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Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced in April that the company is working on pushing a long-haul electric semi truck to market, which is set to be formally revealed in September. Now, Reuters has viewed e-mail correspondence between Tesla and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles that indicate that the company has discussed testing semi trucks on the state's roads.
The Reuters report also mentioned that the semis would be outfitted with autonomous functions, so they could traverse the nation's highways without a driver in the front seat. The e-mails seemed to indicate that Tesla's semis would "platoon," that is, drive in a formation such that a number of trucks could follow a lead vehicle. It's unclear whether the lead vehicle would have a driver, or operate autonomously with a person in the front seat to monitor safety.
[...] Reuters also reported that California DMV officials will meet with Tesla this week "to talk about Tesla's efforts with autonomous trucks."
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday August 11 2017, @04:33PM
Whoa, lots of typing, yet ignore fundamental physics...
Step 1: you don't bring 40 tons to a stop instantly, unless you run head-on into a very solid wall (I'm ignoring crumple time to please you). Even when hitting a truck swerving from the oncoming lane, that takes a lot of precision to hit exactly centerline exactly straight. The front truck may slow down faster than the second can handle, but every fraction of a second gained is a chance to avoid a chain reaction.
Step 2: Why exactly do you assume that something which can stop a truck on a dime somehow cannot be detected a second or two or five before it does? Crunch! You didn't sense a fucking wall, so now your followers are in trouble... A few engineers and test engineers need to be fired!
Step 3: Getting back to my original statement, I didn't imply it was foolproof, but would work in most cases and wrote that you may get a pileup in extreme circumstances. But your objection is ridiculous, because if we worried about sinkholes and pop-up-insta-truck-stop obstacles on our roads, we would never, ever, get in a vehicle, and probably not even on a horse.
Also note that trucks being shaped like bricks (in most countries), drafting benefits are higher than you think. A car not drafting has a pretty good Cx.
See also my other reply to you about the horror of potentially losing multiple payloads.