Posted on 12/02/2022 11:08:05 AM PST by Yo-Yo
It's official: the first electric Tesla Semi has been delivered to PepsiCo and Frito-Lay. Tesla held a delivery event Thursday in Sparks, Nevada, to commemorate the event, complete with a load of snacks carried by one of the Semis. Even though I wasn’t there in person, the show still gave me something to chew on.
During the event, Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed that the Semi is rated for 500 miles of range with a fully loaded trailer, which meant that the battery pack inside the truck would have to be absolutely ginormous. How big, exactly, is unknown; however, Musk took to Twitter early Friday morning to reveal roughly how efficient the truck is, which helps me make estimations about capacity and weight.
PaulK 🇮🇪 ☘️
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Dec 2, 2022
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Replying to @M3Marcel @WholeMarsBlog and @elonmusk
Well, let’s do some math. Range, 500 miles. Efficiency is 2kWh/mile so let’s estimate around 1000kWh
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Current efficiency is 1.7kWh/mile, but there is a clear path to 1.6, possibly 1.5
5:52 AM · Dec 2, 2022
Based on those efficiency numbers, a bit of napkin math shows just how large the battery pack might be. A rating of 1.7 kilowatt-hours per mile equates to a pack size of around 850 kWh, or around 8.5 times the size of a Tesla Model S Plaid's battery.
Multiple sources claim the 100-kWh battery pack you'll find in a Model S weighs around 1,300 pounds. While it's unclear how much the Tesla Semi weighs without a trailer, the truck's battery pack alone could weigh as much as 11,000 pounds—a figure that can quickly eat into a loaded Class 8 truck's maximum gross weight of 80,000 pounds. For comparison, the GMC Hummer EV weighs 9,000 pounds, and an unladen semi-truck can weigh as much as 25,000 pounds, according to JD Power.
Now, it's important to note that the total weight of the battery pack could vary depending on the type of cells used in production as well as the number of components in a battery pack. Still, a rough weight of 11,000 pounds for the pack alone shows just how heavy battery-powered vehicles can be.
Tesla believes it can further increase the efficiency of the Semi, according to Musk. At 1.6 kWh per mile, the Semi would be able to travel around 530 miles with a full load, and at a potential 1.5 kWh-per-mile rating, that would mean 566 miles on a full charge. It's unclear if the efficiency optimizations would be delivered via an over-the-air update or through future hardware improvements.
PepsiCo's deliveries mark the very first production Semis in the wild. The snack company pre-ordered 100 trucks five years ago when the Semi was first announced in 2017, which unofficially represents around 10 percent of the total number of reservations tracked by the public. Tesla says that it will also be using these Semis to haul freight in its own supply chain, meaning that it expects to produce a number of trucks for its own use in the coming months.
“batteries weigh the same regardless of how full they are.”
That’s bothered me since I was kid. You buy a battery and when you throw it away it weighs the same as when you bought it.
A great thing about diesel and gasoline is that they don’t burn without air. Those liquids are very safe when in a tank and even if out in the open will burn only as fast as they can get oxygen.
A lithium battery on the other hand is, worst case, a self contained explosive.
I was just going to mention that...
At least the drivers won’t have to worry about enough sleep time and taking regular breaks. The recharge time will see to that!
And transmission? Axles? Differential?
“Battery weight changes based on charge. “
Yep, sure do. 😂
As much as 10 nanograms in a car battery. You can measure that with a bathroom scale!
No doubt! LOL!
And how long to recharge. And at what cost?
“I’m betting all range calculations are based on straight and level runs across desert southwest. Put that sucker in the hilly parts of the country and those astronomical range claims will shrink down just like the recent reports of the all electric Ford pick-ups did in real world working conditions.”
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Or sitting in a 1.5 hr traffic jam while needing refrigeration to the load you’re carrying!
“Another solution absent a problem.”
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So, so, so MUCH THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“I’m betting all range calculations are based on straight and level runs across desert southwest. Put that sucker in the hilly parts of the country and those astronomical range claims will shrink down just like the recent reports of the all electric Ford pick-ups did in real world working conditions.”
Yep, I read one review of the Ford F150 EV that said the EV couldn’t do ‘truck things’, like hauling or towing heavy loads beyond very minimal distances. Be interesting to see how the Tesla semi does in the real world. Can it do ‘semi things’?
Their efficiency calculation is fallacious.
Instead of KW/mile, it should be KW/ton of payload/1,000 miles vs diesel gallons/ton of payload/1,000 miles for the same loaded trip route...and include overall time.
i see the battery there behind the tractor
it is ginormous
should be able to get more than 500 miles
As a former trucker Id like to know how this rig does with a full load in the mountains with temps around zero.
Which is perhaps why FritoLay was the first named beta-tester/customer. Doesn't take much weight to haul a truck filled with Doritos.
Flat highway miles.
Now.. run one in a hilly city and watch the range drop
Truck still has axles.
All you lose is engine and transmission
But you gain batteries and electric motor(s)
Don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself. A kitchen scale works just fine.
LOL the shipping pallets weigh more than the product!
Heaven for Sonny Pruitt and Will Chandler.
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