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Actually I was quite surprised that those are ordinary trucks without superhero style exterior etc. I think that this is a recipe for success of electric vehicl

• ogre_codes 6y ago
  > I would choose the Volvo over any newage design with huge waste of space for transport - they are meant to be a TRANSPORT vehicles not a design for driving to a shopping mall picking chicks (that dont care about transport vehicle anyway). I would choose whichever makes sense for my business. Without pricing and reliability numbers, it's impossible to know which that might be. The closest vehicle in Tesla's garage to this is the Tesla Cybertruck which looks bizarre, but is about $20,000 less than the nearest announced competitor. If Tesla launched a butt ugly Cybervan which was similarly functional and cost effective, you can bet it would be popular with the class of buyer who are shopping for e-Vans. Right now I'm eyeballing the Cybertruck personally, in spite of it's appearance. Spending $20k to get a more traditional looking truck just doesn't make sense to me. The only concern I have is whether those high truck bed walls will screw things up.
  • phaemon 6y ago
    I like the look of the Cybertruck. It's like the truck Automan would drive!
    • ogre_codes 6y ago
      I was probably a bit unfair to the CyberTruck. The big thing for me personally is I'm not flamboyant by nature. Once the Cybertruck becomes more commonplace I'll get over it. It certainly didn't stop me from pre-ordering.
    • stoddur 6y ago
      The Cybertruck will be a beast to see on the road. I love the look.
      • jamiek88 6y ago
        It’s a marmite look. Either love it or hate it! Personally I hate marmite but love the truck!
  • johanneskanybal 6y ago
    This article is about commercial trucks which I imagine would be 10x in cost of cybertruck.
    • ogre_codes 6y ago
      It is—as I suggest above—the closest thing Tesla has to a shipping product which competes here. Tesla will have at least some commercial trucks. Whether they will compete directly with this or not remains to be seen. I suspect if they do, they will be price competitive for reasons in my post above.
  • itsoktocry 6y ago
    >but is about $20,000 less than the nearest announced competitor. Tesla has a history of claiming their products will be cheaper than they turn out to be. Pretty big claim to say it's cheaper when, as of now, they haven't produced or sold a single truck. I guess it works though, because every time a competitor puts an EV truck out there, someone inevitably claims that the Cybertruck is cheaper.
    • mjamesaustin 6y ago
      They announced the Model 3 at $35,000 in 2016. The price for the standard range model on their website has fluctuated between $37,000 and $40,000 since then, and it's currently $38,000 including significantly improved specs compared to the 2016 announcement. If the Cybertruck also ends up 15% more expensive than the original advertised price, it'll still cost dramatically less than any competitor.
    • ogre_codes 6y ago
      > Pretty big claim to say it's cheaper when, as of now, they haven't produced or sold a single truck. They've taken pre-orders and accepted cash, it's a contract. Tesla will sell those trucks for the announced prices. Even using $38k as the base price of the Model 3[1], it is still a good value compared to competing electric vehicles which tend to have much lower ranges, slower charging networks, and worse performance. The Model Y competitors are also generally more expensive and have lower ranges. They are still a bit pricy compared to non-EVs, but compared to other EVs, Teslas are not priced at a premium. If you value performance, the gap is even more significant. > I guess it works though, because every time a competitor puts an EV truck out there, someone inevitably claims that the Cybertruck is cheaper. It works because as I mention above, Tesla has a track record of delivering decent value. It is extremely fair to say Tesla vehicles are often behind schedule, but their pricing (again compared to other EVs) is usually extremely competitive. [1] It was possible for quite a while to get a Model 3 for $35k, it was just a little tricky without a pre-order.
      • maxdo 6y ago
        model 3 destroyed nissan leaf, which is currently at $32k if you comare leaf and model 3, oh well, not even comparable
  • rad_gruchalski 6y ago
    > The closest vehicle in Tesla's garage to this is the Tesla Cybertruck which looks bizarre, but is about $20,000 less than the nearest announced competitor. No, Cybertruck is competing with stuff like Ford F150. Volvo FH is a commercial truck. The nearest thing is the Tesla Semi.
