ColdFusion - New Tesla Roadster - The BIG Picture

Starting point is 00:00:00 You are watching Cold Fusion TV. Hi, welcome to another Cold Fusion video. As most of you know, Tesla just unveiled two electric semi-trucks and a new high-performance roadster. In this video, I'll give my thoughts and commentary on the event and what this means for Tesla and the industry as a whole. First, let's briefly take a look at the trucks. Trucking is actually a bigger industry than you might imagine. Taking the United States as an example, the trucking industry employs over 7 million people per year and 80% of all cargo in America is still transported by trucks. That's four times as much as air, pipeline, rail and

Starting point is 00:00:45 C combined. With this in mind, you can easily see how logistics companies would be very interested in an electric truck that performs better and is much cheaper to run than its diesel counterpart. Last night Tesla shifted into high gear unveiling its new all-electric semi-truck. Joining us right now, analysts at ARC invest, Tasha Keeney. Tasha, good to see you. Good see you so much for joining us. Now, at ARC, you cover autonomous cars and innovative materials. What did you think of the big reveal? Well, Maria, it confirmed what we had thought, which is that an EV semi is going to be cheaper than a diesel semi. And by the way, that truck is semi-autonomous today.

Starting point is 00:01:21 When that turns fully autonomous, we think the cost per ton mile could be reduced by 75% from today's rates. That's going to be cheaper than rail. It's going to drive more goods over trucks, and it's going to complete. transform logistics as we know it. Wow. The electric trucks will do zero to 100 kilometers an hour or 60 miles an hour in five seconds versus 15 seconds for the average truck. In a worst case scenario with a max gross vehicle weight of 80,000 pounds or about 36 tons, the truck will be able to get 500 miles of range. An electric truck is inherently easier to drive because there's no gears, but meanwhile, it's not uncommon for normal trucks to have over 16 gears. Tesla claims that 30 minutes

Starting point is 00:02:01 of charge will get you 400 miles. And for reference, to fill the tank of a normal truck takes about 15 minutes. So either way, this makes sense if you've been driving a long time and just need a break. Autopilot will be standard, so if you have a medical emergency while driving, the truck will keep to its lane, gradually stop, and if it doesn't hear a response from you, it even calls an ambulance. The truck has also claimed to be a lot safer. One of the reasons is due to a lower center of gravity from the weight of the battery packs, making rollovers very unlikely. The risk of the truck jackknifing has also been said to be virtually eliminated due to independent torque vectoring on each wheel. The company is offering a one million mile

Starting point is 00:02:42 guarantee on each of these vehicles. So although that's all pretty cool and potentially revolutionary, the main story was the Tesla Roaster 2.0. The original Roaster was the car that started Tesla back in 2008. The electric car has had its share of obituaries over the years, but the new American car company Tesla is determined to prove that the concept is a workable one. The manufacturer has just launched the Tesla Roadster, an electric car that looks good and can hold its own in the performance arena. So far, Tesla is off to a promising start. Tesla has pre-sold about 900 cars, and it plans to build and sell over 3,000 more in 2009

Starting point is 00:03:22 and 2010. And in 2017, it was finally time for a refresh. The new updated model is an absolute beast. So as many of you know, it can do 0 to 100 km an hour or 60 miles an hour in 1.9 seconds and it's the first production car in the world to break the two second barrier. And it can do 0 to 160 km an hour or 100 miles an hour in 4.2 seconds. It's said to also produce 10 kilo Newton meters of torque at the wheels. At the recent presentation, Musk didn't say the top speed, but did say that it was above 250

Starting point is 00:03:55 miles an hour or 400 kilometers an hour. By comparison the Egera RS by Sweden's Koenigzeg currently holds the world record at 277.9 miles an hour or about 445 kilometers an hour. The crowd was still getting over the top speed figures when Musk announced that the roadster had a 200 kilowatt hour battery which would provide at 620 miles of range or over 1,000 kilometers. For comparison the P100d has about 420 miles of range. I think the range will be key to converting or at least convincing those that are critical of electric cars that this is no longer a gimmick and also for all of this it's important to note that this is the base

Starting point is 00:04:36 model the slowest option of this new Tesla Roadster. So the question has to be asked is this actually feasible or is this pie in the sky? Or the website Jalopnik spoke with Carnegie Mellon's then-cat-viswanathan a mechanical engineering assistant professor who focuses on next generation battery technology. He remarked that the 1.9 second figure actually seems reasonable. He added that a 200 kilowatt hour battery pack can easily go 600 miles. An interesting point of note is he estimates that the battery weight alone will be 833 kilograms or 1,800 pounds. As it turns out, it's actually the grip on the tires and the management of getting the

