At Least One Truck Driver Was Unimpressed by Tesla's Semi


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Jonathan Ramsey of Autoblog spent nine months driving semi trucks across the country. In that time, he learned a few things about the trucker life. So, when Tesla unveiled their new, all-electric truck, he immediately noticed some potential problems.

Most of his issues were with the layout. Namely, that the central seating position actually exacerbates some of the blind spot issues inherent to such a large vehicle. He also was worried about the apparent lack of mirrors. Especially at night, screens are not the ideal replacement for all mirrors so, despite their drag penalty, Ramsey would prefer a lot more physical mirrors.

Read More: Tesla Driver Uses Nifty Remote Driving Feature to Avoid Parking Tickets

Beyond the layout, he mentioned that touting acceleration in a semi truck is missing the biggest concern of truck drivers, which is stopping. This may not be an issue at all, as there is no indication the truck won't perform as well or better than current trucks, but since it wasn't covered at the unveiling, it is still a question mark.

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It seems that Tesla was not showing off its trucks to truckers as much as they were showing off to the rest of us whose experience with trucks is limited to wishing we weren't stuck behind or beside them. We didn't even think about half of the stuff Ramsey points out. To be fair though, we also forgot the truck even existed after Tesla did a surprise unveiling of the Tesla Roadster at the same event.

This article was first published on November 20, 2017.

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