Tesla will test its autonomous electric truck in the field

Perhaps this is what a Tesla autonomous electric truck will look like.



The permanent head of Tesla Inc. Back in April of this year, Ilon Musk announced a long-term project to create a truck with autonomous control, working on electricity. Mask's words usually do not disagree with the case, and now it has become known that the prototypes are ready and will soon be tested in Nevada. Tesla is currently negotiating with the administration of Nevada about large-scale testing of its trucks on state roads.



In addition, similar negotiations are underway with the leadership of the state of California. State representatives said that on Wednesday a meeting was held with the leadership of Tesla and held a "conversation regarding the company's work on the creation of autonomous trucks." Now Tesla Inc plans to test trucks in real work, and not on the test site. By the way, Mercedes, KAMAZ and some other companies, such as Peloton Technology, which cooperates with Volvo, are developing their own autonomous trucks.



In addition, Uber, Google, George Hotz with his startup comma.ai, Volvo, Audo, Ford are developing their own versions of software and hardware for cars (not only trucks).



As for the announcement of cars of this type, Musk promises that it will be held in September this year. I must say that the company has never postponed the date of the presentation - as they reported about the September presentation a year ago, they left the deadline in force.



According to information provided by the Reuters news agency, the Nevada administration and Tesla discussed the possibility of going onto general-purpose roads of two trucks with an autonomous control system.



“Our main goal now is the ability to test test trucks on public roads of the states of Nevada and California offline without the presence of people in the vehicle,” wrote one Tesla employee in an official address to the Nevada administration. True, the date of possible tests was not indicated in this document.



Currently, no company has tested their vehicles in Nevada, even if they are trucks, even cars, on public roads without human presence in the cab. Regarding the technical characteristics and capabilities of cars, unfortunately, nothing is known about them; the company did not provide detailed information either to journalists or even to representatives of the states where it may be tested. But it is known that Tesla has not yet applied for a license for testing.

Not so smooth

With the fact that trucks with autonomous control can be not only useful, but very useful - for business, military, etc., almost all market participants agree. But many people have trucks with electricity. The fact is that the range of such cars is much smaller than that of trucks with internal combustion engines. For example, diesel trucks from United Parcel Service Inc can drive about 800 km with a full tank.







Electric trucks have at best a couple of hundred kilometers. According to a specialist in lithium batteries from Carnegie Mellon University, trucks with batteries of this type cannot yet be economically profitable when traveling across the whole country.



Nevertheless, it is possible that Ilona Mask has (and most likely, this is exactly the case) his own view of things. Not for nothing that he built Tesla's Gigafabrika and plans to build another one, or even two. The companies of Mask conduct active research in the field of energy and batteries, so that soon, probably, we can expect some breakthroughs voiced by an irrepressible entrepreneur. In any case, he is not the person to experience trucks that no one will buy.

Not only trucks

In the meantime, some characteristics of the Tesla Model 3 electric car became known. As it turned out, Ilon Musk underestimated some of the capabilities of an electric vehicle. The operating voltage of the battery of this machine is 350 volts, the amperage is 230 amperes, plus 80.5 kWh.







According to some characteristics, the new electric car surpasses the Tesla Model S 75, which costs much more. Perhaps for this reason, Musk and understated the characteristics of new items.



The engine is powerful enough - 258 horsepower. The mass of the car is 1.6 tons, and the electric car accelerates from Tesla Inc. up to 100 km / h in just 5.2 seconds. The new electric motor works with permanent magnets, which were not previously used by Tesla. This was achieved thanks to cooperation with the Chinese authorities - it is in China that the main production facilities for neodymium, the element necessary for the creation of permanent magnets, are located.