At the ACT Expo event last month, Overdrive colleague and Clean Trucking editor Jay Traugott got a first look at a battery-electric tractor that in some ways trades on truck-build cues delivered by Tesla's Semi. Clearly, the exterior styling of the Class 8 rig is similar to the long-talked-about Semi.
There are big differences, though, between the Horizon Motors company's first production unit and the Semi.
Rather than the "like a cabover with more side glass" view from the Semi's single center-positioned seat in the cab, the Horizon unit's got two seats in the cab like a traditional truck.
As company CEO Sean Jones noted in the full walkaround in the video up top, Horizon designers took note of everything "people didn't like about the Tesla Semi" and did the opposite.
"So we have two seats," he said, and "according to all of our math, we should have more torque."
Jones is pictured in the driver's seat here pointing out a display on the dash showing tire pressures delivered in-cab from monitors.
We know the weight of the tractor, too, at 29K pounds, Jones said, with an expected range of 350 miles on a full charge. It's got a dual-plug charging system for broader infrastructure compatibility, with potential to fully charge in under an hour.
"It's not going to work for long-haul thousand-mile trips," Jones said. Charging infrastructure "just isn't there."
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Yet in the right shorter, regional/local operation, cost savings utilizing electricity rather than diesel at today's prices could be a big leg up long-term for an owner, not to mention mechanical simplicity compared to today's diesels.
At ACT Expo, Jones sat in on "some of the presentations about the new diesel trucks," he said, "and what they're doing to try and make them more efficient. And basically they're just adding a lot more complexity to everyone" -- new maintenance items to get familiar with, new potential headaches.
Horizon expects its Class 8 to come with delivery timelines of 120–150 days from order, and the company plans to integrate solid-state batteries in the future, potentially boosting range and/or reducing weight.
What you're seeing in the video is a unit that was slated for delivery to a customer in California for a round of testing and feedback.
"They're going to try it out, tell us what they like, what they don't like," Jones said. The company's working out tweaks here and there "before we start taking orders."
Access a transcript for the video via Jay Traugott's original coverage at this link.
[Related: 'Like a cabover' with more side glass: Tesla Semi panorama, walkaround vid]
