The Tesla Semi made its official debut earlier this month, and the company's outspoken founder Elon Musk's bold claim of having created "the most badass rig on the road" was met with a torrent of responses from truck operators of all stripes.
Overdrive polled its readers on their interest in the Semi, and the results actually paint a somewhat positive picture for Musk, in that most people seemed at least willing to be convinced.
The most common answer, with 163 votes and nearly a third of the total, reflected an open mind with regard to the Semi. The next most common answer, though, was a complete and total lack on interest. A very similar number of respondents went even further to completely trash the look of the truck. The remainder, about a fourth of the total number of respondents, held varying levels of interest, from "somewhat" to total interest and even buying into the "badass" claim from Musk.
Over on Facebook, however, opinions got more colorful. A lot of what Musk might have thought of as "badass" simply didn't match owner-operators' expectations.
The Semi's spec sheet boasts a completely unheard-of rate of acceleration, but most commenters seemed to think that trucking and jack-rabbit starts don't mix.
"As a retired truck driver, I didn't realize acceleration from 0-60 had that much to do with transit time from shipper to receiver," said Alan Thompson. "I feel cheated that my driving school didn't shed some light on that."
Dave Bienvenue wasn't near as sarcastic but no less skeptical about the priority placed on acceleration in the Semi's marketing pitch. "The diesel-powered trucks might not be able to accelerate from 0-60 in just 20 seconds, but they can travel over 1,200 miles," he wrote. "That's more than double the Tesla's range, before needing to refuel. And it probably isn't a great idea to try to accelerate that quickly when loaded to begin with. Bad things happen when the load shifts,"
