The Tesla Semi may be delayed for some time, but it turns out that Elon Musk’s fully electric Class 8 truck will be worth it. And as the upcoming truck gets closer to mass production, it becomes increasingly clear that the potential of Semi, especially with regard to its batteries and FSD features, is greatly underestimated.
During a recent appearance at the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Elon Musk reveals that the Semi will be equipped with a 500 kWh battery pack. The CEO of Tesla did not specify which variant of the Semi would provide a 500 kWh package, although speculations from the community for electric vehicles suggest that the battery for the truck’s 300-mile variant would be. Even if this is the case, such an update offers a glimpse of how far Tesla has come in terms of its battery technology.
‘You want something in the order of probably a 500 kWh pack. “What we have in the Model S and X is a 100 kWh pack and probably something like a 500 kWh pack in the Tesla Semi,” said Musk.
When the Semi was launched at the end of 2017, Tesla noted that the vehicle would consume less than 2 kWh per mile. Since the two variants of the Tesla Semi are rendered with a range of 300 and 500 miles, the estimate indicated that the vehicle has a battery that is likely to be between 600 kWh and 1000 kWh. Musk’s recent update indicates that Tesla has improved its batteries to such an extent that the Semi now needs a smaller battery to reach its 300-mile target. It may seem like a minor change, but a smaller battery pack has many advantages, such as lower weight and significant production cost savings. It all contributes to making the 300-kilometer Tesla Semi a viable and competitive vehicle, especially when the base price is estimated at $ 150,000.
Of course, these benefits only become more prominent when one considers the benefits of Tesla’s 4680 battery packs. With structural batteries in place, the Semi can save weight and production costs even further. A structural battery can also make the Semi rigid, which can make it even safer than the initial repeats. This goes hand in hand with another update of the vehicle mentioned by Tesla, and one that is still widely ignored or at most underestimated today.
Elon Musk confirmed during Tesla’s Q4 FY 2020 earnings call that the Semi will most likely be the first vehicle in the company’s range to have full autonomy features. This was a point emphasized by both Elon Musk and the president of the car, Jerome Guillen, who noted that the FSD hardware on the Semi would be the same as that used in Tesla’s other vehicles. Musk, in turn, pointed out that the Semi FSD features of Tesla require changing the parameters of the FSD software according to the large size of Semi.
One thing that is rarely mentioned is that during the unveiling of the Semi in 2017, Elon Musk noticed that the vehicle could already use a feature called ‘Convoy Mode’, which optimizes efficiency, while several unprocessed trucks can follow a lead , crew vehicle. If Musk’s statements were accurate and Convoy Mode was already feasible in late 2017 with the capabilities of Enhanced Autopilot, such a feature would probably be extremely acceptable today with the Full Self-Driving Beta. It should use the Semi more safely than traditional long-range guards, most of which are still manually operated. Connect it to the Semi features, such as its four electric motors, which help prevent incidents such as chopping knives, and the upcoming all-electric Class 8 truck is set to become one of the safest large vehicles on the road .
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