Elon Musk unveiled a prototype of an electric Tesla Truck on November 16th. Over the Thanksgiving holiday the pricing was announced. It’s not pretty. The base price of the 300-mile range Tesla Semi is $150,000, and the 500-mile range model costs $180,000. That’s almost double the base price of a traditional semi truck according to CostOwl. There are real doubts on whether this truck can win in the marketplace.
This is a Class 8 truck, the heaviest weight classification for trucks. Class 8 trucks can carry up to 80,000 pounds, the maximum weight allowed on U.S. highways. Tesla said that it will start producing the truck in 2019.
Suspect Economics
Let’s look at those ongoing operational costs. Musk claims diesel trucks were 20 percent more expensive per mile to operate than the Tesla truck. This is believable. Electricity is cheaper than diesel.
Another issue will be the truck and battery life. It is just too soon to know how long the battery packs will last, and new model trucks also often have a shakeout period before they become reliable.
Another issue is the payload. Class 8 trucks can carry 80,000 pounds. But the heavy batteries may limit the weight of the cargo an electric truck can haul.
Range matters too. It was expected that Tesla would announce a range of 200 to 300 miles; they announced the truck would have a range of 500 miles when fully loaded. This was a pleasant surprise.
At first blush, there might appear to be operational issues associated with operating a truck with a 500-mile range. After all, diesel trucks can travel 1,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. This would seemingly eliminate Tesla from the long-haul market. But this may not be much of an issue. Over-the-road trucking is usually performed by solo drivers. Under current hours-of-service regulations, a solo driver can usually cover 500 miles before taking a mandatory 10-hour rest break. This rule has not always been rigorously enforced, but starting in December of this year the Department of Transportation is requiring that trucks begin using electronic logging devices for recording their actual hours of service.
Green and Safe?
That 500 mile range based on a slow charging process is a good thing because fast recharging has emerged as an issue. Tesla said the truck can charge for 30 minutes and then travel 400 miles. But one of Europe’s leading energy consultancies has estimated that the truck will require the same energy as up to 4,000 homes to recharge, calculations that raise questions about how “green” this truck really is. And being good for the environment is a selling point. It is a reason for trucking companies that want to promote themselves as friendly to the environment to buy the trucks even if the return on investments is not quite as good as conventional trucks.
Trucking firms also care about safety. Drivers with a good safety record lower insurance premiums for the firm and firms with a bad safety record are less likely to be selected to carry a load. The new truck will have Tesla’s latest semi-autonomous driving system. This system is designed to keep a vehicle in its lane without drifting – a very good thing. It is also designed to change lanes on command and transition from one freeway to another with no human intervention; trucking firms may be somewhat nervous about these features until they have proof these features improve safety.
Finally, there is the question of whether the Tesla trucks will really hit the market in 2019. Their current factory for the Model 3 sedan is in Freemont, California. The startup of production is described by Tesla as being “manufacturing hell.” But Tesla is projecting much higher throughput next year. If these projections are right, the Freemont plant may not have the capacity to produce the trucks unless it is enlarged or another plant is built. Both would seem to make it hard to hit the launch date.
With the Tesla Semi, Mr. Musk is entering a competitive and demanding market. He may have bitten off more than he can chew.
You make some irrelevant points:
For base cost you should compare a truck with comparable features, not the lowest you can find.
It has the same cargo capacity as conventional; so no battery weight limitations there
The energy demand is no worse than conventional (in fact it is much better), so the houses argument is irrelevant.
Fast charging is from solar
The battery is part of the 1M mile warranty, so ageing is Tesla’s problem
On production your argument is that if they are successful they will not meet production demand, yet you argue that they will not be successful; which is it?
If you have a negative viewpoint, please come back with more convincing arguments
The Tesla Truck Story is an Illusion of a truck, because there is no technical Chance to produce such a vehicle in 2019 and even not in the next years .
The most modern batteries are not able to work over some hours by full speed. That is even too the reason why Telsla cars ars able to drive in full speed only for a short distance and then the driver must go into slow speed
modus or to drive to a reloading station.
This way is not able for a truck because if the truck crosses longer distances of montains it is not possible to make the drive retarding the power on 20% just when the truck is climbing a hill.
How can the payload be the same as a diesel truck with the same dimensions in length, high and weight.
In this case the battery may have no weight or the total weight of the truck is 80 tons insteda of 40.
The warrentay of Tesla for 1 M mile is a bad joke because this is given by a Company with one foot in bankrott.
Please have Attention that for a overland Transport emissions are really not relevant but the consumption of primary energy Input is very relevant. In this ecological category an electro truck is much more worse than any
Diesel truck. The energetic result of a truck is much better than cars. A modern European or Japanese truck
Needs only 4x as much diesel oil as a car but the truck transports 20x the weight of a car.
Peolple should not believe everything what the Tesla marketing division announces and People shoud create critical questions – not only about Facts they learn my lobby based media.
It is better to look into the technical realities then everybod could learn that Tesla strategy is only to get cash for the huge losses Tesla generates each day. With phantasitic descriptions of a product without any serious natural science facts it seems to be easy to get the money of some naive People.
A truck has an other duty structure as a car. The truck needs for a high percentage of its route full or nearly full energy ( mountains, city traffic etc). With the battery you can only full energy for a short distance then you must change in a slow modus becaus of the cooling of the batteries. For a car that is possible because you have an overdimensined engine and you can go to the next reload station. Truck work is something diffrent.
The weight of the batteries of a truck with the same dimensions in volumen and total weight as the Diesel trucks
will reduce the payload limit dramatically. Otherwise all natutal science are an error.
There is no serious chance to produce such truck in the next years. It is a nice marketing gag from Tesla to collect new money for deficites Tesla may generate every day before the background of nervous shareholders.
A warrenty of 1 M mile is total technical nonsense and perhaps the last idea of a company that may be near to bancrott.
Musk’s million mile tout is not a guarantee that Tesla semi will not break down before 1 million miles (just look at poor reliability of Tesla cars!), but one million mile warranty. But there lies the problem – Tesla service center are notorious for long turn around time on any service. So what will Tesla do when your semi breaks down? Rent you a diesel semi while Tesla semi is being repaired for few weeks? That is joke. Real trucks cannot afford such long downtime, they need to be repairable in most any truck shops, not just Tesla service center.
In addition, Musk has long history of low balling the actual cost of cars. Remember Model S at $45K that never saw the light of day? How about Model X? How about $35K model 3? Low balling Truck semi price means that actual price of Tesla semi when it’s finally in production will be significantly more than what is quoted now by Musk. And Tesla will still be losing money on each semi sold!!