This is the new Tesla Semi. This is the long range 500 mile model. Putting the driver in the middle of the cab so we could actually have grounder front face and narrower upper portion of the cab just so we could be slicker through the air. We cut about a thousand pounds out of the truck and this long range truck, the 500 mile version, is about on par and in par because it's got a two thousand pound weight exemption that electric vehicles have. This truck can charge at 1.2 megawatts so we can recover about 60% in 30 minutes. The economics are right, the parts is ready, we have the factory standing up but we have ample demand. On a per mile basis this truck is 50% cheaper to run here in California.
Well, now the episode of J-Lion's garage. We're outside my garage today because the vehicle we're going to be showing you is too big-definite. This is the new Tesla Semi. This is the long range 500 mile model. We have a small model with this too with us. Is Franz, you know, him, he's the director of styling at Tesla and Dan, the semi-director, right? The whole project. Come on in guys, how are you? Good to see you again. Great to see you. Yeah, very cool. I'm sorry about all the noise we're at the airport so we're going to hear some planes in the background.
Well let's talk about design. As a designer you design everything in the whole Tesla range, the sports cars, the sedan and the semi as well. The idea that something looks aerodynamic is not really aerodynamic is it? Aerodynamics is a totally different thing than what people think. Well on something like this, it's really important to get aerodynamics and drag coefficient as low as possible. And we thought about that from the very beginning and made some really unique architectural design ideas like putting the driver in the middle of the cab so we could actually have a rounder front face and narrower upper portion of the cab just so we could be slicker through the air as we get back to the trailer and you know if you remember when we debuted this semi years back.
All this trailer? Yeah. So you just keep going and you'll feel it going. Keep going. There we go. I'll give it a little throttle. I didn't feel like I'm pulling anything. Yeah. It's amazing. Yeah we're pushing a good load back there. 60, 70,000 pounds. Girls vehicle weight and you're not feeling it. Yeah, make Albuquerque by morning. We said the drag coefficient was lower than a Bugatti Varon. Right. And we've through those years we've actually improved on that and what is it now? From the last time we saw you it's a 7% improvement on the air efficiency from force. The CD is about 0.4. About 0.4. Because I remember when this sort of cab with the, I know what you call this top piece there.
When they put that on gas powered and diesel powered truck truckers thought it was ugly. They hated it. Yeah. But they realized they got like 20% improvement. Well, if you think about it, you're trying to move a big box through the air. And so the more bullet shape knows you can put on the front of that box. Well, it's funny because what we think of our dynamic like my Lamborghini Cooonshash people think it's a brick. It's worth some of Volkswagen. The only good thing is it's like an upside down wing, right? So at least it's got it. Yeah, but it's not aerodynamic at all. And what is aerodynamic is so much different. Prius. Right. For example, aerodynamic. And this is, it's really just pure aerodynamics, isn't it? The architecture of the truck is really designed around that.
So if you think about a traditional truck has a big motor in the front, transmission down the middle, you have to sit on the side and therefore you end up being a really wide cabin, right? We didn't have any of that. You know, the batteries down low, it's underneath the floor. We could put the driver anywhere. So we thought, let's put him in the middle, really create a narrow cab that, you know, slowly winds out bullet shape back to the trailer and really maximize air efficiency. When if you kind of, if you were to go back and look at how can you put a more air efficient nose on the front of a box? Right. I mean, it's hard to get more air efficient than this truck.
Well, Daniel, let me ask you the other director here, is your job to convince? I mean, there's no more old school than truckers. There's trucks have looked the same since 1918. The first different truck was the Corvette or the Corvette truck with the engine in the back. And that was just, well, I mean, people just rebelled. Even when they did the Ford F-1, just surviving, they had trucker door handles and, you know, manly things. And no touch screen, none of that. I mean, you're really trying to change a whole culture with this, aren't you?
Absolutely. And we spent a lot of time interviewing drivers listening to them, collecting feedback, both before we unveiled the original one. But then in the last few years, we've collected a lot of fleet feedback from all the drivers that have spent time in the truck. And they really appreciate the electric design because it's quiet, it's smooth. It's a really good place to work. They're spending half a day at a time in the truck. And so it's a really important work and office space, not just the thing they're moving down the road.
And if we wanted to make it extremely comfortable, you have really good visibility. You're right that sometimes we get some skeptical drivers. But when they get behind it and they see all the benefits, they come around really quickly. And that's a theme that we continue to see over and over.
Yeah, what's the most surprising thing you talked to some guys that you yoga on the road? You have truckers doing yoga, you know, but because it helps them in their job because they're sitting all day. I mean, was there feedback where you went, oh, we didn't we didn't expect this at all. Is it pretty much what you thought?
