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Comment by johnthuss | Hacker News Reader

"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."

This one seems like the worst one of all these criticisms.

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My guess is that they needed to get the drag coefficient down, and did so by first raking the windshield back, then pinching the cab horizontally to get some more gains. That narrowing of the cab then led to the center-seat arrangement?

Bonus being that you don't need to configure a LHD and RHD version of this truck for different markets.

Different markets can’t be addressed with the same truck anyway. Lights are different, mandatory equipment is different, EU trucks are limited cabin-inclusive, US trucks are cabin-exclusive, etc.

Lots and lots of LHD trucks serve the UK making daily cross channel trips, or even just based here full time from Dutch / Eastern European shipping firms.

The UK was until very recently part of the same market, with no reason to change all their truck design rules after Brexit.

The US/Europe scenario is not the same.

LHD/RHD swamp doesn't really matter given that the truck is probably too long for UK.

They would still need to swap out headlights anyways.

It's possible to have that same hardware headlight and control distribution patterns/behavior in software

UK is not the only country to drive on the left of the road, including Australia, India, Indonesia, and Japan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-_and_right-hand_traffic

...and it's unlikely that Tesla truck would be a popular choice in these countries.

It may be too big also for Japan, so maybe fine only for Australia?

Efficiency seemed like the reason for the tilted windshield too.

This truck still appears to have a passenger seat on the right side, though, despite the driver being in the middle? So presumably they'd still have to reconfigure it for RHD.

Indeed, I wonder if they will be able to address this fast enough because it does seem serious. Same goes for the mirrors that are out of reach of the driver for easy cleaning. It could be a pain point.

I guess the author wanted the pile-on a bit, but the rest feels a bit more like "this isn't how we are currently doing it so it's just wrong", especially when it comes to the shape of the truck. Being aerodynamic seems like a good way to increase the range.

Mirrors this big can have sweepers, like the windshield.

Which can still freeze or gunk up, especially when regularly travelling tens of thousands of kilometres.

> I guess the author wanted the pile-on a bit, but the rest feels a bit more like "this isn't how we are currently doing it so it's just wrong", especially when it comes to the shape of the truck.

I got that impression, too, but in more ways.

1. The interior shots I've seen show blind spot cameras (on the tablets that he doesn't like). That seems like it would address the problem with visibility from the center driver position, and probably goes a long way to addressing the mirror-cleaning issue he mentioned.

2. Why couldn't Tesla just have a little wiper-fluid squirter on each mirror to clean it off remotely? (and do we know they don't already have that?)

3. Tesla already coats their glass roofs with something that blocks lots of IR and UV, but little visible light (and makes the roof of older Teslas a very strange color when viewed from outside). I would assume they are aware of the HVAC issue and apply a similar treatment to the Semi windscreen.

Tesla has been testing these things for like 5 years now, and the Semis have been seen at Pepsi warehouses for about a year. It seems unlikely that Pepsi would take delivery of a truck with such obviously fatal flaws after a year of acceptance tests... so I bet there are mitigations for most or all of the issues identified.

I wonder how this cab design would affect interactions with the police. I did not realize that you enter via a corridor behind the driver seat. US officers do not respond well to people getting out of the vehicle during stops.

True, but I don't think police are as worried about long-haul truckers behaving well, versus someone in a civilian car. The trucker needs to keep their CDL, and they do trucking professionally.

I can assure you from personal experience there are plenty of truckers that don't act that way (they are minority but a sizeable one).

Fair enough, from customer complaints I've probably hired one or two of them for deliveries...

ya maybe we should check with the police before doing anything. Or not.

It's still got windows. Why would someone need to leave the vehicle to interact with police? I must be missing something.

As in, the most damning, or the least relevant?

Most damning. The driver being able to easily lean out the window to talk to people as it passes tolls, inspection points, hell, weigh stations, is important. That all of these engineers and designers massively overlooked such a vital component of truck driving out of Tesla's own hubris is hilariously embarrassing, IMO.

We can only assume they overlooked it. The opinion of someone who has actually driven a Tesla Semi through a weigh station would be infinitely more relevant than anything you, I or the OP have to say.

And like most things, it's going to be a series of trade-offs. Perhaps they decided that in a big picture analysis, the disadvantages are fewer than the advantages.

