Jay Leno Takes A Spin In The Tesla Semi (Video)

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Jay Leno provides a great service on his YouTube channel with a great number of informative and entertaining videos about all kinds of vehicles. In this long one, he converses with top-level Tesla employees and drives a Tesla Semi!

What stands out is the fact that Jay looks like he is having fun at 75, and he set up his life to be able to both collect vehicles and share a tremendous amount of information with the public about them. He recently drove the upcoming fully electric Slate pickup truck and just uploaded another video of him driving a Tesla Semi.

The Tesla Semi has a driver’s seat in the middle of the cab, which may be advantageous for visibility. There’s another consideration which might not be obvious: in the US, steering wheels and driver seats are positioned on the left near the side window. When drivers are near a window one side of their face will be overexposed to sunlight if they drive for any length of time on a daily basis. 

A truck driver who drives 40 hours a week may have greater risk of developing facial skin cancer. If a semi truck has a driving seat in the middle of the cab the driver will most likely not to be overexposed to sunlight from the side windows and thus may have a lower skin cancer risk. I don’t know if Tesla considered driver skin cancer risk when designing the middle driving position, but it may prove helpful to drivers of the Tesla Semi.

Jay makes an excellent point that electricity has become political. What is political about electricity? Do Republicans not want vehicles that are far more energy efficient, which electric vehicles are? Gas and diesel engines waste most of their energy before it is used for propulsion. Electric motors are far more energy efficient and cost effective. They also typically cost less for maintenance and repairs.

While there has been some skepticism about the Tesla Semi going into production because it was announced quite some time ago, it apparently is ramping up. Tesla Semi Program Director, Dan Priestley, said, “The product is ready, we have the factory standing up.” He also says the long-range version can charge at 1.2 MW, which results in a 60% charge in about 30 minutes, which could be about 300 miles. Jay asks about the battery lifespan and Dan explains the battery is designed to last one million miles.

When they get to the part where Jay is driving the shorter-range version of the Tesla Semi, Dan says Jay is the first non-Tesla employee to drive one. I bet he is also the oldest person to ever drive one, unless Tesla has one employee over 75 who drove it too — not very likely, is it?

Jay makes a comment about the potential of fusion energy, which he correctly states has been talked about for many years without it materializing in a practical, useful way. Dan makes the point we humans do have a fusion reactor available to us already in the form of the sun. All we need to do is capture the sunlight and convert it into electricity, which of course, is solar power. At the moment, new solar power is cheaper and faster to build than new coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants.

Getting back to the truck, at about 41:50 in the video, Jay performs a U-turn and says, “nice turning radius.” Dan says for the shorter-range version, the turning radius is about the same as the Tesla Model 3 and Model Y. All in all, another great electric vehicle video from Jay.

Truck drivers driving diesel trucks may benefit considerably by switching to fully electric trucks because diesel fuel contains harmful chemicals, and diesel exhaust is also harmful, as CARB states:

“Today the Air Resources Board announced new evidence that trucking industry workers who have had regular exposure to diesel and other types of vehicle exhaust showed an elevated risk of lung cancer with increasing years of work.”