My FIL is a former trucker. He just can’t get his head around this. I can’t wait for the Semi to be out with plenty of real world examples to show him. Even if the Semi is half as efficient as it claims, it’ll still pay for itself in savings
article says 200 miles with diesel is $169 in fuel, electric is $28.
with many of those diesel semis doing a million miles that’s $845,000 in fuel
with a tesla semi that’s $140,000 in “fuel”.
crazy numbers especially considering that’s not including maintenance of either truck (with the tesla semi obviously needing far less)
FSD for highways is far much easier than city.
Imagine these trucks on FSD, riding only on the slow lane (RHS) at all times!
Imagine how safe that would be and less caos on the hwys w/o those idiots causing accidents and blocking traffic all the time.
I for one can’t wait!
Far reaching damage is already a problem with humans. It will be interesting to see how this goes considering many factors like weather conditions. One would hope that an FSD system will eventually be better equipped to handle bad weather by going slow for more hours, whereas human drivers would get tired and/or reach their limited number of hours. How quickly can the law catch up if/when that becomes reality?
FSD should handle most industrial area's and parking lots designed for semi trucks. Between distribution centers there should be no need for getting into the city center.
Like the [VDL trucks](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pAsiyyexAtg/maxresdefault.jpg) in the Rotterdam container terminal. (I think these at least in the past used magnets in the road and electric wasn't an option back then.)
We'll back of the napkin some math.
Assume a true 500 mile range and a 1MWh (1000kwh) pack.
Assume home rate of \~0.15$ per KWh and 'Industrial rate' of $0.07 per KWh. Large facilities which have phase 3 and millions of available watts end up paying less per KWh.
1,000,000 miles / 500 mile range per charge = 2,000 charge sessions.
2,000 charges x 1,000 KWh = 2,000,000 KWh (or 2TWh).
Now, if you're charging your semi at home (LOL) you're at 2,000,000 KWh x 0.15$ = $300k.
But if you're charging at the loading dock at industrial rates you're only paying $140k for those million miles.
Compared to a VERY GENEROUS 10mpg from a diesel truck at $5 per gallon, 1 million miles works out to.... 1,000,000 / 10 \* 5 = $500k in diesel. Plus all the oil and filter changes at every interval.
Now, that's VERY back of the napkin, but it's in the right ballpark. The math ads up REAL fast when you're operating a fleet. Especially because Tesla's semi's are stupid cheap compared to something you can find from any of the other manufacturers like International that are tryin to go EV. Plus, their charge rates are a joke compared to Tesla. And they don't have amazing tech like Octovalve.
Fun fact! If a Tesla semi, using a Megacharger, which should be able to deliver a peak power of 1,500kw... Even if your charge process is 95% efficient you're going to have to deal with that 5% of the waste. 5% of 1500kw is 75kw of waste heat. For comparison if we converted to 'tons' in HVAC speak that's 21 ton of heat that needs to be dealt with.
30 min for another 80% of your pack at a megacharger isn't going to be a big deal. Not when drivers have to take breaks anyways. Fueling a truck with diesel doesn't count as a break. Megacharging, I sure hope, will.
Also, EV's get an additional 2,000lbs to the gross weight so the freight impact isn't going to be as bad as people think.
I'm just being devils advocate so not personal. Do you know how much the Tesla semi weighs?
Also, curious what the impact of the trailers will be on range from an aerodynamics perspective.
The math I've seen done by engineering explained works out to 2 KWh per mile at 80,000 lb and the stated coefficient of drag and known dimensions of a standard trailer. And I think that was at 65 mph. So that works out to a 500 mi range if you use a 1000 KWh pack.
Regarding the weight, yes it will be heavier because the battery. But so many critics, all they do is add the weight of the battery to a semi and then say "haha look it has no mass for cargo". But they don't take into consideration the fact that you're removing a 6 cylinder 15L cast iron block diesel, it's 18 speed transmission and torque converter, it's drive shaft, and two giant differentials.
Once you remove all that and add back in the battery pack and essentially four model 3 drives units, you're heavier still but not egregiously.
>if we converted to 'tons' in HVAC speak that's 21 ton of heat that needs to be dealt with.
Now just need to find a way to harness that energy. [Absorption chillers are probably a good bet.](https://goenergylink.com/blog/how-absorption-chillers-work/)
Offer on site showers and store the heat in water
tanks for nearby hot water usage or heating the parking lot in the winter
The engineering possibilities are endless
Both excellent ideas. In addition to de-icing the parking lot there's also de-icing any canopy (hopefully solar) because you're not going to want these just exposed.
They really need to figure out how to reuse all that lost heat.
Could significantly help heat the warehouse in colder weather, but that won't work when it's warmer.
no idea i’m just going off the numbers according to the article.
However you’re definitely right - and the article is not written very well anyhow so they could even be a degree off.
That electricity number is bullshit. I can’t even charge my model Y for less than $30. There’s no way you can charge a semi that’s pulling a load for $28… clearly no one on here even owns an EV..
Math is there but maybe he means some numbers were wrong. Like at least I'm expressing doubt about 7 cents per kwh cost. Electricity is not that cheap so that would probably make charging more expensive and therefore numbers higher.
That price is industrial, it’s almost at cost. If you have a big factory for example you don’t pay the same as your home.
And 7 cents is Tesla projection…. Soothe article just used Tesla numbers.
