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goobster  ·  2564 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Tesla Semi and Roadster Event summarized

Lots of conversation around this unveiling, here at work today. The Slack channel is full of discussion!

Big picture: Good. It's about time people rethought the semi truck driver experience and stepped out of the "safe" designs we have been stuck with for years.

360-degree view of the vehicle at all times? Good.

Windows are... odd? How do you reach over and hand your paperwork to the receiver in their little booth at the gate of the delivery location? That center seating position helps eliminate blind spots, but is going to introduce some practical kinks... like re-learning how to back up to a loading dock. A lot of that is gut, not visibility. Getting drivers to rely on screens for backing up (as long as a bug splat hasn't obscured a key camera's view) is going to be like switching from a keyboard to a PlayStation controller... slow and error-prone at first, before it becomes learned and second-nature.

Anti-jackknifing is the thing that has us most in a tizzy, though.

With two separate motors on each wheel, I expect there are some very clever algorithms that the computer can rely on to modify the power/drag generated by each wheel, to mitigate the trailer coming around the cab and jackknifing.

I think this is going to be FASCINATING to watch, in practice, on a skid pad...