Does The Tesla Semi Make Any Sense?
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- Опубліковано 9 тра 2024
- Is the Tesla Semi more marketing madness, or does the math check out?
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The Tesla Semi has set the goal of disrupting long haul transportation in the United States. The truck was announced in 2017, to be produced in 2019. Well, it's 2022, and the truck still isn't on the highway. But according to Tesla & Pepsi, that changes this year, with deliveries set to happen in December 2022. This brings up the question, does the Tesla Semi make any sense?
We'll look at six major questions:
1. What is the battery capacity and weight?
2. How much range will it actually have?
3. How much does the Semi weigh, and how much power does it make?
4. What's the charging rate?
5. How much will the Tesla Semi cost to opperate?
6. Will the Tesla Semi have better emissions than a diesel?
References:
Rolling Resistance - www.lrrb.org/pdf/201539.pdf
Diesel Prices - www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/Lea...
Class 8 MPG - afdc.energy.gov/data/10310
Class 8 Dimensions - ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/publ...
CAA 2019 - ops.fhwa.dot.gov/freight/pol_...
Class 8 Truck Weight - www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/...
2021 Tesla Impact - www.tesla.com/ns_videos/2021-...
Nat Gas Weight Penalty - www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov...
Semi Aero Drag - www.sciencedirect.com/science...
CO2 Emissions - www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/gre....
W2W Emissions Cummins - www.cummins.com/news/2022/10/...
CO2 Coefficients - www.eia.gov/environment/emiss...
W2W Diesel Emissions - www.hydrogen.energy.gov/pdfs/...
Electricity Prices - www.eia.gov/electricity/month...
Fuel Prices - www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/pri...
Energy Calculations - pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021...
USA Power Emissions - www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.ph...
Battery Production Emissions - theicct.org/sites/default/fil...
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My largest skepticism currently is Tesla Semi purchase price: we don't know what it is exactly but reports of $180k for the 500 mi range. If that's true, and it's actually a 1000kWh pack, even at a very good $100/kWh battery price, that means the battery alone for the Semi would cost Tesla $100k (makes the truck the deal of the century). You still need the rest of the truck, and you still need profit (theoretically). If battery cost is $130/kWh, then you're at $130k just in battery! Considering Model X is priced at $120k, and comes with a 100kWh battery (1/10th!!), it's tough to see how for $60k more you can sell a battery 10x in size, and a much larger truck around it. Pricing, for now, is the biggest challenge I see for Semi.
Edit: Some folks have concerns about the "deceptive marketing" comment. Let's walk through it; I don't make this claim because of Tesla missing timelines. Sometimes that happens (though they still do a terrible job with projecting timelines). I say deceptive because they say things like flying Roadster (doesn't exist), Full Self Driving (yet it's level 2, and costs $15k), 0-60 in under 2 seconds (they still haven't done it), Roadster with 10,000 ft-lbs of torque (never mentioning it's wheel torque, which isn't the standard way of presenting it, making the number about 10x higher). Using some 0-60 with rollout, some without, depending on how they want the car to look (but not sticking to a single method). On the same website (tesla.com/semi) you can watch a video that says it has 4 motors, then scroll down and it says 3 motors. Video says 400 mi charge in 30 minutes (insinuating 80% charge), but on the same website 70% in 30 mins. "7 cents guaranteed!" We'll see. Regardless, many inconsistencies exist. Tesla marketing is vague, we don't even get battery sizes or horsepower in specs anymore. They say the media misrepresents them, yet they have differing numbers on the same website, and no PR department to ask questions to get the right numbers. I stand behind the statement of deceptive marketing, and it's not because they took 3 extra years to deliver the Tesla Semi.
What about scalability of using a smaller semi type E truck, such as the ones Tevva motors are rolling out in the EU? They also have a hydrogen reservoir / range extender option which I thought was an interesting twist
Any chance you could post a google spreadsheet so we could play with the assumptions? My guess is Tesla is going to do much better than the 2kWh/mile you assumed. If they get it down to 1.5 the numbers would change dramatically in Tesla's favor.
Can't wait to see the final specs.
If Tesla can really sell it for that, I may go into business buying Tesla Semis and manufacturing Powerwall extenders. I could make quite a few bucks and save Powerwall buyers quite a few bucks, as well.
Talking about hydrogen, it would be interesting to see the emissions, cost and stuff considering green hydrogen and gray? Or brown (hydrogen from natural gas)
They absolutely make more money churning out model y. That’s the reason they waited 3 years to start production.
Jason is a true engineer nerd. Marketing has no effect on him. 😂
All these Elon fanboys I wonder how smart they are when they don't question what he does like the hyperloop but when you take reality into account and you find out just putting a metro train is better but than mean less profit for him because Elon don't make trains and even if he does companies like Astom that make the nyc train would make better one because they have years of experience
The fact that so many Musk worshippers just ignore when he is fudging numbers, and does things like says he's for the environment, yet builds his Berlin factory by razing 160 hectares of forest land, and will put a strain on the area's water supply. His treatment of employees seems to be all over the place as well.
@@USSAnimeNCC- 🤡
@@USSAnimeNCC- - I’m a mechanical engineer who has also designed and built quite a few solar electric systems - I can definitely do the math. It’s _because_ of the facts on the ground I’m a Tesla fanboy.
(Note I said Tesla fanboy, not Elon Musk fanboy - he definitely has the engineering, and marketing, ability, but I can’t be a true fanboy until he gets over his political and “whatever I think is important” failings.)
lol.. the guy who markets his engineering thoughts for profit.
I am pretty sceptical about that charging rate. Even if they manage to do it without the truck blowing up, it would still require an insane power infrastructure, especially if you plan to charge more than one truck at the same time. You can't built a nuclear power plant at every truck stop.
Big enough diesel gas generators could do this, though.
:)
@@mmark300 maybe, although that begs the question, why going electric at all if you need to invest in extra infrastructure that will be using diesel anyways
@@Ekair42 I was joking
You are right, its almost as if the math doesnt check out, implying that this is a scam :)
@@JavaT3700 well, the Math does check out. But that doesn't mean the concept is viable in all aspects or that Tesla can actually do it. The video basically just shows that the numbers are not impossible and technically it could work. But a lot is based on the assumption that the numbers and concepts Tesla provided are correct. My assumption is, that it will not work out on the end. That's however an assumption, not math.
There's a bit of an error at 3:00 - for diesel tractors the average daycab is around 17,000 lbs, but the average truck with the most common 72-in sleeper weighs in closer to 20,500 lbs. I have a Freightliner Cascadia with a condo sleeper, the most common truck in North America - and with a full 240 gallons of diesel in the tanks and me in it, it weighs in about 20,800 lbs net.
Source - am tanker owner-op, I have to know the tare weight of trucks that I buy because we haul bulk.
I was wondering about the up to 2000lbs of diesel fuel omitted from his calcs.
Also skipped three engine rebuilds, one hundred oil changes, brake battery regeneration charging, savings on three brake overhaul. Weight savings was also light parts left off: radiator, transmission, driveshaft, exhaust system, def fluid cost and system, fuel weight three to five hundred gallons at 7.5 pounds per gallon making weight loss for parts not on electric closer to seven thousand pounds and one hundred thousand dollars expense for one million miles.
@@tdevinetampa and battery replacements since you decided to switch subjects on the who's comment you replied to
@@clytle374 sorry,my fat fingers.
I have been trucking for 50 years this
year. I was impressed with the accuracy on your numbers.
Probably the least accurate we’re the
numbers on an adverse run. Many
days you will face 20 to 30 mph wind
all day and more like 2 to three percent
grades half of the time as you constantly roll hills or mountain.
( say like Denver to LA ) Also most of
is OTR these days try to get at least
600 miles per day.
Doesn’t the I70 corridor through Colorado have some 6%? Also that Wyoming wind will get ya too.
Do you drive 70mph in these conditions? If so that seems wasteful unless there is extreme financial incentive to burn the additional fuel.
@@MBergyman i heard from my (euro)trucker friend, that in high wind speed is your frend. Anditional momentum helps with stability, which crucial for when wind violently changes direction
He didn’t use his numbers to present an accurate adverse scenario.. just a common typical scenario. Of course you can face worse conditions
Agreed. Getting in and out of Colorado is a doozy. Also didn’t mention the cold temperatures that might effect battery efficiency.
Stop and go on I-70 up 6% grade, headwind and below freezing…. Ouch.
I’ve watched your videos during high school to study for my IB courses. Now I own and run my own automotive shop.
11 years later and still watching your videos.