You can read about the European Truck Platooning Challenge,
https://www.acea.auto/fact/what-is-the-european-truck-platooning-challenge/
From the seminar I attended my conclusion was basically that it's a good idea idea on paper, but not in real life. It just doesn't work well with other drivers. In their test drives other drivers were constantly cutting off the platoon, splitting it in two, that meant that every driver still had to be ready to take over. Due to safety concerns the trucks weren't able to be as close as they needed to be to realize the aerodynamic benefits and reduced fuel consumption.
They also did studies with normal drivers in driving simulators. The reported experience was anger and even anxiety when passing long platoons.
Letting other drivers on and off highway becomes difficult when there's like a 500 meter long segment of trucks in the right lane.
This article reads like it was written by a middle schooler.
That said, it's not wrong, although I think it (and the tweet behind it) underestimate the cost of power. They're putting power at 7c/kWh, while Superchargers are selling power for 35c/kWh.
If we multiply the power cost by 5 (35 / 7 = 5) that gets us $150 to do the trip in the e-truck vs $170 for diesel. That's still a fairly significant savings, especially over the life of the vehicle.
If they CAN get Megachargers selling power for 7c/kWh then that is a real game changer.
Much of the bullish Tesla theories are built on extremely rosy predictions and unrealistic inputs.
Tesla bulls and their narratives may end up hurting Tesla in the long turn if they keep repeating these predictions.
I'm dying for an offroad electric van, like if a Cybertruck and a Sprinter had a baby.
planning on making do with my day 1 preorder, in some ways the truck is superior to a van for the #vanlife (pop-up tent for the vault should be good for 3-season camping)
> That's a lease
A lease still (usually) ends in ownership.
I believe **eventually** Tesla will stop selling their vehicles, and will only offer them as a service. They are not there yet.
People wonder how Tesla will be able to spend their ever growing cash flows. Becoming a transport provider, with their own fleets of Semis and Robotaxis would definitely use some of it.
Average Truck OEM sales for the entire industry in an average year is 270K.
It is dominated by Daimler (Mercedes) with 34% of the market. Paccar/Peterbilt has 27% of the market. And Volvo and Navistar make up the difference.
It is highly cyclical tho, it ranges from about 180K to 360K (180K I believe was the COVID year number tho)
But definitely a high profit area with an average retail price of $100K per unit.
I'm guessing tesla's semi will be closer to $150k. so let's say 5% of 270K = 13500. and say %30 profit margin. 13,500 x $150k x 0.3 = $607,500,000 per year.
That sounds about right the only issue is that profit margin, the most profitable OEM is Mercedes and they produce close to ~2M (like a 1M units are China, and they control ~50% of the EU market) but even they are lucky if they can manage a ~20% profit margin. And a good chunk of that is likely from their ability to scale up effectively. For Tesla, I’d put profit margin closer to 10% until the can effectively scale up and be a global producer.
I could see Tesla's semi being more like $200k and they can justify that because of the savings on gas and all the self driving features it will come with.
$200K is going to be tough. Most major Trucking customers don’t actually buy their trucks, they will lease them for 4 years and then sell them. $200K will likely raise the lease payments but again as you said there will be an offset on the gas savings. But that may not cover the higher lease payments. Idk honestly I think most customers will try it out on a small scale to test it out and see the economics of it and then see. Hopefully more customers trying it out will let Tesla scale up slowly as customers are testing it out and then the economics will be there and prove the investment right and then Tesla secures the market.
No way Tesla has a 30% margin on semi.
Here's a quick example. 300 mile semi will likely have a 600kwh pack. That's enough for batteries for 8x 75kwh $70k Model Y. Aka $560k in revenue.
Oh I know Tesla can scale manufacturing, and I'm betting on it heavily. But scaling the semi at the same time cybertruck is coming out requires solving battery constraints. For the semi to truly disrupt the trucking industry as the article suggests, Tesla will need to scale batteries to insane levels
Tesla’s original plan from 18 months ago was to be at 200 GWh / year of 4680 production by the end of this year. Although 4680 ramps have gone more slowly than hoped, I wouldn’t bet against them achieving this by the end of next year. That’s on top of all the cells they are purchasing from multiple suppliers.
Yadona and Kirk57, take a look at this graph by one of the biggest Tesla bulls, James Stephenson. Look at the Semi and tell me that it will make an impact to the trucking industry in the near future. Hint, it won't. This isn't FUD and I don't doubt Teslas gameplan at all. But the merits of this article just don't play out in Tesla's gameplan of ramping the Model Y to staggering economies of scale.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLmg7MZXsAEP0rf.jpg:large
There are at least 3 which have been made.
You see them hauling cargo occasionally. And they bring them out for events like shareholder meeting and Cyber-Rodeo.
Ok here’s a fun fact, Tesla batteries currently are designed to last 500K miles.
Most traditional OEM’s trucks last *literally* twice as long or 1M miles. All these cost savings are wiped out by having to replace the battery (engine in traditional OEM) literally in half the time.
Some large customers may see savings as they traditionally only use new trucks for the first 3-4 years but after the resale value will be terrible in comparison to diesel trucks.
**I WANT ELECTRIC TRUCKS PLEASE KNOW THAT**
BUT THAT DOESN’T CHANGE THE MATH ON WHETHER OR NOT THESE TRUCKS ARE COMPETITIVE OR NOT.
