Tesla Semi daylight video shows truck has suicide doors

7 years ago - 12 December 2017, Autoblog
Tesla Semi daylight video shows truck has suicide doors
Following the truck's recent reveal, Instagram user roymilloy managed to capture footage of the Tesla Semi cruising around the company's headquarters.

Neither the truck nor the man behind the camera move through the parking lot at anything more than 15 mph, it seems, if the cameraman's heads-up display is any indication. But the footage does show that Tesla has at least one working prototype, and the video shows us a few other interesting details.

Toward the end of the video, we see the left-hand door open up, revealing that the Tesla Semi uses rear-hinged "suicide" doors rather than conventional front-hinged versions. We're not sure if there's a real benefit to this design, or if it's a case of Tesla being different for different's sake. Along those same lines are the tires at the back of the truck. While many semi-trucks use a dually tire configuration on the rear axles, this prototype seems to have a single tire on each side of the rear axles.

The video also reveals that, as our resident trucking expert Jonathan Ramsey feared, both side windows don't roll down. Instead, they just pop out slightly, like on old minivans. As Ramsey mentioned in his analysis of the Tesla Semi, this could be a major issue when having to hand over documents or cash at drive-thru windows for borders, tolls, and such, or to police officers during a highway stop.

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