8 ms·

Tesla Semi made it ‘across the country alone’

74 points by evo_9 8y ago

aurizon 8y ago
Once we have full AI and autonomous trucks, they will soon escape and form breeding colonies for all manner of free roaming mechs...
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  Artificial Life will find a way...
cma 8y ago
Why was the story about Tesla staying public artificially buried? It dropped off the front page like a rock.
- threeseed 8y ago
  Because it is clickbait and unimpressive. When you say "alone" the common sense implication is that you mean without a driver. Not simply without escort vehicles which is not something that even happens with 99% of truck trips.
- tntn 8y ago
  Probably flagged by people worn out from musk frenzy.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Seriously. Tesla/Elon are one of the many dead horses around here that HN readers like to beat. There are other interesting things going on in the world.
Theodores 8y ago
...to visit an important potential customer rather than to carry loads of stuff. Must have been a fun day though for the office guys in the company HQ. Hopefully there will be a bit more of this Tesla Truck on Tour going on, pleasing crowds all over the globe. I would go outside to check out a Tesla Truck if one rocked up in town. I would probably skip past F1 cars, fire engines and other novelty performance vehicles to do so. It seems that the Tesla Truck is specifically for hauling big loads on very long distances rather than any other use case, with most truck manufacturers having half a dozen models with untold engine variants for the many other use cases. I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending a lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I am intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as per the customer visit going on here.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  Deadheading[0] is probably easy on the battery. Yet even empty, the Supercharger network doesn't reach far enough yet, and apparently the truck had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super" chargers. Do things that don't scale, indeed. > Musk jokingly added that they used a 1,000-mile long extension cord, but he is actually referring a system made of extension cords that they have used to charge Tesla Semi prototypes at Tesla’s regular charging stations. ... People who have witnessed Tesla Semi prototypes charging at Supercharger stations have told Electrek that the system made of extension cords plugs into several Supercharger stalls at the same time and into several charge ports on the truck. Gas semi trucks can take 30 minutes to fuel, and electrics usually take vastly longer than gas vehicles to recharge. Megachargers will be the key to making these trucks actually viable. If they could get recharge times below refuel times, it would be a great advantage. --- > I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending a lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I am intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as per the customer visit going on here. Regenerative braking stops helping when the battery is full - on my Camry Hybrid, after going down about 600 feet of vertical drop, it actually starts the engine to engage engine braking. Also, there's a limit in the rate of how much velocity energy can be converted to electricity by regeneration, per second. For instance, slowing from 65 MPH to 64 can take over a second using only regenerative brakes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage
  - cptskippy 8y ago
    > it actually starts the engine to engage engine braking. The engine isn't firing is it? Engine braking doesn't require the cylinders to fire.
  - djrogers 8y ago
    > apparently the truck had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super" chargers. No, these were multiple connections to Tesla Superchargers - not ‘regular’ chargers. This is necessary because the Tesla Hyperchargers that are being developed to quickly charge the Semis are not deployed anywhere yet.
lykr0n 8y ago
I think if Tesla can pull this off, they will be in a great position. Self Driving cars are years away (I think), but I think self driving trucks are not. I've driven down highways and passed massive distribution facilities that are just off the highway. It's a lot less complicated to have a truck drive along a highway, stop at a charger, and continue on to a distribution center. Low risk, boring, driving. If Tesla can role out a truck where they can say "It will cost $3,000 to move this trailer from our interchange facility (or the customers warehouse) here in North Carolina to our interchange facility here in Nevada in 24 hours" that's big. I don't think you will be able to replace human drivers at every step (at the moment), but if Tesla can replace the long haul drivers- that's big. When the Electric Car market hits an inflection point, Tesla is going to be playing catch up but if they can get into trucking before anyone else does, and with a solid long haul self driving truck, we're going to see a lot of chance.
- konschubert 8y ago
  The article doesn't mention self-driving anywhere. Am I misunderstanding you or did you not read the article?
  - Mountain_Skies 8y ago