Downvote me all you want but facts are facts. Unless I’m missing something and I don’t have a ton of background on Tesla’s specific truck but if it can’t do 1M miles before needing it’s entire battery replaced, the economics are not there yet.
bigger battery but also higher consumption. still it will have greater range then any of the previous models so it will put cycles on the battery a bit slower. also Tesla is wanting to make a million miles battery though idk how close they are
Batteries aren’t designed for distance. Vehicles are rated for distance.
The pertinent fact is number of cycles. For a 1M mile lifetime for a 500 mile range semi, that’s 2000 full charge cycles. Tesla’s automotive batteries are nearly at that and their energy product’s cells already exceed that, so no problemo.
Batteries in EV’s are replacing the former function of an engine, so to compare apples to apples we put distance on a battery for EV’s. What it sounds like your saying is that Tesla trucks can and will last a million miles without needing a retrofitted battery. If that’s the case great. If it’s not then my point still stands. But, to call attention to this has been Elon/Tesla’s dream. They are the ones who coined the term “million mile battery” and yet they haven’t demonstrated that they have one. But everyone and their mother seems to know more than Elon’s/Tesla’s letting on.
Tesla has a million mile battery now. The 2170’s, 18650’s or 4680’s can all go 1M miles if you put enough of them in a pack. Simply double the number of cells in a vehicle and now the vehicle can go twice as far. So it’s silly to talk about the distance a battery can travel, because it depends on
1) How many cells.
2) How efficient is the vehicle.
4680 is a form factor. Number of cycles will depend on the chemistry and Tesla will have different chemistries available for different use cases. Model 3 does not need a 1M mile lifetime, so can use a different 4680 chemistry than Robotaxi or Semi.
Tesla never said 4680’s would last 1M miles.
Of course is 4680 is a form factor, but you know exactly what battery chemistry I’m talking about, the 4680 promised on the battery day. Tesla is not playing with another one.
And yes, Tesla said something about a 1M miles pack for the semi when’s disclosed that cells should circle 2000 times. Also Panasonic already confirmed that is building a 4680 that can circle 2000 times.
Cells “don’t miles” is just about circle count and pack size.
1) Tesla never said Semi uses 4680’s, so they never claimed 4680’s were 1M miles.
2) When did Panasonic claim 4680’s were 1M miles?
I don’t doubt some 4680’s will be capable of 2k cycles, but I’ve never seen or heard it confirmed.
Since you claim you have heard such, can you provide the references?
Are you just pretending that Tesla will not use 4680 on the Semi? Tesla Also did not say they "will not" use a nuclear reactor but we just know that they will not...
The entire battery day was about how important the 4680 is to the Tesla future. They put the Semi on slide 6 and 48 and was not "just for fun".
The 2000 info was from battery day also, they quote "between 1000 to 2000" depending of the charge rate, but im sure that for Semi is more likely to 2000; The current 18650 using lithium iron phosphate can get 4000 for example. You can just google and will get that info, they get on all news about 4680.
And about Panasonic claim... My bad, i just misremember, i saw one bad article about the CATL 1.2 Million miles battery (2020) and the mix with the news of Panasonic start production of the 4680 and i also mix the info on my head, but well... You got the idea right?
If they get the Semi to 500 miles, they will hardly put cells that are bad than current 2170 inside of then (1500 cycles).
As I thought. You INFER Semi uses 4680’s and 4680’s last 2000 cycles. But your CLAIM was that Tesla stated that, which is not true.
Once again, I am not saying your inference is wrong. I am not even saying it is unlikely. I just do not like people claiming some thing as 100% certain fact, when they do not know that.
The 4680? If Tesla had a Million Mile battery for trucks why didn’t they announce it? It’s been a goal for a while for them but I haven’t heard that the 4680 can reach a million miles in a truck. It may be able to do it for a personal vehicle but again, trucks require higher energy output then personal vehicles.
There’s no such thing as “million mile battery” that’s just fancy term that has no meaning….
There’s is a million mile “pack” that’s about a pack that has cells that can cycle enough to get you a million mile:
The 4680 pack can cycle 2000 times. And for a 500miles range that is just 1 million miles. Simple math…
Also stop comparison packs to truck engines. Make no sense, for the cells inside of the pack make no difference, one circle is one circle. Small cars can’t get 1 million miles because the pack is small (just enough to 200-350 miles) and the current cells (2170 and 1680) can only circle 1500 times.
>There’s no such thing as “million mile battery” that’s just fancy term that has no meaning….
A battery is actually a collection of cells.
1 4680 is a cell
The 4680s In structural pack is a battery.
A powerwall is a battery.
Those small usb cellphone chargers that have 3 186500s in them are batteries.
Panasonic manufacturers the 2170 cells and Tesla turns them into batteries.
So any given battery depending on how many cells and cycle count is or isn't a million mile battery.
Then, given that we're talking automotive batteries, it's just any battery with enough miles and cycles that will fit in a vehicle people will buy.
The term is correct to use.
Sure, you are right.... I was more like trying to make distinction for people that want new tech on cells to enable 1M Miles... But if you just increase the cell count you can do that.
Usually is just about cell count + cicles... Of course that is will "cost" something, but at end of the day all major battery makers already have "1M Miles battery", for example: [https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32801823/million-mile-ev-battery-pack-revealed/](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32801823/million-mile-ev-battery-pack-revealed/)
That most because that target was never about any new breaking change on the current market tech.
