Tesla Starts Production of Electric Semi Truck (engadget.com) 95
Tesla's long-delayed semi-truck has started production, and the company will begin making deliveries as soon as December 1st, Elon Musk has announced on Twitter. Engadget reports: The first batch of Semis will be delivered to Pepsi, which ordered 100 vehicles from the company back in December 2017. As TechCrunch notes, other big companies had also ordered trucks from the automaker, including Walmart and UPS. And in May this year, the automaker opened reservations to more customers for a deposit of $20,000. A Semi costs between $150,000 and $180,000, depending on the range, and it could go as far as 500 miles on a single charge. The Tesla Semi was unveiled back in 2017, with production expected to start by 2019. "While that obviously didn't happen, Musk told employees in an email back in early 2020 that the vehicle was already in limited production and that it was 'time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production,'" notes Engadget.
Deliveries were delayed yet again to 2021 and then to 2022 due to the global supply chain shortages affecting the tech and auto industries.
Deliveries were delayed yet again to 2021 and then to 2022 due to the global supply chain shortages affecting the tech and auto industries.
What volume? (Score:1)
They canâ(TM)t reliably churn out their existing product lines, people are waiting multiple years for orders, and have to frequently return them for various fixes and issues. How will they fulfill orders from the trucking industry where any delays are magnified immensely. PepsiCo alone owns 36,000 trucks in the US, 100 is not even a drop in the bucket.
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
Well he's got a point. Today basically anything people are opposed to gets labeled as racist, nazi, fascist, etc. Russia has been doing it ever since Stalin and Hitler were at odds with one another after breaking up their love affair, and despite a heavy reliance of lend-lease equipment procured from the United States that they used to defeat Hitler's invasion, once Hitler is gone they then turn around and say that the US were actually the Nazis all along. Then western communists fell in love with that idea
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
Which movies saw such a boycott
Re: What volume? (Score:1)
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
It isnâ(TM)t an issue of lining up, itâ(TM)s an issue of reliability, the products arenâ(TM)t scaling up because the resources donâ(TM)t exist.
If you promise me a widget that is necessary for my business but then canâ(TM)t tell me whether it will arrive tomorrow or two years from now, thatâ(TM)s a problem. Now if you try to build that widget out of unobtainium, you are practically fraudulent. Tesla has now been around for over a decade, all supply and scaling problems should be
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Only the extremely rich (top 10%) can afford an EV and buy another car as well while you wait in line for the other one to be built and frequently serviced. Yet according to California we are all supposed to have one within 5-10 years.
Hold up, did you just say the only ones (top 10%) that can afford EV's are the extremely rich? Maybe you don't realize that the standard range Model 3 priced out at (without counting rebates) almost the same 5 year total cost of ownership as a Honda civic (a car famous for low costs). For those smart enough to buy one. Covid, supply chain, and inflation have disrupted things lately, but that's affected a lot more than just the EV market. Either way, you know, there are these things called "car loans" where
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If a trucking company buys these 500 miles electric semi trucks to do runs longer than about 200~250 miles, it means they really suck at planning routes.
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
200 miles isnâ(TM)t that far for a short haul trucker. And thatâ(TM)s only top range when the thing isnâ(TM)t towing anything. Pull 15 tons of anything and it wonâ(TM)t be getting very far. Besides that, most trucks arenâ(TM)t purchased to sit at home looking nice while refueling, like taxis if they arenâ(TM)t on the road they arenâ(TM)t making money.
A regular EV charges to full in 2-4 hours. What is the downtime on this? Or if it has a fast charge, what is the power draw
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Re: What volume? (Score:2)
Oops sorry, per Tesla: Work / Public Locations 5 - 8 h
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That's not at all relevant to this discussion. You're talking about slow Level 2 AC chargers, typically used for at home overnight charging or for low speed 'destination charging' at places that people park for hours, like at work, restaurants, hotels, and malls. They're slow because people don't need fast charging when they're asleep or at work or watching a movie, and slow chargers cost a lot less than fast chargers.
For road trips, people charge on 150-350 kW DC Fast Chargers, where a typical charge time
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Have you seen how many trucks are at an average rest stop? I've driven lots and there are 50-100 semis in some places. Let me know where you'll get the 100MW infrastructure.
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If a trucking company buys these 500 miles electric semi trucks to do runs longer than about 200~250 miles, it means they really suck at planning routes.