You’re a true legend Sir, appreciate the love for knowledge 🧠
👌🏽🤩❤️
Yes .fluent teacher, being a genius without taking a breath.
good deal. hope you enjoy it
Thanks to the new dynamics of video editing softwares world is a much efficient place 🤩
I feel the Electric Semi could fit a much smaller inner city type role. Maybe not a California to New York Hauler, but Moving goods from the distribution warehouse to the store seems feasable, and those shorter more constant trips are the bigger polluters.
telsa did not go that route but the idea of short range electric ones is a thing. tesla just went in the direction that least suits ev's
BYD has 100 or so short range electric trucks already in service in the US with exactly this usage profile (mostly used by Anheuser-Busch). The engineering doesn't run a close to the theoretical limits.
If you think the 4-wheeler fires was spectacular you ain't seen nothing yet; especially if they are hauling flammable or explosive cargo.
well, i live in São Paulo, Brazil.. Here, there're some delivery companies using only eletric cars and trucks inner city as you said
@@randomprotag9329 The tesla semi is being used by pepsi to deliver products from distribution centers to stores. Plenty of trucking is just delivery between warehouses and retailers.
Thank you Jason for going back to your whiteboard roots and giving an excellent explanation!
Haha I mean my last video (every other Friday!) was also whiteboard. I'm glad y'all still like the whiteboard, as I do too! :)
@@EngineeringExplainedSo in conclusion you could argue that their marketing was never ment to be deceptive because the specs were real and things like the chip shortage and a battery shortage because of greater than expected demand for 3/Y frow them back 2 Years?
@@dusselElite missing time lines is not deceptive marketing as far as I'm concerned. As long as you deliver a product in the end. The tesla semi is dependent on 4680 cells which took a lot longer to perfect than originally thought.
Maybe an additional video could be made where BioNG is compared as it was noted that it also has the additional 2000 pounds of total weight allowance.
Since fuel pricing is critical, all pricing is should be calculated with and without subsidies (Federal & LCFS as in California & other states). The CARBON INTENSITY or CI of BioNG from EACH INDIVIDUAL PRODUCER is certified by the California Air Resource Board or CARB using an avoidance criteria that is scientifically supported. For the last three years the averaged CI of BioNG that is used as a transportation fuel in California is CARBON NEGATIVE using the interesting book keeping by CARB. Due to the subsidies the pricing is around $2.50 per diesel gallon equivalent for BioNG that is marketed as such and less than $2.00 if a fleet is fueled from their own internal facilities (fully amortized with subsidies), (two years ago standard NG internal fleet price was $1.30 fully amortized, incremental less than $1.00). This is why United Parcel Post (UPS) has hundreds of class 8 BioNG fueled trucks not to mention many times more BioNG fueled local delivery trucks in California.
To do a correct lifetime CO2 equivalent analysis when using anything with methane, one must take into consideration any leakage occurring after the BioNG production facility (the CARB certification process deals with the production facility) and METHANE SLIP in the engine. It would be interesting to have this additional total lifetime cost added to the comparison along with the full lifetime CO2 equivalent.
In addition, CARB has mandated the use of BioNG for California transit districts that use natural gas during the transition to full EV busses. As an interesting note, busses can be used as a proxy for “real world” local and regional trucking. At this time with transit busses, the use of EVs becomes problematic around 200 miles per day and hence the CARB’s interest in hydrogen fuel cells purely for range.
@@themeach011 Elon certainly should give himself more leeway when he makes time claims. People also need to get over themselves to call him a scam artist for just taking longer than you wanted…
I'm a Mechanical Engineer working at a global truck manufacturer.. I've got to say I was pleasantly surprised over the great analysis. Good work. I like that you remained critical all through and still came to rational conclusions.
My one criticism would be that assuming a constant speed is kind of unrealistic, and EVs typically do better in stop and go situation's compared to ICE vehicles.
@@macrumpton I completely agree but I would say in an overwhelming majority of the actual time driven, the speed is constant for trucks.
@@macrumpton The thing is, EVs are the most efficient in stop and go traffic. Highway miles reduce their range a whole lot more than city driving
@@Ignacio.Romero that’s true but I think it maybe affect it way more with all the added weight
My one criticism is he underplays the weight of the cab. He says a diesel one is 17k lb (up to 25k with sleepers), but roughly 13k lb when removing the diesel engine.. let's say knock another 2k off for the transmission so 11k lb. What is the tesla one made of? Because that 10 to 12k lb of batteries still has to go into a semi weighing 11k, and the motors and single speed transmission will likely weight 3x that of a model S, so roughly another 1k lb. Plus regen braking.. were looking closer to that 27k lb limit for EV semi trucks imo.
Also I'm not sure the power band EVs have that favors lower speeds is that poorly affected at 60mph~ compared to 70, 80mph, a lot of it can be mitigated with careful application of power to the motors once cruise speed is attained and making the cab as aerodynamic as possible - as EE noted that is pretty difficult with the trailer attached without redesigning it. Maybe Tesla semis should just cruise slower to get much better range? Depending on the haulage business model, they may be able to pay truckers more for longer hours and still have lower overhead using EV semis. Also, if the semi does make use of smart regen braking (for example down hills, correct me if that would be dangerous for 18 wheelers) they might be able to extend range further.
Was just thinking about this channel's solution for grid overload--staggered charging--used level 2 chargers as a baseline; I now realize that those won't be used in future cars, which will pull much higher kW
You lost me at hello! I looked at the whiteboard behind you as you started talking and my brain just went 'NOPE!' ;-)
The charging rate is insane, if a delivery warehouse got more than 2 of the Semis plugged in charging you'd be tripping local substations as Elon said they did that whilst testing out the Dojo supercomputer at 2MW, the charging stations will be massive installs to handle the capacity
This is the biggest problem with electric trucking, maybe you can do 500 miles on a good day (seemingly closer to 250 average), maybe not buying diesel makes up for carrying ~5 tonnes less max cargo, but can you get that charge when you need it? It's all well and good looking at 1.4MW charging power, but say there's three trucks at a stop: If you want to get them all plugged in, that's 4.2MW, and you're going to need some serious electrical equipment to draw that power from the grid, convert it to DC, and send it to the trucks, that's putting huge pressure on any kind of local grid, plus it may draw peak generators online, crushing the 9 cents per kWh figure. And you're going to need a whole network of these big electrical substations in their own right around the highway system to make this really work Vs diesel. All just to halve emissions from just the trucks, not the ancillary infrastructure.
I'm pretty sure they will use huge battery storage on site, they already do this at some superchargers. Slowly charge the storage in quiet times then use it to offset the required energy.
@@craigix that makes a lot of sense to be fair
keep that coal fired Power plant running full steam to charge these batteries.
The poor electric grid.
Quick note: the frontal area kindness you have with air passing beneath the vehicle is less efficient than just increasing the frontal area and keeping it close to the ground. Volvo, Freightliner, and other leaders in the space are getting as close as they possibly can without clearance issues as it decreased the net drag coefficient because then you control smooth air instead of the chaos of turbulent air beneath acting as a significant loss compared to the increase in frontal area.
Makes sense! Plenty of trucks out there (commercial and passenger) with an air dam blocking this section to improve drag.
Maybe you can help me with this: A rocket's drag coefficient is not affected by its launch trajectory. It's the same whether it's launched parallel with or perpendicular to the ground, and is just a function of the rocket's geometry, surface roughness and its Mach number. Outside of the brief moment when the semi's geometry changes while the front starts travelling uphill and the trailer is still travelling over flat ground, I am struggling to think of a reason why a semi's drag coefficient would be affected by whether or not it was travelling uphill.
TESLA semi cab is SUPER Streemlined, w/ ACTIVE air dams behind the cab.
@@Marmocet OK so not really an expert but he did say the higher drag coefficient was because in the example the trailer was not a special aerodynamic design made to fit perfectly with the Tesla truck. And if you look at trailers you see on the road they do vary a lot. Some are hard body refrigerated, some are canvas covered and some are open bed. Then there are container carriers. All of these have different drag coefficient so it's not unlikely that these trucks will be pulling trailers that raise the drag coefficient quite dramatically. 0.5 is still not all that horrible, especially not for a truck with trailer.
@@Marmocet In his calculations, the uphill travel didn't affect air resistance. Rather it simply imparted gravitational potential energy to the truck. I think he said 1% grade for 100 miles; I assume this means approximately 1 mile of height gain? Using U=mgh you get U=36287kg * 9.81m/s2 * 1609m = 572 million joules = 159kWh due to incline alone. Hauling the same vehicle vertically up a cliff face using a hoist powered by an electric motor would theoretically consume the same amount (and would make for an awesome video).