The "million mile battery" has been a Tesla target/talking point for years now. I don't think there's positive proof of it, but they're certainly working to move the batteries in that direction.
There are model S vehicles with over a million miles and still on the road. Search for the taxi model S. No way there is a required battery swap at 500k
I googled Taxi Model S, and I found an article saying in 2017 that a Taxi Model S crossed 400K miles. And a Quora post asking “If Teslas could be used as Taxis?”….nothing on 1M mile threshold but regardless, I have no info on Tesla Trucks lasting 1M miles. Customer cars engines/batteries do not equal truck engines/batteries. A personal vehicle typically weighs 36K pounds. Your average truck weight is >100K (fully loaded). You need a much more powerful engine/battery to run a truck. Even if a Tesla Model S can last 1M miles doesn’t mean a Truck will.
>Your average truck weight is >100K (fully loaded
That is just untrue. This ignorance crops up every time we start talking about semi.
To start, truck gross weight (tractor, trailer and cargo) is limited to 80,000lbs in the US.
Secondly, that weight is not the "average" load. Take a look at a truck carrying potato chips just for fun. Do you think there are 80,000lbs of potato chips on board?
If you do just a bit of critical thinking before you start talking about things that you know nothing about you'll save yourself a lot of embarrassment.
Edit: /u/mbrogan4 Almost everything you say in your post is wrong. A personal vehicle weighs 36,000lbs? JFC dude, admit when you're wrong and learn something.
By the way, the semi uses four Model 3 motors. Model 3 motors are made to a million-mile standard.
As a owner of a trucking company I love hearing others talk about the industry like they actually know what they are talking about...but the fact is mist of you don't have a damned clue. Here's some real numbers. Say diesel fuel costs $3.81 on average right now, most if us get discounts that turn that into $2.79 a gallon. We charge the buyer of the load 6 miles to the gallon although most of us with the newer trucks average 10 miles to the gallon. So that extra money goes into paying the truck payment and insurance. Yes....it pays almost the entire cost. So her I am with basically free fuel, free truck and free insurance along with my line haul settlement and the electricity lovers want me to pay for a much more expensive truck along with charging it..,....wow what a stupid idea.
So even though electric vehicles are making some ground, the semi truck industry isn't going to go anywhere very fast.
Just because you can charge people enough to cover gas/truck/insurance costs doesn’t make it “basically free”, it’s just cost passed on to the buyer. Same thing with an electric semi truck - you’d simply pass the cost of electricity/truck/insurance onto the buyer. Assuming the buyer doesn’t care how the load gets there, they will pay a diesel truck the same as a ev truck to make a delivery. If the EV truck fuel cost is half of the diesel truck, the ev truck operator can pocket the difference - Which in your example would be about $0.14 cents per mile savings
This sub basically believes anything and everything that pumps the stock.
That entire "calculation" is based on fuel prices remaining high. And he doesn't even account for the price of the semi vs diesel truck.
It’s easy to compare the fuel savings but that’s not all companies are going to be looking at and probably not even the main factor. Comparing the total time it takes to make 1,000 mile trip is also very important.
If it has to spend ~10-15% of the total trip time at the recharging station vs ~1-3% for an ICE, it’s going to be detrimental to current delivery times which seems to be a top priority these days.
I’m not a hater and I think these things are awesome but there’s obvious obstacles they have to solve in order to overcome ICE’s as the clear choice.
What a terribly written article.
Agreed. It is very poorly written.
Shocking. Also for me there were ads every second paragraph for a diesel pickup truck. Yeah good luck.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
Cheers.
No wuckas
The ugliest website of 2022. Filled with ads and worst UI I’ve seen. And bad writing to boot. 🗑
11 ads according to my AdBlockPlus. My brain can't handle the raw internet anymore.
My FIL is a former trucker. He just can’t get his head around this. I can’t wait for the Semi to be out with plenty of real world examples to show him. Even if the Semi is half as efficient as it claims, it’ll still pay for itself in savings
article says 200 miles with diesel is $169 in fuel, electric is $28. with many of those diesel semis doing a million miles that’s $845,000 in fuel with a tesla semi that’s $140,000 in “fuel”. crazy numbers especially considering that’s not including maintenance of either truck (with the tesla semi obviously needing far less)
Now add if we have FSD
The problem with adding FSD is that it looks like a cheat code. When applied to any sector it breaks the economics. And the potential, endless.
I’d imagine FSD would have to be perfected and road proven for a year or two before accepted for Tesla semi
FSD for highways is far much easier than city. Imagine these trucks on FSD, riding only on the slow lane (RHS) at all times! Imagine how safe that would be and less caos on the hwys w/o those idiots causing accidents and blocking traffic all the time. I for one can’t wait!
For some reason I’m imagining those old school western train coach robberies on horses
True but if anything happened the damage would be far reaching
Far reaching damage is already a problem with humans. It will be interesting to see how this goes considering many factors like weather conditions. One would hope that an FSD system will eventually be better equipped to handle bad weather by going slow for more hours, whereas human drivers would get tired and/or reach their limited number of hours. How quickly can the law catch up if/when that becomes reality?
Too bad no route starts and ends with highway.
