I think what he has achieved from a zero start has been impressive. In one generation of the VW Golf he has bought a company to market. Lets not forget he got a bump start from our very own Lotus as well. I see great value for the truck around a couple of things once they are developed more.
No one is mentioning the driver-free element of the truck activities. He is not only giving us an electric truck platform but also one with the best developed automated assistance. Whilst the first couple of driverless dings have been well documented it remains the most effective. Using this will make the trunk root trucks a lot cheaper potentially. When they permit truck to truck communication chaining they will be able to pack them quite tightly on the main routes. I do worry about a train of ten of these things causing hell at junctions as it blocks lane change. Who said rail-freight?
The torque and braking characteristics of electric motors will provide better control over the truck. This will be valuable in rain, slush and snow on congested motorways. With this and the added sensors that Tesla focus on this can only improve safety.
The mostly silent drivetrain will reduce this aspect of road noise which is valuable as we build more homes adjacent to roads in the densely packed UK. We cannot change the ground rumble effect but it all helps. As a lot of the heavy trucks run at night to improve efficiency now this will be doubly useful.
All we need to do now is get the national grid ready for these greedy monsters.
We had Freightliner (MB US Brand) as a customer and they were very nervous when talking about Tesla as this was already a rumour from hiring patterns.
