Tesla Semi, a Deep Dive

I see this all or nothing argument when discussing new stuff. Same thing was said about passenger cars and quoted as one of the main reasons EVs would never catch on. It looks like a chicken and egg problem until you look at it less idealistically and more pragmatically. If you watch the presentation (and I hope everyone commenting here did that first), it's most likely that the charging infra is part of the package fleet operators buy. They showed battery+solar backed Megachargers that the fleet operators are likely to be using for the near term. With this in mind, those companies that are currently buying these trucks in high numbers, are also definitely buying the charging infra with it. So with this context in mind, charging infra isn't a problem right now. And just like Superchargers for passenger cars, they will only ever increase in numbers.

Slow charging is only a temporary problem and as evolution of Superchargers has made quote evident to date.

From my understanding of US laws and human biology, no one can drive 2000 miles non-stop without taking multiple breaks in tens of minutes each. In fact, Tesla Semi's range is 500 miles because it's right at the edge of how long a driver can safely drive non-stop and right before they are legally required to take a break, during which time they can charge the truck.

That doesn’t mean the recharge infrastructure exists overnight, but those same stops are being converted to support the rollouts of electric car fleets (e.g. belgium is going to mandate corporate car fleets convert to electric from 2026).

> Trucking is a single digit percentage margin business.

This is a basic economics problem then. The cost of writing the software. The cost of hydrocarbons. The cost of electricity. The cost of time. The cost of maintenance. The cost of breakdowns.

I don't know too much about long haul trucking, but I know a decent amount about vehicles in general, and I have an engineering degree so my knowledge of physics is better than average.

I have yet to see a compelling reason why non-electrified trucks will survive. If you only look at the cost of breakdowns and fuel, and compare it to the cost of time, those breakdowns will pay for themselves. Completely leaving aside self driving technology. Even if we have to pay for drivers for the next thirty years. It does not matter.

Everything else will bend around the basic economics of electrified trucking. The law, the charging stations, the software, the schedules, everything. When an industry has such tiny margins as you correctly observe, an entrance of a technology can that can only serve a niche, but at extremely wide margins compared to existing players, will absolutely dominate.

There is a reason Pepsi is one of their first major buyers. The soft drinks are in the cities. But as these trucks dominate there more research will go into supporting them elsewhere. Fast swappable batteries, MASER charging along highways, more charge points per truck.

It doesn't matter. All these problems will be eaten by the massive wave of cash coming towards them by the early entrants that applied the technology where it was most suited in the short-term.

And then after that we'll get self-driving and it will be truly lights out for the legacy logistics companies. The only question is where in the five to fifty year period that will be.

He picked up a load in the morning, drove a few hundred kilometre highway/city route with a dozen stops during the day, and parked back at the depot at end of day.

Perfect for the Tesla Semi.

There are hundreds of trucks doing similar routes just in our metropolitan area.

There is a huge potential market for these trucks.

Only at HN:

1. Credit card processing is a razor thin margin business

2. Trucking is a low margin business

3. Retail is a ultra low margin business

4. Airlines don't make money

5. Phones is a low margin business

6. Desktops don't make money

7. Cars is a money losing venture

But, then how come all of the above companies built empires?

I've seen some fleets plan their fuel stops using software to take advantage of fuel card discounts they get at certain gas stations, which helps stretch the single digit margins you mentioned. I can see this kind of software being extended to EV charge planning as well.

The main savings come from fuel costs and maintenance. Eventually from autonomy as well.

> But for everything else, these vehicles require a fundamental reshaping of transportation in America. Not saying that’s not possible, but it ain’t happening any time soon.

Electric trucking doesn’t have to (immediately) take over the entire industry. All that counts is for that first part to be large enough. You see that with electric shipping, too. Short-distance ferries may already be economically feasible. That shipping stuff around the world on battery power isn’t, and maybe never will be, doesn’t matter.

Uh... I worked for one of the largest LTL companies in the US for years, and to my knowledge all of their road drivers were "home every night". Several runs out West were "hook and turn" - two trucks drive toward each other half the day, meet in the middle, swap trailers, and drive back home.

Further, a 500mi range is starting to get awfully close to the "11 consecutive hour" DOT Hours of Service limits.

My personal dream is that not only is port to industry fully on rails, but local distribution is rail-oriented also, to the point that a significant proportion of deliveries to shops in cities are made using pallets or trolleys loaded on freight trams. I do understand that the unusual nature of America makes this sort of change nigh-impossible, but maybe they could ship their semi-trailers on trains?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modalohr (second picture shows it best) [2] As in this image: https://forwardermagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Pic...

This advertises a 500 mile range, which at 60 mph is 8h20m of driving. And a 70% charge in 30 minutes.

Does the US trucking industry routinely have people drive for 8h+ without even a 30 minute break?

I understand you saying this is largely a software problem. Taking this at face value, I trust no other transportation related company but Tesla to deliver the best possible software for route planning (or anything really given they're just as big a software company as are in hardware -- see AI day presentations to get a feel of just how large a software effort they're running) if that is indeed a barrier to companies putting orders in for the Semi. I may even have heard them mention something about that in the presentation.

So give out some years. Production capacity isn’t that high anyway, mostly because of battery production capacities.

I do see an issue that these truck stops will require massively more electric power and some investment. (Please lets build more nuclear plants).

And in terms of maintenance and fuel cost these trucks should outperform diesel trucks by a wide margin and make up the capx different multiple times over.

I work for a large public utility generating electricity. We switched our fleet to electric trucks years ago, and not because we're an electric company - frankly our bean counters don't care about that! It all came down to lower operational costs, higher reliability, and vehicle longevity. Being an electric company we don't have to worry about charging infrastructure, but still - the electric vehicles proved to be significantly cheaper to operate, and not just in fuel costs.

If there are genuine advantages to EV trucking, then I don't see how any of this matters. This isn't a heavily regulated industry and there's very little barrier to entry. If you can save money on shipping by buying a bunch of Teslas and converting long hauls to relays, then someone will just do it regardless of whether the existing players are "ready to figure it out".

Now, are there advantages? We'll see. A lot depends on what happens in the fuel markets in the coming years. But the long term trends point away from diesel for sure.

And with 400 miles it's already that far that you're not anymore in the country I live in (the Netherlands).

Imho the biggest global challenge is electric supply. And I mean globally, not US + Canada. If we want EV trucks and cars globally we need way more nuclear power than we have right now.

It is all fun and nice to fill USA, Canada and some wealthy countries in Asia, Oceania and Europe with EVs. Will that change a lot in term of climaye change if other countries cannot develop and decent charging network, are struggling already with energy demand or still rely mostly on coal to produce electricity?