gasoline the amount of energy contained in a gallon of diesel
gasoline ranges from 37.85 to 40.7 kilowatt hours depending on the source of information
battery pack size now in regards to the Tesla semi's battery pack we may assume that the
battery size is at least 850 kilowatt hours because we are aware that the efficiency at
this time is somewhere about 1.7 kilowatt hours per mile the semi's pack though is most likely a
little closer to 900 kilowatt hours depending on how big of a buffer Tesla has included to be fair
there are other electric trucks on the market in the USA right now besides the Tesla semi however
the Tesla semi is the only vehicle on this list with a range of about 500 miles in comparison to
these other semi trucks the Tesla semi is now in a whole different league and is also far more useful
also all of the other trucks with the exception of the Tesla semi have range estimations that
most likely don't take a full load into account therefore the range advantage of the Tesla semi
is actually significantly greater there are three main categories that we want to bring up while
considering some of the elements that enable this great efficiency of course there are other factors
that contribute to efficiency in addition to these three but these are still very significant factors
aerodynamics the Tesla semi boasts a drag coefficient that is about half that of a typical
diesel semi when it comes to aerodynamics the drag coefficient of a Tesla semi is 0.36 as opposed to
a conventional diesel semi's drag coefficient which ranges from 0.65 to 0.7 according to an
article notatateslap.com tri-motors and 1000 volt powertrain when musk unveiled the Tesla semi in
2017 he compared it with semi-trucks currently in use and the Bugatti Chiron a Supercar that costs
2 million dollars performance but not just any performance was one of the first features that
the CEO mentioned Tesla refers to it as bamf performance instead the acronym will be left
up to you to decipher while the semi will stand out at truck stops only based on design it's the
performance that will revolutionize the trucking business the semi was originally supposed to have
four separate Motors but when it was produced it only had a tri-motor system Like the Model S plan
but don't be deceived by it Dan Priestley senior manager of Tesla's semi-engineering outlined the
reasons why the semi is often referred to as the Beast it has three times the power
that any diesel truck on the road right now so you've got all the power you need to get
the job done but the other reason that it's a beast is because it is efficient you can go 500
miles on a single charge on one of these things it's the mix of those two this is a game changer
what's awesome is both of those are enabled by our 1000 volt powertrain this is the first
vehicle we are doing with that tri-motors and a clutch since the tri-motor powertrain Arrangement
is primarily intended for highway driving one engine will carry the load of the bulk of the time
the size of that efficient motor is comparable to a football the other two are used for acceleration
and torque the semi May physically disconnect two Motors when they are not in use but those
Motors use the same technology as the model S plaid Powertrain the two Performance Motors
are automatically engaged or disengaged thanks to a clutch that Tesla introduced Tesla claims
that when necessary the clutch will seamlessly and automatically Engage The Performance Motors even
greater efficiency is achieved by disengaging the motors while not in use as opposed to the
model S plaid which keeps them moving freely no driver action is required these are clutched
automatically no driver input is needed it is seamless Priestly stated semi-performance the
semi was advertised as being able to reach 60 miles per hour in five seconds without a load
but musk spoke about its performance it looks insane it looks like an elephant moving like a
cheetah with the maximum eighty thousand pounds of gross vehicle weight it can also accelerate to 60
miles per hour in 20 seconds when fully loaded the Tesla semi will travel 65 miles per hour up a hill
with its entire weight while conventional diesel trucks only managed to reach 45 miles per hour
at a 5 gradient charging the semi by unveiling what will be charging it Tesla almost stole the
show from the semi-delivery to charge a vehicle like this quickly you need a high power charger
musk said of the new V4 superchargers which have a one mwdc output capacity it is our newest model
of immersive cooling since it is liquid cooled a little cable that provides a megawatt can be
used instead of a huge Elephant Truck sized cable because we have tripled the current density this
is very cool stuff Priestly continued going into more depth actually the conductor is submerged
in the coolant we are performing some very amazing isolation monitoring on the back end
of this water-based coolant that we have to make sure it is secure and providing the necessary
service however it indicates that we are able to pack a significant amount of current into a very
very small space the connection is smooth and flexible so if you've charged your car at a V3
supercharger before it works the same way here we're just pushing a megawatt through it today
in 30 minutes Tesla intends the semi to fill up to 70 percent of its capacity it's important to
take note of that time because most jurisdictions require drivers to stop for a 30-minute break
every six hours according to the company the semi will have traveled 400 miles in a half
hour and can continue for another six hours these Chargers will also be placed in places
where owners can charge the semi while it is being loaded or unloaded displays and software
the interior of the semi is most comparable to the model 3 or model y the semi has two horizontal
displays one on each side of the driver but no instrument cluster while the left display has
truck specific functionality at the bottom such as tire PSI trailer air supply and parking brake
operations the right display looks to have the conventional launcher found in today's Teslas
providing access to music the phone the cabin temperature and more although the software can
be modified at any time comparing the vehicle's existing software to a model 3 or Y is the best
way to describe it the semi basically divides the model 3 or model y display in half placing
the contents on two independent displays the speedometer gear selection battery indications
and a depiction of the car are all displayed on the left screen the right display on the semi is
the same as the right side of the display on a Model 3 which shows information like navigation
and apps Tesla isn't using the entire display with these functions though the always-on blind spot
camera monitors seem to take up about a third of each display and that ends today's episode
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