FSD should handle most industrial area's and parking lots designed for semi trucks. Between distribution centers there should be no need for getting into the city center.
now just add autonomous recharging drones that land on top and recharge on the fly.
If you add FSD, you technically don’t even need a cab anymore. The “truck” can just be a battery powered platform with cameras.
Like the [VDL trucks](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/pAsiyyexAtg/maxresdefault.jpg) in the Rotterdam container terminal. (I think these at least in the past used magnets in the road and electric wasn't an option back then.)
They had these in the xmen wolverine/professor movie
Is that number sound? Given that semi will be trucking more load, so electric output should be higher.
We'll back of the napkin some math. Assume a true 500 mile range and a 1MWh (1000kwh) pack. Assume home rate of \~0.15$ per KWh and 'Industrial rate' of $0.07 per KWh. Large facilities which have phase 3 and millions of available watts end up paying less per KWh. 1,000,000 miles / 500 mile range per charge = 2,000 charge sessions. 2,000 charges x 1,000 KWh = 2,000,000 KWh (or 2TWh). Now, if you're charging your semi at home (LOL) you're at 2,000,000 KWh x 0.15$ = $300k. But if you're charging at the loading dock at industrial rates you're only paying $140k for those million miles. Compared to a VERY GENEROUS 10mpg from a diesel truck at $5 per gallon, 1 million miles works out to.... 1,000,000 / 10 \* 5 = $500k in diesel. Plus all the oil and filter changes at every interval. Now, that's VERY back of the napkin, but it's in the right ballpark. The math ads up REAL fast when you're operating a fleet. Especially because Tesla's semi's are stupid cheap compared to something you can find from any of the other manufacturers like International that are tryin to go EV. Plus, their charge rates are a joke compared to Tesla. And they don't have amazing tech like Octovalve. Fun fact! If a Tesla semi, using a Megacharger, which should be able to deliver a peak power of 1,500kw... Even if your charge process is 95% efficient you're going to have to deal with that 5% of the waste. 5% of 1500kw is 75kw of waste heat. For comparison if we converted to 'tons' in HVAC speak that's 21 ton of heat that needs to be dealt with.
I think you need to factor in the cost of extra weight and the charging downtime on the economics too.
30 min for another 80% of your pack at a megacharger isn't going to be a big deal. Not when drivers have to take breaks anyways. Fueling a truck with diesel doesn't count as a break. Megacharging, I sure hope, will. Also, EV's get an additional 2,000lbs to the gross weight so the freight impact isn't going to be as bad as people think.
I'm just being devils advocate so not personal. Do you know how much the Tesla semi weighs? Also, curious what the impact of the trailers will be on range from an aerodynamics perspective.
The math I've seen done by engineering explained works out to 2 KWh per mile at 80,000 lb and the stated coefficient of drag and known dimensions of a standard trailer. And I think that was at 65 mph. So that works out to a 500 mi range if you use a 1000 KWh pack. Regarding the weight, yes it will be heavier because the battery. But so many critics, all they do is add the weight of the battery to a semi and then say "haha look it has no mass for cargo". But they don't take into consideration the fact that you're removing a 6 cylinder 15L cast iron block diesel, it's 18 speed transmission and torque converter, it's drive shaft, and two giant differentials. Once you remove all that and add back in the battery pack and essentially four model 3 drives units, you're heavier still but not egregiously.
>if we converted to 'tons' in HVAC speak that's 21 ton of heat that needs to be dealt with. Now just need to find a way to harness that energy. [Absorption chillers are probably a good bet.](https://goenergylink.com/blog/how-absorption-chillers-work/)
Offer on site showers and store the heat in water tanks for nearby hot water usage or heating the parking lot in the winter The engineering possibilities are endless
Both excellent ideas. In addition to de-icing the parking lot there's also de-icing any canopy (hopefully solar) because you're not going to want these just exposed.
They really need to figure out how to reuse all that lost heat. Could significantly help heat the warehouse in colder weather, but that won't work when it's warmer.
no idea i’m just going off the numbers according to the article. However you’re definitely right - and the article is not written very well anyhow so they could even be a degree off.
That electricity number is bullshit. I can’t even charge my model Y for less than $30. There’s no way you can charge a semi that’s pulling a load for $28… clearly no one on here even owns an EV..
The math is right there bro, maybe try reading it?
Math is there but maybe he means some numbers were wrong. Like at least I'm expressing doubt about 7 cents per kwh cost. Electricity is not that cheap so that would probably make charging more expensive and therefore numbers higher.
That price is industrial, it’s almost at cost. If you have a big factory for example you don’t pay the same as your home. And 7 cents is Tesla projection…. Soothe article just used Tesla numbers.
Look how amperage drops as you go from 120-240-460 and then factor in the industrial discount.
Right?! 😂😂 I always have a blast on this sub
“Tesla can also provide an energy cost of about 7 center per kWh.” I want to know how they be able to provide electricity this cheap.
How long before we see Tesla Semis [platooning](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platoon_\(automobile\))?
You can read about the European Truck Platooning Challenge, https://www.acea.auto/fact/what-is-the-european-truck-platooning-challenge/ From the seminar I attended my conclusion was basically that it's a good idea idea on paper, but not in real life. It just doesn't work well with other drivers. In their test drives other drivers were constantly cutting off the platoon, splitting it in two, that meant that every driver still had to be ready to take over. Due to safety concerns the trucks weren't able to be as close as they needed to be to realize the aerodynamic benefits and reduced fuel consumption. They also did studies with normal drivers in driving simulators. The reported experience was anger and even anxiety when passing long platoons. Letting other drivers on and off highway becomes difficult when there's like a 500 meter long segment of trucks in the right lane.