They're two pieces to it. On the operational side, folks are really happy with the range and the performance of the truck. We're starting to get away from the misconceptions that electric is bad. And we've done that on a light duty side for years. But now, with the truck side, it's got the range. It has the power and the efficiency to do their job. So it enables their job and that's the bare minimum requirement. They're really satisfied with how that has gone.
And now it's about what's the experience. And the feedback there has been stellar. Again, it's quiet. They love the seat. It's really smooth. So just the power delivery and how easy it is to drive is another thing that has been a nice confirmation of the thesis we had at the start.
Is this a kind of vehicle an independent trucker could buy from self as just mostly fleet sales, you know, FedEx and that kind of thing? Because I think as an independent trucker, their big thing is fuel costs. Like now, they're going crazy because fuel is up 10 cents a gallon, 15 cents a gallon. That's the whole profit when you're using the 3000 gallons of fuel, you know, can an independent buy this and use it as an independent trucker?
Yeah, absolutely. And we actually have seen a large surge in interest from smaller regional fleets along with independent owner operators. And that's because one, electric prices are more stable. They're less likely to have those fluctuations than diesel prices do. So it gives them some assurance.
Secondly, we've been really public about our intent to put charging out into the world. So we're launching a mega charging network for the semi so that there's charging beyond what might be where the truck is parked overnight. And also we have service to go along with that. We already have service centers and we have starting stations down here in the Los Angeles area.
So by putting those things out into the world, those independent drivers have confidence that they have the support they need to do their job. Yeah, I remember when Elon came in 2007 with the original roadster. Oh, we're going to build this electric car. I'm going to have charging stations all along the road like to San Francisco. I'm going to ride that. And you know, and really until recently, even major manufacturers built electric cars. Oh, you can charge any what? Well, no, you can't. You know, I mean, you guys, you're the only ones that were building the infrastructure as you were building the car, which I just thought was pretty amazing. I mean, it's hard enough to build a car. And while you're doing it, your convince is going to be so successfully stopped buying property. Yeah, I think that's great. Well, I think it also helps people feel convinced about the product, right?
Knowing that there's a service center. If there's an issue, they can go somewhere that they can charge it. If they can't charge it at home, they can charge anywhere. They can go, you can go cross-country right at the beginning. So that ease of mind, like the ranging Zadi goes away, right? And now you can go anywhere just like. Yeah, the odd thing to me is that electricity has become political. I'd like one, but I'm a Republican one. I don't get why it's political. I don't get it. It's electricity. Yeah. And to me, I have gas and electric. I have both. And when I go to the airport, I have to take a long trip. I take the electric because sitting on the 405 and a 66-coronet with a hammy is not funny. It's not fun and it's a lot of money. Right. Let's talk about tires. If you all know these use ordinary truck tires, you have to buy special Tesla low-rolling resistance.
Yeah, there's nothing special or unique that's for this truck. So we can use off-the-shelf tires. We have a recommended set that help you extend your range because the rolling resistance is a large piece of it, but you can put any set of tires on that work for your operation. Does this weigh more than the equivalent gasoline truck? Yeah, so since the last time we are here, we cut about a thousand pounds out of the truck. And this long-range truck, the 500-mile version, is about on par and in part because it's got a 2,000 pound weight exemption that electric vehicles have. So payload parity is very possible for most applications. What we hear from customers is they usually like to haul about a 45,000 pound payload. And we can definitely do that with this truck. It's out doing it every day. The standard range, which we'll see later, is even lighter and really has a good potential to slot into basically any weight, equivalent operation.
Well, thinking of me as me was the Cybertruck is two tons lighter than the Hummer. Yeah, electric. Yeah. I mean, two tons. Yeah. I assume they'd be about the same batteries or batteries, but they're not. You you're really making a low, the battery size in the Cybertruck is half that. Right. One in the Hummer. So you're. But the equivalent. Reduced. Yeah, equivalent energy at the end of the day. And touching back on the aerodynamics, part of why it's so important is that if we want to do a certain amount of range in the day, 500 miles in this case, we need a certain amount of energy to do it. If you make the truck more aerodynamic, that's less battery on board. Yeah. Lighter truck, more payload you can carry. There's a really great compounding effect there.
And this, this is regen also as it goes down the road. Yeah, that's right. So we've got full capability for regen to go down steep grades at highway speed and keep you in control. So whether that's like grapevine, what you've got here locally or some of the other big passes, you can descend those comfortably and never touch the brakes. Right. We've got ample power both to take you up the grade and down the grade and without ever changing from the speed limit. So you're never a dog in the right lane, everybody's flying by you and going down, you never have to touch the brakes. It's like a great, more modern version of engine braking, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, diesel trucks. Exactly, yeah. But much finer control and cruise control will keep you at that speed using that regen to do it.