1 mile of height gain is a pretty brutal climb though. I guess this could be relevant if you're hauling battery modules over the Rockies. Of course, in an EV, uphill travel doesn't cost you as long as you come back down the other side
Damn you are doing great... been following your youtube for a long time all the way back when you were just starting out and slowly build your show to what it is today.
watching your videos is a treate, Thank you really! when i see it in the notification, i can't wait for my worday to end to jump to my coach and geek
One thing I don't think people are considering is that when trucks get to their drop off locations they often need to stay parked for awhile while being unloaded. If you have chargers in the truck loading bays, these trucks can charge at their destination. For short hauling 500mi range is more than enough.
You are right about waiting to unload and unloading, perfect time to charge. But what I am seeing here in Southern California is the warehouses being built don’t have any accommodation for a charging station. They have them inside for their electric lift trucks. And the cost per kilowatt for electricity is not cheap.
The electric grid can't even support electric cars right now.
i thought thats where the chargers or at least most of them were gonna be
@@judge831 seems to be working okay. Incentives for off-peak charging can help. And in the near future, I hope that most houses will provide and store their own energy. For home to rely on the grid should be less common in the future. We're at the tipping point.
Imo, most of long-range landlocked hauling should be done by trains. No electric semi can match the efficiency of even diesel trains for 200+ mile trips.
I LOVE THIS CHANNEL! And this presentation is a benchmark. No bias, No spin. Like they used to say on Dragnet...... JUST THE FACTS.
More freight should be shipped via rail for long haul. Electric trucks would work well for local deliveries.
100%, no matter how efficient you make a truck you'll never hold a candle to the efficiency of a train.
It's about fattening pockets. Politicians don't give af about the environment
This is a very logical reality. Tesla EV semis could do local deliveries all day long, using smaller batteries with reduced range. Super fast recharge stations would minimize downtime between runs. This is very possible. Any longer runs would require either a diesel semi, or an EV with reduced payload.
Over time as battery tech improves, the EV range will increase and the EV semis will cut more and more into the diesel territory.
Presumably, at some point the batteries could achieve a more favorable power/kg ratio than diesel. This is a long way away.
Long term, yes. The Tesla EV semi could very well replace the diesel semi completely.
For now, we can expect EV semis owning short run deliveries. They make sense. Long run deliveries, no.
Over time, I would expect the diesels to command ever-reducing zones of competition until they're gone completely. At some point there is no profit for Mack or Kenworth making diesel semi trucks.
Also if the financial situation changes enough, it becomes more economical for cargo to be sent closer by rail and then distributed locally by EV semi.
And it could become more economical to send two EV semis to do the work of one diesel semi. At this point, diesel is dead.
Use FSD mode, and the economies of the EV shift more and more toward the death of diesel.
The vast majority of trucking is local delivery anyway and that's the target market for electric trucks. It will take many years to produce enough trucks to satisfy the short-haul market and that will give the EV industry time to develop batteries or hydrogen range extenders for long-haul.
Yes but Americas rail network sucks now. Rail is perfect for electrification and is the most efficient way to move supplies. Honestly improving mass transit and rail infrastructure would be a much more sustainable future than any other electric vehicles but the US is so car dependent it'll never happen.
Phenomenal video, I was looking into the numbers of the semi myself and couldn't figure out some parameters. Thanks a lot
i like your video, and last year i actually took a class on electricity so most of this wasnt over my head for a change.
only thing i can comment on here that may have been able to have been factored in is energy reclimation. i actually have experience with this as i rode with a friend in a hybrid, and actually got to see how they were able to stretch out their milage by makeing use of the downhill grades. now, im not sure exactly how much energy you might regain doing this in an actuall electric vehicle, but i feel its worth mentioning as it will likely have a huge effect on your total distance/ energy used calculations.
It can be significant, but unless your trip has a relatively significant overall decrease in altitude, it will not increase range beyond what you would achieve at a sustained 0% grade and acceleration. Assuming the Semi is using a permanent magnet synchronous motor like the Model 3 and not an induction motor like most of their highest power motors have been, regenerative braking can probably convert about 75% of energy. This is of course unless they have somehow dramatically improved efficiency in their inverters, which aren't typically extremely efficient at charging. If you optimize too much for charging, you could end up compromising propulsive efficiency, so these concerns must be carefully balanced. If it uses multiphase AC induction motors, regen conversion would be closer to 65%.
I'm always surprised how Jason is able to fit every topic in a single white board. Great analysis, Jason!
makes it hard for me to concentrate on what he's saying
Oh and one other thing. Great for the electric semi-tractor manufacturers.
It will take more of them to move the same amount of freight.
@@warrenpuckett4203 At least they have a whole trailer for extra batteries!!!
@@warrenpuckett4203 Nahhhh most loads are not at weight capacity even if the load is full! 👌🏽
@@dennissmith7214 DOT 18,000 lbs single axle. Tandem 32,000 lbs. Gross vehicle weight 73,280.
That is unless there is a different standard for electrics.
Maybe you can bang on the trailer and make the canaries fly. While DOT is weighing your truck.
At 60 mph and fully loaded I'm getting 7.7 mpg from new. My truck currently has 260k. I have a 2020 volvo vnr, empty weight with trailer and fully fueled is 33,800 lbs. My average loaded weight is 70k. And from what I have heard the 2023 with the new engine design is getting over 11mpg. But I love the science and your channel. Biggest issue is a lot of variables.
I have no idea where he got the 5.28 mpg from. From what I found online, average was closer to 6.5 mpg, and that's the AVERAGE of all trucks (new and old) on the road across all driving conditions. While the 1.25 mpg difference doesn't seem like much, it shaves off $140k from fueling costs.
What I really don't understand is why he's comparing the fleet average, which includes trucks that aren't even for sale anymore, against a brand new EV Semi truck. If a trucking company is planning to buy a new truck, then they'd compare the Tesla Semi against a new truck from another company. The Freightliner Cascadia Evolution is a good example, which is supposedly capable of getting over 10 mpg. In a real world cross country test, it got 9.3 mpg. That would drop fuel price to $451,612; down from $784k. That's with a second front passenger seat and a full sleeper cabin; an option not available on the Tesla Semi.
EE used the best case scenario for the EV semi when determining its fueling costs. 60 mph on a flat road. Tesla often states their range in "best case scenario", so I'd expect them to average less in real world. I can't speak to average semi truck speeds over long trips, but in my local area in Michigan, I typically see Semis driving 65 mph, a few driving 70, and a select few driving 75. I rarely see them driving 55-60 mph. EE didn't include charging losses, which I imagine could be anywhere from 5% to 15%. Then of course there's cold weather which can eat into range a bit; although maybe not so bad on a Semi given that HVAC uses a relatively tiny amount of energy versus the total size of the battery. Cold weather air resistance would be a bigger issue, but also probably not huge.
The Tesla Semi still comes out ahead on cost.... which begs the question; why would a truck that's supposedly far cheaper to own and operate than a diesel truck, that'll be sold in severely limited quantities that will be bought up immediately, be eligible for a hefty $40,000 federal EV tax credit? The argument being made in this video is that this free money isn't necessary; the EV truck is far far cheaper. It makes me wonder how much Tesla is actually planning to charge for these vehicles if they save this much money over Diesel.
BTW... a model S 100 kWh battery replacement runs about $20k. What would a 1000 kWh battery replacement go for? $200k? If that's the case, then how is Tesla planning to sell this truck for $180k... or maybe $220k when you account for the $40k credit. Can't forget about inflation. The model 3 RWD has jumped about 25% in price. Do the same for the Semi and we're looking at ($180k * 1.25) + $40k = $265k. About $100k more than the Cascadia, but it saves nearly $200k on fuel.
@@naaspam1185 he states in the video where he gets the mpg man. Come on.
our day cabs are getting 10 sometimes up to 15 mpg depending on load those are macs going 65 with a fleet of 40 so it's not a one off or fluke they all get that
Only problem is no matter how good it gets in MPG the electric will still pollute the air less.
@@naaspam1185 Best informative analysis I think I have ever seen in the UA-cam comments!
Excellent and fair analysis. There are a couple of things missing though. With diesel your weight is reduced as the tankless empties, not so with batteries. Don't know how significant that is, but it is a factor. The other thing is regenerative braking. Again, I don't know of this is included in the efficiency ratings, but as the technology improves the efficiency of regeneration will also improve. Diesel is a very highly developed technology, and improvements are slow. EVs are improving at a faster rate right now.
Also , the tesla makes 1000hp rights ? How much torque???? Diesel trucks may only make 500- 600 hp but they make about 2000lbs of torque so the power isn’t all that bad on a diesel .
Regen braking is almost useless (I have owned 2 hybrids) as the total energy to start and keep rolling is so much greater than what can be recovered braking. The EV does have one really great advantage though. A idling ICE is really wasting a lot of energy in stop-and-go traffic which is really significant in large cities.
Thanks for the awesome vid! Keep up the great work🎉
It is pleasing to see the engineering correctly explained. This is the only big channel that does this stuff and gets it right. A good rule of thumb is the accuracy of a channel’s material is inversely proportional to the number of videos with “insane” in the title.