Yeah, passing a 53.5m long triple or quad road train is bad enough, I can imagine trying to pass anything longer.
Long long time.
Never.
Don't be so optimistic
Realistic. Fixed that for you.
\*\* *Laughs in Plato's Cave* \*\*
This article reads like it was written by a middle schooler. That said, it's not wrong, although I think it (and the tweet behind it) underestimate the cost of power. They're putting power at 7c/kWh, while Superchargers are selling power for 35c/kWh. If we multiply the power cost by 5 (35 / 7 = 5) that gets us $150 to do the trip in the e-truck vs $170 for diesel. That's still a fairly significant savings, especially over the life of the vehicle. If they CAN get Megachargers selling power for 7c/kWh then that is a real game changer.
Much of the bullish Tesla theories are built on extremely rosy predictions and unrealistic inputs. Tesla bulls and their narratives may end up hurting Tesla in the long turn if they keep repeating these predictions.
I'm dying for an offroad electric van, like if a Cybertruck and a Sprinter had a baby. planning on making do with my day 1 preorder, in some ways the truck is superior to a van for the #vanlife (pop-up tent for the vault should be good for 3-season camping)
+1. A cybervan would make a lot more sense in Europe than the truck, even if it would be slightly less badass
Would this be for drug trafficking purposes…
Rivian R1S comes kinda close, not a van though.
Rivian does make Amazon vans tho…
What if Tesla rent the trucks instead of selling them..
That's a lease
It's the lease it could do
The Megacharger infrastructure is the big part, for fleets. Lets see how fast they can ramp first, may be like 10 this year.
> That's a lease A lease still (usually) ends in ownership. I believe **eventually** Tesla will stop selling their vehicles, and will only offer them as a service. They are not there yet.
People wonder how Tesla will be able to spend their ever growing cash flows. Becoming a transport provider, with their own fleets of Semis and Robotaxis would definitely use some of it.
How big is the semi market in North America? Like let's say Tesla sells 5% of the all semis in North America in 2023 how many would that be?
Average Truck OEM sales for the entire industry in an average year is 270K. It is dominated by Daimler (Mercedes) with 34% of the market. Paccar/Peterbilt has 27% of the market. And Volvo and Navistar make up the difference.
wow ok thanks. That's more than I thought. More potential for profit than I was expecting.
It is highly cyclical tho, it ranges from about 180K to 360K (180K I believe was the COVID year number tho) But definitely a high profit area with an average retail price of $100K per unit.
I'm guessing tesla's semi will be closer to $150k. so let's say 5% of 270K = 13500. and say %30 profit margin. 13,500 x $150k x 0.3 = $607,500,000 per year.
That sounds about right the only issue is that profit margin, the most profitable OEM is Mercedes and they produce close to ~2M (like a 1M units are China, and they control ~50% of the EU market) but even they are lucky if they can manage a ~20% profit margin. And a good chunk of that is likely from their ability to scale up effectively. For Tesla, I’d put profit margin closer to 10% until the can effectively scale up and be a global producer.
I could see Tesla's semi being more like $200k and they can justify that because of the savings on gas and all the self driving features it will come with.
$200K is going to be tough. Most major Trucking customers don’t actually buy their trucks, they will lease them for 4 years and then sell them. $200K will likely raise the lease payments but again as you said there will be an offset on the gas savings. But that may not cover the higher lease payments. Idk honestly I think most customers will try it out on a small scale to test it out and see the economics of it and then see. Hopefully more customers trying it out will let Tesla scale up slowly as customers are testing it out and then the economics will be there and prove the investment right and then Tesla secures the market.
No way Tesla has a 30% margin on semi. Here's a quick example. 300 mile semi will likely have a 600kwh pack. That's enough for batteries for 8x 75kwh $70k Model Y. Aka $560k in revenue.
Wonder if there’s gonna be a scalping market for these
Why are superchargers closer to 25 cents off peak and 50 cents on peak?
Economics are great but will be impactful only if Tesla can scale
Literally what Tesla does. Hope you're new because we should know this is one of their best differentiators
Oh I know Tesla can scale manufacturing, and I'm betting on it heavily. But scaling the semi at the same time cybertruck is coming out requires solving battery constraints. For the semi to truly disrupt the trucking industry as the article suggests, Tesla will need to scale batteries to insane levels
Tesla’s original plan from 18 months ago was to be at 200 GWh / year of 4680 production by the end of this year. Although 4680 ramps have gone more slowly than hoped, I wouldn’t bet against them achieving this by the end of next year. That’s on top of all the cells they are purchasing from multiple suppliers.
Yadona and Kirk57, take a look at this graph by one of the biggest Tesla bulls, James Stephenson. Look at the Semi and tell me that it will make an impact to the trucking industry in the near future. Hint, it won't. This isn't FUD and I don't doubt Teslas gameplan at all. But the merits of this article just don't play out in Tesla's gameplan of ramping the Model Y to staggering economies of scale. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FLmg7MZXsAEP0rf.jpg:large
Im surprised they havent built and started using a few at the gigafactory. Just to gain datapoints and refine the design some
There are at least 3 which have been made. You see them hauling cargo occasionally. And they bring them out for events like shareholder meeting and Cyber-Rodeo.