Well, it's interesting because you guys you hit two years ago at this. And then that time, you've made about a couple thousand. We made a few hundred of them. A few hundred of them. But I just like it's just a quiet rollout just see how it goes. I mean, I've seen a few marineries. Why isn't it more publicity on this? But it's sort of just R&D, isn't it? The whole time. Well, it's also yeah, it's also about exposing it to our customers and getting them comfortable. And they've got a lot of feedback. And that's why now we feel as the time for scale, the economics are right. The price is ready. We have the factory standing up. But we have ample demand. And the fleet that's been out there now with a few hundred trucks has driven more than 13 and a half million miles. Our lead truck is at almost 440,000 that they're out running really hard every day doing good work. These aren't just demo show trucks. Right. And so there's a lot of confidence that they've built up.
And your maintenance is no oil change jobs. There's no brake fluid, maybe? No, because these are air brakes. So your maintenance on them is really low. And the service team has been exceptional with our the fleet time is usually up 95% uptime. Almost 75 80% of breakdowns if you have one are returned back to the customer less than 24 hours. And it's actually almost half or back to a customer with an unhour. So we're right there with rapid response. And we've designed the truck to be easy to maintain because the truck makes you money. So even if you're a fleet or an owner operator, you've got to get that truck and that tool back on the road. And what is the most common breakdown? I mean electric motors don't really require any maintenance at all. Do they? No, the the drive train is extremely reliable.
Whether it's the battery pack itself or the motors, those are the extremely reliable components. But trucks do a lot of different work and get a lot of stuff thrown at them. And so we do have the occasional wear out issue. You can get some lines rubbing, for example. And we've taken all those learnings and fed them back into the updated high volume design that we've got here today. And the level of engineering has really upped that and improved the reliability substantially. This can drive all night because there's no a driver that doesn't have to stop at 500 miles or get his wife to drive the other half. You know those teams that do it. So that's an advantage, isn't it if it's autonomous? Yeah. So we as a company really believe in autonomy. And autonomy has an opportunity to increase not just the convenience for the driver, but also a huge amount of safety. And that's really where we're coming with a lot of the features that we're introducing.
And it's safety both for the driver that's operating at start, but also for everybody else on the road is we have a lot of sensors. We use the cameras on board to ensure the vehicle knows its surroundings. And then we use all the integrated software that Tesla has been developing to keep the vehicle in control. And it's really about safety is our primary goal there. Let's say you're going to saline the Kansas. You get your 500 miles. You pull into it. It's like an airplane coming in does the someone say a Tesla truck coming in for refuel or recharge? How does that work? I mean you could have an attendant that would plug it in for example, but we also see an opportunity for doing automated charging in the future as well. Oh I see. Yeah something we're working on with the cars. So. Oh it just pulls in automatically. I guess like a thing you drive over.
Drive over exactly. Well that's pretty cool. Yeah, conductive charge. Okay, how long does a 500 mile charge take? So this truck can charge at 1.2 megawatts. Right. And so we can recover about 60% in 30 minutes. Wow. 30 minutes. Yeah, so with the ideas there with a 500 mile charge driver can go out and do their day. Now for some areas 500 miles is ample for your entire operation. Right. But let's just say you need to stop and charge. You do that during your mandatory 30 minute break and you can recover up to 300 miles of additional range to extend your day. So it really covers a huge majority of the envelope of truck operations within a single driver's shift. And there's no penalty for charging. You're never stopping exclusively for charging. Right. Oh I see. Oh well that's yeah.
Yeah that's pretty amazing. It's really impressive. And we talked a little bit about the architecture and still sticking with the center driver. Right. Dan talked about how the interior cabin is actually the office for the operator. And when you go inside you'll see you can actually stand up. You can have multiple people in that space that would be the same footprint as a normal truck where you only have the ability to sit in your seat. So a lot more flexible space on the inside.
But in the front end of the truck we updated the graphics. We have a much more modern light bar now that we didn't have on the previous version. Similar to Cybertruck and Cybertcab. So really kind of pushing this new design direction. It feels more modern I think. And we've just like we touched on we've been working on the air dynamics of the truck and just improving improving improving. So there's a lot of the general shape of the truck looks the same. We made a lot of engineering improvements since the last time we were here.
And it's been mostly in the name of moving towards high volume. So that's updated designs for high manufacturer ability and tooling. But also we've taken a lot of the engineering from other products and brought it into the semi. We've gone from a hydraulic steering system to hydraulic assist to now it's a fully electric assist. So it's still a connected system. It's not steer by wire. But we've brought over the Cybertruck actuators beefed them up a little bit because of the steering loads.
But we've brought that over. It's a 48 volt architecture now throughout the vehicle on low voltage. Yep. So we still do local down conversion for 12 volt accessories that a driver might need for example. But we've brought that next generation 48 volt architecture that Cybertruck debuted with because it's just more efficient and it's a lot less mass and wiring harnesses.