Was this a diss at Real Engineering? It just has a different production style, but it's not less accurate. Maybe less precise, as he doesn't show you calculations of the topic, rather the mechanics and examples, but it isn't any less true as far as I can tell.
Engineering vs real life on the ground experience are often far apart. Speaking from an engineers point of view.
Real engineering isn’t inaccurate just a different style
Might just be the way Irish people speak.
@@KevinKickChannel ...ok then, taking the latest video from that channel he cites induced drag of 3 lbf for the Spitfire at 100 fps. That is not less accurate, it is impossible. And of course, that isn't even the biggest error in there.....
It would be cool to get an update on what you got right and what you got wrong, and why. But that would require information Tesla has not released yet, such as the weight of the tractor.
Yeah it is wiser to wait now, until he knows every details. But that is the beuty about Engineering, even if somerthing wrong here, the avarage still relevant, and that what counts really the big numbers.
The truck will be 40-60k pounds … so he Van load less then a diesel … and they will cost 6x and when they burn …. Oh boy … they the Trick will Brun for like 3-8 month hahaha
@@damjanmladic9327 your comment is just a bunch of unscientific nonsense full of misspellings.
Motor trend just reported the battery weight at 2000lb. That is a significantly lower weight than predicted here.
@@mikeclark7429 more like 11.000kg or more
More 100% high-quality content! Keep up the great work!
So as you were pointing out, the drag coefficient is going to be variable. With a 500 mile range it seems that ltl carries that haul doubles and triples would be the most likely to benefit, so that probably affects drag more than a single 53 footer (also, triples can be 105,900 lbs).
Having driven a Tesla I think that the useful range will hugely differ from the actual rated range. You do your range calculation based on 100% state of charge. But a long haul truck will likely never charge past 70% (the current supercharger charge rate above 70% SOC is not fast at all). Then consider that you likely wouldn’t target arriving at a charger with less than 10% SOC. So in a more realistic calculation your range will be only 60% of rated range.
In a truck that is not driven all the time, but more in daylight, it is pretty feasible for it to leave with 100% charge in the morning. And many don't need to go more than 500 miles in a day.
When you look at the price of the vehicle and the range and then they tell you not to charge above 80% or below 20% to keep the batteries healthy longer, that's literally 40% you're paying for but expected not to use most of the time 😡
The range calculation gets even murkier than that when you consider the average use case for these trucks. Even at 30minutes to charge, no long distance company will be able to justify these simply because that's a half hour of driver wages you're paying every ~400mi while not getting goods any closer to delivery. Seriously the charge time is one of the biggest problems here that can only be solved with both exotic charging solutions and massive power infrastructure upgrades, both of which are super expensive and require too many parties to cooperate to be consistent enough for a new economic standard.
Comparatively, we have a huge network of fuel stations, fuel stations are way less temperature sensitive for northern economies, minimizing refueling time means more regular sales for a logistics company, and diesel engines are much easier, cheaper, and quick to repair incase something breaks down.
@@iqcool Do drivers not have to take time out anyway in the US? I figure a half hour coffee break is reasonable for a driver in a 400mi period, considerably less I would think. In Europe, goods drivers have a maximum time they are not permitted to exceed without a break, monitored electronically.
Thats for the old style batteries that they no longer use or are phasing out. All brand new LPF battery models can and are encouraged to charge to 100% every night.
Well done!
Ian Wright co developer and former owner of Tesla formed a new company around 10 years ago called Wrightspeed with the goal of replacing the entire drivetrain of Garbage Trucks (Class 8) and City Busses making them fully electric with regenerative brakes. The difference is these vehicles would be equipped with fewer battery packs to reduce weight and increase capacity but they would also have an onboard range extender capable of not only powering the vehicle but simultaneously recharging the batteries and eliminating the issues of range under heavy load.
His choice for the range extender was a 80 KW Microturbine Generator (MTG) that would automatically startup to recharge the batteries as needed.
His reasoning for starting with garbage trucks and city buses is their extremely poor fuel economy mainly due to hundreds of stops every day.
I believe this is a fantastic concept which has been proven by test fleets in real world use.
I believe in unicorns but, I'd never expect anyone else to buy into my delusional beliefs. So far no one else has solved the range issue, they just ignore it and try impress with shiny LED lights and pretty displays.
@@cantweallgetalong thanks, I also feel that this technology would work for most heavy equipment and farm equipment which require far more power than a car or even a semi truck.
Caterpillar already has an electric drive bulldozer (about the same size as a D6 if I’m correct) but it uses a conventional Turbodiesel to turn the generator so it still requires scheduled maintenance and fluid changes while a MTG doesn’t, however the rest of the bulldozer still requires daily maintenance and inspection to keep it operating.
Switching to a large MTG as the power source could have several advantages other than possibly making the equipment too light.
@@andersonnettleship845 YW, I trust your enthusiasm. Do you prefer pink or rainbow unicorns?
An electric drive bulldozer using a conventional turbodiesel to turn the generator is just plain and simple cheating, but it does take us right out of fantasy world and back to real life. Damn it all!
@@cantweallgetalong It has the advantage of being able to be coupled with another power source (batteries, capacitors), to reduce the cycling load on the engine, reducing wear and increacing MTBS. Combine a turbine generator (Diesel or NG) with a battery or capacitor array, and you've got basically a hybrid heavy vehicle design.
@@cantweallgetalong I studied electrical and am a son of a man with 30 years of logistics under his belt.
He's experience includes, but is not limited to: Employed by the United States Government as an armed fuel transport specialist during a time of war and transportation of Hazardous Materials (HazMat) for delivery to a major U.S. based multinational company.
On his spare time he learns about the history of his industry and pertinent equipment and developments of said.
With that being said, while I a not in that industry or any supporting industry, I have still learned from him and others about it.
None the less, I to a one of the heretics who have not bought into the hype!
I also have a marketing background. Despite being a proponent of genuine ways to lessen our species impact on th natural word, I am an opponent of pushing for regulations and supposed solutions that are actually detrimental in the long term to the environment and our liberties. In fact, I beleive that the regulations currently on the books need to be made less stringent or done away with. California Clean Idle Certification being one of them.
It is because of that which I stated concerning the background of my father and I, that I hold the views I shared. As the saying goes, "Knowledge is power".
I do hope that electric trucks can become commonplace in an honest manner.
These trucks should be great for regular routes with chargers at the base. Moving stuff around between hubs, delivering to retail stores and such. Charge them at noon when electricity is cheap and drivers are on break.
I’m not sure how the batteries will hold up if those things are on the road practically 24/7.
Diesel isn't flammable (by definition),
Every one of these trucks is a bundle of dynamite on wheels.
@@taitsmith8521 Newer cell chemistries are much more safer, like LFP and sodium and Tesla already uses LFP in their cars.
They will hold up just fine. There are batteries that make half a million miles.
@@michalandrejmolnar3715 you're someone with zero experience in industrial manufacturing, and no concept of supply chains.
kinda sound like a train
Hello, Happy New Year! Great coverage on Tesla semi.. Could you please share your opinion on Hyliion trucks? Thanks in advance 🤩✨
As everyone is requesting I too would love to see an updated calculations after the first delivery event. But I think it would be even more effective if done once you get in touch with someone to whom one of these semis is delivered to, which I think for the time being is just PepsiCo.
I calculate $500k for the battery alone in the semi 500mi model. Tesla listed the price at $200K for the vehicle. Something is not right.
@@Nill757 It's in the figures that you used then, I would say ballpark Tesla's batteries are costing no more than ~$150 per kW, and the Semi has a pack smaller than 1000 kW.
A 900 kW pack at $150/kW is $135k.
My understanding is that there are no deliverable trucks. This build appears to going to be prototypes used solely by Tesla for Tesla’s purposes.
Joe, did you not watch the delivery event ?
You musk's fanboys have no working neurons. At least you can pretend you're saving the planet.
As a fellow enginerd, I love it when you do math videos like this. You save me so much time that I would otherwise someday spend calculating all this stuff. Now I can just watch your videos!
Those spreadsheets ain't gonna make themselves get to it! Ha, thanks for watching!
Accept in his math the tesla truck weighs 0 lbs because its 1/4 as fast with 80k pounds, so he assumed the truck weighs 20k lbs instead of a more realistic 25k lbs, which means all his math from that point on is bunk... no offense but I have actually worked for major cars companies and the assumption that because it's 4 times as fast "means it's 4 times as light" is also bunk. AND, don't get me started on his regurgitated cO2 emissions junk science, cO2 is your friend, not your enemy, if you like planet earth.
@@Andreoli2005 I thought the same thing at first on the 0-60 numbers, but the 80k lbs weight is for the whole system, tractor AND trailer.