Maybe. Or maybe it means they have to make regular deliveries on a fixed route, and they have time for a charging stop. The nice thing about trucks is that the industry is already set up around them having their own facilities along routes with high utilization. To my mind that fact coupled with the fact that fuel tanks normally hang off the outside of the frame of the vehicle means they're ideal candidates for battery swaps. It doesn't make sense for other kinds of vehicles for many reasons, but it could m
Re: What volume? (Score:2)
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It's really sad. 20 years ago, people on here would read about something new/different and want to learn about it. Today, they read about something new/different and want to whine about it.
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It's really sad. 20 years ago, people on here would read about something new/different and want to learn about it. Today, they read about something new/different and want to whine about it.
Probably because as time has gone on they have become disillusioned and 99% of the new and different turns out to be shit.
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A lot of people have clearly made up their mind about what they want and are ignoring all facts.
The vast majority of arguments used against EVs are total horseshit. I'm in several car communities and the sheer number of people shaking their fists at clouds is pathetic. There are real arguments against EVs but they are seldom used, which makes sense because they don't add up to them being a bad idea... they are just some things which have to be addressed, and which are being addressed. As a reasonable person
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You're really going for this argument again? It's really tiresome. If this is a hard limit for you, so be it, but don't imagine that most people give a damn, or that it would even affect most people in the least. Two-vehicle households are more common than not, charging speeds are generally increasing, most people don't make trips like that at all, etc etc.
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Actually I see people stating that as their main concern most of the time.
Yes, and we know how most people use their cars and it's either irrelevant, or nearly so. A few loud complainers who don't want an EV anyway make it seem like a real problem.
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I think the bigge
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You can't get past your ignorance on the matter, can you?
How boringly, depressingly, typically ironic.
I think maybe a lot of people who don't travel out of their cities may not notice it as an issue. But I'm from Canada and we have a lot of empty space that we drive with nothing. I have driven for three hours just to go to the next airport for a cheaper flight
I've driven for three hours just to get laid... and didn't even leave the state. Canada is hardly the only country you can drive in for long periods.
I think the biggest worry is that we are losing our freedom to go wherever we want, because we are more beholden to find chargers as soon as we leave our homes.
The freedom of vehicle ownership is largely illusory. Only the most hardcore vehicles can go far from a well-maintained road, and even then mostly only over open terrain. Roads are easily closed. The authorities can deprive you of your vehicle with any slight pretext and there are rarely any consequences. EVs are har
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Again, you are just talking without making any real points on why these are not problems.
They're not real problems because it will take so long to phase out ICEVs that there will still be plenty around for corner cases until the BEVs get so good that these problems aren't problems at all any more. There are more people who can make use of EVs than there is production available to serve them.
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I've never understood the argument that somehow gas vehicles give "freedom" while EVs are "controlled". Gas is only available at gas stations and is only provided by a small number of global corporations, as the market has consolidated so that the same companies own most of the whole end-to-end process of drilling, transportation, refining, transportation again, and gas stations, through various subsidiaries. Electricity can be made by anyone, and many people have their own power supplies locally, not depen
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In theory "anyone" could make Butanol and put it in their car, but you can't just buy a composter that will do it. In theory you could have a biogas reactor that would make natural gas, but that's an even soupier thing. It would be nice if there were some practical home made batteries that were good, though. I believe it's possible to make decent stationary storage batteries, but you don't save much, while EV batteries seem out of the question.
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You can't get past your ignorance on the matter, can you?
Pot ... Kettle
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Why did you pick ten minutes? Perhaps because typical charge times on road trips are 15 minutes? And really, is stopping for 15 minutes every 3-4 hours so horrible? Most people use the restroom, get a bite to eat, etc., so the travel time is about the same...
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It's really sad. 20 years ago, people on here would read about something new/different and want to learn about it. Today, they read about something new/different and want to whine about it.
It would help if the "new" thing were not being promoted by a fraud salesman with an inflated Bond villain ego.
Anyway, doorstep milk deliveries were being made by electric trucks in the UK from around WW2, so it's not new. They had mostly vanished by the year 2000.
Re:What volume? (Score:5, Informative)
Diesel semi refueling time is 10 to 20 minutes depending on the pumps at a truck stop. At a passenger car pump it would be several times longer.