    • ogre_codes 6y ago
      The Tesla Semi doesn't have any announced pricing or an availability date so it's impossible to get an idea of how competitive price-wise it might be. This is the big problem with comparing future products. Tesla has also hinted at a passenger van eventually... but again no date, no details.
      • rad_gruchalski 6y ago
        From the size and purpose, the Semi would be what an FH truck is. Tesla hints many things. They need to figure out their supply chain. Commercial fleets require maintenance and spare parts.
        • ogre_codes 6y ago
          > Commercial fleets require maintenance and spare parts. Yep. But this is mitigated a bit by the fact that EVs tend to require massively less maintenance and spare parts. From what I've seen, Tesla does not do service really well and that's something they will have to get down if they are going to get into commercial vehicles. Even if Tesla trucks require vastly less ongoing service, they need to have that service be good. I've heard of Tesla owners having to wait several weeks for parts, for a commercial vehicle that's a no-go.
          • jacquesm 6y ago
            Running gear wear on trucks is where the costs are, and an engine rebuild every 200K-750 K km depending on how they are used (local routes vs long haul). EVs should have a substantial advantage over trucks in the brake wear department, battery overhaul costs will match or possibly be lower than the engine overhaul costs. Put it all together and for short haul trips EVs should have an advantage and for the longer haul they are as yet impractical. Keep in mind that a 1000 liter fuel reserve is a substantial amount of energy for relatively little weight disadvantage on a vehicle that already weighs 8 tons, the equivalent in batteries weighs many times more. Some of this weight disadvantage will be compensated by regenerative braking, with a diesel vehicle that energy is converted to waste heat every time the vehicle comes to a stop. So, overall, I think short haul EV trucks will have the edge soon, long haul it likely will be diesel for quite a while to come.
• nfin 6y ago
  I am not sure if I get your main point, but since your talking about Tesla and exterior looks, I think that it shouldn't be forgotten or overlooked, that Tesla truck is planned to have an amazing drag coefficient: "The Tesla Semi’s drag coefficient of 0.36 is lower than today’s trucks at 0.65 to 0.7, and even lower than the Bugatti Chiron at 0.38, one of the world’s fastest sports cars" [1]. Objects with good drag coefficients are usually good looking, or are not hard to make good looking (while not so true for the other way around). [1]: https://www.machinedesign.com/mechanical-motion-systems/article/21836184/does-teslas-new-electric-semi-truck-make-sense https://www.machinedesign.com/mechanical-motion-systems/arti...
  • MagnumOpus 6y ago
    It's odd to compare the drag of a truck with huge frontal cross-section and zero downforce with that of a supercar that has a tiny cross section but large drag coefficient to create downforce. An F1 car would have an even higher coefficient of 1.0... Compare it to a normal car instead, and it's the equivalent of an old Chevy Tahoe and far worse than normal saloon cars which are typically at 0.29ish.
• dehrmann 6y ago
  > Actually I was quite surprised that those are ordinary trucks without superhero style exterior etc. It's part of Scandinavian culture and its aesthetic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Jante
  • jacobush 6y ago
    That’s downselling Scandinavian aesthetics or upselling the law of Dante. Maybe.
• durandal1 6y ago
  Europe also have much stricter total length requirements for trucks, which is why the more square trucks are preferred to maximize space-per-meter of length.
• johanneskanybal 6y ago
  In my book (and garage) they always get it right.
• mulmen 6y ago
  Volvo didn’t do it first though. The approach at Tesla has always been to make a competitive electric vehicle market. They did that. Musk has even said he doesn’t care if Tesla fails as long as it gets automakers to build electric vehicles. Teslas success shows automakers it is possible. Tesla has already succeeded in its original mission.
  • mikestew 6y ago
    Volvo didn’t do it first though. Tesla wasn’t the first with production BEVs, either. Or first with any kind of EV, production or not. Companies built them anyway.