    "Tesla Semi made it 'across the country alone'" in the title does imply that it was self driving though the article clarifies that in this case 'across the country alone' actually means with only battery power and connections to SuperChargers. None of this refutes poster's point of the greater value and likely simpler use case for automated trucking versus the consumer transportation market. It just makes them not relevant to this particular article.
    - twic 8y ago
      In the embedded tweet [1], Musk clarifies that "alone" means "no escort or any accompanying vehicles". Which seems like a pretty unimpressive feat to me. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352
carbocation 8y ago
The headline is clickbait. As 'twic pointed out, this means "no escort or any accompanying vehicles" [1]. It does not mean that the truck was self driving, which is strongly implied by the headline. 1 = https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679
- mrep 8y ago
  Huh, when I first read it, I assumed they meant without charging most likely because the car can probably drive really far when not towing anything.
- nimbius 8y ago
  speaking as an automotive mechanic for a small chain of truck repair/wash stations across the midwest, I get how people could mistake it as a self driving truck but the fact that it made it across the US unescorted is a bigger deal than you think. this means a driver managed pass every pre-flight check after stops, passed inspection stations in roughly a dozen states, weigh station checks despite also carrying a massive battery pack, and safety inspections from state troopers that likely had no clue what the hell it was. The truck was capable of hauling a commercial load. meaning the axle weight adjustments were properly executed and most importantly, Teslas answer to jake braking (engine braking) is a success. No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or air system with enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without shifting to a lower gear and employing the engine to help some. In my opinion, however tesla achieves this, is the real breakthrough.
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    > weigh station checks despite also carrying a massive battery pack I'd hope an empty electric truck is light enough to pass the weigh station check. Else it would be useless when loaded. > No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or air system with enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without shifting to a lower gear and employing the engine to help some. A drivetrain that size should have impressive regeneration supplementing the mechanical brakes. Apparently this is about equal to engine braking in gas trucks. Though these trucks were empty. Have we seen a fully-loaded Tesla truck yet?
onetimemanytime 8y ago
>>CEO Elon Musk taunts them by claiming a Tesla Semi prototype drove ‘across the country alone’ Musk, tell us what really happened, but only after getting 8 hours of sleep for a week in a row https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-working-120-hours-a-week-like-elon-musk-really-does-to-the-body/ar-BBMhKiH https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-working...
Animats 8y ago
All this really says is that Tesla has enough charging stations to drive coast to coast. That's progress. They're going to need huge charging stations at truck stops once this gets going, but that's OK. I wonder when the day will come that you won't be able to drive long distances in a gasoline car without preplanning.
- agumonkey 8y ago
  funny, I never thought about this.. car took off when stations were numerous enough. As you say the day this parameter goes below a threshold ICE may drop in market value super fast.
  - ChuckMcM 8y ago
    One of the services AAA used to offer was trip planning where they would identify gas stations and motels along your route so that you could get to where you were going without running out of gas. Once the interstate system was built, and at the same time a lot of gas stations got built at various off ramps, the number of gaps decreased to the point where few people today think about where they will get gas as they drive long distances, they just assume there will be one or more stations around. One of the weirder possible futures is that enough progress is made on flow batteries such that you drive into what used to be a gas station and simultaneously dump your expended electrolyte while taking on charged electrolyte to continue your journey. Such a system would work well by having both a very quick charge mode (electrolyte substitution) and a more traditional (but slower) charge mode where you plugged into the grid.
  - Retric 8y ago
    US is ~3.1 million square miles. If driving 15 miles to the nearest gas station is considered reasonable that puts the minimum around 4,400 stations which is less than I expected. Math is off as your driving along roads and you don’t need even distribution etc. But, this does suggest Gas is going to be viable down to ~5% of cars.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago
  It’s a little more than that. It does confirm that there is a vehicle that is not total vaporware and is reliable enough to make this trip at least once. That’s something. It doesn’t say anything about autonomy at all though, so readers looking for confirmation of that capability are not going to find much.

