Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/923471
16 commercial carrier journal | january 2018 the traditional sense. With an electric car, idling is much more black and white: It's either moving and consuming energy, or it's not, which also means there's no fuel wast- ed. An hour of idling burns about one gallon of diesel fuel. If your fleet spends as much time fighting traffic as it does delivering goods, electrifi- cation wipes out expensive waste, not to mention that idling increases wear on a truck's engine. A large center-mounted touchscreen display is overwhelming at first. Like the world's largest and most powerful mobile phone, it's the brains of the car you're driving. From the air conditioning to the sunroof to the I f there was a polar opposite of a trac- tor-trailer, Tesla's Model S just might be it. But as I made my way to Los Angeles in mid-November for the debut of Tes- la's electric Semi truck, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to drive one of the cars that served as validation for many of the technolo- gies found in the Semi prototype. e Model S P100D looks like a car and acts like a car, but its un-car-like technology is on a different level. I've never thought of Tesla as a car company. ey're a technology company that makes cars, and I think that becomes evident from the moment you flop down into the driver's seat and try to wrap your mind around the Model S controls. e car is on from the moment it recogniz- es that you – more importantly, the key – is near it, but it's not ready to drive until you put your foot on the brake. e gear shi is mounted to the console on the right, and you push up or down to select drive or reverse. A button on the end of the stalk puts the car in park. Aer selecting your gear, you simply press the accelerator, and away you go. You just have to trust that the car is on, because it's not making any noise. It is equipped with a creep mode, which moves the car forward at idle speed once you li off the brake, but there is no idle in PRODUCT REVIEWS, OEM & SUPPLIER NEWS AND EQUIPMENT MANAGEMENT TRENDS BY JASON CANNON CAR COMPANY?: Tesla is more like a technolo- gy company that makes cars. POLAR OPPOSITE: If a tractor-trailer has one, Tesla's Model S just might be it. AUTONOMOUS 'THING': AutoPilot isn't designed for a driver to mentally 'check out.' Tesla's Model S P100D has a zero-to-60 time of 2.5 seconds and is the top of the S Series performance heap. What's Tesla's place in trucking? Searching for answers while driving a Model S The large center-mounted touchscreen display controls everything.