This is bunk!... that is bunk!... I don't have to explain why because "I worked for major car companies" (meaninglessly vague much?)... Also, the scientists' science is junk!... because I remember in high school they said plants like co2?... duh? Lmao
I'm super triggered by the constant swapping between metric and imperial units... but still a great video.
Great analysis! With limited information at the time the video was created it's very impressive how close these numbers are to what was presented on Dec 1. Now that we have more information I'm curious how these numbers change. In a purely flat and a purely 1% grade scenario calculations is a great way to get min/max numbers however, I think Tesla was able to pull off 500 miles while going over the grapevine due to regen which was not covered in the video. For instance diesel trucks don't recapture the energy while applying a combination of jake brake and brakepad resistance.
If you were to transport boulders from the top of a mountain to the bottom of the mountain in several trips could you theoretically only charge once since the boulders provide potential energy? What would the numbers be transporting boulders from the bottom of the mountain to the top in several passes?
@@rquindoy In a word, yes. Search for "World's largest EV never has to be recharged" (I'd leave a link, but posts with links sometimes get deleted).
Thanks for the great explanation. How about for passenger vehicles? EV vs ICE?
I would love to see what the numbers would look like trying to climb the Rockies fully loaded. The 1000 mile journey from LA to Denver would be a 8-12 charge journey at least I would think.
As a cyclist I would dearly love to find a 500mile road where there is under a 1% grade and under 10mph wind.
These things are going to be for specific niche situations at first. Like short runs that need to be done quickly. Man would I love to be able to go through the rockies in one of these things. Climbing the hill like nothing and going down without touching the breaks. So chill.
Going downhill the battery gets charged, due to regeneration
lol
Would be interesting. To Denver you’ll have more headwind too, much less downhill regeneration.
A bicycle has a "transmissiom", you can switch to a climbing gear. Electric motors are great for instant torque and high RPM, not so great a low speeds and high loads.
I'd love to see a cost comparison between replacing all of the semis in the United States with Tesla semis versus just electrifying the railroads. Because as it turns out we've had a perfectly effective way of moving land freight via electricity for about 150 years.
Yeah but that's not profitable enough for the right people.
But didn't you hear about how great HyperLoop™ is for *CARGO*? Aka Musk's attempt to sabotage cargo rail after the same didn't work for California HSR and cars.
It would get a bit complicated to calculate because the US rail network is pretty lame, and you'd have to calculate the cost to expand the network to more areas. Tesla semis would actually work great in tandem with rail since the semis can do last mile delivery. Too bad Elon hates rail.
If only the US had preserved all of it's rail infrastructure....
Cost of electric battery buses is roughly the same as for trolleybuses (together with overhead wires, poles etc.), so electrifying the railroads might turn out cheaper...
You gave some very ideal numbers in a lot of these choices. I wonder how much energy regeneration these can do given the huge load size going downhill. I'm assuming there is a limit to regenerative braking. I would think going after the ports where there are a lot of short drives, load/unload from the ships, would be the place to optimize quickly given the start/stop of that...
I think the important thing to remember with any type of energy regeneration is you will always get less back than what you put in. In this case you may get more energy back from the semi but it will also take more to speed it up again
@@ethanjungbauer1554 of course. My question is what the limits are of regeneration are. Like, do the systems in place today only work at lower forces? So braking has to slow the semi mass first? Or can the systems be just as effective as my Bolt? I would imagine the design for such huge loads would need to be different.
Regen braking likes heavier loads because it gets you into the productive torque range for a generator sooner (more efficiently). Formula One and other race series provide a lot of regen technology that could no doubt be applied to heavier weight vehicles.
@@JoeOvercoat It will be interesting to see what is implemented here. This is a much bigger load than those cases and I'd imagine the parts required need to be different, right? In F1, don't they mostly get regen only partially in braking zones? Only a small fraction of braking force is captured from what I've read about KERS. Would the size of the Semi MGU need to be huge? Would they need extra cooling for these large forces?
@@sloanNYC And it would massively increase weight
Hi Jason, could you make an update since the delivery event? thank you!
You forgot the _per axle_ weight limit. You can still be under 80k and still get a weight ticket because one of your axles was over loaded. Also, that 17k lbs figure is for an OTR truck. Day cabs are significantly lighter because they're shorter and have way less in them.
You’re not loading your truck properly if you’re overweight on any axle.
Day cab, single screw, Internationals are 13k, that is the lightest I know of. OTR sleeper trucks are 15k rollers, no motor or trans.
His math is off by about 5k for just the truck weights.
Regardless there was a discussion from someone inside Tesla that said the battery set weighs 13k. Just the battery pack. No wires, controllers, or motors. So that in a truck of typical construction is going to see 25k, empty. Which is not impossible for a really well put together sleeper truck.
The biggest hurdle isn;t the up front cost, or the weight of the truck, or the design parameters.
The charging infrastructure and lack of tesla capable shops is a complete no go for any type of OTR trucking. Period. Even short haul, easy climate work, like southern Cali delivery routes, this truck isn't going to beat the current productions 60k, medium duty trucks that will absolutely destroy this thing in its service life.
Tesla Semi does have space for rest.
@@MrAPCProductions There is a lot more on the Tesla Semi than the batteries. There is a lot of engineering in order to reduce weight. The cabin is diveded in two with different levels. The lower one is for driving, the higher and larger space is for resting. It has a lot more space then a reguar diesel Semi with a large cabin. There are videos of the interior of the semi.
The Tesla trucks that Tesla are currently using are day cabs that weigh about 17k my OTR truck was around 15.
Cool video! Thanks for making it.
Jerry 😮
@@CarNacho17*Zack
I love watching these videos, saves me a lot of time explaining numbers to other people. The 500mi limitation is going to be messy. 500mi represents about 7-8 hours of driving, where truckers are given 11h of driving in a 14h window, plus certain personal liberties.
Nature calls and no one can sit for 11hours, but I happen to own a pickup truck that gets 1400mi/tank and it it REALLY nice being able to stop based on MY needs/wants, not my truck's needs. It's the difference between me getting a fresh Publix sub vs. an Arby's attached to a gas station. It's the difference between me peeing at one of the two, as well.
500mi will not be preferred by drivers who are used to having 1500-1800mi tanks. It's a lot of 30m-1hr stops. Considering the new infrastructure needed, you're not going to find many Tesla chargers around the country. A Trucker may have to make an energy stop every 300-400mi rather than risking a 475-550mi stretch to one further up the road. With no transportation, that also means that his food and bathroom choices are severely limited.
500mi really means it will make a good daily fleet vehicle. Perhaps last-mile deliveries for LTL carriers like Averiitt, Yellow, or FedEx Freight. Hub-based deliveries will guarantee the truck can park and charge overnight.
We need to stop using fossil fuels. If that means we have to change our way of thinking on what work should look like, then we should change that. There's no way where where we keep sucking and burning fossil fuels. It's devastating for our own future on this planet.
how about a diferent number then? tell me, in case of a fire, how many months do you think it will take for it to be dealt with? unless you assume no e-truck will ever have an accident...
@@marcosdheleno I'm not sure how your question relates to my post..
@@BadKarmaM3 you were talking about numbers, so i asked you to tell me one that i find to be far more important, given how bad e-car burning is.
and if you still dont get it, just do a quick search on tesla car fire, and you will.
Long haul isn't everything
I've driven long haul trucks over the road and local/regional as well. They will work for local and SOME regional routes but would absolutely not cut it for over the road long haul which is actually most of the trucking in the US. My diesel long haul truck had 1400-1800miles of range and in windy situations for example states like Wyoming and Nebraska will EAT UP your fuel and reduce your range by 50% because of sustained winds coming ahead. It's scary when your range meter says 1440miles left and you've passed 200 and it shows 850left, luckily there are gas stations everywhere that take less than 10minutes to fuel and don't forget we're limited on hours driven and on duty by the federal government so we can't just waste more than 15minutes to charge/fuel once a day or once every two days
This is the side that really stood out to me. It is the same issue I have with EV's when i need to drive long distances frequently. The normal retort is that you'll stop for 1-2 hours after a couple hours of driving anyway so you have plenty of time to recharge, when the reality is more fill up, grab something to eat on the road and go. It's not a Sunday drive to grandma's house...
For the Semi if they achieve the 500 mile range that's at most 7 hours of driving at 70 mph without stopping to recharge. If you recharge to 70% in 30 min then you get 350 miles or about 5 hours of driving. Assuming a single driver that should get you to your daily limit of hours on the road with only the 30 min charge time and less than 40 miles of lost distance for the day.
If you are driving in cold or windy conditions where you lose 50% of your range then you end up with about 3.5 hours of drive time before recharging to recover a 175 mile or 2.5 hour range. During your 11 hour day this takes your charge time from 30 minutes to 90 and your max mileage is reduced by 100 miles.
