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Tesla Semi

273 'Tesla Semi' stories July 2016 - November 2016
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Tesla's upcoming all-electric heavy-duty truck.

‘Tesla Semi’ is an heavy-duty all-electric truck program at Tesla led by Jerome Guillen, Tesla’s former Model S Program Director and VP of Vehicle Engineering. Before joining Tesla, Guillen was an executive at Daimler where he successfully led the development of the Cascadia truck program (picture on the right).

The vehicle was first announced in CEO Elon Musk’s’ ‘Master Plan Part Deux’. Here’s the relevant part of the ‘Master Plan‘:

“In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicle needed: heavy-duty trucks and high passenger-density urban transport. Both are in the early stages of development at Tesla and should be ready for unveiling next year. We believe the Tesla Semi will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport, while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.”

It was officially unveiled on November 16, 2017. Here are all the details.

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5 new Tesla vehicles coming by the end of the decade

Avatar for Fred Lambert Oct 23 2016 - 3:41 pm PT
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Tesla has long been a 1-car company. From when it first started production of the Roadster in 2008 to the end of the program and the start of Model S production in 2012 — and finally to last year when Tesla started delivering the Model X. The automaker has only been really producing two different models in volume for the past few months and it’s a significant accomplishment for a new automaker.

Other most recent American auto startups, like Fisker Automotive and DeLorean, all folded before they could bring a second car to market. Now Tesla plans to go from being a two-car company to have over half a dozen vehicles on the market by the end of the decade.
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Tesla Semi: the automaker hired several engineers from Daimler’s ‘SuperTruck’ program

Avatar for Fred Lambert Sep 22 2016 - 7:38 am PT
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The US Department of Energy (DOE) has an initiative called “SuperTruck”. Under the program, the DOE gives significant grants to truck manufacturers to increase the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by developing new technologies.

Daimler is one of the truck manufacturers taking the most advantage of the program. Under the first version, it developed the 12-MPGe Freightliner SuperTruck, and it recently announced that it won $20 million out of the DOE’s $80 million in grants for the second round of the program – appropriately named ‘SuperTruck II’.
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Nikola Motor does a 180°, scraps plans for battery-powered truck, turns to hydrogen

Avatar for Fred Lambert Aug 30 2016 - 8:12 am PT
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You might remember Nikola Motor for unveiling renderings and estimated specs of the Nikola One, their first electric truck, earlier this year. Or maybe for when they claimed that they received over 7,000 pre-orders worth over $2.3 billion for the vehicle.

In our last report, we highlighted their weird claim that the vehicle will achieve “zero emissions” despite being powered by both a 320 kWh battery pack and a natural gas range extender, which undoubtedly produces emissions. Today, Nikola Motor explained how they can claim that: they dropped their entire powertrain technology for a new hydrogen fuel cell concept.
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Tesla to unveil ‘Minibus’ and ‘Tesla Semi’ in 6-9 months, production in 2-3 years

Avatar for Fred Lambert Aug 3 2016 - 8:37 pm PT
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In a conference call with analysts today, Elon Musk gave more details on the expected timeline for two major programs he announced last month: ‘Tesla Minibus‘ and ‘Tesla Semi‘.  The CEO originally said that we should expect an unveiling of these products next year, but now he clarified and said that we should expect the events to happen in the next 6 to 9 months.
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Nikola Motor takes swipe at ‘Tesla Semi’, announces ‘working prototype’ unveil for December

Avatar for Fred Lambert Aug 2 2016 - 2:04 pm PT
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In a weird and clearly reactionary move after Elon Musk announced that Tesla will venture in the semi-truck business, electric truck startup Nikola Motor, which like Tesla borrowed its company name from Nikola Tesla, announced that it will unveil a working prototype of its first truck, the Nikola One, on December 2nd in Salt Lake City.
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Daimler unveils its first all-electric eTruck: 26 tonnes capacity, massive 212 kWh battery for ~125 miles of range [Gallery]

Avatar for Fred Lambert Jul 27 2016 - 9:36 am PT
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Today, Daimler unveiled its first all-electric truck – coincidently, only a week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the electric automaker is currently working on its own vehicle in the space. While Musk doesn’t plan on unveiling his ‘Tesla Semi’ until next year, there’s no rush to beat Daimler to market since the German automaker doesn’t plan to bring its electric truck, called the eTruck, to production until 2020.
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Tesla tapped former Model S Program Director and Daimler’s Cascadia GM to lead ‘Tesla Semi’

Avatar for Fred Lambert Jul 21 2016 - 8:57 am PT
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As we reported yesterday, the news that Tesla is developing a semi truck set to be unveiled next year is probably the biggest surprise to come out of Elon Musk’s ‘Master Plan Part 2’.

When reading the plan and despite containing little details about the new division, I was already pretty excited at the prospect of an electric Tesla truck, but now that Musk confirmed that Jerome Guillen is in charge of the program, which he dubbed ‘Tesla Semi’, I’m even more excited.
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