If you want industry buy-in, you generally need the industry to be on-board with what you are doing.

Building some product in a dark warehouse, then thrusting it onto the industry is a recipe for rejection and failure.

>The opinion of someone who has actually driven a Tesla Semi through a weigh station would be infinitely more relevant than anything you, I or the OP have to say.

Thank you for quickly dismissing the opinion of someone who has experience driving semi-trucks and currently works adjacent to that industry, interacting with truck drivers on a daily basis.

I see a massive, massive flaw in this design based on my own experience but, "Nope, shut up, you haven't driven the new one, your opinion is invalid". Got it.

I didn't say shut up, and I didn't say your opinion is invalid. Your opinion is valid. Please stop putting words in my mouth. All I'm saying is I don't feel there's a need to come to any conclusions about the design until we've had feedback from people who have actually used the product in the real world. I can't believe anyone would consider this an unreasonable stance.

> The opinion of someone who has actually driven a Tesla Semi through a weigh station would be infinitely more relevant than anything you, I or the OP have to say.

---

> I didn't say shut up, and I didn't say your opinion is invalid. Your opinion is valid.

Yes, that's what I said. Do I seriously need to explain words?

I think you need to reexamine the phrasing you're using, because it's coming off as extremely dismissive of people with significant knowledge of the industry.

> it's coming off as extremely dismissive of people with significant knowledge of the industry.

Nah, it's coming off as dismissive of people who haven't used a product.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pragmatics

All of these factors can have the infrastructure updated to the 21st century. We don't need coins for tolls, or paperwork.

That's hilarious. Okay, go tell every warehouse and factory with a loading dock out there that their systems are out of date and they need to use RFID for everything. And if they don't -- well, we won't send this truck to your facility!

A little bit of humility when it comes to appreciating how sectors of the economy you have zero experience with would go a long way.

Maybe, but trucking is a low-margin industry. If the "fuel" savings are even half as big as Tesla claims, there is going to be a strong incentive to switch to this truck.

Suddenly, the warehouses that refuse to switch are paying more for shipping via ICE truck... that is their choice of course, but I don't want to hear any whining about how unfair it is.

That only really works if Tesla has a monopoly on electric trucks, though. They do not.

It's not that I don't understand the challenge of changing not just infrastructure but the way people do things, but it can be done.

Either climate change is a real problem and society is going to have to fundamentally shift and do lots of little things like change how warehouses and factory loading docks work for increased efficiency. Don't you think these challenges will be solved before we have robo trucks on the roads, which will need the same changes?

I wasn't a trucker, but I did do LTL shipping in addition to FedEx, so I've signed enough manifests to know that having a good excuse to update the industry wouldn't be resisted as much as you think, because the costs would pay for themselves eventually.

Coins and paperwork will not be gone by the time this truck is on the market, just as coins and paperwork aren't the only reasons the seat placement is flawed.

"This design is fine provided that you change all the infrastructure in the world" isn't a _great_ argument, honestly.

> We can only assume they overlooked it.

I don’t think they overlooked it. I think they designed the cab to be as aerodynamic as possible, so as to squeeze out every bit of range they could … and this dictated the driver position.

So ignored key usability requirements for an arbitrary product management goal. :thumbs-up:

I think it’s more that this truck is at the edge of viability as a long haul commercial vehicle. They don’t do things like this, and this truck doesn’t exist.

Then it shouldn’t exist.

If you want an electric semi that doesn’t suck, get a Freightliner eCascadia.

OK - I'm personally not really torn up about it. Either this truck is viable in the market, or it isn't. If it isn't, then it won't do well.

A microphone and a speaker allows customers to talk to bank clerks sitting far behind thick bulletproof glass. They could implement that on a truck.

Handing papers over is harder, but I wonder if making a small window that can be opened would be really hard. The driver would need to stand up, though.

Just ship an Optimus along with the truck so it can walk out with the papers and hand them over. Problem solved, more profits!

The Semi should ship with a trash grabber to hand over papers with. It could even have the microphone built in, just point it at the checkpoint clerk.

inspection points, hell, weigh stations, is important.

FWIW, a lot of US weigh stations are automated now.

I know very little about it, but from what I've observed, it seems that the truck drives through, and the information is transmitted from the truck to the station, and computers handle fuel tax and that sort of thing.

