Pepsi Reveals Tesla Semi Operations Details With Real Mileage Numbers

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Three days ago CNBC reporters visited Pepsi's Frito-Lay facility in Modesto, California, where it is using Tesla Semi's new electric trucks. CNBC wanted to see whether the Semis live up to the hype. Watching that report I learned a couple of very interesting details about Pepsi Tesla Semi operations and here I wanted to share with you.

To start, Pepsi Tesla Semi is delivering Frito-Lay products around 425 miles per charge. It also delivers Pepsi out of its Sacramento warehouse on 100 mile daily routes, going directly to stores, and 300 to 400 mile runs to other warehouses.

One of the Frito-Lay executives, speaking in the video, says "the contents that the Frito-Lay Tesla Semi trailer can weigh about 45,000 pounds is really the accepted weight and potato chips are made of a lot of air.

He says when we look at soda cans, aluminum and liquids, these things weight a lot, and they will weight out." In that video, Pepsi didn't speak to the price of the Tesla Semi trucks, but according to CNBC it is estimated to cost around $180,000.

The cost benefit is still a bit of a question mark because One expert, speaking in CNBC's video, whose name I couldn't get, says the price of the new electric truck isn't quite settled yet. I think it's safe to assume that it'll be at least double the price of the equivalent diesel model.

"First generation and early development has additional research funding and all that. That's where the partnership and support comes in. But ongoing, we believe there is a positive economic business case for electrifying the fleet," says PepsiCo's VP Supply Chain Mike O'Connell.

But in general, experts are predicting that electric trucks will be cheaper to operate over time. In CNBC's rare inside look of Pepsi Tesla Semi operations, PepsiCo said it's working with Tesla to grow their Tesla Semi fleet from 37 to 100 trucks.

Armen Hareyan is the founder and the Editor in Chief of Torque News. He founded TorqueNews.com in 2010, which since then has been publishing expert news and analysis about the automotive industry. He can be reached at Torque News Twitter, Facebok, Linkedin and Youtube.

Submitted by MariOh (not verified) on June 22, 2023 - 2:59PM

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Positive economic business? For who? Just for one guy? Elon Musk? Or just for one company? Pepsy? Jaja, great news for them but you know what, you are creating misery. For both of you, Elon and Pepsy: Have you ever thought what will it happens to those thousands of truck drivers? Surely not. That's just because you are only pursuing your own personal goodwill despite the enormous hardship you are creating to others. But this crazy world is upside down, you both prefer to have only one guy or one company to be super extra mega rich and have the whole wide world dying of hunger than the opposite. With these semi truck crap, the only thing you will have
will only be the whole world depending on the government for living or living the world in misery.

You are talking about what happens to one driver or a group of drivers. Sure it won't be pretty, but the company benefits and the shareholders benefit. Welcome to capitalism. If you wanted the drivers to be the number one consideration, then you were thinking of socialism. Pick a lane.

Has.nothing to do w capitalism. And.everything to do w communism and overreach of government. Semi drivers will be banned if they run on diesel (commiefornia). Otherwise they'd never switch to electric.

Socialism. You keep using that word like it is dirty. So you are against National Parks, Interstate Highway System, clean air, clean water, fire department, police department, fixing ozone hole, public schools, saving species, fighting global warming, social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, Fixing bridges, etc., all based on socialism?

You are making an apples to oranges comparison because tax money funds those operations which are not technically owned by the people but are entities that exist because of the taxes. In socialism- all means of production including the source of raw materials, the tools, equipment, buildings are owned by all the people and are not owned by individuals or corporations. Committees of citizens plan how the operations will function and any gain in "income" is distributed evenly among the citizens. Your including global warming is interesting in that earth has been warming for tens of thousands of years- the northern ice sheet was over 1 mile in thickness during a time mankind was hunting along the edge of the glacial ice. There have been several long periods of high average temperatures lasting thousands of years and long periods of extreme cold- none of which were caused by human activity. Do serious research and stop listening to the hype.

If/when we take sane steps to address climate change long-distance freight (save for some perishables) will transition from trucks to rail.

Transport from railheads to destination will be by electric trucks that are better suited to shorter routes. There will probably be no huge change in the number of jobs and truckers will spend most nights at home. Another big transition will be a shift from regional air travel to high-speed rail.

There will be no socialism unless we let climate change get to the catastrophic stage. These decisions will occur because of the economics as the article suggests. As that will not occur nearly fast enough to prevent catastrophes government likely will act to speed the process but it will not be socialism but rather democratic socialism in which elected representatives will do the jobs they are elected for and serve and protect citizens.

