Real world testing knowledge reveals that the Tesla Semi truck can journey about 400 miles per cost, and recharge to 80 p.c in simply 45 minutes. Considering simply how massive the onboard battery pack is (roughly the dimensions of ten Model S packs) that’s not too shabby. In a current three-week check throughout 22 electrical freight-hauling tractors, the Tesla got here out on prime when it comes to miles pushed, and proved that the EV vehicles can just do as a lot work in a day as their diesel counterparts.
Compared to its competitors from Nikola, BYD, Freightliner, and Volvo, the Tesla Semi had extra on-the-road uptime and coated extra miles in a day than every other electrical truck. PepsiCo has a couple of dozen Semis in service proper now in Northern California, and one among its drivers travelled 1,076 miles in a single day through the check, stopping for 3 temporary partial-battery fees, and did all of that whereas hauling over 70,oo0 kilos of truck and beverage.
“When we looked at the metrics during the run, we were very pleased with how the Semi performs,” stated Amanda DeVoe, director of PepsiCo’s fleet transformation and technique. “What was most meaningful is that the Semi aligned with how our business operates.”
For eighteen days, starting on September 11, the North American Council for Freight Efficiency tracked all of those vehicles for info on charging infrastructure, value of possession, driving efficiency, and extra. Not each truck within the check was lively each day, and it doesn’t seem any of the drivers have been going out of their solution to set new distance or charging data alongside the way in which.
Tesla might have received out on this check as a result of its Pepsi drivers have been extra centered on long-distance distribution, whereas different producers represented have been making extra frequent regional stops. For instance, the longest mileage day for the Tesla Semi included simply 5 stops, whereas the Nikola made 13 deliveries and one of many eCascadias did 10.
One of the main epiphanies skilled throughout this check was that maybe quick charging is extra vital than outright vary. These massive vehicles are able to charging at mega-quick 750kW chargers of their depots, which means a smaller (and cheaper) battery could also be advisable for the shorter vary regional transports. Mid-shift charging is doubtlessly an enormous profit to smaller carriers, saving them tens of hundreds of {dollars} on the preliminary buy of their tractor, if they will get away with a smaller battery.
More vital maybe than Tesla’s electrical victory is that Pepsi is able to hauling as many miles in a day with an electrical truck as it may possibly utilizing costly and polluting diesel. There aren’t sufficient hours in a shift to get a driver to do rather more than 1000 miles anyway, so the three stops for charging proved to not be a detrimental time suck, and effectivity was excessive sufficient to make the journeys viable.
Tesla has but to scale Semi manufacturing, lagging effectively behind the likes of Freightliner or Volvo. Additionally, Freightliner and Volvo have already got many years of confirmed observe file, reliability, and repair. It’ll take a few years of working on this trade for Tesla to achieve the belief of truckers and trucking firms alike, in the event that they ever do ramp manufacturing to an analogous degree.
Source: jalopnik.com