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> These trucks are more expensive, require infrastructure that doesn’t exist, charge slower, and don’t go anywhere near as far as diesel trucks. And no fleets in North America are ready to figure out converting a 2000 mile long haul over the road route into 5 400 mile EV relays.

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.

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If anyone is interested in the opinion of an actual CDL holder, I think the technology has amazing promise and will eventually be adopted for many kind of CDL driving. I used to work for a public utility company (water/waster water), and we had a fleet of about a dozen or so dump trucks then we used whenever we had to dig something up. These were big machines, full size tractors with a dump bed instead of a fifth wheel (the mechanism that semi tractors normally have installed to tow trailers). They also served to tow flatbed trailers loaded with a backhoe, out to the dig site.

Now these machines never left our service area. They were always parked in the same lot every night. Putting in charging infrastructure in that lot would be trivial, and would almost certainly cost less than maintaining our own diesel storage and pumping infrastructure (which we did do because it saved us so much of our working day to be able to fuel everything up in the morning instead of having to drive to a truck stop before starting the work day).

A lot of trucking is local or regional. Those will be the markets that EV makes the most sense for. Where the trucks normally go back to the same lot every night, and the owners can cheaply put in slow charge infrastructure. Could we get EV trucking working for long-haul (a kind of trucking I've also done in the past)? Sure. It will require fast charge infrastructure though. 500 miles is a lot of range, but in long haul trucking, very often you operate in two driver teams, and your truck is always moving. Fast charging could solve that too, but perhaps the solution is to reduce the number of miles that freight spends on the road. Multi-modal shipping could be expanded. Use trains to cover large distance, and try to keep road transportation of freight to the regional level and local level. This is already an option that exists. Multi-modal is already a sub-industry in trucking. This seems like the most logical option to me, but I'm not an expert. Just somebody who has lived the industry for a few years.

Thanks for your perspective. There are lots of people who like to shoot down technologies simply because they're ignorant of all the scenarios that exist. They see only one possible use (e.g. long haul trucking), correctly identify that the technology won't work in that scenario, then proceed to dismiss it entirely because they're unaware of the myriad of other applications.

The problem with these people is that they will go to great lengths to explain to you why your technology won't work in their specific application and feel smug because they think they've cleverly identified a flaw that you didn't think of.

Even slow overnight charging will have to be pretty beefy for these trucks and their batteries though. They're going to expend significantly more energy than your commuter car so they'll have to suck down a lot of juice overnight.

In the areas that companies build their truck lots with diesel depot's there is typically significant power available. The US electrical grid has expanded at a fairly steady rate. I don't see why it wouldn't be able to handle a continued growth rate via electric trucks.

Just to put some numbers out there, the semi battery pack is probably around 850kWh-1MWh. Imagine if this gets drained every day and a company has 10 trucks, the trucks have roughly 10-12 hours to charge (~6pm to 6am). So you'd need 1MW of electrical capacity.

This is equivalent to about 20 modern US homes (200A*240VAC) and not that crazy in the scheme of things. A medium sized factory in the US probably has a grid connection around this size depending on what they do.

Battery swapping seems like it circumvents the slowness-of-charge problem, both for short haul (port and local urban service) and later for long haul. (Dealing with detours on the latter could be tricky though.)

5 - 10 minute battery swap vs however many minutes charging. Sure it reduces the load carrying capacity and/or range a bit, but it should still be viable for many heavy goods vehicles. Swapping makes it easier to manage battery condition and vehicle utilisation. Over time battery provision/swapping could be outsourced, so the transport company can focus on trucking, not on batteries and their needs.

>I see this all or nothing argument when discussing new stuff.

That's one way to look at it. The other is that you can't pretend that real, tangible, identifiable problems don't exist. And Tesla has a habit of ignoring those.

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

What have the Superchargers proven? That under increased load the locations can become completely overwhelmed? Even with EVs having a single-digit market share?

I haven't met a single person in my neck of the woods that thinks waiting 30 minutes to "fuel up" is remotely reasonable. And that's state-of-the-art. We have a ways to go.

>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.

Let's wait for some real-world testing before making claims to Telsa Semi's range.

> And Tesla has a habit of ignoring those.

Tesla definitely has a habit of ignoring problems, but in all cases I'm aware of, they're non fundamental issues that can be addressed along the way. They see the bigger picture and aren't focusing on non-crucial details.

> What have the Superchargers proven? That under increased load the locations can become completely overwhelmed? Even with EVs having a single-digit market share?