74 points by evo_9 8y ago

Once we have full AI and autonomous trucks, they will soon escape and form breeding colonies for all manner of free roaming mechs...

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
Artificial Life will find a way...

cma 8y ago

Why was the story about Tesla staying public artificially buried? It dropped off the front page like a rock.

threeseed 8y ago
Because it is clickbait and unimpressive. When you say "alone" the common sense implication is that you mean without a driver. Not simply without escort vehicles which is not something that even happens with 99% of truck trips.
tntn 8y ago
Probably flagged by people worn out from musk frenzy.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Seriously. Tesla/Elon are one of the many dead horses around here that HN readers like to beat. There are other interesting things going on in the world.

Theodores 8y ago

...to visit an important potential customer rather than to carry loads of stuff. Must have been a fun day though for the office guys in the company HQ. Hopefully there will be a bit more of this Tesla Truck on Tour going on, pleasing crowds all over the globe. I would go outside to check out a Tesla Truck if one rocked up in town. I would probably skip past F1 cars, fire engines and other novelty performance vehicles to do so. It seems that the Tesla Truck is specifically for hauling big loads on very long distances rather than any other use case, with most truck manufacturers having half a dozen models with untold engine variants for the many other use cases. I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending a lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I am intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as per the customer visit going on here.

stephengillie 8y ago
Deadheading[0] is probably easy on the battery. Yet even empty, the Supercharger network doesn't reach far enough yet, and apparently the truck had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super" chargers. Do things that don't scale, indeed. > Musk jokingly added that they used a 1,000-mile long extension cord, but he is actually referring a system made of extension cords that they have used to charge Tesla Semi prototypes at Tesla’s regular charging stations. ... People who have witnessed Tesla Semi prototypes charging at Supercharger stations have told Electrek that the system made of extension cords plugs into several Supercharger stalls at the same time and into several charge ports on the truck. Gas semi trucks can take 30 minutes to fuel, and electrics usually take vastly longer than gas vehicles to recharge. Megachargers will be the key to making these trucks actually viable. If they could get recharge times below refuel times, it would be a great advantage. --- > I wonder if ultimately it does come down to economics, with the Tesla Truck having 'regen' as quite a trick to play. The 'regen' should make descending a lot safer and obviously a lot more 'green' than normal engine braking. I am intrigued as to how that will work out crossing The Rocky Mountains as per the customer visit going on here. Regenerative braking stops helping when the battery is full - on my Camry Hybrid, after going down about 600 feet of vertical drop, it actually starts the engine to engage engine braking. Also, there's a limit in the rate of how much velocity energy can be converted to electricity by regeneration, per second. For instance, slowing from 65 MPH to 64 can take over a second using only regenerative brakes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_mileage
- cptskippy 8y ago
  > it actually starts the engine to engage engine braking. The engine isn't firing is it? Engine braking doesn't require the cylinders to fire.
- djrogers 8y ago
  > apparently the truck had to take up several charging stations at "non-Super" chargers. No, these were multiple connections to Tesla Superchargers - not ‘regular’ chargers. This is necessary because the Tesla Hyperchargers that are being developed to quickly charge the Semis are not deployed anywhere yet.

lykr0n 8y ago

I think if Tesla can pull this off, they will be in a great position. Self Driving cars are years away (I think), but I think self driving trucks are not. I've driven down highways and passed massive distribution facilities that are just off the highway. It's a lot less complicated to have a truck drive along a highway, stop at a charger, and continue on to a distribution center. Low risk, boring, driving. If Tesla can role out a truck where they can say "It will cost $3,000 to move this trailer from our interchange facility (or the customers warehouse) here in North Carolina to our interchange facility here in Nevada in 24 hours" that's big. I don't think you will be able to replace human drivers at every step (at the moment), but if Tesla can replace the long haul drivers- that's big. When the Electric Car market hits an inflection point, Tesla is going to be playing catch up but if they can get into trucking before anyone else does, and with a solid long haul self driving truck, we're going to see a lot of chance.