    • mulmen 6y ago
      No but as I said, Musk's mission with Tesla was to make BEVs widely available. Tesla may never be able to make a cheap BEV but they have grown the market and driven economies of scale that allow others to make competitive BEVs.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
• stoddur 6y ago
  The weird exterior many electric cars have is to lower the drag coefficient to increase range. This is especially true for Semis as they have a notoriously bad drag coefficient. The range for the Volvo trucks could be up to 300 km as stated in the article, that is okay for some haul distances but you need serious charging infrastructure if you are going to be charging a Semi every 250 - 300 km. These trucks will probably need 0.8 - 1 MWh batteries.
  • ogre_codes 6y ago
    > The weird exterior many electric cars have is to lower the drag coefficient to increase range. In Europe vehicle footprint is a big deal and for a box truck, minimizing vehicle footprint (and maximizing capacity) is likely more important than reducing drag. Particularly when you are looking at vehicles which will likely spend most of their time pushing 16+ tons and accelerating and decelerating to speeds around 30 MPH all day long. > you need serious charging infrastructure if you are going to be charging a Semi every 250 - 300 km. These trucks aren't designed for long haul/ cross country trips. There won't be charging every 250 km, they will go out, do their job, come home and park on a charger.
    • Gibbon1 6y ago
      About 15 years ago I rebuilt an old golf cart. What I learned was in the late 90's better motor controls lead to a resurgence of electric golf carts especially for fleets. In most use cases electric is better logistically. The electric ones just run and run and they don't require handling gasoline and oil. It's really quick for an employee to plug the golf carts in at night. Pain in the ass to run around with gas cans. Not to mention having to store fuel on site. Reason conversion to electric happened earlier for golf carts was electric golf carts only have about 4-5kwh worth of batteries. Interestingly historically lead acid batteries are about $100-150 per kwr. Which is close to where automotive grade lion batteries are now. So no surprise that delivery trucks are converting to electric. They have the exact some scenario going on.
      • ogre_codes 6y ago
• justapassenger 6y ago
  > What companies like Tesla do is driving the hype for the sake of stock market, which is wrong - the target should be users of vehicles and the purpose they were purposed for. Tesla used to do that - Model S or Model 3 follow that idea. And that was big part of their success - cars, that look like cars (remember all fugly EVs in 2010s?), with few quirks here and there, but nothing out of ordinary. But as a company, they depart from this idea with things like cybertruck, and are focusing more on hype over last few years.
• athenot 6y ago
  The quirky design served a purpose. It helped target early adopters in a market. I had 2 Nissan LEAF from 2013-2018 and was keenly aware that I was enjoying a piece of the future. Part of the experience was simply revolutionary: quietness, no gas station, amazing torque. At the same time, being an early adopter had a steep cost: limited range, limited charging options outside of home. (As it turned out, that cost turned out to be less steep than perceived, and simple planning made it pretty much a non-issue.) This is obviously a generalization and there are exceptions but there seems to be a large overlap between those willing to have a radically different product that comes with severe drawbacks, and those who enjoy the quirkyness of it. And yes: the status (even if it's a subconscious thing for most people). It's worth noting that the 2019 Nissan LEAF was redesigned to look like regular cars, just as its battery doubled in capacity (tripled if you compare from the first models). It signaled that it was no longer cutting edge and ready for mainstream. Anecdotally, tax agencies agreed as most tax incentives were either dropped or severely reduced around that time.
  • ogre_codes 6y ago
    Notably, Tesla didn't really go this route until the CyberTruck. The Model S and X are both quite normal looking. The Model 3 and Y as well. If they didn't have the smooth grill-free face, you'd never know they were electric.
  • maxdo 6y ago
    try tesla it's almost the same $32k with $37k, huge difference :)
• elevenoh 6y ago
  >What companies like Tesla do is driving the hype for the sake of stock market That's extremely reductive & vague. The #1 design consideration for teslas is safety.