Paul Berger

The Tesla truck was actually announced about a decade ago, and in those days, many truckers viewed battery electric trucks with the similar kind of skepticism that they have for the trucks today.

The battery electric trucks are, or they say, are too expensive, don't go far enough between charging, and take too long to charge.

I actually think one of the biggest obstacles is battery size.

The Tesla truck, the Semi, has to be capable of carrying loads of tens of thousands of pounds.

But at the same time, tractor trailers have weight limits, so the battery also has to be light enough

so that it doesn't preclude the trucker from carrying all sorts of different kinds of loads.

Then, of course, it needs to be able to travel hundreds of miles on a single charge, and you want it to charge quickly because in trucking, time is money.

The Semi answers many of those questions far better than other battery electric trucks, but it's still basically not as good as a diesel truck.

Truckers absolutely love them.

When you talk to the drivers, they say a lot of the same things that you'll hear when they've been testing out other battery electric trucks.

The trucks are quieter.

You've gotten rid of the engine noise.

They're smoother, so you're not shuddering, juddering backwards and forwards as you're changing gears.

And when they go home at the end of the day, they don't stink of diesel.

So all of those things they love.

One of the differences with the Semi is that unlike other battery electric trucks that have basically been based on diesel trucks and then converted to battery technology, the Semi has been designed from the ground up.

And the most striking thing when you see the truck is that the driver is actually placed in the center of the cab, which affords the driver a much greater field of view and eliminates many of the blind spots that a driver normally has.

Then on top of that, there's the technology.

The drivers that I spoke to talked about the fact that the technology shows them every single object around the tractor and the trailer.

And remember, these things can be hauling trailers that are 53 foot long.