Tesla's Electric Truck Aims for 200 to 300 Miles on a Charge

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Tesla plans to unveil an electric big-rig truck next month with a working range of 200 to 300 miles in an initial effort to tackle “long-haul” trucking: the battery-powered heavy-duty vehicle is expected to compete with conventional diesels, which can travel up to 1,000 miles on a single tank of fuel. Interest in electric trucks is high among transportation firms looking to reduce their emissions and operating costs.

Tesla’s electric prototype will be capable of traveling the low end of what transportation veterans consider to be “long-haul” trucking, according to Scott Perry, an executive at Miami-based fleet operator Ryder System Inc (R.N). Perry said he met with Tesla officials earlier this year to discuss the technology at the automaker’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, California. Perry said Tesla’s efforts are centered on an electric big-rig known as a “day cab” with no sleeper berth, capable of traveling about 200 to 300 miles with a typical payload before recharging.
 
So no sleeper so you'd have to get a hotel/motel or go home every night.
300 mile range before having to charge, so you aren't going very far before a loooong recharge.
And (my assumption here) more weight in batteries, so less weight in cargo.

I can give Tesla short hop style trucking: gas delivery, beer/soda delivery, etc. But trying to tackle long haul trucking with this? No. Everything is wrong.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
So no sleeper so you'd have to get a hotel/motel or go home every night.
300 mile range before having to charge, so you aren't going very far before a loooong recharge.
And (my assumption here) more weight in batteries, so less weight in cargo.

I can give Tesla short hop style trucking: gas delivery, beer/soda delivery, etc. But trying to tackle long haul trucking with this? No. Everything is wrong.
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I figure there is not much reason for it have a sleeper cabin if it only goes 300 miles, seemed logical to me. I'm not a truck driver, so I dont know how often sleeper cabins are used.

I'm curious
a) how heavy those batteries are gonna be
b) What kind of gearing it will have.
 
Lol. 200-300 miles to take on "long haul" trucking.

I love how they conveniently edited the travel "up to 1,000 miles on a single tank" to a lower number to make their press release look better by comparison. The reality is 1,000 miles is on the low end for semi-trucks. Although they get terrible mileage (sub 10mpg) they have massive tanks and every truck and load is different. 1,500 miles a tank is pretty commonplace.

I'm surprised hybrid setups aren't popular with trucks. Diesel trains barely use fuel compared to the loads and mileage they carry, yet the electrical power they put out from their generators is massive.
 
It would be nice to enforce rest periods for truck drivers, for their safety and the safety of others. They probably shouldn't be traveling more than 300 miles (that's 5-6 hours unless they're racing) without a break no matter what fuel they're using. If the charge could happen in an hour or less (not at all unrealistic with Tesla's superchargers), that should be just fine.
 
Babbster said:
It would be nice to enforce rest periods for truck drivers, for their safety and the safety of others. They probably shouldn't be traveling more than 300 miles (that's 5-6 hours unless they're racing) without a break no matter what fuel they're using. If the charge could happen in an hour or less (not at all unrealistic with Tesla's superchargers), that should be just fine.
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There already are federal restrictions on how long truckers can drive; 11 hours "driving," and 14 hours working with a max of 70 per week before a long enforced break. Waiting while filing up and waiting for weigh-ins and inspections also count against this time. This became an acute concern for me when I needed my new-to-me car shipped across a few states in a hurry.

The only way batteries would work for highway trucks would be to revive a century plus old idea of lifting up the cabin and swapping out the whole battery pack for a freshly charged one. The costs associated with this would almost certainly more than offset the costs of using grid based electricity at consumer or even industrial rates versus diesel.
 
For regional deliveries this is fine, but yeah with long haul you need more range, I imagine the fuel savings are tremendous though.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Lol. 200-300 miles to take on "long haul" trucking.

I love how they conveniently edited the travel "up to 1,000 miles on a single tank" to a lower number to make their press release look better by comparison. The reality is 1,000 miles is on the low end for semi-trucks. Although they get terrible mileage (sub 10mpg) they have massive tanks and every truck and load is different. 1,500 miles a tank is pretty commonplace.

I'm surprised hybrid setups aren't popular with trucks. Diesel trains barely use fuel compared to the loads and mileage they carry, yet the electrical power they put out from their generators is massive.
Click to expand...

