Some Say Tesla Semi Won't Change Trucking As Many Drivers are Long Haul, But They Are Wrong For These Reasons

This morning when I posted the article about Tesla Semi factory's construction rapidly advancing to 50,000 Tesla Semis a year on the Torque News Facebook group, one of our followers said he thinks the Tesla Semi won't change the trucking industry as most drivers are long haul and it would be too much down time charging. "I know the car is not bad, so every 2-3 hrs. But a truck with load?" asked Kyle Born in Torque News Facebook post.

I replied to Kyle and asked him to consider the potential of the short-haul market in the trucking industry. It's big and Pepsi is successfully testing it. But there were some other good comments that I want to post here.

Jeffrey Reed writes:

Tesla is using their own Semi to haul batteries from the Tesla NV battery plant to the Tesla car plant in CA. It’s just under 300 miles and has an elevation rise of 4,000ft. The battery cargo fully loads a trailer, as you can imagine.

The max range Semi has already pulled 81k lbs gross weight about 500 miles on a single charge.

The short-range version can handle that drive between NV & CA.

They use different chargers than the cars and can charge 70% in about 30 mins, 80% in 45 mins. So full charge in a few hours at most. This is the same time my Tesla car takes however the Semi’s battery is about 10x my car’s battery capacity.

Pepsi is testing a small fleet and has verified the mileage claims and the drivers love them. Pepsi calculated a 23% savings in fuel and of course, there is very little maintenance as compared to a diesel truck.

Also, consider the potential for solar panels on the Tesla Semi trailers too, points out another commenter. He says even at present low efficiency, solar panels could be a huge impact. Plus, larger fleets create the potential for innovations such as batteries that can simply be swapped out at charging locations.

Having said this, I'm honestly curious why the rollout of Tesla Semis has been so slow. I get Tesla wanted to work out the bugs before mass production, and also Tesla was busy with the Cybertruck production start and ramp. Now, if Tesla can truly build them for a 3-5 year or less ROI on cost then yeah, huge opportunity for the shorter (under 300 miles a trip) routes.

I am guessing the Tesla Semi will be a money maker if you have the right processes in place.

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, Facebook, Linkedin, and Youtube. He has more than a decade of expertise in the automotive industry with a special interest in Tesla and electric vehicles.