American electric carmaker Tesla Motors Corporation is currently all-out to deliver on its promise to release the Tesla Model 3 sedan before the end of this year.
However, even this early, there are already reports that the company shall be releasing an all-electric semi-truck after the release of the Model 3.
Reports have it that Tesla is already making progress on the development of the all-electric semi-truck, which was also part of the company’s ‘Master Plan, Part Deux’ unveiled by CEO Elon Musk in July of last year, reports the Business Insider.
It was also Musk who also made the online buzz on the Tesla semi-truck when he made mention of the vehicle on Twitter early this month.
In a reply to the tweet of Electrek’s Fred Lambert, Musk said Jerome Guillen, Tesla’s vice president of programs who is in charge of the Tesla semi-truck initiative, is making progress on the project.
He added that the Tesla Model 3, however, remains the top priority for the company. Guillen led Daimler’s semi-truck program before joining Tesla in 2012.
The Mercedes-Benz parent company showed off an all-electric truck designed for urban transport in November that can drive 124 miles on a single charge.
Substantial reduction in cost
Musk said that the Tesla semi-truck will deliver a substantial reduction in the cost of cargo transport while increasing safety and making it really fun to operate.
Although that was the first official announcement, Tesla has been hinting for quite some time that it was interested in building a semi-truck.
Tesla CTO JB Straubel discussed the role that Tesla could play in the truck industry at the International Transport Forum in Germany in May last year.
Straubel said at that time that he can’t say too much about the new products and the things they are developing, but from a pure technology point of view, everything that they have done on vehicles translates directly into trucks, adding that there is no reason that they can’t make a very compelling electric truck.
An electric bus is also in the plan
In addition to an all-electric semi-truck, Tesla is also looking to build an all-electric bus, which indicates that the American electric carmaker would start focusing on big vehicles after it releases the Model 3.
In addition to consumer vehicles, there are two other types of electric vehicles needed, which are 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, Musk said.
An electric and eventually autonomous, long-haul truck has a number of potential benefits, like allowing truck drivers to catch some rest while the vehicle drives itself, and allowing them to communicate with family members on a long outing.
A central dashboard could also be used to gather data and identify spare capacity on particular destinations to suggest consolidating and optimizing routes, details The Daily Dot.
But those holding out for a heavy-duty truck will have to wait until everything surrounding the Tesla Model 3 starts dying down. Musk says the budget-friendly consumer vehicle is the company’s overwhelming priority.
Early last month, Tesla also unveiled the Ludicrous Plus mode for its production vehicle, the Tesla Model S P100D.
The Ludicrous Plus mode is merely a software update so it did not do much in as far as altering the design elements of the Tesla Model S P100D. However, what seems clear is that the new mode has significantly boosted the acceleration of the production vehicle.
Interestingly, under the new Ludicrous Plus mode, the Tesla Model S P100D can actually go from 0 to 60 mph in 2.389 seconds, making it the fastest accelerating electric car in the world.
It can be recalled that during the Consumer Electric Show (CES) 2017 held in Las Vegas, Nevada early last month, Faraday Future proudly stated that its new FF91 electric car will compete one day with Tesla.