A gen-set semi would be bad ass.
 
longblock454 said:
This would probably work great for main distribution fanout, ie large UPS/USPS hubs to local cities.
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Maybe..... I cannot comment on tractor utilization for UPS' "Feeders". However, I do work for an LTL company and I cannot see a prototype tractor with a 200-300 range fitting into our system.

The barn I work at is rather small. We have 26 tractors. 23 Of them are Heavy Duties and three of them are medium duties. Except for certain circumstances, the Medium Duties (and 20 of the HD's) are specifically used for Pickup and Delivery. Unless they have an issue or require a PM, we never run the MD's from our barn to larger/sorting hubs.

Equipment not running is equipment not making money. Except for the weekend, there is no way we can predict how long and when a tractor will be in our yard or another barn's yard. Under most circumstances a tractor sits between 15 minutes and 3 hours before someone needs it.

Given the fact that there is no good way to make sure there would be sufficient charge time, the only tractors we could currently replace would be our Medium Duties - and I highly doubt these tractors will be price competitive.

This will be a huge help (and am excited for) when they finally get near the 1000 mile mark. We could theoretically replace all of our tractors then. The only concern I have is how the power grid would handle this. For example, our P&D drivers start getting back to our barn between 5 and 8:30PM. By 9PM, all the tractors are gone. You have a period of 3.5 hours where 20+ tractors, likely having 300 kWh+ of batteries, need to be charged simultaneously.
 
WorldExclusive said:
I didn't expect them to get this right on the first try ya know.
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I don't think anybody else here did either. However I think we would at least not expect them to exaggerate so much on a press release and advertise their product for a market it obviously cannot compete in.

As others have said. This truck could be useful, just not for long haul trucking.
 
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BigJayDogg3 said:
So no sleeper so you'd have to get a hotel/motel or go home every night.
300 mile range before having to charge, so you aren't going very far before a loooong recharge.
And (my assumption here) more weight in batteries, so less weight in cargo.

I can give Tesla short hop style trucking: gas delivery, beer/soda delivery, etc. But trying to tackle long haul trucking with this? No. Everything is wrong.
Click to expand...

That is the first thing I thought of when I heard of a electric semi. Battery technology is just not there. Battery not big enough, too heavy, charging not fast enough. Technology isn't there yet.
 
Well, I guess it has to start somewhere. The day we lick storage, or possibly on-board generation though... Electric power is absolutely ideal for freight.
 
Hades16x said:
Maybe..... I cannot comment on tractor utilization for UPS' "Feeders". However, I do work for an LTL company and I cannot see a prototype tractor with a 200-300 range fitting into our system.

The barn I work at is rather small. We have 26 tractors. 23 Of them are Heavy Duties and three of them are medium duties. Except for certain circumstances, the Medium Duties (and 20 of the HD's) are specifically used for Pickup and Delivery. Unless they have an issue or require a PM, we never run the MD's from our barn to larger/sorting hubs.

Equipment not running is equipment not making money. Except for the weekend, there is no way we can predict how long and when a tractor will be in our yard or another barn's yard. Under most circumstances a tractor sits between 15 minutes and 3 hours before someone needs it.

Given the fact that there is no good way to make sure there would be sufficient charge time, the only tractors we could currently replace would be our Medium Duties - and I highly doubt these tractors will be price competitive.

This will be a huge help (and am excited for) when they finally get near the 1000 mile mark. We could theoretically replace all of our tractors then. The only concern I have is how the power grid would handle this. For example, our P&D drivers start getting back to our barn between 5 and 8:30PM. By 9PM, all the tractors are gone. You have a period of 3.5 hours where 20+ tractors, likely having 300 kWh+ of batteries, need to be charged simultaneously.
Click to expand...

Which is all great points. I think once again someone really needs to just work replaceable batteries into the system instead of expecting you to carry enough energy onboard to go from A to B without stopping at all. The tanks on the sides of the truck are basically oversized D cell batteries, so if you're driving the truck back to the yard it make a lot more logistical sense to just drive through something that can swap them in a matter of minutes. Then you can take as long as you need to charge them, and can charge them off peak times so it doesn't interference with grid requirements.