What is the best info to look at that shows the overall reduction in greenhouse gases from electric vehicles and the percentage that's makes up of the overall carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I'm having a hard time wraping my head around the miniscule vehicle caused co2 and how it is enough to make a difference vs the disruption being caused. Solutions must be better than doing nothing. You could cut your arm off to get rid of nail fungus as an example. Just saying someone must have a cost benefit analysis that makes this clear no?

PepsiCo received a total of $15 million in state and local grants for the vehicles and charging infrastructure in both Sacramento and Modesto, as well as another $40,000 per vehicle from the federal government. Looks like Pepsi picked the socialism lane to me. Pepsi would like to thank it's fellow comrades for sharing their wealth with them so they could buy Tesla's so they better do the crony capitalism thing. There's no true capitalism here only corporate fascism.

How ridiculously nearsighted. Have you ever seen what happens when unemployment exceeds 10%? The result is socialism and then everybody that is still employed cries because infrastructure decays. And personal taxes go up and homelessness etc.

You're correct that capitalism SHOULD drive business decisions, but that's NOT the case here. The trucks are twice the cost to purchases. More importantly, the data that's being hidden is the cost per mile comparison of diesel vs electricity.

Anyone being honest about electricoty prices will admit that it costs twice as much per mile to use use electricity from the grid to charge a car's battery.

Companies are doing this because of the new social scores that are being enforced. It's a price of doing business expense rather than changing technologies for larger profits. It's not capitalism. It's Chinese-style capitalism... aka fascism with profits for the elite class who participate propogating the liberal narrative.

I'm excited about the new technologies. I just wish people weren't purchasing because of the LIES that they'll be helping the environment. They'll be destroying the environment.

My state still uses coal for 67% of electricity production. The 2% of our electricity from windmills will represent several new landfills dedicated to the deteriorated turbine blades that are toxic to be recycled.

Wyoming had an idea to fill their abandoned mines with shredded turbine blades. The EOA shut down the idea due to pollution problems with those materials.

Everything the liberals SAY about "green" energy turns out to be the MOST polluting of all. Remember how nuclear power was the first "clean" energy. Ok, can we bury the spent nuclear fuel rods in your garden? Not exactly green... except maybe the glow from the radiation. Wind turbines and solar panels are now filling landfills with toxic materials. Electric vehicles will create an exponential increase in the demand for electricity and our new favorites are the most polluting solutions we've ever used. It sad.

No it does not. It cost almost half as much. Back and forth to work cost me 30.00/mo. When I travel it typically cost us between 20-24.00 to go 280 miles. Electric vehicles may have their downfall but cost to travel ain’t it.

Except that only in theory socialism cares about people and workers. When it gets to power the ones benefitting are the governing party leaders and the rest get the same moneys no matter how good they are in their work.

Sure- we should go back to horse and buggies because innovation is bad. The Amish have it right. Dishwashers, washing machines, car washes, computers, cell phones (poor operators that used to manually connect calls --- all jobless now), automated farming, and you name it. Should we rip it all out so there are more things humans should do? Or, should we keep pushing technology so eventually we can do whatever we want? Sure, universal income might need to be a thing - but don't delay AI driven automated surgery because you want a human employed for me. I'll take the tech once it is proven. We need to rethink utility and what people will do and how we can leverage these things to solve poverty and inequality, not stick our heads in the sand.

As for AI driver robotic surgery, as a medical practitionner I will wait a bit !
At least Amish people don't have your carbon foot print !

There will always be inequality just as there will always be inequality. Near Commerce, OK, where baseball legend Mickey Mantle was raised is a place called The Field of Dreams where boys go to play baseball. There is no equality on the diamond because the Mickey Mantles are rare and the lackluster players are common. The pink glass lense wearing philosophers have convinced you that equality must be a part of civilization but the folks in the trenches know the reality of life shows that some are smarter- some are faster- some are stronger, more nimble, better problem solvers, more capable leaders, etc. Some will never be content to be average. And, they will do whatever it takes to rise up above the "equality" you dream about. If I can lay twice as many brick in a day as other masons, why should I not be paid more? If my 40 acres of land consistently produces more food than everyone else's 40 acres because I work smarter, why should I not earn more? If my students consistently outperform the students if all other teachers because I understand how students' minds actually learn, why shouldn't I earn more? Should physicians who have high rates of deaths with their patients still practice medicine?

