Tesla Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and Semi Program Director Dan Priestley joined Leno in a 47-minute segment revealing all of the various things it did to make the Semi even better as it heads toward volume production this year.

Last year, Tesla revealed it had updated the Semi design to fit the bill of its aesthetic, which, on its other vehicles, includes things like lightbars and a sleeker and more aerodynamic design. The changes were not all to appease the eye, but the drivers who will use the Semi on a daily basis to haul goods regionally as the program gets off the ground running.

Weight Reduction

Priestley revealed almost immediately that Tesla was able to cut out about 1,000 pounds of weight from the Semi compared to the previous version.

This does several things, all of which are positive to the mission of a Class 8 truck, which is to haul goods and obtain more efficient travel to cut down on logistics costs.

Initially, this can increase payload capacity, which is often the biggest value driver for fleets that frequently hit gross vehicle weight limits. Tesla’s early Pilot Program members, like PepsiCo. and Frito-Lay, are large-scale companies. They will benefit from a decreased overall weight.

Lighter vehicles also require less energy to accelerate, climb hills, and maintain highway speeds. This new design has that advantage, and as Leno said in his first drive with the Semi as he hauled another unit behind, “I don’t feel like I’m pulling anything.”

Drag Coefficient

Franz said one of the goals of the Semi was to get the drag coefficient down below that of a Bugatti Veyron. This would increase efficiency tremendously, a major need with a large truck like a Semi.

Drag coefficient is extremely valuable when it comes to electric vehicles, because the displacement of air is incredibly important for range ratings.

Franz said aerodynamic efficiency has been improved by 7 percent compared to the last model. He says the coefficient is around 0.4.

New Features and Improvements

Priestley shed some additional light on the Semi and some of the improvements the company has made under the hood.

These include:

• Fully Electric Steering Assist
• Cybertruck actuators are being used for more strength
• Tesla included a 48-volt architecture
• Semi will utilize 4680 battery cells, which are designed to last 1 million miles

These changes come after Tesla rolled out the Semi to various companies for its Pilot Program, which yielded tremendous results. Due to the years it has been working with those companies, it knew what things it had to change and what it had to improve upon before selling the Semi openly.

Fleet Data

The fleet data Tesla has gathered from the Pilot Program has been one of the most widely discussed parts of the Semi program.

Franz and Priestley said that there are currently a few hundred Semi units in the real world, and Tesla has gathered 13.5 million miles. One of those units has traveled over 440,000 miles in the years it has been on the road.

Tesla Semi’s latest adoptee will likely encourage more of the same

Pilot Program members have reported an uptime of 95 percent, and Tesla’s maintenance and Service teams have kept things running:

“80% of breakdowns if you have one, are returned back to the customer in less than 24 hours, and half are back in less than 1 hour.”

Demand

Priestley says demand for the Semi has never been higher, and due to the recent political climate and the impact things have had on gas prices, Tesla has never received more inquiries for the Semi than it has recently.

Many companies will be surprised to hear that the Semi Pilot Program has been an overwhelming success. As Tesla begins to build out the infrastructure for the vehicle, it will only benefit the all-electric Class 8 trucks that keep things moving.

CEO Elon Musk said Tesla plans to start high-volume production this year. The company also plans to start deliveries this year.

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The Tesla Cybertruck made an appearance on Jay Leno’s Garage on Monday, featuring discussions and a test drive with the automaker’s Head of Design, Franz von Holzhausen, and Vice President of Vehicle Engineering, Lars Moravy. While the talks covered a wide range of topics and interesting details, von Holzhausen also confirmed that Tesla has received over two million deposits for the Cybertruck.

The video’s first 40 minutes contain mostly discussions on the design and engineering choices for the truck, during which Leno asks von Holzhausen and Moravy about features such as its wade mode and scuba pack — which allows the Cybertruck to drive in water up to two and a half feet — its impressive 0.335 drag coefficient, its high ground clearance, and the truck’s 800-volt charging architecture, among several other features.

About two-thirds of the way through the video, the three take the Cybertruck out for a test drive throughout Los Angeles, even including a brief stint off-roading and driving through a shallow creek. The discussion about the vehicle continues, including talks on Supercharging, using the Cybertruck bi-directionally, a future of inductive charging and more.

In October, Leno also drove a Tesla Semi on his YouTube channel, even showing off its powerful towing ability by having the electric semi-truck tow another Tesla Semi. Leno has historically been a strong supporter of Tesla, featuring many of the automaker’s vehicles on his channel over the years.

