Jay Leno Drives the New Tesla Semi Truck with 500-Mile Range

Jay Leno climbed into the cab of a Tesla Semi, settled into the center seat, and eased the truck forward with a fully loaded trailer in tow, right there on the tarmac outside his garage. The 500 mile range variant, and by all accounts it felt planted and composed from the moment it started moving, even with another Semi trailing behind it.

The drive was as smooth as you could ask, with no clunks or pauses during gear changes. Three motors pushing all of that torque straight to the rear axles, and the vehicle performed like a dream, with no difficulty or drama. Leno commented on how normal the center driving position felt after he was settled in, despite the fact that the cab does taper in little as you go up for optimal airflow. He just glided through several easy curves and straight stretches, and the cabin was quiet enough for normal conversation.

Dan Priestley, Director of Semi Truck Engineering at Tesla, rode along and walked Leno through some of the finer details as they drove. The front axle does the heavy lifting during hard pulls and climbs before stepping back at highway speeds to reduce drag and conserve energy, a smart piece of engineering that keeps efficiency high without any unnecessary mechanical overhead. Leno put his foot down more than once and the response was immediate, yet the ride stayed completely composed throughout. Braking on the downhill sections was handled almost entirely by regeneration, keeping the air brakes quiet the whole way down.

Weight is central to how the Semi stacks up against its diesel competition. The Long Range model comes in at around 23,000 pounds curb weight with a gross rating of 82,000 pounds, helped along by a federal allowance that lets electric Class 8 trucks run up to 2,000 pounds heavier than conventional diesel rigs to account for the battery mass. That gives it enough headroom to hit its advertised 500 mile range with a competitive payload on board, though that payload does fall somewhat short of the 70,000 pound figure that diesel tractors can typically manage once trailer weight is factored in.

The long range pack covers 500 miles, while the shorter 325 mile variant drops a battery module to shed weight and tighten the turning circle to something closer to a passenger car. Charging peaks at 1.2 megawatts and gets the truck back to 60 percent in around half an hour, which lines up neatly with the rest breaks drivers are already taking. Priestley mentioned a projected million mile battery life built around the same 4680 cells Tesla uses across its lineup, and the Semi has already racked up more than 13 million miles in real world fleet use to back that claim up.