How hard is it to put a electric motor into a normal semi or to design a basic semi but without a grill.
Probably not too hard for a company like Tesla. However since they don't need a large engine up front they can create a more aerodynamic body shape in order to increase efficiency. However they are also going to want to fit a load of batteries in there so they need to accommodate that too, stacking them high in the engine bay of a normal shape body isn't really ideal. Then finally its also really good marketing, since companies that want to have an eco friendly image can use these trucks and people will recognise that it isn't a normal truck. Plus it builds up a brand image.
Yes, because engineers just eyeball this stuff, they just take a look at a body shape and go "eh, looks aerodynamic enough to me, lets just ship it"... [/s] :/
What exactly is your point? Is it that no one should every try to improve upon anything because there will inevitably be someone else who hasn't adopted those improvements?
No we should try to improve but what Tesla is doing is to far I mean do we really need a self driving semi.
I can't be 100% sure, but designing it this way may also make it more efficient. Given the fact it seems to be a cab over design, I guess it will be easier for Tesla to sell this both in America and Europe. I'm not quite sure this truck has "European dimensions" (it looks like it's bigger than most trucks here), but designing it like a conventional truck might have made it more difficult to sell here. This is pure speculation. However, since the electric engine takes less space than a normal one, it's good to use that advantage to make the whole truck more aerodynamic.
So what you mean to say is that they are only allowed to make an arbitrary percentage improvement on every generation, or that they should just stop altogether at some point? In which case surely you have contradicted yourself within a single sentence? While that Tesla will likely have the hardware to be capable of self driving, who knows what its software will be like. At the end of the day it still has a cabin for the driver, so obviously they are not going full self driving with this model. It will probably have their glorified cruise control and lane assist that will allow it to cruise motorways fairly easily. Perhaps more interesting is whether it will gain traction in Europe in its current state. Since our lorries look absolutely nothing like that one due to the different regulations and the differences in the situations that lorries have to operate in between the countries. Either way, assuming the traditional manufacturers want to exist in 15 years time, they will probably have their own alternatives at some point. Which will probably look more traditional, since that is their brand image. --- Post updated --- Based on the door placement, its difficult to tell how far forward the driver will be sitting. With lorries you generally want them to be the same height as their trailers, in order to be aerodynamic. So no matter what you do, you will end up with a tall vehicle, since batteries and motors can be fairly flat, it makes sense to put the cabin on top. I imagine we will also see batteries built into the trailers where there is typically a lot of unused space underneath in more traditional designs.
The doors seems to be far behind on the cabin, compared to other trucks. It might be because the driver's seat is also not seating really far forward, but maybe the truck just has one door, a bit like some RVs. I can't be sure, but maybe the driver is meant to access the truck by this door only, like on a big RV. The picture isn't really big enough to tell. About the trailer thing... Putting batteries underneath a trailer seems to be a good idea. (I think I remember reading a post written by you, if my memory is correct, linking to a Jalopnik article about this) The only thing that is kinda bothering me is whether or not the trailer's batteries will be compatible with other electric trucks that might come out in the future. It will be interesting to see how Tesla will deal with the problem of range, and the charging times.
I think that the best way to deliver energy to electric semi trucks is to create trolleytrucks: Hang special powerlines over right lanes on motorways and install retractable charging gear on trucks. When a truck leaves the motorway for a factory/warehouse/city, the gear retracts and the truck continues driving like a normal EV. Should need much smaller batteries then.
I think his point was closer to 'do we really need a self driving truck' than that. I mean, unemployment isn't exactly going down, and if self driving trucks take off, which they probably will at some point, it won't exactly be helping
