Why Tesla wants to keep on truckin’
I have to confess that I have never bought into the mythology of the open road, and much less driving an 18-wheeler across America, but I must say that I was pretty impressed by the launch in Los Angeles last night of the new Tesla Semi, described as a monster by a company which is itself a BAMF :-). Impressive aerodynamics and a futuristic sci-fi look, with a range of more than 800 kilometers at full load, a 30-minute recharging time, and unprecedented acceleration, safety features and self-driving options.
Check out this nine-minute version of the presentation that explains Tesla’s thinking on the future of road haulage and is a masterclass in how to launch a truck, not usually considered of interest to the masses, at an event clearly designed to capture the public’s imagination and the media’s attention, while at the same time very much meeting the demands and needs of truck drivers and logistics companies.
The truck presented yesterday will go into production in 2019 and will not go on sale until 2020, which raises questions about Tesla’s intentions. Electric trucks? You may not have known it, but this is a fast-growing market segment, due mainly to environmental restrictions imposed by more and more cities, with Daimler, Volkswagen, Cummins and Nikola all working on them for some time, but because they don’t have Tesla’s pulling power, the trend has stayed pretty much within the industry.
What does Tesla hope to achieve by entering a category like this, so seemingly different from its current activities, and announcing a vehicle that will not be available until at least 2020? Quite simply to define the future of the trucking industry, to influence the sector’s development, and to be seen as a technology leader taking advantage of its visibility in the automotive world. Tesla’s success in establishing itself as a technology leader, despite its inferior position in terms of output compared to the major automotive companies, is thanks not only to the personality of a media-savvy founder like Elon Musk, but also due to a careful strategy of product presentation, even if it may have problems down the road in meeting its announced production deadlines. The evolution from small company making high-end vehicles to medium-high is complex, and not being able to meet its promises has seen an important fall in the company’s value expectations.
The company’s constant struggle to meet output requirements in the short and medium term is very much at odds, therefore, with the idea of a constantly expanding product line: in addition to presenting the aforementioned truck on Thursday night, Tesla also unveiled a roadster, a wicked sports car that won’t be on the roads before 2020, a “must have” for wealthy people that Tesla’s product line very much needs, and that will encourage those who want one to put down a deposit now, as part of a strategy of leveraging customers that few other carmakers could manage.
If you want to know what the trucks of the future will look like, take a good look at Tesla’s semi. It’s not easy to be a trendsetter and technological leader, but Tesla has done well at it so far. Elon Musk’s strategic vision is about definition, creation and presentation: meeting production deadlines is mere detail. And from now on, for a lot of people, the image of a truck that will come to mind is Tesla’s semi, even though they won’t see one on the roads until at least 2020… but to all intents and purposes, this is what all trucks want to be when they grow up. Now all that is required is the hard bit, turning it into reality.
(En español, aquí)