I'm referring to speed of Superchargers increasing over time. Newer superchargers don't have the drop in charging speed problem when two adjacent stalls are used at the same time.

> I haven't met a single person in my neck of the woods that thinks waiting 30 minutes to "fuel up" is remotely reasonable. And that's state-of-the-art. We have a ways to go.

Well your neck of the wood aren't the current intended audience. Thanks to everyone else who's buying the cars at their current state. They are enabling a future where your neck of the wood can have cars that charge in a few minutes. Oh, and I'm one of them. You're welcome.

> Let's wait for some real-world testing before making claims to Telsa Semi's range.

OK.

> Oh, and I'm one of them. You're welcome.

Holy shit. This is some top-level smug right here.

Most people charge at home

they make consumer products and should know to stay in their lane, this won't take off, or will be beaten by other players

oooor, they'll ignore the naysayers and make bank eventually, if they don't run out of funding before that. (Or don't go under because their CEO can be a raving nutbar sometimes.)

This. I purchased an EV for the daily commute ~3 years ago. A family member got angry and railed about how it was already a failed technology as they likely couldn't replace their f350 towing 4-wheelers deep into the woods.

Infrastructure takes time; and you don't have to solve every use case at once.

I am very pro EV...but a little concerned that the one thing we do (Hauling a 5th wheel with a diesel) will get legislated away or cot prohibitive before a reasonable alternative is available.

But for the other transportation needs, when I replace the 40mpg commuter, I'm all for it. When we bought the commuter, due to covid math, it was an $8k purchase plus trade. An EV would have been a $25k purchase with trade and I really didn't want to incur that much debt.

You should probably understand that somebody who uses an efficient vehicle for commuting, and a big truck for real big truck things, is utterly an outlier. Most trucks in america have never left the pavement, and the largest thing they carry is a 40 pound bag of dog food. The vast majority of americans buy the biggest truck they can get credit for and drive it everywhere at 12mpg, usually while boasting "It's got a hemi!" as if that even matters after 1980

5th-wheel + truck can be addressed with a giant battery on the 5th-wheel itself. RVs, camper vans, 5th-wheels, etc. are going to have a lot of cool tech and builds here soon.

> It'll cost more...

Yea, everything will. We didn't account for the negative externalities of using fossil fuels properly. Now we're starting to. You also have the rest of the world being lifted out of poverty and there's nothing we can do about it and we'll have to adjust to simply not being as wealthy.

Sure, but you should stop selling your product like it can do all of those things and more. Its outright lying.

Tesla semi was production ready in 2020 - as far as i remember. and was more efficient than train. And whatever other lies musk said back then.

Musk is prolific deceiver, I dont trust a single thing coming out of his mouth nor his websites.

Also car is often an expense - bigger or smaller - its not a tool that needs to make money. A tool that can make or break a business.

Tesla cars are notorious for its expensive repairs. Its a huge cost and risk switching to it.

> Sure, but you should stop selling your product like it can do all of those things and more. Its outright lying.

This is the response I hate. Detractors say that to argue against any adoption. It's not a claim any sane proponent (Musk is not sane and no one should listen to him) will make. Will it work eventually for (most) use cases? Yea! But likely not everywhere. Just like there are edge cases Gas or Diesel still don't work well. That doesn't mean to ignore potential where it makes sense.

I bought a commuter car. That's it. When I bought; was more of a novelty as I didn't know anyone else with anything similar.

I repeatedly got angrily shouted at while driving (in a relatively major city), coal-rolled; and heckled by strangers and family members around the dinner table about how poor of a decision I made. 3 years later; I have a nice/fun/convenient commuter car that hasn't needed any maintenance and the trade in is higher than I paid for it. Is it for everyone? No. But that doesn't mean there is a void in value.

You are aware that manufactures face penalties for lying and deception, right? I can't recall Tesla ever being fined for misleading marketing, ever.

> Tesla semi was production ready in 2020

I guess you've never missed a deadline. That's not lying. It's miscalculation.

> and was more efficient than train

A Semi convoy is expected to be cheaper than a train and they re-iterated that in the latest event. No evidence to the contrary so far.

> And whatever other lies musk said back then.

Promised 500 miles. Delivered 500 miles. Turned the impossible (according to pretty much everyone, from Bill Gates, to CEO of truck making companies who joked that Tesla Semi will be breaking laws of physics) into late. Still not lying.

> Musk is prolific deceiver, I dont trust a single thing coming out of his mouth nor his websites.

He doesn't have websites. He has companies that have websites.