EV Semi recharging is supposedly about 30 minutes at a "Mega" station. Much longer at an EV car station.
Time advantage to diesel but not such a huge gap and considering drivers are supposed to rest for 30 minutes every 4 hours the refueling/recharging comparison is not a big difference.
Of course there are diesel truck stops everywhere but there are no "Mega" stations anywhere at present.
The 400 mile or so range of an EV semi is not that much of an issue either, I think. In Canada, 80% of freight by weight over distance is hauled by rail, but 90% of the freight haul trips are by truck. This implies that most long haul freight is by rail and distribution is by truck. I haven't found stats for the average length of a semi truck trip but it does seem like a single charge would be sufficient for most semi truck trips. Eh, I have no references to support this other than what I've inferred.
Overall, I don't see diesel having much advantage at all when appropriate charging stations are available.
Re:What volume? (Score:5, Informative)
Of course there are diesel truck stops everywhere but there are no "Mega" stations anywhere at present.
The 400 mile or so range of an EV semi is not that much of an issue either, I think. In Canada, 80% of freight by weight over distance is hauled by rail, but 90% of the freight haul trips are by truck. This implies that most long haul freight is by rail and distribution is by truck. I haven't found stats for the average length of a semi truck trip but it does seem like a single charge would be sufficient for most semi truck trips.
The markets this is aimed for, intra-state and intra-city delivery, are currently parking most their trucks all night at their distribution centers, so that's where the majority of the chargers will be put in early on. Before the big truck stops. And probably not even megachargers, probably just 50 or 100 amp chargers running all night. But then there will probably be megachargers put in at the big ports and distribution centers, so that an empty truck can charge up while picking up a load and getting the paperwork straight.
The big ports in California are certain to mandate EV trucks fairly quickly so they can stop polluting their work areas, and the nearby minority neighborhoods as soon as possible. I think it was port of Los Angeles (or was it Long Beach?) that mandated some alternate fuel that damaged engines and it was a big gripefest all around. The ports and the trucking firms will agree to no-pollute and save-money (win-win) EV solutions quite quickly. So the trucks out of the port will make a day run to Riverside, or San Diego, or wherever and back, and recharge at night.
"Get an electric truck or pay a fine (or be refused cargo pickup)" will tip the balance quite a bit. I'm completely sure nobody will be able to make batteries fast enough to keep up with demand, for years and years to come.
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If the best you got is a straw man argument then you are losing.
A civilian cargo ships is no more a "consumer product" than a Boeing 767 is a "consumer product". Nobody has seriously suggested a nuclear powered commuter car since the Ford Nucleon in the 1950s. They had high hopes for miniaturization of nuclear fission then, hopes that never panned out. It's almost like the high hopes for battery energy density today. There's real physical limits on battery energy density before it melts from its own int
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RIP whatever 3rd world countries get strip mined for lithium these days.
Lithium is sort of common, and I understand there is promising research for using Sodium which of course would be slightly heavier but would completely solve the supply problem.
That's only half of the issue, most of the batteries are using Nickel and other rather expensive additives, but Tesla figured out how to use mostly Iron instead, the "LFP" batteries. Initially it seemed like they were only going to use that in the China market, (very clever, not only does it make the non-western batteries cheaper, bu
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Lithium is available un unlimited quantities pretty much everywhere. The top producer is Australia, followed by Chile, but the US used to be the top producer - we only stopped because it was cheaper elsewhere at the time, but now shipping costs have gone up so it's cheaper to make it locally and avoid shipping. And over the last few years US Lithium production has of course increased to try to keep up with demand.
LFP batteries are a great improvement, particularly for shorter range vehicles, or in situation
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Most of the world's lithium production is from open pit mines in Australia, but most of the world's ready lithium deposits are in salyars in Chile.
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I'm completely sure nobody will be able to make batteries fast enough to keep up with demand, for years and years to come.
In other words, your fancy idea of fining companies simply won't work. You can't fine people for not buying things they can't buy since they are in short supply.
That's kind of the real problem, here. This whole move to electric vehicles over the last 20 years has been a clusterfuck of emotions and politics on both sides... and few realistic solutions. Anyone who speaks of banning this, or fining that, or mandating something, or subsidizing whatever, really needs a clobbering.
Re:What volume? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Good timing - there are huge subsidies to incentive trucking to go electric. EVs also have much lower maintenance costs, fleets report about 1/2 the maintenance cost for EVs to ICE, which is another reason that trucking companies are so interest.