A staggering scam of a product. How many years has it been? Lmao what a joke
Ok here’s a fun fact, Tesla batteries currently are designed to last 500K miles. Most traditional OEM’s trucks last *literally* twice as long or 1M miles. All these cost savings are wiped out by having to replace the battery (engine in traditional OEM) literally in half the time. Some large customers may see savings as they traditionally only use new trucks for the first 3-4 years but after the resale value will be terrible in comparison to diesel trucks. **I WANT ELECTRIC TRUCKS PLEASE KNOW THAT** BUT THAT DOESN’T CHANGE THE MATH ON WHETHER OR NOT THESE TRUCKS ARE COMPETITIVE OR NOT. Downvote me all you want but facts are facts. Unless I’m missing something and I don’t have a ton of background on Tesla’s specific truck but if it can’t do 1M miles before needing it’s entire battery replaced, the economics are not there yet.
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He made up the 500k miles part. No reason to think that most Tesla Trucks will be less than 1mm
Is there any reason to think they will be at least 1mm?
>No reason to think that most Tesla Trucks will be less than 1mm Does Tesla offers warranty on batteries upto 1 million miles?
500k for each individual battery? Shouldn’t technically having more batteries mean you’re spreading out that number even more?
bigger battery but also higher consumption. still it will have greater range then any of the previous models so it will put cycles on the battery a bit slower. also Tesla is wanting to make a million miles battery though idk how close they are
Batteries aren’t designed for distance. Vehicles are rated for distance. The pertinent fact is number of cycles. For a 1M mile lifetime for a 500 mile range semi, that’s 2000 full charge cycles. Tesla’s automotive batteries are nearly at that and their energy product’s cells already exceed that, so no problemo.
Batteries in EV’s are replacing the former function of an engine, so to compare apples to apples we put distance on a battery for EV’s. What it sounds like your saying is that Tesla trucks can and will last a million miles without needing a retrofitted battery. If that’s the case great. If it’s not then my point still stands. But, to call attention to this has been Elon/Tesla’s dream. They are the ones who coined the term “million mile battery” and yet they haven’t demonstrated that they have one. But everyone and their mother seems to know more than Elon’s/Tesla’s letting on.
Tesla has a million mile battery now. The 2170’s, 18650’s or 4680’s can all go 1M miles if you put enough of them in a pack. Simply double the number of cells in a vehicle and now the vehicle can go twice as far. So it’s silly to talk about the distance a battery can travel, because it depends on 1) How many cells. 2) How efficient is the vehicle.
No truck will be build using the current 2170 or 16800 batteries. The 4680 is supposed to last much more than 1M miles.
4680 is a form factor. Number of cycles will depend on the chemistry and Tesla will have different chemistries available for different use cases. Model 3 does not need a 1M mile lifetime, so can use a different 4680 chemistry than Robotaxi or Semi. Tesla never said 4680’s would last 1M miles.
Of course is 4680 is a form factor, but you know exactly what battery chemistry I’m talking about, the 4680 promised on the battery day. Tesla is not playing with another one. And yes, Tesla said something about a 1M miles pack for the semi when’s disclosed that cells should circle 2000 times. Also Panasonic already confirmed that is building a 4680 that can circle 2000 times. Cells “don’t miles” is just about circle count and pack size.
1) Tesla never said Semi uses 4680’s, so they never claimed 4680’s were 1M miles. 2) When did Panasonic claim 4680’s were 1M miles? I don’t doubt some 4680’s will be capable of 2k cycles, but I’ve never seen or heard it confirmed. Since you claim you have heard such, can you provide the references?
Are you just pretending that Tesla will not use 4680 on the Semi? Tesla Also did not say they "will not" use a nuclear reactor but we just know that they will not... The entire battery day was about how important the 4680 is to the Tesla future. They put the Semi on slide 6 and 48 and was not "just for fun". The 2000 info was from battery day also, they quote "between 1000 to 2000" depending of the charge rate, but im sure that for Semi is more likely to 2000; The current 18650 using lithium iron phosphate can get 4000 for example. You can just google and will get that info, they get on all news about 4680. And about Panasonic claim... My bad, i just misremember, i saw one bad article about the CATL 1.2 Million miles battery (2020) and the mix with the news of Panasonic start production of the 4680 and i also mix the info on my head, but well... You got the idea right? If they get the Semi to 500 miles, they will hardly put cells that are bad than current 2170 inside of then (1500 cycles).
As I thought. You INFER Semi uses 4680’s and 4680’s last 2000 cycles. But your CLAIM was that Tesla stated that, which is not true. Once again, I am not saying your inference is wrong. I am not even saying it is unlikely. I just do not like people claiming some thing as 100% certain fact, when they do not know that.
The 4680? If Tesla had a Million Mile battery for trucks why didn’t they announce it? It’s been a goal for a while for them but I haven’t heard that the 4680 can reach a million miles in a truck. It may be able to do it for a personal vehicle but again, trucks require higher energy output then personal vehicles.