This all assumes that the charge options exist and are available when you need them. I know there is more nuance than this but it's difficult seeing EV's work for long haul trucking.
Wind in SE Wyoming is no joke! Sustained for such a long time. Yeah they certainly won't work in every situation, but there will likely be plenty of routes where they do work out (short haul, or assuming you have charging appropriately spaced).
This also completely destroys the value of tandem driving OTR.
This is probably okay for local/regional and that's about it.
With current battery technology, BEV Semi trucks don't make any economical sense. These type of powertrains make more sense for the Delivery sector, as for urban buses. With shorter routes and working shifts.
In europe you have to take breaks every few hours as trucker, at least 30 min, this break is great opertunity to charge up
As a son of a trucker, I think electric trucks for in town are a great idea. In fact, a company back in the 1900s was operating electric strait trucks in NYC.
I guess you weren't paying attention...
Ups have been doing final drops this way for a few years in the uk.
Lot of electric servicing vans too from utility companies.
But for long haul with slow charge times , the more batteries then the less cargo...
Get half hour charging down it would be a good idea.
Tie it in with mandatory driver rest breaks that we have in europe.
You mean electric trucks like trains?
They make sense over any distance
@@nnnik3595 for OTR, they really don't. Weather diesel electric or electric.
@@jed-henrywitkowski6470Hi. Thank you for your response. What I find curious about this is which niche these trucks would fulfill. What is their use?
In my mind trucks make sense when they deliver a lot.
If the delivery is within the city - how do they assure that their deliveries are large enough?
My research for OTR did not lead to anything useful. Could you elaborate?
Finally a realistic, unbiased breakdown so I can make opinions on my own. Thank you. This channel is gold.
Excellent information, thank you. Now could you please do the actual carbon footprint cost for the production stage...ie: precious metal mining for batteries, steel fab, assembly.... etc
That battery charging rate is insane. That is about 30 houses with a typical 200A service. That is an insane amount of power
Its only 714 trucks per Gigawatt.
That means every destination will need a 2000-2500A (600V or 480V) service. Depending on the complexity, it might necessitate an engineering firm assisting the electrical contractor. I'm seeing a significant cost for the addition of one of those charger (about 100k for equipments, work and engineering), even before thinking about the price of the charger itself which will probably at least cost 50k.
That's literally the price of another truck... But depending on the situation, that installation might be used to charge multiple trucks in a day and most of the equipment will last for decades. Still, the transition will be expensive.
in an industrial setting, 1.4MW is not really all that much.
e.g. electric commuter trains or subways can easily draw 3+ MW; modern electric locomotives are typically in the 6-8MW range. And you can have multiple of those accelerating at the same time even in a small station.
@@cedricpomerleau5586 In an industrial setting you're not messing around with 480V :-) There you usually tie directly into the distribution layer (> 10kV) with a small transformer on site.
This is the first of your videos I've seen and I love it. I do these kinds of hypotheticals and calculations all the time and find great joy in it. Such a pleasure to watch. Deceptive marketing is the bane of my existences and I love to see another fighting the good fight!
Welcome to the channel, and thanks for watching! I have a lot of these style videos, hopefully some others will pique your interest!
Forget about an electric semi in Australia, just to get an electric car across the Nullabor Plains (Ceduna SA to Norseman WA) , they have installed a diesel generator to recharge the vehicles. The distance is 750 miles, but headwinds can be very strong along that stretch.
Amazing. As your usual, great presentation and logic. Great to see the math behind this. Tesla should have shown your calculations. Thanks.
I'd love if you did a video on if mild hybrid or phev semis make sense. Even more fun if you walked through finding the optimal battery size for a given duty cycle.
Someone is designing it right now and has a working prototype. Look up Edison Motors
@@andykokes5690 Yeah I'm aware of them but it isn't obvious if they necessarily make sense unfortunately. I can say serial hybrids almost never make sense which I believe Edison motors is doing.
I drove a plugin-hybrid for a rental. It typically makes sense for urban/suburban - short driving (18kWh battery). Sadly it was a bit pricey (50k), and EV only range was 32 miles. For a long trip, it was mostly gas, but would switch to electric only going down hills - even at 70mph. Good for ~38mpg at 65mph, and +42 mpg at ~50mph. Since it was a vacation rental, I wouldn't have wanted to kill my day with charging on the +1200 miles and looking for charging locations. Most were tier 2.
@Eric Needs I just bought a PHEV Ford Escape for $34k. 37 miles on the battery alone. Just a data point for you.
Your systematic approach to any problem is astonishing. Great job.
That's engineering science v political science. 🙂
7:35 "Tesla's 500mph claim is possible"
Damn, 500mph, that's competing with Aviation!
Hah! I didn't catch that the first time, but yea, he does say 500 mph.
Wow ....excellent analysis...
Thanks
Amazing! I just watched 18 minutes of maths on a whiteboard while having my morning coffee and breakfast. Kudos to you for making such a dry subject so accessible.
watch it at 2x. Doubly enjoyable
I think in step 5, you probably have to take into account of the charging efficiency for the battery, it takes more energy to charge it to the rated capacity of the battery
Then you’d also have to take into account the emissions of gas production and inefficiencies of that too then eh?
@@smartelectriccar this is about cost, not emissions. The efficiency of charging is high enough to do rough figures without using efficiency but if you're rapid charging you probably should tkae it into account.
@@smartelectriccar Pumping diesel faster doesn't cause any extra emissions, nor does it drop the efficiency of the transfer. However, the more electricity you force through a cable the less efficient it gets and the more energy it loses to heat and other factors.
120V charging is something like 99.5% efficient and 240V isn't too much worse at around 99.2%, but once you get into those turbo charging stations you're down around 70~75%. With the power that those mega chargers have to pump into the semi to achieve that 1.4 MW output, they might be dipping as low as 10~15% if Tesla isn't scaling up the charger cable _significantly._
I’d wager that’s mostly irrelevant given how rough these estimates are, the cost of electricity would effect the price much more
@@monhi64 With the efficiency of turbocharging you're already using 150+% the power used to charge the car at the listed rate (250kW charger actually uses closer to 350~400kW) The Mega chargers are likely even less efficient and might be needing as much as 14MW to provide the semi with the 1.4MW of charging. That's kind of a big difference.
I haven't gone through all the comments, but I note that others have commented on the energy regen benefit when going down hill. I did not see much mention that the same applies to deceleration. The calcs presented account for energy used for acceleration, but the fact is overlooked that most of this energy can be recovered during deceleration. Also - you didn't have the accurate figure for coefficient of wind resistance at the time you did your calcs. The final figure given during the presentation was particularly good and better than assumed. Also, the recorded test run they showed is very convincing.🤗
Very cool breakdown!
But please, please mention the metric equivalent (or at least write it on screen) of all the units. Its really difficult to follow you if I have to convert all the lbs and mi to kg and meters while the video goes on. Thanks!
I worked at Cummins Turbos during my work experience for Uni, and they didn't believe that an electric truck was very feasible any time soon back in 2014. Of course things change, but I definitely think they had a point that it's going to be a long way from the norm any time soon.
The downtime for charging is really the biggest killer. In a industry where time is literally money, having to stop every 250 miles for 30-45 minutes (or more likely 2 hours +) to recharge is not good.
Of course, this is a problem that is relatively solvable with some clever thinking and investment, but its a bit of a chicken and the egg situation.
We certainly didn't get to roads full of diesel trucks overnight!
@@scottmcqueen3964 Yeah, that was the argument from a senior engineer at the time, to make them as practical as diesel lorries are right now you'd need to fill the full trailer with batteries effectively and not have much left over for your load.
There are areas where this can work though, local deliveries close to distribution centres, beer delivery trucks, and a few others. It's just not the solve all solution just yet.
@@deancostello14 And doing things like putting charging stations at delivery and loading sites, utilising the already stationary time to charge them etc.
Could definitely see it working here in NZ for many trucking routes.
More downtime for MX on diesels.
Been waiting for you to feature this EXACT topic for a couple years now! Thank you! You do such a great job covering various ways of looking at propositions and establishing realistic BOUNDARY conditions for our SWAG. Basic back of the envelope analysis based on pure FACTS and not starting out with what you want to persuade folks about. I trust your opinion soooo much more because of that.
Any chance for an update on this subject?
Thank you!
Great job, thanks a lot for Yr invention. Do You know, how much energy can it get back through recuperation?
Your videos always make my day better Jason. With you its a guarantee that I'll learn something new!