Even long haul would work with battery swaps. That's a swap every 4+ hours. A 5 minute stop at a preset destination and you're back on the road. 3 swaps a day right now, and maybe only a single swap in the middle of the day later on. (While still doing a swap either before the start or end of the day)

I would imagine for long haul your dispatcher already knows when you're leaving, estimated stops, estimated arrival time, and can monitor it in real time via GPS. So if a route is known a day or two in advance, they can pre plan the route for the driver, tell them exactly where they need to stop to swap batteries. Then they coordinate that info with your fleet carrier but instead of a stop at a gas station it's a battery swap location. They can tell the station how many trucks are stopping and approximate times they will be stopping to help stagger how many trucks will be stopping in a given time period. If the station knows in advance how many stops they have, they could even bring batteries in during the morning from an off site location that's near a power generation source such as solar or wind. Then you don't need to worry about grid capacity to the station as you aren't charging most of the batteries locally.

I think someone will eventually get on board with it, but all of the pieces need to fall in place such as a standardized cell size, mounting points, etc etc. On trucks it should be far more predictable than cars, so it might be an easier place to start building the logistics for it.
 
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Battery swaps.

Trailers with underslung batteries.

And trucks have to fuel in any state they traverse anyways (right?). Isn't that law to make sure that each state gets some of that fuel tax to keep the roads funded?

This is good news. Very good news. How about a electric dump truck or cement truck that's going on 20 mile trips? The electric trash trucks from some other company are brilliant.
 
I imagine this truck would be for very specific routes, like companies that do deliveries. Every night it comes home and sits on a charger all night. Maybe like UPS, milk, or soda delivery trucks.Eventually they may have more coast to coast but it's going to have to go further than 300 miles per charge.
 
bman212121 said:
.... so if you're driving the truck back to the yard it make a lot more logistical sense to just drive through something that can swap them in a matter of minutes. Then you can take as long as you need to charge them, and can charge them off peak times so it doesn't interference with grid requirements.

Even long haul would work with battery swaps. That's a swap every 4+ hours. A 5 minute stop at a preset destination and you're back on the road. 3 swaps a day right now, and maybe only a single swap in the middle of the day later.
Click to expand...

That would be nice, but I think this would most definitely be done in house unless the entire industry decided on a standard. Similar to Tesla's Supercharger network. It would work. The only issue I see is whether or not the batteries are up to the task. We expect our HD units to last 9 years and the MD's to last 11 years. If two "packs" give a range of 300 miles (effectively 150 miles each), you need 3333.3 charges on each pack over the course of 1 million miles without degradation. Here's to the future!

Uvaman2 said:
Range does not matter when there is no driver.
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Unless you are assuming there are battery swaps with autonomous tractors, range absolutely matters. Transit and service times absolutely demand range.
 
We've in business since 1979 and currently have about 700 tractors on the road. 100% long haul moving primarily NAFTA freight between the US, Canada, and Mexico. We run many driver teams and these tractors never stop. I can tell you unequivocally, electric trucks have a long way to go before they can operate in true long haul market. 200-300 miles may be "long haul" by semantic definition, but that's not even close to what needed for the real long haul market. They will need 1500 miles before a lengthy recharge to match a current diesel rig with twin 125 tanks. In addition, although there are engine reliability issues still being worked on, CNG has become the real alternative to diesel in the long haul market. Although miles before refill are still too short with CNG, topping off the tank is a very quick affair. However, in addition to CNG reliability issues, another set back for CNG is that these motors simply do not make the same power as a diesel. We've done our tests and our drivers complain about the power problems with CNG when they are moving heaviest loads.

Electric, on the other hand, makes the gobs of low end torque needed to motivate an 80,000 lb. load. So I see definitely application for short haul work where the driver is home each night while the truck recharges. The short haul electric wave is coming on strong...and soon.

Long haul...not so much. The article is really a tad misleading. For now diesel remains the only game in town. CNG the nearest rival. But give battery technology more time and I am sure we will see it. Just not yet.

BTW, for the person who said driverless tech nullifies the range issue...not true at all. In long haul you do not want to drop the load and change the tractor more than needed. It's a slow affair that wastes time and increases accidents and damages. In fact, when driverless technology takes off it will become even more necessary that trucks stay moving for the longest possible distances before refueling/recharging.
 
The thing people are missing here is that long-haul trucks can be configured to attach huge battery pods. So unlike the sedans, which have sleek integrated batteries, a truck could make a stop and exchange its drained battery with a full one.
 