We've updated communications. There's been a huge uptick in the engineering to bring this truck really into the same portfolio that the rest of the products are that we have. And now these lithium ion batteries are even something more advanced than that. So this is lithium ion. And we're leveraging the same cell type that we use in the Cybertruck. It's arranged in a different array within the truck but it's all into modules and then packs that are low to the ground so it keeps center of gravity low.
It's integrated really densely with the overall chassis to maximize structural performance and keep the weight down. So we're taking a lot of the same lessons from the car side including the cell itself into the battery design here. And how how rebuildable are these I mean lithium ion to the battery lasts the life of the vehicle or is it you know half a half a million miles that's that you need to do battery pack.
The battery is designed to last a million miles. You will see some degradation over time but we see that it can last in its original duty cycle a million miles. Well you know it's interesting I have that McLaren P1 and that has a hybrid system right and my battery is 12 years old and it's 92% still. Yeah because I keep it on a charger. I know other guys are on a third battery because you know they go to Europe for a month and they come back and things dead and they've got a shock impact user neglect.
Yeah that's what that's what it is. So if you have a vehicle like this is it better to keep it on the charger all the time. Well the best thing to do is actually get it on the road all the time. Right. Because that's how it makes you money. So the cells and the battery is actually designed. We think about it it's a little bit more like one of our energy products like our mega pack or power wall on wheels.
Right. It is doing a lot of discharges it does like one a day so it's up and down. It's not like a car where you might only be doing 10 or 20% a day. The benefit here is that you've got a cell and a battery that is designed for that throughput. You really want this on the road. The more energy throughput you are putting through the system. The greater fuel savings you have compared to if you were doing that work with diesel.
So it's really about getting it on the road as much as you can. And the thing that amazed me was I wasn't wondering well how could they have a center driving position because you can't have it in the car because there's no way for the airbag. But trucks don't need airbags or any of that today. Yeah. The great regulations.
Yeah. I never knew that. I just assumed all vehicles produced the United States had to have an airbag. But trucks don't. Trucks do not. Yeah. There's actually very few overall safety regulations. Like brakes are highly regulated. Right. And testing for that. But there's no mandatory crash testing. There's no airbag requirement. Even the advanced safety features are far behind what is mandatory on the car side.
So we're really leaning into the safety side on this and trying to make it the safest truck on the road both for the occupant. Right. Also for everybody else around. Yeah. Well very cool. Now this is as you've mentioned the long-range truck. It's a little bit bigger. We have a small one over here. Right. And what's the range on that one? That one does about 325 miles of the same truck. So that mostly for running around the city part of LA. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Because it's so funny here in California. You know. I used to think Disneyland was 120 miles from there because it's just 2.5 miles. It's 38 miles. But when you go quickly it's 2.5 miles. Yeah. It's just 3 hours. I can't wait. I can't just assume it was 1.5 miles away. I went no. Okay. So that's that's one we're going to drive the smaller one. Yeah. Okay. Very cool. Well let's go let's go check it out. Let's go check it out. Let's go.
Okay. I'm in front of the shorter range model. I guess this panel is bigger on the other one this part here. It's a little different. And I guess there's no driver side either side. Yeah. I get in whatever size can be in it. The middle like you like the car and F1. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Now this. Yeah. So that's new. The last truck that we had had a single pane and it would tilt out and you'd have to you know pass clipboards through and go around. Yeah. And we found that that was really you know not really convenient. Right. So we worked on getting a drop glass. So now you can pass through. You can reach out to gates and have access. All right. Let's just make the experience in and out much better.
Now let me ask something. Let's say I'm I need to go to Minnesota. North Dakota. It's December. I mean electric cars are somewhat notorious in cold weather for mileage drops 20% 30% is that a problem with this or how is it different. We do a lot of extensive cold weather testing. Yeah. Actually right now we have several trucks up in Alaska doing that. And so we try to expose it to Defer cold temps as well as different types of snow and ice because it all builds up differently on the truck. But the truck performs exceptionally well whether that's because it has instant traction control from the benefit of electric motors. But also we've done a lot to incorporate a thermal system with our heat pump. It's really efficient. And so we can move thermal energy throughout the vehicle very quickly. We can scavenge it from the outside. We can bring it from the battery pack or the motors that are working hard put it in the cab. So we can move thermal energy all around the truck to keep it in the most optimal and efficient operating point. So the range drop isn't nearly as big as what is usually thought. You do have it because we can't fight the fact the air is denser. The tires don't roll as well. So you do see a degradation but you would see a similar effect on diesel trucks as well.