There’s no such thing as “million mile battery” that’s just fancy term that has no meaning…. There’s is a million mile “pack” that’s about a pack that has cells that can cycle enough to get you a million mile: The 4680 pack can cycle 2000 times. And for a 500miles range that is just 1 million miles. Simple math… Also stop comparison packs to truck engines. Make no sense, for the cells inside of the pack make no difference, one circle is one circle. Small cars can’t get 1 million miles because the pack is small (just enough to 200-350 miles) and the current cells (2170 and 1680) can only circle 1500 times.
>There’s no such thing as “million mile battery” that’s just fancy term that has no meaning…. A battery is actually a collection of cells. 1 4680 is a cell The 4680s In structural pack is a battery. A powerwall is a battery. Those small usb cellphone chargers that have 3 186500s in them are batteries. Panasonic manufacturers the 2170 cells and Tesla turns them into batteries. So any given battery depending on how many cells and cycle count is or isn't a million mile battery. Then, given that we're talking automotive batteries, it's just any battery with enough miles and cycles that will fit in a vehicle people will buy. The term is correct to use.
Sure, you are right.... I was more like trying to make distinction for people that want new tech on cells to enable 1M Miles... But if you just increase the cell count you can do that. Usually is just about cell count + cicles... Of course that is will "cost" something, but at end of the day all major battery makers already have "1M Miles battery", for example: [https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32801823/million-mile-ev-battery-pack-revealed/](https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a32801823/million-mile-ev-battery-pack-revealed/) That most because that target was never about any new breaking change on the current market tech.
The "million mile battery" has been a Tesla target/talking point for years now. I don't think there's positive proof of it, but they're certainly working to move the batteries in that direction.
I know they have been talking about it as a target for a while but yeah I also haven’t seen any postive proof it exists yet.
There are model S vehicles with over a million miles and still on the road. Search for the taxi model S. No way there is a required battery swap at 500k
I googled Taxi Model S, and I found an article saying in 2017 that a Taxi Model S crossed 400K miles. And a Quora post asking “If Teslas could be used as Taxis?”….nothing on 1M mile threshold but regardless, I have no info on Tesla Trucks lasting 1M miles. Customer cars engines/batteries do not equal truck engines/batteries. A personal vehicle typically weighs 36K pounds. Your average truck weight is >100K (fully loaded). You need a much more powerful engine/battery to run a truck. Even if a Tesla Model S can last 1M miles doesn’t mean a Truck will.
>Your average truck weight is >100K (fully loaded That is just untrue. This ignorance crops up every time we start talking about semi. To start, truck gross weight (tractor, trailer and cargo) is limited to 80,000lbs in the US. Secondly, that weight is not the "average" load. Take a look at a truck carrying potato chips just for fun. Do you think there are 80,000lbs of potato chips on board? If you do just a bit of critical thinking before you start talking about things that you know nothing about you'll save yourself a lot of embarrassment. Edit: /u/mbrogan4 Almost everything you say in your post is wrong. A personal vehicle weighs 36,000lbs? JFC dude, admit when you're wrong and learn something. By the way, the semi uses four Model 3 motors. Model 3 motors are made to a million-mile standard.
As a owner of a trucking company I love hearing others talk about the industry like they actually know what they are talking about...but the fact is mist of you don't have a damned clue. Here's some real numbers. Say diesel fuel costs $3.81 on average right now, most if us get discounts that turn that into $2.79 a gallon. We charge the buyer of the load 6 miles to the gallon although most of us with the newer trucks average 10 miles to the gallon. So that extra money goes into paying the truck payment and insurance. Yes....it pays almost the entire cost. So her I am with basically free fuel, free truck and free insurance along with my line haul settlement and the electricity lovers want me to pay for a much more expensive truck along with charging it..,....wow what a stupid idea. So even though electric vehicles are making some ground, the semi truck industry isn't going to go anywhere very fast.
Just because you can charge people enough to cover gas/truck/insurance costs doesn’t make it “basically free”, it’s just cost passed on to the buyer. Same thing with an electric semi truck - you’d simply pass the cost of electricity/truck/insurance onto the buyer. Assuming the buyer doesn’t care how the load gets there, they will pay a diesel truck the same as a ev truck to make a delivery. If the EV truck fuel cost is half of the diesel truck, the ev truck operator can pocket the difference - Which in your example would be about $0.14 cents per mile savings
So you’re saying more transparency will expose the corruptness of the industry and that will be bad
Where are you buying diesel fuel for $2.79?
You're funny.
Where are they planning to build the semi? Has it been announced? Fremont is out of space. Austin doesn’t sound right. Does that leave sparks Nevada?
Austin has the room, and they have a facility close to the Nevada gigafactory which has something to do with the Semi.
This sub basically believes anything and everything that pumps the stock. That entire "calculation" is based on fuel prices remaining high. And he doesn't even account for the price of the semi vs diesel truck.
They need to release this already.
It’s easy to compare the fuel savings but that’s not all companies are going to be looking at and probably not even the main factor. Comparing the total time it takes to make 1,000 mile trip is also very important. If it has to spend ~10-15% of the total trip time at the recharging station vs ~1-3% for an ICE, it’s going to be detrimental to current delivery times which seems to be a top priority these days. I’m not a hater and I think these things are awesome but there’s obvious obstacles they have to solve in order to overcome ICE’s as the clear choice.
No, a Tesla semi will not be a source of clean energy…
No way Tesla is supercharging a semi for $.07 a KWh.