Thread by @TOrynski

I am watching a movie clips about @elonmusk's Tesla Semi - remember, the truck that was to revolutionize the transport industry when it entered the market 4 years ago 🤡

And I am going to tell you'all why it is a completely stupid vehicle. And I won't even want to talk about (1)

it's carrying capacity or anything. I will just look at the cab from the practical point of view of someone who drives trucks for a living. Because it's an opposite of being "built around the driver". Why? Compare it with the new DAF XG+ for example: (2)

Look how big the Tesla cab is compared to DAF's (which is the biggest in the European market) and how much space is wasted inside Musk's toy. Now I will list everything that's wrong with Tesla's cab: (3)

i). Drivers sits in the middle. This makes overtaking or looking ahead more difficult. But also makes it impossible to reach out of the window to pass the paperwork or to talk with the guy in the gatehouse when you enter a port or a factory or, say, a tollbooth. (4)

ii) The doors are in the back. You enter, hang your coat, and then have to walk a few steps forward to sit behind the wheel. This means that you are wasting cab space for a corridor basically. You can't place a bed there so the driver can rest, because there are doors there. (5)

You can place bed in front above the windscreen - as the old Scanias used to have - as the cab gets narrower as you go forward. And beds are important not only for trampers - driver just sometimes need a rest or a 20 minutes power nap when driving at night. (6)

And if you want to get out from the right side, you need to go over the passenger seat that interlocks with driver's seat so you can't just walk in front of it like in a standard cab. And sometimes you need to get out to the right - I did it today as had deep snow on my left (7)

iii) The fact that you have to walk around the cab means it will be full of mud.the good thing about getting straight into the driver seat is that you can shake the snow or the mood when getting up there, and even if your boots are still dirty, only this little piece of floor (8)

in front of driver's seat gets dirty. You can kick your boots off there and then walk around the rest of the cab barefoot, as it remains clean. Nope, not in Tesla. Unless you want to change your boots everytime you enter the cab which would be really stupid. (9)

iv) Tablets. I drove a modern Mercedes truck with tablets and it's pin in the arse. Tablets are simply not designed for use in moving vehicles. You need a physical button, so you can reach for it even without taking your eyes off the road and feel it. (10)

Also, even those small tablets are annoying as hell at night, as even if you turn them black, they still tend to glow. And you never can set the brightness just right so it does not dazzle you but you can still see stuff in them. They also tend to give light reflexes. (11)

v). The angled windscreen means two things:
- snow staying on it when you were parked up in the winter. Remember how annoying it is to have to clean one's windscreen of the snow in the car? Now try to do it 3 metres up... If the window is vertical, snow is not a problem. (12)

- cab overheating when driving on a sunny day in summer. Even sprinter van cabs can get really hot - even in winter on a sunny day - because of that angled big windscreen. You can solve it with A/C of course. Which will use even more power, shortening your range.

(13)

Angled windscreen also means bigger blindspots - just thing how many times you almost missed a pedestrian when turning when driving a modern car. And then there are those tablets in the way...

(14)

6. The cab gets narrower in the front. But mirrors have to be able to see to the back. That means they need to be on really long arms. Which means you can't just seat in driver's/passenger seat, open your window and clean them when they become dirty. (15)

You can't reach them from inside, and you can't reach them from outside as they are too high.

I can go on. bottom line is that this vehicle is a rich boy's toy, not a practical, working vehicle because its designers have no clue about the realities of transport. (END)

P.S. Some Musk's fanboys argue that "you just need to change the world of transport, so everything can be done electronically so there is no need for gatehouses" for example.

Really? What about designing a truck that you can use in the real world that already exists around us?

P.P.S. And if you really want an electric truck, then just get Nikola, that uses Iveco Stralis cab, with the design perfected over half of century. Or a Volvo. Or Mercedes. Or DAF. Or Scania. All major truck manufacturers offer electric trucks for years now.

P.P.P.S. And this design - central drivng position, entry from the back - is not even new or an original idea. Here is a Colani truck, designed in the 1980's I think. The driver's position is a big offset to the left, but still has the same flaws as Tesla.

since this thread went a bit viral, I want to tell you I have a podcast about Great Britain too. Here is the most recent chapter:

https://twitter.com/TOrynski/status/1601333476321792000?s=20&t=ZpjnM1Jg91AK9IhUOy16pw

;-)