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Load capacity is going to be the biggest obstacle, I think. These trucks are way heavier than the equivalent diesel truck of the same size due to the battery. There are regulations on maximum gross tonnage for trucks, so if the truck gets heavier it can't legally carry as much cargo. Less cargo means some jobs the driver won't be able to take and the jobs they get will be making less per trip. Hopefully the operating costs are lower enough that it still works out in the end.
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They raised the limit, so that an EV (or LNG vehicle) has a cap of 82,000 lbs, instead of the usual 80,000, to allow them to carry the same cargo despite having slightly heavier power trains.
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and it could go as far as 500 miles on a single charge.
And then have to wait ... how long to recharge? Compared to a diesel semi that can refuel in a few minutes. I'm sure trucking companies will just love all that down time.
Yeah I don't think Pepsi is doing a lot of long-haul deliveries.
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The Semi's charge time is 30 minutes, which happens to be the legally mandated driver rest time for long haul trucking. So there's no time disadvantage to EV vs diesel.
Full Self Driving (Score:2)
Will it have Full Self Driving? Cause that would be bad-ass. Truck driving jobs will be really cozy for the next few years if FSD becomes real this decade. Of course at some point 30 to 50 years from now they will ditch drivers entirely, but by then we better have universal basic income setup.
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Quit calling me a socialist you asshole. I proved it in previous comments that I am not a socialist. You equate anti-nationalism with socialism because you are an idiot. I'm a free-market capitalist you dumbass. I dislike nationalism and tribalism.
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What should we do about our socialized roads?
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Supporting a few aspects of socialism doesn't make someone a socialist any more than knowing 1+1=2 makes somebody a mathematician. For owning a business or heck if I sell my used car, by your definition, I'd be a capitalist. So how can I be two opposite things?
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Actually, advocating socialism does in fact make one a socialist. [merriam-webster.com]
You aren't a pure capitalist if you "support a few aspects of socialism." You're partially a capitalist, partially a socialist.
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Capitalism means capital controls the means of production, not the distribution of your old jalopy.
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Quit calling me a socialist you asshole. I proved it in previous comments that I am not a socialist.
You are feeding a completely worthless troll. He's not worth your time nor is his opinion worth reading. rsilvergun has a low UID, the misspelt replicas (all which popped up in the past 2 years) should just be ignored for the worthless cunts who add nothing of value to any conversation they are.
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Uh, we have full self-driving delivery trucks in Canada already. They had humans sitting behind the wheel "just in case" during the testing phase, but after passing that they now have the human just sitting in e passenger seat, he's there in case something happens and a human is needed to deal with it (like the truck breaks down and he needs to put out warning pylons etc.). In fact, they are also leeting them go out with no human.
They only do highway driving from depot to depot, or depot to stores right of
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Full self driving is not a real thing. It does not exist and never likely will exist.
"Full self driving" is a non-technical term that means it's not just lane-keeping, don't-crash-into-the-car-in-front-of-you technology but something which tries to drive itself to a set destination (what Tesla calls Autopilot and FSD respectively) It exists today, in the form of assisted autonomy and a few risky examples of full-autonomy. Maybe what you mean is there isn't FSD/full-autonomy that wouldn't kill people or cause crashes (yes yes and preventing others). That's pretty much ready now for restricte
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There are several companies with trucks driving autonomously on highways. It's much easier than in-city driving. The idea is that the trucks can drive themselves 80% of the time, and the people do the harder stuff between the warehouse and highway.
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have you seen a fully self driving car let alone cargo truck that isn't some lab experiment, pull your head out of your ass
How long to charge it for that range (Score:1)
If it's longer than a mandated rest period, whatever you save on fuel will get gobbled up by wasting driver time.
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Math on this was already done. There's a reason why we're not hearing anything new on the specs since 2017, and why we have the nebulous "somewhere between 0 and 500 miles range with unknown payload".
Best guess right now? Short haul local trucking with significantly lowered payload to meet legal limits that is already well represented in electric trucking. They're less viable in terms of functionality compared to diesels, but they make for good PR.
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Driver salary aside, fuel is the largest cost component of operating a rig - ahead of even the financing (e.g. purchase) of the rig itself.