.36 sounds hard to achieve with a standard trailer..I think the rear is as important as the front and I found: "Generally, CD values for a semi-trailer truck are ranges from 0.5 to 0.9 depending on the aerodynamic design of the truck." base line is actually 0.8 and 0.5 is achieved only with side fairings hiding all the wheels area and trailer flush with the tractor.
otherwise, numbers are not too far off. its still probably going to have slightly less range than they announced, a bit less payload, more expensive charging (thanks "inflation/wars...").
average maintenance cost should be way better though, as long as the battery's good. but having your truck immobilized for weeks or months because of back ordered part, etc...is not good for businesses. Tesla needs to be on a whole other level regarding repair times, or provide replacement semi during those repairs at least under warranty.
Anyway, it makes way more sense to use batteries for delivery vehicles that travel less miles, at slower speeds, and spend a lot of time accelerating, braking, stopping, idling...they also don't have the same penalty that heavier means less payload, they come in all sorts of sizes and weight so if the truck's 20% heavier, it's not such a big deal. tesla should definitely consider making delivery vans or even people transportation. they don't need megacharger network they'll just charge overnight and will run all day long on a charge
Volvo already have a bunch out there. Since several years. Working. Running. Buy them instead of waiting for another expensive vapor ware with like zero customer care and service.
Time to work on streamlining trailers?
@@Xanthopteryx Volvo which loses on every metric and doesn't have self-sustainable chargers of at least mediocre speed? Way to give yourself up as old ignorant :D
@@leftcoaster67 How? Without loosing space and making it harder to use.
@@RyNiuu They exist. They sell more than they can manufacture. They are popular. They have service structure everywhere. They know how to build proper trucks. They diversify to meet all kind of needs. They are superior to Tesla semi, that does not even exist.
Nice video. My prediction, I think these trucks will have to cost well over $200k. I think we are going to see them as regional delivery vehicles, probably for well funded big businesses that want to show off as modern and green, well before we see them as long haul, over the road trucks. That’s how technology develops though. There will be many lessons learned and the technology builds on itself, often in surprising directions.
One area which would make me especially excited is using these trucks for driving around on factory or industrial areas. At my work our factory receives trailers full of animal products (not for human consumption) which have to be converted into animal feed (category 3) or other by products (category 2). For this, we have a lot of starting, driving 200 meters, stopping, etc. For such a situation (including driving 24/7), these tesla trucks could be very efficient.
@@sybrandwoudstra9236 I think that would be a great use for them. They might also be able cut the size of the battery down for those applications, significantly reducing the cost of the truck.
@@sybrandwoudstra9236 I think that would be an excellent use case not unlike moving containers around in some ports. Where the crucial thing is, you could access that kind of industrial power connection that’s needed to charge this large battery in a reasonable amount of time
The charging part will definitely be the biggest hurdle considering the lack of infrastructure for super charging stations.
500k probably isn't off the charts here. There's probably a reason it delays so long. Same for the cybertruck
Can you do a video on battery wear with the extreme discharge and charge for the tesla semi? I wonder whether it will perform the same after 6 months.
I love your format. Did I say that before? I love having all the formulas, equations and values always present while you talk.
Always love your videos. Very well put and well researched. On this specific topic I think a couple factors are missing like brake wear cost, regular maintenance cost, regenerative braking (which should be significant because of the weight of the loaded truck), etc…
@@benoitavril4806 I believe you’re mistaken. On Teslas the regenerative braking is so strong that you almost never use the brakes which is called “one pedal driving”. It is very effective. As for the recharge, the heavier you are, the more momentum you create which requires more energy to slow-down/stop. Therefor this energy can be re-used and put back in the battery pack. So there is definitely a difference with the amount of power you can regain as the weight increases.
I am unfortunately not knowledgeable in Toyotas and WV hybrids as I’ve never driven them and never looked at how they work so I can’t tell what the differences are.
@@benoitavril4806 I think you’re missing the point. Re-gen doesn’t give you all your energy back, it gives you some of it back. In the exemples shown in the video, re-gen was forgotten or just not mentioned. Every little bit count when we talk about range, especially for a truck. Teslas can charge at 250Kw and I’m sure the new semis will be able to charge with more power… Even if the re-gen gives a big spike of electricity back, I am sure the engineers thought about it and will be able to put as much as possible back in the batteries with minimal loss.
Your exemple is too simplistic and on the sideline of what we are talking about. Nobody said we would get 100% of the energy back… not even 40%… If you had a Tesla you would know that driving on the highway eats up your range pretty bad. Actually, on the highway you can’t meet the advertised range unless you’re too slow for traffic. But if you’re in the city, you usually actually meet the range or even exceed it. Because of re-gen. Yes drag is less in the city but you also put some electricity back in your pack everytime you let go the “gas”. The difference between highway or city is significant due to that re-gen + lack of drag.
Let’s not forget that all range are based on EPA, which is BS but that’s what everyone (?) uses.
@@benoitavril4806 And also the video was about cost. And as I mentioned in my original comment, there is a significant difference in brake wear when using re-gen. Now though I’m curious to know how Tesla is going to create the hydraulic pressure and pneumatic pressure for the trailers. I’m sure they thought of it all but it might be quite different and hopefully will work just as well. Another thing that isn’t mentioned in the video (now that I think about it) is also the increase safety for the driver and people around the truck because of Tesla vision. I wouldn’t be surprised if they came with the auto(not really)-pilot. Anyway I’m just thinking out loud now. I think that truck will be good for small trips but not cross country.
This seems like a really good solution for everything except for long haul trucking, especially when considering the savings in maintenance costs.
Large shipping ports and other locations that have high shipping demand already have the resources and expertise to install the necessary chargers
E trucks would also lower the severe pollution around ports.
Exactly. Towing and trucking are the achilles heel of EVs for now at least.
@@deeacosta2734 for now, and for the use cases that people tow long distances.
90% of the time a 200 mile range EV is more than adequate for what someone would be using it for, and for anyone that has enough money to buy a new second car, having an EV in your garage seems like a no brainier
@@louisjov agree 💯. If you’re doing jobs around town all day or commuting to work, EV makes absolute sense. They are better rides with less maintenance too.
A huge problem would be the charging stations. You're going to have to build A LOT of them for this to be viable.
True, but the first 10,000 semis will go to companies running regular routes, like Pepsi and Frito Lay. They have already installed charging stations at the start and endpoints. It will take time before an independent trucker can just head across the country. But that was the case with my Tesla once, but no longer, I can now head off without planning my route, and the chargers are there.
@@RWilliKiwi I thought of that, too. But for such applications, rail is much, much more efficient. The problem is that the infrastructure doesn't really exists in the US.
So, yeah, for running regular routes, the Tesla Semi might be a decent solution. We'll see once more information about these vehicles is released.
@@LukeLane1984 Elon said that the semi is even cheaper than RAIL! Marketing spin here bordering on lying
@@itemushmush That was assuming that they could charge 7 cents per kW at the charging stations, but it has recently been raised to 50 cents.
@Garbage Ilearsi Something like that, yeah.
I now have a new favorite unit, the kWh/lb-ft-mi.
Great analysis. I appreciate the engineer margin-of-safety rounding that you build into your calculations.
The only way I see this working on an interstate truck, where coast to coast transport is required, is for major companies to re-create the 'Pony Express'. Whereas, drivers would swap out tractors, at a fixed interval. Granted, this is done today, as many trailers are dropped, and then re-hooked by new drivers (in different trucks). Local deliveries, may be where this would shine, considering present technology. Having owned/operated a semi-tractor, I would have loved to been able to accelerate to 60mph (loaded) in 20 seconds. Also, this works for non-refrigerated loads. If the intent is to power the 'reefer' unit off the tractor, the range will be lessened.
The end game is FSD. Trucks will drive 22 hours a day - no driver to pay.
@@danielstapler4315 never happen 🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻
Tesla truck stops with swappable batteries.
@@danielstapler4315 Not during your lifetime or mine.
@@slickstretch6391 If the charging system can deliver ~70% in 15 minutes, it's simply not practical to swap the battery.
For second scenario: If round trip assumed then 1% downgrade on the return? Is there regenerative braking on this semi and how much would that improve the overall numbers?
Yes that's true. However I would assume the bulk of the energy is used to combat the drag.
How harmful is to mine the stuff for the battery
@@liryan Not so. On even a 3% grade at 82,000 lbs. and 55 MPH, almost 80% of energy is used to climb, just over 20% for air and rolling resistance. And on a 3% downhill grade, air and rolling resistance are only 32% of the gain from the descent.
@@liryan The drag coefficient is much better than a Lamborghini Countach believe it or not. It's hard to believe I admit. The regen is your Jake brake. But it weighs too much.
@@jakeford7688 There is nothing we can do that doesn't have an effect. Growing food has much bigger affect than mining but we gotta eat and we gotta get the food to the table.