Okay so let's say I'm in normal Alaska. I go to a hotel. This truck is actually running all night right because the heat pump keeps it circulating all the time. No actually it does go idle and it's not running. But the battery pack actually retains a lot of mass in part because of its shape. So it's a cube is opposed to a pancake. So it stays warm pretty much overnight even in extremely cold temperatures. So it'll be ready for operation in the next day. Now I was though I was always ready to believe about 74 degrees Fahrenheit. It's about the optimal the best temperature for an electric battery. Is that if that's still true today or that? No. Just an old thing. From an efficiency standpoint. Yeah about that like 20, 30 c is about where we see peak efficiency. Right. But the battery pack is independently controlled in terms of temperature and it's much happier to actually run at a slightly warmer temperature. Right. You get better performance, greater efficiency of energy in and out of the battery pack. And that's where that thermal system does a really good job of keeping it at its optimal performance temperature.
So it like a diesel truck it's a liquid cool battery system. Yeah that's right. So we've brought out over a lot of the same componentry that we have from our passenger car side. So same compressor, same pumps, a lot of the same valves also that we have high volume and high reliability. But it's actually a really elegant solution for moving this liquid. It's just a standard automotive coolant throughout the system. But non water, it's like a what do you call it? It's like a glycoil water-based solution. Yeah. What is water? Oh it is water-based. Yeah it's a mix. Okay. That's interesting. Okay. Well very cool. How often do you change that every half a million miles or like never? I guess you never do huh? No it's okay. I mean it is serviceable and so if you end up swapping a component that has coolant in it you might need to top it off. But it's designed to have a system that you don't need to do any service or maintenance.
So it's life for the car. Coolant pretty much. Yeah. Very very good. And let me ask about you see a lot of the big food trucks and you had transporting beef across the country. It's got to be frozen. It plugs into the electrical system and the diesel. Same thing here. Yeah so on a traditional trailer they have an independent refrigerated unit that has its own diesel pony motor on it to keep the refrigeration at the right temperature in the trailer. Okay. But for us it just it felt wrong. Like why do we have an electric truck that is then also pulling a diesel engine on the back of it? Right. It doesn't make sense. And also they're really noisy. They're actually consume a lot of fuel. They're not very efficient. And so we said let's see if we can power that off of the truck itself.
So we're actually using the same power electronics that we use from the cyber truck that can power a home for example. Right. We've reconfigured those to power a refrigerated trailer unit. And so now the whole combination can be electric. And it doesn't just have to be refrigerated units. It could be other electrical high power accessories. So if you had a production truck for example for the entertainment industry that could power it. It's meant to be a universal interface that folks can use as an electric power takeoff rather than powering accessories off of an independent generator or what they usually do which is like a hydraulic system off. Do I lose any of my 500 mile range with that electric? It is an additional energy draw.
Right. Just goes into the modeling and understanding what is your operation. How does it work for you? But we find that that additional energy again is a fuel savings payback because those small generators and engines are really inefficient. Right. Okay. All right. Very cool. Let's take a first spin. Yeah, let's do it. Now for us I know you've got to go finish designing my. Your register. Yes. I'm avoiding my Tesla roadster. And the anticipation it seems to keep you getting more exciting. It's got all kinds of trick stuff on. We won't disappoint. You'll enjoy your ride. All right. You're in good hands. Now what goes? I can get ahead of me to the side. All right. You still got to come around this side.
Yep. That's it. I think this would be the definition of commanding vehicle of the road. Yes. And I guess you just use your iPhone for music or entertainment. Yeah, you can. We also have brought over a lot of the infotainment from the car side. So we have the same built-in apps. But a lot of drivers do stream from their phone as well. Yeah. Yeah. You were actually the first non-testless person to be operating with you. Oh, is that right? Well, that's an honor. Well, thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah. Well, I'm a big fan of it. You know, anything that gives you all try to do what you have is good because you know, I mean, you look at this war going on in Iran now. I mean, so you need all the turn-in forms of transportation.
More we have the better. Yeah. And thankfully, electric really does insulate you from a lot of those fluctuations. And you can be entirely self-generating if you want between solar and then storage and putting charging on your site. You can be really an energy independent on your own. You guys investigate fusion at all? For the last 50 years fusion is we're going to be the big one at some point. Yeah. I just wondered when it would get here. And it might get there. We like to say though that we do have a giant very reliable fusion reactor in the sky. That is the sun. Right. And we want to use solar to capture that energy.
Right. And that's going to continue to shine every day. So well, that's harness that first. Yeah. Right. Like I said, true. Yeah, when that stops shining, you get bigger problems. Exactly. Yeah. Plus there's a psychological effect. Like with the hydrogen cars, the Hindenburg did not blow up. There's no hydrogen. It would sell you those paint. But people get it in their mind. You know, it's funny how rumors. You know, last night I drove my car there. These one guy said to me, these blow up, right? No, they don't blow them blow up. It's air-cooled. It's not going to blow up. It's certainly easy enough to drive. Especially without a trailer. It basically drives like one of our cars. Right. It's a big car. Very easy to great experience. No shifting. A lot of the aspects that are great about electrification. It's a torque response. Right. You just make a truck drive experience that much better.
