The Staggering Economics of the Tesla Semi

The thing to consider is the difference in 'distribution' vs 'generation' costs for electricity. The distribution cost (i.e. line maintenance) can be super high for residential. Actually, the main savings for home solar panels is that the distribution cost is just the wire going from your roof to your house. Otherwise, generation charges are a lot cheaper at scale.

Diesel is not "artificially expensive due to government policies".

It is actually expensive because the free market (thanks to capitalism) is driving up the price in response to a reduced supply.

Now, demand has gone done and supply has gone up accordingly and prices are dropping.

If it takes a 1000 pounds of batteries to drive a car 200 miles at 80 mph, the miles per pound of storages weight is .2 miles per pound.

At 20 mpg 10 gallons weighs , 65 pounds

3 miles per pound

Tires are wearing out fast.

There are long term environmental issues, what do you do when the a 1000 lbs of batteries? Clean air is great, clean water is greater.

There are parts of the country that do not use fossil fuels for power generation, in those regions electricity costs very little. I pay 7.2 cents a kwhr in eastern washington where I live and in seattle where I work I pay 11 cents a kwhr for my apartment. There are areas close to dams in washington that dip below 4 cents a kwhr.

As green power installations age beyond their financed life span you can expect to see massive price drops. All those windmills that are going up all over the country have huge loans to finance their construction. Once those are paid off they will be able to massively undercut coal and gas plants. Granted they have to outlive their financing but more than likely many installations will.

It’s .09 a kilowatt hour in OR but it won’t matter because these are semi trucks, traveling cross country. Yes it’s going to cost more upfront. The gas is the issue, not the price of the vehicle. At 8mpg and $6/gal diesel, 50 gal = $340 for 400 miles. Now consider 60k miles/yr, do the math & theres your answer. 34k+17k= 51k gas vs charging station charge. Even if it was 20 bucks a day and the driver drove every single day of the year with no breaks, 365 x $20= $7300.

I don't believe much you say.
Your still saying the old ICE propaganda.

Exactly! I pay $.32 a kilowatt hour at off-peak rates. I pay $.54 a kilowatt hour during peak. That would be more expensive than diesel even at $6.30 a gallon like it is around here!!

That's fucking expensive electricity. I guess costs have probably gone up but I thought ours was kind of high @ 13-15 ¢

Still 7 ¢ is pretty damn low.

Well that all sounds fine and dandy until you have to do something with the most toxic thing on the planet battery acid what are we going to do when all these batteries become expired hopefully Tesla's thought this out because this seems to be a great way to go electric but it's a bad way to go when you have to dispose of the toxic battery waste hello

Well that all sounds fine and dandy until you have to do something with the most toxic thing on the planet battery acid what are we going to do when all these batteries become expired hopefully Tesla's thought this out because this seems to be a great way to go electric but it's a bad way to go when you have to dispose of the toxic battery waste hello

Agree with your on the 30 cents....maybe even more. Tesla super charger run at like 58 cents per kw during peak times.

Say they cost the same. The real saving is in maintainces. Trucks cost 10s of thousand maintain each year. Just picture saving 10 thousand per truck per year.

Yeah excellent point, 7 cents / kwh is a joke. Fast chargers charge more than that, and even then PepsiCo will have to build its own charging infrastructure most likely which the capital and install cost will need to be spread out per mile. These electric trucks do a have a chance to be interesting but do us all a favor and don't write articles if you don't know what's what. Strips credibility from the idea of the electric truck.

All good variable's but they need to add the extra weight to the trucks taxable limits, and tire ware will suffer some to I would think. Theres the mountainous factor and colder temps your now Telsas owners state the batteries dont work as long in colder climes. Plus a maintained diesel will work for millions of miles so whats the cost to them giant batteries ? And they really think 50 million Wind and Solar stations will provide enough juice to run them and everything else well good luck with that. This whole brainwashing charade is about taxes & greed period. Common sense says have a little bit to everything and never throw the baby out with the bath water.

I also don't understand the math. Electric rates here are from $0.35 - $0.47 per KWH depending on the time of day. If you do the math with those numbers it comes out about the same as diesel.

Gary, you have only scratched the surface of the missing complexity that was not addressed in this article. A construction company bought an electric excavator, it works for 2 hours and has to charge for eight (sometimes using a diesel generator). How many years can one expect deep cycle batteries to last? Pretty sure that it will very greatly based on the Duty cycle of the truck. After completing 300 miles pulling 140,000lbs (Canadian weights) over the course of a fourteen hour day, How long will it need to charge before it can complete another trip? How long will that battery last before needing replacement? At what cost? Will they be available or will it be like current used leaf and tesla car market where the cost of replacement batteries exceed the remaining economic value of the vehicle? So have you taken into account the disposable nature of the semis being created? This entire article is a non-sequetor, however the comment regarding government making fuel artificially high, As a Canadian paying a carbon tax, is the entire goal of the Idea of a carbon tax. So for the comment in the thread saying that part of the comment is non-sequetor is disingenuous at best.

Ok, I live and have worked in the Rockies mountain states all most of my life, that being said, just how good is their calculations for pulling 80,000# over our high mountain passes, on 5 to 20% grades? My Peterbilt with a Cat and 15 speed, 3:76 drives got 4.5 mpg in the Mtn’s, and 6.5 to 7 on the flat country.
Just curious, most cars/trucks are tested under optimal conditions on a flat track somewhere, I would like to see data on real life comparison.

So when with gov change fuel road tax to mile travel vs fuel used... electric semi will still cause road repair

It's all about operating cost on industrial equipment. You finance the object and if your running costs (which are the majority of your monthly costs) go down to a tenth of what they were but you pay double for the loan you're well in the black. These will sell like hotcakes. Burning expensive fuel is dumb even if the dirty old truck doing the burning is cheaper. It's a new world.

I'll be very conservative on numbers, and you'll see how the eletric truck will be way cheaper than the Diesel over the time (considering everything that was said is true): 400 miles per Day in a 5 days week=total ~8.000 miles month X12 96.000 miles. If you do the calcs, only on fuel is a saving over $50k year. Insurance probably Will be higher, but Services Will be cheaper... this truck Will be at least $50k cheaper to operate than the diesel. Here in California it's impossible to find Diesel for Less than $6 gal, Plus the tax credit for buying EV, it's a huge advantage and If this truck works as announced I fear the small companies and O/O will be pushed out of business.

A couple things to consider that are inevitable,is the future removal of the insane global logistics of battery raw materials once a closed loop recycling system is in full swing, already beginning now,and wrights law applied to manufacturing.
Cheers Mike