BigJayDogg3 said:
So no sleeper so you'd have to get a hotel/motel or go home every night.
300 mile range before having to charge, so you aren't going very far before a loooong recharge.
And (my assumption here) more weight in batteries, so less weight in cargo.

I can give Tesla short hop style trucking: gas delivery, beer/soda delivery, etc. But trying to tackle long haul trucking with this? No. Everything is wrong.
Click to expand...
Well literally the first sentence in the article
a sign that the electric car maker is targeting regional hauling for its entry into the commercial freight market.
Click to expand...
so yeah why would you put thousands of miles worth of batteries onto a truck, or a sleeper cab if you're just going a couple hundred miles max? Best to test out one particular market on a smaller scale to see if it's even feasible rather than throwing all your money into something to force your way in, although it's not like Tesla is putting that much R&D into these things, electric motors- check, add more batteries- check, make it aerodynamic- check.
 
CaptNumbNutz said:
Lol. 200-300 miles to take on "long haul" trucking.

I love how they conveniently edited the travel "up to 1,000 miles on a single tank" to a lower number to make their press release look better by comparison. The reality is 1,000 miles is on the low end for semi-trucks. Although they get terrible mileage (sub 10mpg) they have massive tanks and every truck and load is different. 1,500 miles a tank is pretty commonplace.

I'm surprised hybrid setups aren't popular with trucks. Diesel trains barely use fuel compared to the loads and mileage they carry, yet the electrical power they put out from their generators is massive.
Click to expand...
It really depend on size of the tank which can be 200 gallon all way to 600 gallon with both tank and avg fuel efficiency mileage is around 5/7mpg with 80,000 pound pay load where fuel mileage bobtail 13mpg and with an empty trailer 10mpg.
Most of avg semi truck fuel capacity is 300 gallon this is good for about 1700 miles as long there on flat land
 
The problem with putting batteries in big trucks is the weight. An eighteen-wheeler driving on the US interstate highway system is still limited to 80,000 max. This means the weight of the truck, trailer, the cargo, the driver, the amount of fuel in the tanks, etc. Then there is the limitation of how much weight is allowed per axle.

Typically, a long-haul truck with a sleeper will weigh about 18,000 pounds by itself. Then there is the trailer to haul cargo, a typical empty dry van weighs about 13-14000 lbs. Right there that's about 31-32,000lbs empty weight; before you add fuel and driver. This is just the typical weight of the equipment which can vary with different manufacturers, different options, etc.

As stated before, the maximum weight of the truck/cargo is still 80,000 lbs spread across 5 axles. You want to haul more weight then you need to obtain the proper permits which adds to the cost of shipping said cargo.

Now, if the max weight is 80,000 lbs and the truck/trailer weighs about 32,000 lbs or so empty, that means a truck should be able to handle about 48,000 lbs of cargo in the trailer, right? Not really. The weight has to be distributed evenly across 5 axles. That means the max weight on the trailer's tandem axles is 34,000 lbs. The max on the truck's rear tandem axles is the same at 34,000 lbs. This leaves the max weight on the truck's front axle at no more than 12,000 lbs.

The truck driver can slide the trailer axles forwards or backwards to help distribute the weight on the trailer but this can only help so much. Some big trucks have the ability to slide the 5th wheel forwards and backwards to help as well, but not all big trucks have the option. The majority of the big fleet company trucks do not include this option (cheaper without it). Even with the option, the amount of weight that can be distributed between the axles is limited. Sometimes, no amount of sliding will help distribute the weight evenly over all 5 axles and still be withing federal regulations. This is when the driver might have to run half tanks of fuel or try to find alternate routes around the weigh stations...just don't get caught.

Now you want to add a big, heavy battery pack to replace the engine. This will add weight which will decrease the amount of freight the truck can carry which then makes the cost of shipping cargo go up. Who pays these increased costs? The shipping company? The truck driver? No, the consumer always pays the increased costs in the form of higher prices.

While the whole idea of putting battery packs into big trucks may sound like a fantasy come true (for some) it is really not practical for long-haul trucking. It may be suited more for local trucks with day cabs (no sleeper), or straight trucks, or local package delivery drivers where the truck has a chance to charge when the driver goes home at the end of the day.
 
Zangmonkey said:
The thing people are missing here is that long-haul trucks can be configured to attach huge battery pods. So unlike the sedans, which have sleek integrated batteries, a truck could make a stop and exchange its drained battery with a full one.
Click to expand...