If you could reduce fuel costs by ~1/3 that's major savings on the immediate operating bottom line. ~500 mile range means these trucks are best suited for short to mid-range deliveries (of which there's no shortage) which means more local roads and stop-and-go driving. That's also a sweet spot for EVs. This makes a lot of sense when you apply the rig to it's intended
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These BEVs would still be hauling heavy batteries around than cargo. Three's a maximum weight limit on the road so adding axles or whatever isn't helping. If we raise the weight limit on trucks to make up for this then someone will just make a diesel truck that makes this margin on cargo carrying ability larger.
I expect "electrified" trucks to be popular. This would be in many ways like the diesel-electric trains we have seen for decades. Electric trains are switching from big resistance packs to slow t
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These BEVs would still be hauling heavy batteries around than cargo. Three's a maximum weight limit on the road so adding axles or whatever isn't helping. If we raise the weight limit on trucks to make up for this then someone will just make a diesel truck that makes this margin on cargo carrying ability larger.
You're behind on the news. Europe and to a lesser extent the US have already given BEV heavy trucks a slightly increased maximum weight. And you're right, the weight of the battery is quite a bit more than than the weight savings from the engine and transmission. But what you're not taking into account, is that the professionals have already run those numbers.
Tesla has done estimates on how much their fully electric truck will save, and it's a huge number. Elon said break-even point was about 2 years, some
...and yet we're still waiting on the Cybertruck. (Score:3)
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If you want a truck to be a truck, then the lightning is a much better choice, because it's shaped like a truck.
If you want a truck to be a car, the Rivian R1S is a better choice, it's here and it's working and they've been working out the bugs on a prior off-road model already.
If you want to pay for features you may never get, buy a Tesla.
More Enron Musk BS (Score:1)
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They're not for sale and five years late.
Anyone else would call it a trial.
I don't blame you for being annoyed at the delay from what Musk said, but "not for sale" is really splitting hairs on the definition of what being "for sale" is. Yes, you're technically right, the first ones are only being built, and there's a purchase agreement in place for them, but since the whole point of the article was to say that they would be delivered in December, they're really close to being actually sold but haven't actually been sold yet, but we have a pretty specific timeframe when that will c
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And he's certainly the leader of the pack, way ahead of anyone else in BEV's, I mean look at poor Rivian for comparison
If you mean "poor rivian" in terms of sales, they haven't been around as long and their vehicles cost more than Teslas, so that's foolish. If you mean in terms of capabilities, they have off-roaders on the market now and working very, very well. They can climb slopes that leave most gassers at the bottom. Meanwhile cybertruck is still imaginary.
Meh (Score:4, Interesting)
It has 500 mile range which is HALF that of a commercial truck.
Also hilariously, at https://www.tesla.com/semi [tesla.com] it says NOTHING about load capacity. There are some questions.
An analysis: https://cleantechnica.com/2019... [cleantechnica.com]
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It has 500 mile range which is HALF that of a commercial truck.
Not every truck is used for interstate/international deliveries.
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It has 500 mile range which is HALF that of a commercial truck.
Not every truck is used for interstate/international deliveries.
It's the same nonsense logic people use to "prove" that BEV's can't possibly replace the ICE...
Short/medium haul trucking suffers from poor fuel economy just like cars (or worse) and that's exactly where EV's excel...and presumably where these trucks are aimed.
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Other companies have been delivering electric trucks for years already, and they have proven practical and indeed better than fossil fuel powered ones.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The range is fine. 500 miles in Europe is usually in excess of what drivers are legally allowed to do in a day, so stopping for charging is no problem. They have to take regular, mandatory breaks anyway.
This will be a difficult market for Tesla to break into, as there are many established players who have been delivering EV tr
Best use of EVs (Score:2)
The REAL pollution from vehicles is diesel exhaust, which contains toxic soot and sulfur dioxide. This should be the first target of EVs. In addition, the corporate owners of these vehicles can afford and amortize the up front costs.
What's the range of the range? (Score:2)
"up to 500 miles" What does that mean? With no load? At what speed? Range is usually stated at 55 mph, which no truck drives at on the highway. For example, this article [caranddriver.com] speculates that a F-150 Lightning pulling max load will lose more than half of its range. And that's without figuring in cold temperatures.
Obviously this truck is aimed at short-distance hauling. It would be useless for long-distance due to short range and long recharging times. So, the expected range under load and at speed is crit