Does it make any difference to an electric motor or how fast it's spinning? For example, if you put a two-speed rear end in this. Yeah. And you get up above 60 and then the RPM cuts in half. Do you save more electricity or no? Yeah, that's an excellent question. And motors operate a little differently in terms of their torque and power curve than an engine. Right. And they solve a lot of the needs of what they have to do by gearing. We've chosen a different strategy. So there is no shifting. We could do a two-speed, but that's a lot of intricate mechanicals and it represents potential reliability issue. So we've taken a different approach. So we have two axles. We have the torque axle on the front and that's geared for acceleration for hill climb. Those big power maneuvers. And then we have a separate axle that is geared for efficiency.
So when you get to highway speed, the torque axle actually completely disengages. The wheels are still on the ground, but there's nothing spinning internal that could be drag that would have an efficiency penalty. So we try to give you really smooth torque delivery throughout the entire band, all the power you need, but then also get to maximum efficiency when you're out on the highway. Yeah, it's interesting. I have a white steam car. 19-0, 19, well, I got a bunch of 19-10, 19-7. And they have a two-speed rear end. And the idea being that you well, your evolution is totally different. A gas car trying to get the heat out, steam car trying to keep the heat in. But the two-speed rear end works, it's the only steam car that's developed with the two-speed rear end because with a thousand foot pounds of torque from zero, you don't really need it, but it just drops the revs and the amount of vibration and everything.
I mean, it's a fascinating, you would get a kick out of the white steam car. Yeah, it is truly an Edwardian scientific instrument. It has a thing called the flow motor. It all works on temperature and pressure. It's all mechanical, no electric. It's really the ultimate steam pump kind of vehicle. That's the, and real steam pump, not the phone-e-steam pump. I mean, it's pretty cool. The original Roadster actually had a two-speed. I know, I broke it. He brought it to the garage and I shifted and by the time I get back, it was in trouble. It couldn't take the tremendous amount of torque. Yeah, and now, we eventually biased towards a single-speed for all of our cars, but then with the advent of the plaid powertrain, we've taken a similar approach over here on semi of being able to increase the motor RPM, decrease the gap between the rotor and the stator.
We've really been able to get a much flatter torque curve so that you don't get that power degradation as the RPM's getting near their top end. And so we have to really eliminate the need for that two-speed, but we've solved it here by doing just two different axle gear ratios entirely. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Well, I got something you'd also get a kick out of my Chrysler turbine car. Yeah. You know the story and that? I got it about 15 years ago. I only know of it. I don't know the story. Oh, the engine melted down on it. I mean, literally, and there's no parts. So we found 60 guys from the original team all over the age of 80. And they said, we'll build you a new motor, you just pay for parts.
So Williams' turbines and the Troy, his father worked on the original turbine car, right? He gives the clean room. And these guys had brought out all their engineering plans from 1962, all the ideas that they never got to incorporate, and they built a brand new turbine. I mean, it's fascinating. I'll show it to you. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, that type of engineering and innovation and willing to just try new things is it resulted in a lot of really cool stuff in the automotive space over the years. Oh, yeah. It's really, it is cool. Because even in 1906, a third was electric, a third was steam, and a third was in terms of combustion, and they didn't know which one was going to win. Yeah. You know, so it's interesting.
Yeah, and now in the heavy trucks phase, while it's been dominated by diesel, we're really making a play to switch it to electric. And it's not just because from a sustainability point, it's great. It's really about economics. Right. On a per mile basis, this truck is from an energy standpoint, 50% cheaper to run here in California. When we talk about across the US, we're about, we're nearly 20% cheaper on a per mile basis, and that's inclusive of everything, not just energy, whether it's reduced maintenance, and just fuel as well. So we're really talking about total cost of ownership, being substantially less, which will really get a lot of people to adopt it.
You know, I used to love the Chevy Volt with the paddles here. Rather than use the brake, it squeezed the paddles to increase the amount of regen. Yeah. And I just like that there, like I watch it. Oh, I can't do much. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we've really moved towards just controlling that throttle, including regen with your foot. And Ford cancels their electric lightning, the F-150. Yeah. I'm hopeful that they're making new investments into a new platform that will allow them to go to electric at scale and profitably, because we want more players in this space. Whether it's on the light duty side or on the heavy duty side, we can't go this alone.
I really need everybody all in. I thought the lightning was a great vehicle. It was a nice transition. I had all the truck, you know, switched gear and everything. I drove for a while and then I saved a fortune again. Yeah. I mean, it's so incredibly easy to drive. You get a commanding view of the road. It's way as pretty good. Yeah. And that's the feedback we consistently get from drivers. And we do a lot of demos with our customers. So, and we'll work with small or big fleets, and they can demo the truck for several weeks, put it in their operations, and make sure it's going to work for them.