> Tesla cars are notorious for its expensive repairs. Its a huge cost and risk switching to it.

Is that why Hertz, that puts the most number of miles on a passenger vehicle has ordered 100000 Teslas, 20% of its global fleet, because it loves to waste money on cost of repair?

I am not a fan of Musk but why are so many people like you? So much hate and ignorance instead of logical arguments.

> it's most likely that the charging infra is part of the package fleet operators buy

That inherently means short haul trucking which parent says is feasible. With long haul trucking, I’m almost never at a location owned by the fleet operator. Pepsi and Anheuser Busch may have long haul routes that are exceptions, but you can see from the other trucks they are buying they are doing a lot of short haul trucking. They’ve both also bought BYD trucks for the same locations that have a range of 125 miles, so they don’t need the 500 mile range for their activities.

Short-haul EV trucking in an area eventually leads to building enough charging stations that longer-haul becomes feasible on some routes, because charging infrastructure is several areas overlaps, or almost overlaps. This fuels (heh) further expansion.

Who has the financial incentive to build charging stations? Both out and back and point to point operators will build charging infrastructure at their own hubs/terminals and use them for themselves.

You might see truck stops adding "public" chargers after that EV trucks become commonplace (in the same way that truck stops have fuel discount programs for member fleets) but how will EV trucks going to become commonplace if private operators using their own infrastructure are 99.99% of users?

Truck stops are thin margin. I don't see them making the investment without a need. Maybe if a big player (e.g. Swift, Walmart, etc) wants to convert to EV and kicks in a bunch of money to have their fuel partner make the capital investment. But I don't think that's going to happen until EVs are so good that it's a "profitably without nearly any doubt" type investment. You'll probably need to see a decade or two of short haul EV trucks and the accompanying refinement before that happens.

In the UK I imagine electric trucks will first be involved in deliveries between regional distribution centers on routes with known logistics.

I'm not convinced we'll see electric trucks take over the world in the medium term but I'm sure they'll be visible on our roads in the next 10 years, if only in limited roles.

In 10 years we will be deep into the decarbonization of transportation.

Maybe that doesn't mean electric. But if you can get 500miles today at reasonable efficiency then this is one of the really really easy things to decarbonize early. All you need are truck stops with good charging every couple of hundred miles. There are other sectors that are infinitely harder and almost certainly won't work with electric barring unforeseen breakthroughs (e.g. aviation).

In the UK, and most of Europe for that matter, you're also not dealing with 2000 mile runs like the US.

> That inherently means short haul trucking which parent says is feasible.

The parent put a weird disqualification on it that it will only work if demanded by the state. That’s a weasel word word of saying that it will be terrible and nobody will use it unless forced.

I don't spend huge amounts of capital for no reason, so why would a low-margin trucking company?

That said, if the price of diesel keeps up, there is a chance that Tesla trucks plus all the charging infrastructure will be worth it economically for short haul fleets.

I'm honestly surprised they didn't try to launch a truck in Europe first, it seems like a better market.

I suspect that they don't need the 500 mile range for all their activities. Local deliveries probably don't need it, but mid-range routes may!

For an owner-operator it is indeed all or nothing, and these are more than 50% of all semis. Stake his livelihood on a dubious technology or stick to the proven one?

Only a handful of companies run thousands of trucks and could afford a small scale experiment.

Package delivery is a different beast, the vans are guaranteed to spend the night at the base every night.

It will take a long time to make enough Semis to replace a large fraction of ICE trucks. So this will be a smooth transition where they are deployed first for duties which make it a nobrainer, like scheduled routes which are driven every day. As the market share raises, the usage scenarios will expand.

It’s hard to find exact numbers but it is likely that OTR trucking accounts for more than 50% of all miles but less than 50% of all trucks.

Many smaller companies have a small fleet of trucks for local deliveries to their branches, and some will be willing to take a look (even if just for the publicity, etc).

>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

Yup, in the US, truck drivers have to take a 30 min break after 8 hours of continuous driving [0].

[0] https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regulations/hours-service/summary-...

Which is one reason for team driving. One person drives while the other person sleeps. E-semis might not have cracked that nut yet.

But they don't have to solve every challenge at once. D-semis have been around forever and still haven't displaced trains. Obviously, they still have value. Where e-semis make sense, people will use them. Same for e-vans and e-bikes and e-tugboats.

And yes, people will still use d-semis and d-vans and gas scooters and horses. And clever people will keep finding ways to get the job done, whatever that job may be.