konschubert 8y ago
The article doesn't mention self-driving anywhere. Am I misunderstanding you or did you not read the article?
- Mountain_Skies 8y ago
  "Tesla Semi made it 'across the country alone'" in the title does imply that it was self driving though the article clarifies that in this case 'across the country alone' actually means with only battery power and connections to SuperChargers. None of this refutes poster's point of the greater value and likely simpler use case for automated trucking versus the consumer transportation market. It just makes them not relevant to this particular article.
  - twic 8y ago
    In the embedded tweet [1], Musk clarifies that "alone" means "no escort or any accompanying vehicles". Which seems like a pretty unimpressive feat to me. [1] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1033260379147620352

carbocation 8y ago

The headline is clickbait. As 'twic pointed out, this means "no escort or any accompanying vehicles" [1]. It does not mean that the truck was self driving, which is strongly implied by the headline. 1 = https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17842679

mrep 8y ago
Huh, when I first read it, I assumed they meant without charging most likely because the car can probably drive really far when not towing anything.
nimbius 8y ago
speaking as an automotive mechanic for a small chain of truck repair/wash stations across the midwest, I get how people could mistake it as a self driving truck but the fact that it made it across the US unescorted is a bigger deal than you think. this means a driver managed pass every pre-flight check after stops, passed inspection stations in roughly a dozen states, weigh station checks despite also carrying a massive battery pack, and safety inspections from state troopers that likely had no clue what the hell it was. The truck was capable of hauling a commercial load. meaning the axle weight adjustments were properly executed and most importantly, Teslas answer to jake braking (engine braking) is a success. No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or air system with enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without shifting to a lower gear and employing the engine to help some. In my opinion, however tesla achieves this, is the real breakthrough.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  > weigh station checks despite also carrying a massive battery pack I'd hope an empty electric truck is light enough to pass the weigh station check. Else it would be useless when loaded. > No truck, not even teslas, carries a braking system or air system with enough power to stop a downhill tractor trailer without shifting to a lower gear and employing the engine to help some. A drivetrain that size should have impressive regeneration supplementing the mechanical brakes. Apparently this is about equal to engine braking in gas trucks. Though these trucks were empty. Have we seen a fully-loaded Tesla truck yet?

onetimemanytime 8y ago

>>CEO Elon Musk taunts them by claiming a Tesla Semi prototype drove ‘across the country alone’ Musk, tell us what really happened, but only after getting 8 hours of sleep for a week in a row https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-working-120-hours-a-week-like-elon-musk-really-does-to-the-body/ar-BBMhKiH https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/heres-what-working...

Animats 8y ago

All this really says is that Tesla has enough charging stations to drive coast to coast. That's progress. They're going to need huge charging stations at truck stops once this gets going, but that's OK. I wonder when the day will come that you won't be able to drive long distances in a gasoline car without preplanning.

agumonkey 8y ago
funny, I never thought about this.. car took off when stations were numerous enough. As you say the day this parameter goes below a threshold ICE may drop in market value super fast.
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  One of the services AAA used to offer was trip planning where they would identify gas stations and motels along your route so that you could get to where you were going without running out of gas. Once the interstate system was built, and at the same time a lot of gas stations got built at various off ramps, the number of gaps decreased to the point where few people today think about where they will get gas as they drive long distances, they just assume there will be one or more stations around. One of the weirder possible futures is that enough progress is made on flow batteries such that you drive into what used to be a gas station and simultaneously dump your expended electrolyte while taking on charged electrolyte to continue your journey. Such a system would work well by having both a very quick charge mode (electrolyte substitution) and a more traditional (but slower) charge mode where you plugged into the grid.
- Retric 8y ago
  US is ~3.1 million square miles. If driving 15 miles to the nearest gas station is considered reasonable that puts the minimum around 4,400 stations which is less than I expected. Math is off as your driving along roads and you don’t need even distribution etc. But, this does suggest Gas is going to be viable down to ~5% of cars.
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
It’s a little more than that. It does confirm that there is a vehicle that is not total vaporware and is reliable enough to make this trip at least once. That’s something. It doesn’t say anything about autonomy at all though, so readers looking for confirmation of that capability are not going to find much.