And the consistent feedback that they give us is the worst part of the demo is we have to give the truck back. Right. Right. So, we've been really proud of what we've been able to showcase, and now we've got a lot of a long list of interesting customers. We get at the question a lot, why did we get into the heavy truck space? And the reason is that the medium space, as opposed to doing a delivery van or, you know, some type of walk-in van, that space is a little tough because you're not actually consuming that much fuel.
You're going low speeds, short distance throughout the day. And so, especially early on when you're trying to bring electric vehicles to scale, and there's price premium, it's really difficult to pay back that investment. Well, to me, it's kind of like the restaurant industry. You're going to make money at the high end. Yeah. Or make money at the low end. So, when you open a denny's or a sit-down restaurant with a waitress in a tip, that's where you that's where you suffer. Yeah. You go to a regular restaurant with your friend, it's 60 bucks. What do we have? Right.
And so, here in the heavy truck space, on the high end of the vehicle classes, you have that fuel consumption, that energy throughput that allows you to make a return on your investment of buying a new truck. So, that's been the thesis the entire time. Right. We went from light duty side all the way up to the class eight trucks and skipped the middle. Yeah, one of the things that we did, I saw you looking to make that do her, is we've updated the mirror, made it a little longer to give you from, if you're hauling a trailer without ever moving the mirror, you can see all the way from the top of the trailer down to your drive tires, you're on the tractor.
And that just gives you really good visibility of what's going on next to you. Does this have adjustable suspension? Yeah, so it does. So, it has an air suspension. Yeah. And it's really valuable when trying to pick out the trailer, for example, because you want to duck underneath it and then lift it up. So, having that ride height adjustability is really critical. And then at low speed, you can run a higher ride height if you need to clear an obstacle, for example.
Yeah, it's the last time that we drove J, you were driving the 500 mile range truck, our long range. Right. And this is the 325-erge in our standard range. Same power, basically. Most of the vehicle is the same. It's the same drive train to the back. The whole, the cab is the same, the front axle is the same. It's really the middle. Essentially, on the long range truck, we have three batteries in parallel. Right. And on the standard range truck, what we do is we remove that battery and shrink the wheelbase accordingly.
So, you end up with a lighter, less expensive, more maneuverable tractor. Right. So, if you don't need the big energy that the long range provides, this is a great truck, especially for those urban routes going to the port, doing deliveries. And you can pull exactly the same load, right? Same load. Yeah, zero compromise in K-9 L8. Yeah, acceleration is very good. Yeah. It helps, especially, when you're coming off a stoplight, for example. If you're other drivers around, you're no longer have to worry about getting stuck behind that slow truck. And you want to zoom past or try to duck in. So, you know, that experience has been welcomed by the drivers that have had a chance to operate this.
Yeah, we're really excited to bring this vehicle to high volume production this year. We're opening our factory outside of Reno Nevada right next to our Giga Factory. We do batteries and motors for our other cars. So, you just build these. No sedans or. That's right. It's a ground-up, new factory exclusively for the semi. That's great. Yeah, it's awesome that we're going to get to reinvest in that same area. And by going to high volume, a factory that could do 50,000 units a year, we're really able to drive down costs and make this economically viable throughout the U.S.
And then we also plan to take this design and bring the truck to Europe as well. And no airbrake? No, this truck does have airbrakes. Oh, that's not. Yeah, so standard air friction brakes, it is unique. And you might occasionally hear some valve clicking and that is this is a brake by wire system in that you're commanding some valves to move. So, it's still pneumatically actuated. Yeah. But it is electronically controlled. So, it gives you a really high degree of oxygen and we're excited to be bringing that system to a market here in the U.S. Because the other thing is all the trailers out there have airbrakes. So, we need to be able to interface with. Right.
Yeah, of course that makes it. And not need a custom trailer. Yeah, so we have a lot of the same user interface components that we do on the car side. We also bring in some truck flare to it for the additional controls the driver needs. But then we will do a similar routing. So, if you ask the truck where you want it to go, it will route you accordingly using only valid truck routes. Right. And then in addition, it will. If you need to route to one of our public charging stations for semi-trucks. So, one of our mega-chargers that will do that exact same behavior that you might have in your car where it preps the car for charging, it tells you what the station availability is.
So, we really want to bring that seamless charging experience over to the truck. So, Jay, what do you think of the seat? Seat's right comfortable. Yeah, so the seat is actually a fully in-house Tesla design. Is that right? Yeah. We know that drivers really like to have a comfortable seat and so we wanted to put a high premium on that. And does it recline as well? It does, yeah, it will be on your left side there. Yep. And we're doing a couple different things that are neat there. One is that so your recline position for example, that's stored to memory, so your driver profile.
