Last week Tesla Motors unveiled the Tesla Semi, and in a "one-more-thing" moment, they also unveiled the Tesla Roadster2. The Semi is perhaps the more important vehicle, and in any case the guy behind the KmanAuto YouTube channel was at the unveiling, and managed to sneak underneath the truck to take this video. The drive train - motors, gearboxes, wiring, etc - was all exposed underneath the truck, and Kman was able to post this 5-minute video tour of the parts. In a second video he demonstrated that the charging port is NOT the same as a Supercharger port, meaning it's gonna be a different charging cable and connector for the MegaCharger.
Note: All pictures are screen grabs from the following videos, used solely for commentary purposes.
The Tesla Semi uses a new high speed charging system - the MegaCharger. This is the MegaCharger port. With the MegaCharger, a Semi is capable of a 400 mile range recharge in 30 minutes, with no word on how long it takes to recharge to 100%. Given that this charging port is much larger than the Supercharger port, it is obviously designed for a much higher charging rate. It's possible that the MegaCharger specs requires a 500 kW charging rate but we don't know the capacity of the battery pack.
Source: KmanAuto
Overview of the motor bay. We were told the Tesla Semi uses four electric motors, and that the motors attach to individual wheels, and that torque vectoring and other techniques are used to prevent jack-knifing.
Source: KmanAuto
This metal bar has a parts sticker reading something like "Axle Tube".
Source: KmanAuto
Another angle in the motor bay. It's known that the motors are derived from the Tesla Model 3.
Source: KmanAuto
A little farther back in the motor bay, including some of the ancilliary parts.
Source: KmanAuto
Some of the large parts in the motor bay are gearboxes. While there isn't a transmission where we shift gears, a gearbox is required to adjust the motor RPM to the RPM required for the wheels. From the video it seems there's one gearbox for each motor.
Source: KmanAuto
Parker is an electronics components company which I know from the electric motorcycle field - Parker supplied motors to Brammo, for example. This appears to be a DC-DC converter.
Source: KmanAuto
In any case of doubt this is a big truck -- the big hitch commonly used in big trucks, under which are more motors and other parts.
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David Herron
David Herron is a writer and software engineer focusing on the wise use of technology. He is especially interested in clean energy technologies like solar power, wind power, and electric cars. David worked for nearly 30 years in Silicon Valley on software ranging from electronic mail systems, to video streaming, to the Java programming language, and has published several books on Node.js programming and electric vehicles.
