Tesla released a video showing its Semi electric Class 8 truck getting tested for durability and reliability, in a bid to entice people to join its Vehicle Test Team.
The video, posted on the company’s LinkedIn page, shows the Tesla Semi being driven through water and snow, and on the bench for suspension testing.
Glimpses of these shots were shown during the Semi’s delivery event at the beginning of December, but now we get a clearer picture of what was happening in the video.
As reported by Electrek, some of the footage appears to be a few years old, from when the American EV maker tested the original Semi prototype in freezing temperatures in Alaska, but the rest of the footage shows the latest generation of the electric truck.
“Our engineers tested Semi in a variety of harsh conditions to maximize reliability and durability”, the company wrote to describe the video.
The Tesla Semi has been long in the making – it was revealed five years ago, and it was supposed to go into production three years ago. And now, after several delays, the first batch of the electric truck has been delivered to long-time reservation holders, but even so, some questions remain unanswered.
The truck’s weight and battery capacity have yet to be detailed, as well as the total power output. Educated guesses point to an unladen weight of around 25,000-27,000 pounds, a battery capacity of approximately 1,000 kWh, and over 1,000 horsepower from its tri-motor, Plaid-based drive system. By comparison, a typical diesel Class 8 tractor has around 600 hp.
Elon Musk did say during the delivery event that the Semi drove for 500 miles (804 kilometers) during testing and that it’s equipped with an all-new, “thousand-volt powertrain” capable of charging at a rate of up to 1 megawatt (MW), allowing the truck to gain 70 percent state of charge in just 30 minutes. Also, power consumption is estimated to be less than 2 kWh/mile.
PepsiCo was one of the first companies to place pre-orders for the Tesla Semi, asking for 100 examples of the electric truck and hoping for the first deliveries by the end of 2021, but that didn’t happen. Now it has its first batch of vehicles, becoming the first customer to do so.
What do you think about the Tesla Semi durability testing video? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Tesla via LinkedIn