This particular video comes as Tesla has begun delivering the “Foundation Series” Cybertruck, and just a few weeks after the company’s initial delivery event. It also comes as many wonder how much demand exists for the Cybertruck, and after it was suggested months ago that the vehicle could have garnered millions of reservations.

You can watch Jay Leno’s full episode on the Cybertruck below, featuring Tesla Head of Design Franz von Holzhausen and Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy.

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Priestley provided insights and details about the Tesla Semi while appearing on Jay Leno’s Garage. Among them were updates on Tesla Semi production. He also hinted that Tesla would update the all-electric Class 8 truck’s design before volume production. 

“We’ve made a few dozens of it; we’re up in the maybe 60-70 range, but we’re cranking out just our pilot volume,” Priestley told Leno. “We’re collecting data, we’re getting a lot of really great driver feedback, and then we’re going to take that time to do a bunch of improvements and bring that into a high volume and really try to be a major player in the market.”

Tesla delivered its first Semi Class 8 truck in December 2022 to PepsiCo. At the time, one question lingered: would the Tesla Semi live up to the hype?

In the recent Run on Less EV trucking study, the Tesla Semi finished off strong by traveling 1,076 miles in a single day. On that day, the Tesla Semi made one delivery but spent about 82% of the time driving, mostly at 50 miles per hour. 

In his interview with Jay Leno, Priestley noted that the Tesla Semi can recover 70% of its charge in 30 minutes. He also shared that Tesla has the Semi deliver battery packs from its Gigafactory in Nevada to California, adding that the all-electric Class 8 truck has matched the capabilities of diesel trucks. 

“So we really wanted to set it up to drop and do as many existing operations as we can. And the flagship one for us is we’re using this to haul our battery packs from our Factory in Reno down to California,” Priestley told Leno. 

“And we’re slotting in one for one with diesel trucks. It’s the exact same load, it’s the exact same route, they’re running the exact same operation, and that’s a huge sign of success for us that means that we’ve made a really capable truck,” he elaborated.

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In the first clip, Leno is with Elon Musk at Starbase where the SpaceX CEO gave Leno a tour and overview of Starship.

“The ship is about 165 feet tall,” Elon told Leno who said that he didn’t think anyone had any idea how big Starship is.

Elon explained that on the inside, the Starship is 30 feet in diameter. “When you see it on TV, you’re watching it from half a mile away,” Leno said.

In the second clip, Elon Musk gives Leno a tour of his rocket engines. This clip was also shared on Twitter by Jay Leno’s Garage. Elon Musk shared his thoughts about patents.

“We don’t really patent things. Those are for the weak,” Elon Musk said adding that patents are typically used as a technique to block and they don’t help to advance things.

In the third clip shared with us by CNBC, Elon Musk talks with Jay about sending humans to Mars.

“I’d say life on Mars is difficult, dangerous. People might die. It’s just fundamentally–are we going to become a multiplanet species or not?” Elon said.

“Even if we’re sure Earth would be fine forever, do you want to be here forever? I think we want to be a spacefaring civilization.”

“It’s not like, ‘let’s escape to Mars.’ Do we have a spurt of adventure? Do we want to go out there and see the rest of the universe? Do we want to find out what’s out there and maybe meet some alien civilizations?”

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"Patents are for the weak" – @elonmusk

Check out more SpaceX and Elon next Wednesday 9/21 at 10 PM ET on CNBC! pic.twitter.com/c2QIDrkcEt

— Jay Leno's Garage (@LenosGarage) September 15, 2022

His interview with President Biden may prove to be an interesting conversation. The Biden administration isn’t so fond of Tesla or Elon Musk, especially since the president falsely claimed that General Motors’ Mary Barra was leading the EV revolution last year.

Despite Tesla’s phenomenal growth over the years, the Biden administration has continued to ignore Tesla’s contribution toward EV growth in a recent post. Instead, the administration credited President Biden for the EV sales tripling in the U.S while overlooking Tesla’s 87% rise from 499,535 vehicles sold in 2020 to 936,172 last year.

In a recent interview with Yahoo! Finance, Jay Leno pointed out that it was Elon Musk who deserves the credit for EVs being popular today.

“I think he should get a certain amount of credit for leading the charge because before Elon, [people would say] ‘it’s a golf cart,’” Jay Leno said. “People would joke about electric [that] they’re slow and whatever it might be. So I give him a lot of credit for it. I think EVs will be the savior of the classic car industry.”

The conversation between Jay Leno and the U.S. President should prove to be interesting especially if the topic of Elon Musk and EVs are brought up.

Note: Johnna is a Tesla shareholder and supports its mission. 

Your feedback is important. If you have any comments, or concerns, or see a typo, you can email me at johnna@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter at @JohnnaCrider1.

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