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Tesla's Electric Semi Truck Will Reportedly Get 200-300 Miles Per Charge (reuters.com)
According to Reuters, Tesla next month plans to unveil an electric big-rig truck with a working range of 200 to 300 miles, a sign that the company is targeting regional hauling for its entry into the commercial freight market. From the report: Chief Executive Elon Musk has promised to release a prototype of its Tesla Semi truck next month in a bid to expand the company's market beyond luxury cars. The entrepreneur has tantalized the trucking industry with the prospect of a battery-powered heavy-duty vehicle that can compete with conventional diesels, which can travel up to 1,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. Tesla's electric prototype will be capable of traveling the low end of what transportation veterans consider to be "long-haul" trucking, according to Scott Perry, an executive at Miami-based fleet operator Ryder System. Perry said he met with Tesla officials earlier this year to discuss the technology at the automaker's manufacturing facility in Fremont, California.
Tesla actually did have a battery swap station. It turned out to be uneconomical and unpopular.
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Rapid charges are generally good enough, and it's possible to make them even faster with higher charge powers and charger-provided coolant. And with Supercharger v3, there will be a battery buffer in the charger, so the charging station's max power is no longer limited by the grid.
For people talking about the "time wasted stopping to charge", several important points.
1. In the EU, you have to stop frequently. Minimum 45 minutes per 4 1/2 hours for commercial drivers. You can lose your license if you don't. So rapid charging stops aren't a slowdown at all.
2. Paying the driver is under 20% of the cost of shipping by truck, and amortizing the truck's capital cost a bit over 20%. But fuel is around 40% for the total cost (the rest is things like maintenance, insurance, etc). So if you can halve fuel costs in half and slash maintenance, you're cutting a quarter off of your shipping costs, which can more than pay for the additional drivers and trucks to compensate for the ~half an hour charging every ~3 hours.
3. This shouldn't need to be said... because it was in the article... but the guy was talking about regional haul shipping, not long haul. Believe it or not, not every shipment travels thousands of miles.
Now lets bring up the side benefits.
1. An EV drivetrain will be ridiculously powerful. I have little doubt that Tesla will be making these as the most powerful semis in the world, as it's much easier to do with an EV drivetrain. Hills will be laughed off. To be more specific, Tesla has stated that they plan to use the M3's drivetrain (which propels a 1600kg car from 0-60 in 5,1-5,6 seconds) in Tesla... except that they plan to have one motor for each wheel. That's going to be a crazy amount of power. And speaking of hills, they'll recoup the energy on the downslope.
2. Semis waste a huge amount of energy idling, to power accessory loads for the driver and/or the cargo. Because the engines are so large, idling guzzles huge amounts of fuel. A variety of solutions have been come up with over the years, such as auxilliary microgenerators and window-mounted "tethers" at truck stops (TSE) which provide climate control and 120V power for drivers. EVs, however, have what owners often refer to as "camping mode". Since you never have to idle an engine, they use only the power that is needed to provide climate control and accessory loads while you're parked. Sleeping in an EV is a quiet, perfectly climate-controlled experience, and depending on the weather usually only takes 1-2% of the battery per hour if you're not plugged in (nothing if you are).
3. An EV semi would not be affected by noise, pollution, and idling regulations, which limit or prohibit semi access to some areas, and which have become more common with time.
4. While the earlier price analysis was for the US, it's a much more extreme difference in other places in the world. Where I am, for example, diesel is about $7/gal, and they're looking to hike taxes on it soon - it'll probably end up around $8/gal. I don't know what percentage of a fleet operator's costs here are fuel, but it's going to be a lot more than in the US.
5. We're so far just comparing base vehicles. But Tesla is working on value-added features as well, such as EAP and platooning. The latter is, from a technical standpoint, much easier than EAP (locking onto a vehicle and holding position relative to it). Even if you don't take the driver out of the loop, you're saving a ton of energy for the trailing vehicles. Meaning not only reducing costs, but also that you can periodically swap who's the lead vehicle and extend the whole platoon's range.
Versus passenger EVs, semis have a number of other big things going for them.
1. Unlike the passenger vehicle market, the shipping industry is all about the numbers, all about the bottom line - and c
Ever since, I've been suspicious of Jesus and very careful around chlorine.
You got me curious about the amount of power that could be produced by a semi trailer... since as you note, they're almost always outside. The large end of trailer sizes is 2,6m by 17,37m by 4,27m. We'll assume that the top and one long side have an average sun angle of 45 degrees and there's no solar on the front or rear of the trailer (although there could be). The top has an area of 45,16m^2 and the sides an area of 74,17m^2, for a combined area of 119,33m^2. On a sunny day, the angle-adjusted insolation is around 707W/m, so the trailer would be receiving 84,4kW and, at 22% panel efficiency, generating 18,6kW. While that's not enough for a fully "solar powered semi", it's definitely meaningful bonus power (that's enough to entirely power an electric SUV at highway speeds).
Ever since, I've been suspicious of Jesus and very careful around chlorine.