By "All or nothing" under the 'all' category, I'm assuming you mean huge government handouts for ev companies while poor people get to continue to live constrained to the market of a dwindling supply of used efficient and once cheap petrol engine vehicles.

Inequality has only become worse under the old regime of subsidized private technology and manufacturing.

Sounds like a case of needing to read up on history of innovation and how you don't get overnight mass adoption. I suggest picking up a book on advent of internal combustion engine and the five decades that followed.

Do you have any good book recommendations about this that you've read

Do you have any book recommendations?

> I see this all or nothing argument when discussing new stuff.

When did it become popular to start selling beta products? Did it begin when we all bought into social media?

Apple produced a computer, music player and phone that were a polished step up from what was happening before: build-your-own computer, music with insufficient storage and crap interfaces, and blackberries that only targeted business people.

Underpromise and overimpress me. Enough with this overpromising-because-have-to as if that's the only way to innovate or get investment. It isn't the only way and I wish investors would do a little more due diligence to get behind innovators who know what they are doing, not just throwing money at cool things saying they'll be ready by the end of the year over an 8 year period.

Outcomes speak for themselves. Tesla has had their timelines set back years and they're still ahead of everyone else in every category and their products sell like hot cakes. People who actually care about innovation and progress aren't pedantic about slipped timelines, panel gaps or hiccups, ESPECIALLY on projects that are on the cutting edge. If you think investors, most of whom worked their ass off to build their capital, are so gullible, over so many years, then you're not giving them enough credit (unless you think Tesla is misleading investors Theranos style - at which point, I'm off).

As for the whole Apple situation. If all companies tried to do what Apple does all the time, we'd be living in the stone age. Apple is an exception to the rule in that they're perfectionists in their tiny little bubble. Perhaps you didn't catch Apple's abondoned plan to build their own car. Did you hear about Dyson? Making an EV you can actually sell for profit is something even Apple, with all their money and talent, can't do and Tesla does like it's child play. Tesla has has the highest per unit margin of any automaker out there by factors of 3x and more. Apple does not hold a single candle to Tesla.

I largely agree with you but if I can be pedantic, they’re not the only manufacturer with high margins, Porsche does too for example.

Teslas are still a luxury vehicle so it’s no surprise they’re able to fetch higher margins than say, Toyota, who’s main sales are economy cars.

Apples to apples and all.

Hard disagree on cars. Everyone has caught up. I'll raise you Hyundai/Kia against a model 3 any day of the week.

At Plaid levels, a trimmed up Taycan is gorgeous by comparison and Lucid hit the Plaid where it counts ... and let's not even talk about Rimac.

Sorry, the fan boy belief that Tesla is far ahead of the competition is 18 months out of date now.

> When did it become popular to start selling beta products? Did it begin when we all bought into social media?

Since forever? You're comparing a new product category with already existing and optimized one. To keep close to the topic, think about the history of ICEs and cars in general: the first ones that got popular were all pretty much beta products.

> Apple produced a computer, music player and phone that were a polished step up from what was happening before: build-your-own computer, music with insufficient storage and crap interfaces, and blackberries that only targeted business people.

That's some pretty revisionist history. Apple made solid, polished hardware, in an established market with plenty of competition. About the only large leap they made was with the first iPhone, and it's considered both transformative and very much a beta version.

People forget just how basic (and sometimes bad!) the original of many things was. And everyone has an iPhone now but they didn’t all buy the first one, neither.

The original iPod was Mac only and FireWire, for goodness sake! People made do and it improved over time.

People want EV transportation because the world population is at risk. So they cut some slack to Tesla. Tesla makes compelling vehicles even if flawed. It's ok because it's a step in the right direction. Nothing wrong with that, or is it wrong to have ideals?

People want point of care testing, and everyone is at risk of dying of cancer. Theranos makes compelling equipment even if it is a little rough around the edges. It's ok because it's a step in the right direction. Nothing wrong with that, or is it wrong to have ideals? Oh wait...

> 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.

IIRC the same was the case back when Model S was rolled out - the range was intentionally developed to be a little above the legal limit of non-stop driving, which to me provided a pretty solid argument against range anxiety: there's hardly a way to run out of charge on a trip and be a safe and responsible driver.

There is no legal limit for non commercial drivers in the US though? Certainly it's a bad idea and impractical to drive for, say, 24 hours without stopping, but not illegal?

I’m only allowed to drive 200 miles at a time? Do you have a source for that?

When I do cross country drives I often drive 8-12 hours in a day. I stop to fill up and eat snacks while driving.

LOL you completely made that up.