Starting point is 00:05:15 power down from the motors to the actual wheels that will be the main bottlenecks in this vehicle. But Tesla has actually had a lot of experience with the P100D on that front, so it seems reasonable that they could get that done. The thing that stood out to me is that this car is breaking all the records. It looks like Tesla is doing this to make a solid point. This vehicle is meant to be a statement, a kind of watershed moment, to tell people that this is the direction that cars are going to take. No one can argue with it if it's faster, quicker, and more value for money than most super

Starting point is 00:05:47 that are out there, but that is if the production model has the same numbers that are listed for the prototype figures. Speaking of other supercars, here's a fun list of how the Rosed to 2.0 stacks up against the petrol competition. Nissen GtR Nismo version, 0 to 60 in 2.7 seconds costing you 175,000. McLaren P1 GtR, 0 to 60, 2.4 seconds at a cost of $3.6 million. Bighini of Ventador SV, 0 to 60, 2.4 seconds again, cost 493,000. Bugatti-Sheron, 0 to 60, 2.3 seconds, cost 2.6 million. Now this next one is interesting. The Dodge

Starting point is 00:06:32 Challenger S.R.T. Demon coming out next year, 0 to 60 in 2.3 seconds, cost $84,000. So that's actually great value for money. Next up, the Porsche 918 spider, 0 to 60 in 2.2.2 seconds cost 845,000 and then of course the new Tesla Roadster zero to 60 in 1.9 seconds cost 200,000. So the question must be asked are there any cars that can actually do zero to 60 in under two seconds right now? The answer is yes but they're all F1 cars dragsters or rally cars but surprisingly the acceleration of F1 cars average from about 2.1 seconds to 2.7 seconds. For fun NASA's Saturn 5 rocket can do zero to 60 in 1.5 seconds. But if you want the ultimate, a top fuel dragster

Starting point is 00:07:23 can do that in 0.8 seconds. It accelerates so quickly that the car is already traveling at 60 miles an hour by the time the rear tires have crossed the start line. You've got to keep in mind that these drag cars can't even turn properly and need a parachute to even slow down. This isn't to mention that they can only seat one person and consume over half a standard tank of fuel per run. So all and all, 1.9 seconds. by Tesla in a production car isn't bad at all. And if the company can get this into production by 2020 as planned, the world has no choice but to realize that they're looking at the future.

Starting point is 00:07:58 But all of that being said, it's not all roses for Tesla. There's a wider context at play that I should talk about. Some analysts were saying that this new roadster may have been a way to shift investor attention away from the Model 3 production issues and reignite some excitement in the company. And I got to say that when I was watching the announcement, I hadn't sensed such excitement and elation from a crowd since the Apple keynotes of old. I'm not so sure if the sole purpose of the Roadster was to shift attention away from the Model 3, but I can certainly see the announcement being rushed forward to partly achieve that. So anyway, what production issues am I talking about

Starting point is 00:08:32 with the Model 3? As most of you know, the Model 3 was supposed to be the electric car that was for the masses. When it was launched back in July, the company was anticipating a production rate of 20,000 cars per month by the end of December. In the last quarter, though, Tesla only produced 260 Model 3s. Earlier in November, Tesla pushed back its target volume production on the Model 3 by about three months to fix production bottlenecks. It's no secret that the fate of Tesla largely hangs on the success of the Model 3, so it's important that they get this right, and with vehicles like the electric semi-truck and the new roadster in the pipeline, I really do want Tesla to succeed so that these vehicles come to fruition.

Starting point is 00:09:12 It would be a lot easier to sit and criticize about how the company is missing deadlines, But I think it's worth appreciating the magnitude of what the company is actually trying to do within the auto industry It's not easy for such a small and brand new company So hopefully the production issues get sorted out and the rest flows smoothly from there So anyway, what do you guys think? What's your views on the Tesla truck and the new roadster? Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below Anyway, thanks for watching I know I've been away for a little while I've actually been pretty sick. I'm feeling better now, but I recently just got my house broken into so that was another thing to add to

Starting point is 00:09:46 what was going on but everything should be on track after this week. Anyway, thanks for watching, I'll see you guys seen for the next video. This has been Degogo, you'll be watching Cold Fusion. Cheers guys, have a good one.

ColdFusion - New Tesla Roadster - The BIG Picture

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.