The Staggering Economics of the Tesla Semi

It is not true that electric vehicles are "a source of clean energy". They USE energy, they don't produce it. Furthermore, the source used to charge the vehicle could be either clean or dirty. Let's not get so excited about EVs that we forget where energy comes from.

I mean yeah but what's the total range on a charge we used 200mi as an example but if that's a charge range that's gonna suck, gonna take forever to ship anything.and yeah what we doin about Tesla batteries recycling or how much maintenance on them compared to a diesel would be. And idk if anyone noticed but we hit an energy crisis this summer in the states, and just my electric bill tripled so I've got no intention of switching anytime soon cause I don't think where I live it would have been any cheaper to drive an electric car. And have any of you looked into battery replacement costs for the Tesla?

13000 to 20000 just for sedan sized batteries I do not want to see the semi figures

Electricity comes mainly from cold and nuclear and now that there's enough some solar panel the windmills never make enough is simply not enough when to go against their cost but all that together is what it takes to produce electricity now how does these elected to nuclear power how do they get the coal power what are the coal come from and the sunlight how is all this stuff done how are the sunlight solar panel stuff put in that bought by truck coal delivered to the from the coal mine to the electrical places my truck nuclear either made on sale site or materials about in my truck so it's going to take electric trucks to produce electricity to make the electricity for the trucks to go up and down the road condemning diesel which comes from the Earth is the second most abundant source of liquid in the world next to water and all this is supposed to save the planet somewhere another let's just see what happens

This article is scientificly flawed. To compare a diesel truck with electric you need to convert the truck horsepower hours into KWH...cost of fuel is irrelevant. The energy usage to move 40+ tonnes over 200 miles considerably exceeds 400kwh. Author has no apparent idea of how to compare fossel fuel and electric power. Suggest revisiting article based on energy consumption with realistic figures

Research the MIT engineer who has developed an ultrasonic drill to reach the Earth's core. The drilling takes a matter of weeks. Located near existing fossil fueled power plants, water is injected into the "pipe" which ejects super heated steam to turn power plant turbines. This is a game changer... AND it's NOT science fiction!

A comparison betwen GMC gas truck and Ford electric truck worked well .Both towing exact 20 foot campers..Ford electric didn't even come close to Fords claim of mileage while towing...Gas GMC had better result...End result is Ford needing to recharge below 200 miles. While gas GMC went almost 300 miles before refueling...
Don't beleive what they claim as they always lie..

My semi gets about 8.0 mpg doing 72 mph all day

SC's are now .58 per kwh...were. 13 in 2018. Home charge (sce) was .13 in 2018, now almost .20/kwh C a pattern here?

I must've missed the item where it stated how long to fully charge...if it is like the other full EV vehicles..then it will take hours...preventing a driver TEAM from working together to ship freight efficiently and quickly....sometimes overnight.

We really need to see solid data of testing of loaded truck (at least 85% GVM) showing range of both trucks. 500 Miles stated is a Tesla truck with no load. Until we see this data, there is no financial viability.

All the comments regarding the true cost of electricity are interesting, but I'd like to address some of the other questionable calculations that were used in this article to make the case for the superiority of the Tesla Semi.

Mr. Johnson used 6 mpg to calculate diesel tractor fuel costs. That's very misleading. The majority of diesel tractors on the road are less than 5 years old, and are either Freightliner Cascadias, Peterbilt 579's, or Kenworths.

I lease a 2020 Peterbilt 579 Ultraloft, and over the past 2 years, when loaded, I usually average around 8.5 mpg. I primarily work as a subcontractor for a company with a very large fleet of trucks, and the fleet average most weeks is between 8.4 and 8.6 mpg.

The 6 mpg figure used in the story has to be based on old data that tracked the fuel mileage of old school long nose tractors, which are the aerodynamic equivalent of bricks on wheels. The resulting cost per mile figure of 85 cents per mile is misleading. When calculated using a more accurate 8.5 mpg, the cost per mile is around 59 cents per mile. Still substantially more expensive than the cost per mile given for the Tesla Semi, but not the ridiculous difference outlined by the article.

It'll be interesting to see what the true MSRP of the Tesla Semi ends up being. Only then will it be possible to accurately estimate the long term savings.