Truck drivers out of work? There is a shortage.
First they are talking about alternative propulsion methods here, this is separate from what I believe your speaking to with autonomous driving.
I work for and have worked for the trucking industry for 2 decades. The quality of drivers have declined sharply due to the increase in demand for them and stricter government regulations. I see drivers DAILY, that I would not drive beside if they were in their personal vehicles much less in a semi truck. These would dramatically increase road safety, traffic, environmental impacts and the economy. Every new technology development brings with it new jobs and opportunities. Even if semi trucks were to go autonomous, the government would regulate that a human be involved somewhere in the process, as well as the jobs created in servicing, supporting and infrastructure for the new technology. This would offset the job loss of a truck driver "steering wheel holder" with higher paying jobs as well as entry level jobs that would support this tech. Sure the typical truck driver as we know them today would not exist but they could become dispatchers that would monitor and run the individual trucks to monitor them and even a group of them. So to say that this would make truck drivers lose their jobs is a bit premature and unfair, but IMHO, in my experience and even from the mouths of current truck drivers, the overwhelming majority would welcome this change as it would allow for less time on the road and a better quality of life for the "drivers" and their family. Drivers currently spend 10 hours on the road and up to 14 hours total between driving and working, and to think that companies still don't find "loopholes" to work drivers longer is naive. Also, truck drivers in most of the trucking industry are not paid overtime until on average past 50-55 hours a week. This in and of it self tells you the amount of "expected" hours companies put on them.

It's a hit and miss with technology. There is up sides as well as downside because the truck is now a computer. There will be hardware and software issiues.

Basiccly updates that can break other software

Letter from stagecoach drivers and horse shoers to Ford circa 1910:

How dare you be so greedy as to put the stagecoach drivers, horse shoers, groomers, and stable hands out of work? All you lot think of is your own fortunes and those for your small group of friends. With this automobile crap, the only thing you will have will be the whole world depending on the government for living or living the world in misery.

These trucks aren't autonomous.... So the economic benefit is in fuel savings and maintenance savings. If you're arguing we should stick with trucks that need repairs more often so that we can keep mechanics employed, then I guess you're right? Seems like having trucks out for repairs hurts the people who wanted the goods delivered and now can't sell their product though

But even when the trucks do finally become autonomous I think you're wrong. Autonomous vehicles will create way more economic benefits than the loss of the drivers will hurt. Drops in shipping costs will benefit everyone, shore up supply chain issues, and free up all of the space currently dedicated to parking lots/garages. Every house with a garage just got a brand new room to use too

Positive economic business comes from the cost savings of not having to use expensive diesel instead of electricity. This cost savings could and should impact prices directly to the consumer. Prices go down, more people can eat. Not sure how Pepsi saving money is going to make the world starve though. In reality, nobody can live off chips and soft drink anyway. Why would there be a decrease in truck drivers? These trucks are not completely autonomous. They still would require the same amount of drivers. The only difference is that a truck driver that supplies his own truck no longer has to do so. More money saved.

While I totally agree on not wanting to make Elon even richer, I don't get how going electric hurts thousands of drivers. These aren't fully automated trucks. They're just electric semi tractors with a human driver.

Not sure how the rest of your argument follows from there.

I noticed that you did not mention the range on the trucks hauling Pepsi cans with a maximum weight. They have good range hauling half the weight. I really don't see this replacing long haul trucks that run at 80,000lbs. Drivers won't want to stop and charge after driving half a day or less. I would like to see range data on 80,000lb trucks crossing the high elevation passes in the rockies. How many decades will it take to replace the entire electric grid, install millions of charging stations , and increase electric power generation 300%to500% to handle all the electric demand. I heard congress say 50 trillion is only a start.i don't think this is worth doing because it will only lower the global temperature about 2deg. Global warming is a natural cycle of the earth. It will happen even if there where no people on the earth. This is just a huge money scam and nothing more.

I too feel sympathy for the truck drivers. It will be difficult to find new job in the trucking industry as the old fleet phases out. Just as I’m sure the public felt sympathy for the carriage operators, and horseshoe fabricators when the first automobile was built. This like all new technology will create hardship for some but good for all. Autonomous vehicles will save many lives, reduce the cost of Transportation, improve the access to better Jobs, and ultimatley increase the wealth of the entire world- just as every major technological revolution has done before. All that matter is how we each choose to use it.