I don't know if this is the future, or how widespread it is, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

How much do you think the total absence of engine noise compensates for the additional distance? Also there could be less attenuation inside the cab if there aren't many soft surfaces to absorb the sound.

The most damning in that they obviously didn't consult any real truck drivers or truck manufacturing companies to figure out why things are the way they are, before setting out to try improving them.

We see this a lot with smart inexperienced developers taking on entire industries with hopes of "disruption" - but lack even the most basic understanding of that industry and it's problems. The hubris necessary to assume everyone in the industry are dumb and just haven't thought about these novel improvements is very high...

The project was originally lead by the former lead of the Cascadia program.

Perhaps you are talking about Feightliner's eCascadia truck? If so, I think we're only making this case stronger. The eCascadia is a traditional semi, but electric and technology improvements here and there. It's not a "throw everything out and start from scratch" thing. Perhaps there's a reason he is the former lead...

The Tesla Semi is a fantasy semi that no one asked for and I suspect no one will buy. There's plenty of electric semi's already available...

I'm not sure that I understand your point here. He was there for the Cascadia program almost 20 years ago. It had plenty of problems on its own, but I don't think there's doubt that he worked with a traditional trucking company. They had plenty of relevant experience on hand.

You should probably be more clear in what specifically you are talking about. Names and links would be helpful...

Regardless, just because he was part of some team at some truck manufacturer doesn't mean he knows what he's doing. The Tesla Semi isn't a "Trucker's Truck" by any stretch of the imagination. It was designed to look cool and get good PR...

I'd say one of the worst things about this truck is you cant bail out of the thing as the door is behind the seat. Ever see that video where the tow truck driver bails out after the truck he is towing slides off the icy road and down a steep hill and takes the tow truck with it? You don't have time to walk around the seat.

The driver sitting in the middle makes it clear no on at Tesla ever drove a truck. I have and the driver sitting in the middle does will not help with visibility. You want to be able to stick your head out and look right down the side of the truck. This is important as you cant see everything from the mirrors and in addition they can be broken, missing, iced up, fogged, etc. Same with cameras in case you thought they are solutions.

I dunno. I get annoyed just having to unbuckle and get out of my seat for parking tickets that are out of reach.

I can't imagine having to do repeatedly do this while maneuvering a big rig around a stockyard. Or did you mean it was one of the most valid criticisms?

I highly doubt it, but unless it's some crafty scheme to sell the same cabs to both the UK/Australia/Japan and the USA without modification.

Doubt it though, the simplest explanation in this case is probably design ignorance.

Its not a problem in the states, but in the EU/country with cyclists, you'll never see the 20/30 of them that are sneaking down the inside of you at a junction.

The displays have downward-facing cameras covering what looks like the blind spots next to the cab

A narrowing tool fixing what bending tool has screwed up...

I understand and partly agree with your sentiment, but "offsetting" technologies/components are all over the place. E.g. combustion engines also need mufflers, catalytic converters, etc.

Look, here in the EU we have plenty cyclists getting killed daily by trucks of the current “benchmark” design. Just the other week https://www.adnkronos.com/e-morto-davide-rebellin-ex-ciclist... so meh, these arguments about dead spots are just pearl clutching. The truck has more cameras than a bank, it’ll probably do better than what we have today

It's because in the future, you won't talk to anyone, it will be Teslsa botz doing everything! Duh?

It's almost as if Musk and his "designers" have never seen a weigh/inspection station.

Do these front windows even roll down? Might be a moot point

Ye. Looking around the corner when cornering is the main problem with centre seat. Not opening gates with a keypad.

Worst as in most salient or least?

> "Drivers sits in the middle. This makes overtaking or looking ahead more difficult.

> This one seems like the worst one of all these criticisms.

Seems like it would be a feature if the driver couldn't see over cars and trucks. Maybe they would actually keep to a safer distance.

> This one seems like the worst one of all these criticisms.

Weird that so many people can't figure out what was meant here.

I know the literal English is ambiguous but it should be obvious what was the intended reading.

Good, we can go paperless and minimize human contact and viral exposure with digital paperwork and authorization systems and intercoms. No need to roll down the windows and let the climate controlled air get dirty and hot/cold.

You do realize that there are literally thousands of weigh stations in the US that would need to be upgraded? They're run individually by the states, who will have minimal incentive to cooperate.

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