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The new Tesla electric Semi truck with an
800-km range. Photo courtesy Tesla Inc.
Downtime to recharge an electric
vehicle is a significant concern for the
trucking industry, because time is money.
One would expect the vehicle would need
to spend an hour to an hour and a half
to recharge, based on current electric car
recharge times upsized to truck battery
proportions. As to cost, given the need for
a massive battery to move the rig and its
8,000-pound payload, it might be expected
to be expensive, perhaps $250,000 since
batteries are the most expensive part of
an electric vehicle, and their expense is a
key reason why electric cars have not yet
reached cost parity with ICE cars. An aver-
age Class 8 diesel rig costs about $120,000.
To summarize, going into the presenta-
tion, expectations were low that an electric
Semi truck would be a serious economic
threat to diesel trucks, since they would be
impractical given range limitations, and bat-
tery costs and recharging downtime costs.
WHY TESLA NEEDED TO HAVE A MAJOR
POSITIVE UNVEIL FOR THE SEMI TRUCK
As had been written about extensively,
Tesla has unveiled its Model 3, a modern
equivalent to the Ford Model T. By that
statement I mean a modern game changing
affordable car for the masses like the Model
T was in the 1920s. But this car would be
powered by electricity.
Ironically, it was the Model T which put
the nail in the coffin of early cars powered
by electricity. The gasoline powered Model
T could go further and refuel more quickly
than electric cars and gasoline was cheap
and abundant due to oil fields discovered
in Texas. Consumers switched from electric
cars to ICE cars at that time. Now electric
…Tesla intends
to disrupt the
transportation
industry
completely by
making Internal
Combustion
Engine (ICE)
vehicles obsolete.