The problem here is loads are limited to 80,000 pounds total weight, the larger the battery pod you add, the less freight you can haul.

It would be ironic, but one good application for this would be the coal hauling trucks that operate around me. They are specially rated trucks with 135,000 pound load permits and haul at most 50-100 miles from the mines to the power plants. Electric would be great for this task, and you are hauling to the source of your charging so should be able to recharge at a very cheap rate.
 
mdzcpa said:
200-300 miles may be "long haul" by semantic definition, but that's not even close to what needed for the real long haul market.
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FTA "capable of traveling the low end of what transportation veterans consider to be “long-haul” trucking, according to Scott Perry, an executive at Miami-based fleet operator Ryder System Inc"
You can't just change definitions on the fly. If the industry considers 2-300 long haul then it is long haul.

Sure it may not go as far as a semi and they don't claim that in the article.
They hope to get there of course and you have to start somewhere. This is a good thing.
 
If the range is that bad wouldn't a Fedex truck sized vehicle have made more sense.
 
DustMite said:
While the whole idea of putting battery packs into big trucks may sound like a fantasy come true (for some) it is really not practical for long-haul trucking. It may be suited more for local trucks with day cabs (no sleeper), or straight trucks, or local package delivery drivers where the truck has a chance to charge when the driver goes home at the end of the day.
Click to expand...

Also a big flat surface on top of the trucks to charge away.

I thought of other ways to help increase distance. Batteries on the bottom of the trailers. Sure, loss of cargo weight, but trailers can be sitting there charging, while waiting for the truck driver to come pick it up. Once they pick it up, hook up your air, electrical cables, etc. Bam. Some more range.

I still don't think we're at a point that electric can actually do long haul (I'm thinking 600+ miles), but we may get there if we can get more power packed into today's batteries or make today's batteries lighter.
 
So Tesla and a few in this thread for that matter don't understand long haul trucking in the least. This range isn't going to fly. A number of my clients are long haul truckers and we talk often. A not insignificant percentage of LHT's are teams who switch off driving to keep the truck moving. As mentioned earlier a truck idling is a truck losing money. Most of these teams easily put 700-800 miles per day on a truck. This range and configuration limitation flat out disqualifies this as a long haul and makes it a regional or inter city configuration only.

I wouldn't even buy a pickup truck with that little range.
 
The only way I can see this working for "long hauling" is if they have a tesla fleet where they have facilities across the US where one truck that is almost spent at charge comes in and drops off the cargo and another truck picks it up in the fleet facility and takes over from there. That way there downtime is minimum and they cargo only sits for a short period of time. That way you can string hauls across the states with a 5 - 10 min switch over period. 300 miles on a cargo hauler just doesn't do it. The other way i could think of extending it starting to put solar panels on the trailers and the top of the truck to charge the truck while its going. You could possibly get a few extra miles from that practice.
I don't see this being a huge change in the trucking industry because it just doesn't have the length to compete with traditional freight.
 
Dekoth-E- said:
So Tesla and a few in this thread for that matter don't understand long haul trucking in the least. This range isn't going to fly. A number of my clients are long haul truckers and we talk often. A not insignificant percentage of LHT's are teams who switch off driving to keep the truck moving. As mentioned earlier a truck idling is a truck losing money. Most of these teams easily put 700-800 miles per day on a truck. This range and configuration limitation flat out disqualifies this as a long haul and makes it a regional or inter city configuration only.

I wouldn't even buy a pickup truck with that little range.
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Its almost like you (and quite a few others who also commended here) didnt bother reading even text in OP, let alone linked article...

"Perry said Tesla’s efforts are centered on an electric big-rig known as a “day cab” with no sleeper berth" - so this is for regional use, not for shipping things across huge distances
 
There is only a limit to reach before sanctions will kick in and it will be considered
a weapon (the battery) that you are driving. Safety first.
 
Obviously, you'd need solar cells on the TOP of the trailers. That'd keep those batteries charged and extend the range!

To, like, 300.5 miles.

I can just see how happy truckers would be with this idea. It's not like they get paid by the mile. Oh, wait...
 
Two hundred miles isn't even a half days work for a number of truckers. And if you have lots of stop and go traffic like around LA/DC/Baltimore/New York, that 200 estimate is going to travel south FAST. Truckers aren't going to sit in traffic with the AC off.
 
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