So, any driver that gets into any one of our trucks, their seat position and their settings come with them. No, I see. So, that way if you're in a fleet, it always feels like it's your truck. Very good. And then also we've brought over an electric retractor and allows it to really sense seat belt usage, but also in the event of an incident, we can cinch down and really keep the driver well secured during an accident. Nice turning radius. Yeah, the turning radius. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, the turning radius and our trucks are really good, but in the standard range in particular, it's about the same as our model for your model walk.
Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, the independent front suspension enabled a high degree of wheel cut. And it goes a little bit back to what Franz was talking about with rethinking the shape of everything. It gives us that high wheel cut for greater maneuverability. You never have any overheating issues with electric motor, do you? Do you or do you? It's impossible. I mean, you can. Yeah, it's possible, but we've designed the truck that you can pretty much take on any highway grade, which is usually where the motors are getting stressed.
Right. The hardest. You can take on any highway grade, and before you run into a thermal limit, you actually run out of grade because the hills are only so long. And so we've really optimized to give you performance consistent across regardless of what road type you run into. And what wear is an electric motor? I mean, in the old days, it would be the brushes. Yeah, you had the carbon brushes, then you had brushless motors. So what would wear out after a million miles? I mean, there's not much to wear out. Maybe some bearings, but that's about it. There's not much there.
And we're really confident in the design of the powertrain, right, to last that entire time. And even if you did have an issue, we're really, again, we're trying to bring over the reliability from our other platform. So the motor, actually, we share the same stator and we share the same inverter of what we do on Cybertruck. So it's a mass manufactured, high reliability, really well understood component. And if you do have an issue, we have service centers that we're putting around, but also we do a lot of service using mobile service. So we send technicians out in cars to come to where the truck is to help you, including roadside assistance. Because we know that if truck is down, you want to get it off the road as quickly as you can and back on the road. So we've really set up a service network accordingly to do that.
Have you got a price on what one of these trucks is just yet? Or now? Yeah, we haven't disclosed pricing, but again, for most applications, pay back is in the first few years of operation and the bearings are running a diesel. One of the areas, Jay, that has changed since the last truck is the steering. So it's fully electric assist now. Oh, you mentioned that. Yeah, no more hydraulic. Yeah, and we think it's the first time that somebody's done it on electric, or a heavy duty platform. And it's a neat system. We've got two different power actuators. They're independently fed from power as well as communications. So they're very redundant. So that's really important when we talk about safety as well as any eventually autonomous.
There's no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the front wheels. That correct? No, there is. So this is? Yeah, this is not steer by wire. It's an electric assist steering. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. So they're still shafted by rather than doing the assist by hydraulic, which is a waste because it's just energy conversion. Right. We get to do it with pure electric. Now, is that mandated by law that you must have a mechanical connection? No, it's not. And the Cybertruck, for example, is full steer by wire. Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah, that's what I thought. I thought, oh, I thought maybe with heavy duty trucks, you must, you know, case of the failure, you must have a manual. No, no, it's interesting.
And everything's still moved by truck, doesn't it? It's like when the trucks took away from the railroad, you know? Yeah, I mean, it's not in a world yet where they're transporting something other than trucks. Trucks are still the main thing, isn't it? That's right. Yeah, it's about 65-ish percent of the United States are moved by truck and about 75 percent of the goods by value. Yeah. So, you know, trucking, there's a phrase, if you bought it, a truck brought it. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, they really run and they connect all the other forms of transportation. But it's amazing. They're only heavy trucks. They're only about 1% of vehicles on the road. Right. But they account for 18-18% of fuel consumed because they're heavy, they're running fast, sure. All the time, and they're out for a long stretch of the day. So, you know, you're putting 100,000 plus miles on a heavy truck in a year.
But very good. Thanks for making me the first one, allowing me to the first one to drive it. It's very impressive. I've been a Tesla fan since the beginning because I just, you know, to me, the great thing about electric vehicles is they allow me to enjoy my internal combustion vehicles. And they set a safe, the gasoline for me, if that makes sense, you know what I mean? I mean, to me, the internal combustion stuff, hot rods, mustn'ts, like snowmobiles. You use them on weekends, recreation, you go to car shows, you do track days. When you do day-to-day transportation, going to the airport, running errands, electric just seems like the way to do it. And I think it's really smart to always have another form of propulsion in your back pocket, another form of energy in case war or something else gets in the way.
So, Dan, thank you very much, my friends. Thank you so much. Yeah, the improvements in just a two years since your hair last is pretty amazing. And I like this kind of slow rollout. Let's not get it out there until it's ready. And this is the air it's ready, isn't it? It's ready. We're going to high volume this year and we're looking forward to getting into the hands of any driver that wants it. There you go. So, we'll see you on the road. And I hope you enjoyed this little bit of new technology. I certainly did. It's really exciting. It's great fun to see. Thanks guys. They're preaching it in France. Thank you very much. Hey, and finish my roadster. Will you please? Thank you very much. All right. See you guys next week.