Third problem is that the overall electric grid is not likely to ever be completely solar and wind powered. Solar is only truly viable in a broad swath in the sun belt from Southern California to Colorado and Texas. Wind is viable in a broad north-south swath on the high plains from the Rockies east to central Kansas, from Texas to Montana. These areas can export some power elsewhere, but neither of these can maintain constant power and voltage. So using an "all renewable" calculation is never going to happen, despite the pipe dreams about it.
Excellent as always! One calculation I always like doing is battery lifespan. For my Model 3, 75kwh / (300wh/mile) * 1500 cycles = 375,000 miles. So in this case, 1000kwh / (2000wh/mile) * 1500 cycles (worst case) = 750,000 miles. If these packs are capable of more cycles, they might last as long as the motor warranty. Forgive me if you already covered EV battery lifespan before, I don’t always have time for due diligence.
Problem is your range decreases overtime and EV range is lower in the cold.
There are a lot of different types of chemistry that can go much further like the new Lithium sulfur batteries that are lasting over a million miles or 5000 To 10000 cycles. Right now you lose a bit of the power but still.
No way that battery will last you for 300K mi.
@@danielroman1899 you seem really confident of that however the data is saying otherwise. I'm not talking about 18650 cells like the Model S & X but the newer & better 2170 chemistry cells going into 3, Y, and Semi. There's a picture on twitter proving 310k (500km) has already been done by a Model 3 in Canada and it is still on the original battery.
@@joetripp123 Oh a picture on twitter proved it! Science!! lmfao
Jason you've done well in your explanation. I like the rational way you used maths and physics to analyse the claims made by this manufacturer. I think you could setup an excel model on line for people considering buying an electric or diesel rig to play with depending on the parameters, eg prevailing winds and grade. Merwin Wilder below for example might like to play with different parameters to get the analysis consisent his experience. That's a good presentation and reminds of some of the calcs we used to do in physics 101.
Wow what a great analysis. Thanks!
Thank you for breaking down some of the cost comparisons. Meaningful math being depicted here
Great analysis, simplified and well presented.. Thanks for sharing
I think a big element is the intended use. They won't work for everything but they may work very well in other scenarios. I would love to see some math about how the air quality of smoggy cities, like my own, could be improved if electric semi's took over the short haul traffic in the area.
That's a great point. I can foresee a much better value proposition for a local box truck, that will drive a max of 300 miles in a day, spend a lot of time stopping and starting, then charge overnight. The CO2 *and* particulates difference could make a pretty big difference.
And the noise pollution in areas with Semi's routes.. The CT will also reduce noise inside cities and towns.
It makes perfect sense for distribution companies like UPS Fedex Amazon and such, the tractors are usually not used more then 12 or 13 hours a day and have a couple hours of turnaround time at their destinations. not to mention the minimum break time of at least 50 minutes on a 8 hour shift. the first company to make trailers with battery packs slung under them will make some money too. trailers sit for days sometimes months, and with some solar panels can charge all on their own. to go even further, for those that need them, powered rear wheels with steering to get around corners easier would be very simple thing to do.
This was eye opening. Very good.
Thank you for making this type of content. Despite me not understanding lbs and gallons and whatnot, I learn so much from your videos. Keep them coming!
Well if you can't learn to transfer between retarded and metric measurement systems - what can you learn here exactly, basic English grammar?
Divided by two (pound to kg), multiplied by 4 (gallon to liter) is close enough for the average guy and not hard to remember.
That's pretty childish. I work in metric but to say you can't "understand" basic imperial measurements is pretty silly.
Most industries use both imperial and metric heavily and this won't change for some time.
@@sheldonholy5047you mean most industries in the US.
In Europe, most probably for historical reasons, we still use PSI for local valve pneumatics.
We use inches only for TV size classification.
@@sheldonholy5047 you do realise a lot of us never use those, right?
I love engineering but I've always been intimidated and your explanations takes all the intimidation out of the way. Awesome video.
Truly love to hear this, as it's a major goal of the channel. Automotive engineering is very intimidating (cars in general), so I hope to reduce that intimidation!
There're few variables that are missing here - 1) does it make sense from the logistical point of view, and 2) deriving from that, does it make sense from the economical point of view of the driver.
1) If you need to "fuel up" every 300 ml (and it will take you 30 min for just 70%) you will do less miles in one shift = the delivery will take longer 2) if you're doing less miles as a driver on one shift, you'll make less money (drivers are paid by the mile) = good luck on finding drivers in already problematic market.
I'm interested in the practical issues with the charging. What voltage do they use to charge these trucks? What current? What is the physical size of these chargers? How many trucks do they expect to be able to charge at one time? How long will it take to charge from say 30% to 100%?
1000 Volt
I heard a 1000V as well. Appearently the semi will run on a 1000V system. The 30min to charge from 0% to 70% is on a new charging system that runs at 1000kWh. So the current sould be 1000A. Not quite sure if that system is operational, being tested or just planed.
They need a megawatt of power, per charger. So, a medium sized truckstop would need high-tension lines to deliver the energy, and their own small-town level substation to convert the power.
@Mark Wandrey that seems expensive. But would a truck stop be able to get away with 10 chargers or less considering the charging time is only 30 minutes.
I dont know how many nozzles the average truck orientated fuel station has and how long the transaction take from pull in to pull out.
Fantastic explanation. Very well done and easy to follow. Thanks. Really curious what the electricity cost ends up being in reality.
Enjoy your analysis. One major factor you're forgetting in equation 5 is a fuel tax for road infrastructure. Know this will not significantly change the overall outcome but needs to be calculated for a true comparison. Keep up the amazing work.
EVs need to pay their fair share. I predict road use tax will move to a system based on vehicle weight class and miles driven per year. Seems pretty simple to move over to this pricing scheme as the weight class is established when the vehicle is registered and the odometer miles on the vehicle is recorded during annual inspections but for those states which do not record the miles it would not be difficult to obtain this information. Then everyone pays their fair share and your tax is not tied to your choice of energy (electric/diesel/gas).
@@bobd. I agree, I would expect US states to adopt odometer verification when you renew your registration. You would then be taxed per miles driven instead of the current gas gallons purchased. They could easily have a DMV employee run out to the car and write down the number. Simply taxing electricity won't work as a large computer system that doesn't use the roads would be indistinguishable from vehicle charging.
A number of US states charge an additional tax on EVs to make up for lost fuel tax.
@@crusherven true but a flat rate tax is not fair to most. It's only an equitable tax for those who drove plus or minus a few hundred miles of the number used to calculate that fixed tax. Which means some people pay more than double what they should and the rest pay much less than they should. The per gallon tax is an equitable tax because it's tied to your actual use. The tax for EVs should be the same. And to make it the same for everyone remove the road tax from fuels and base it on weight class and miles driven.
@@bobd. And on average bigger heavier cars use more gas while wearing the road more.
While Tesla may be able to get those numbers in private cars, I don't know if they are going to be able to get them trucks that are going to be used more than 2 hours a day everyday. They also do longer trips more often, so changing temperatures and humidity can become an issue a lot more.
You just need better components for that than for a car that stands 22 or 23 hours a day and rarely leaves your city. And Tesla has had issues with stuff breaking or batteries blowing up already.
Be interesting to see how refueling/recharging comparisons. Considering some of the diesel semi's have teams of drivers driving them 24-7, how much time is lost to charging vs refueling at a station? Whats the cost proposition for the additional time added? Also how does the range of 1 tank of fuel vs 1 full charge/70% charge compare?
This is an excellent breakdown, thank you Jason!
This is a masterclass in both sober, applied engineering and teaching! Well done Jason. [Standing Ovation]
Beautifully explained.
Great presentation BUT thinking about infrastructure investment and a typical fleet size what electricity capacity will be required at a logistics depot to charge say a fleet of 40 semis…. And how will this be uniformly and reliably generated? What might be the cost?
Also infrastructure at every truck stop plus additional truck stops… how will this be updated/ created to accommodate EV Semis
Solar+batteries. The charge output is high but duration is low so you can charge up in between. You can also draw down from the grid at night on the cheap and subsidize the first few charges while it's betting brighter.
I wonder if you could do a Tesla vs Volvo truck showdown or get some real data from a weekly or monthly service route from a logistics provider to get some harder numbers?
Brilliant, thank you. This sort of analysis is so important. It needs to be taught to everyone, not just engineers and scientists.
There what's a video on UA-cam whip a Tesla Model x while towing 4000 lbs they had to stop every 60 minutes to charge for 90 minutes
Except for totally missing out the large difference in maintenance and down-time needed for the desiel.
Loved this video, keep it up!
One think missing from your calculation is that in order to preserve the battery over time they will need to as much as possible not drain the battery past 10% and not fill past 90% which has quite an impact on range of battery. From my calculations in order to equal the 60-63,000lb load capacity of the diesel, the range of the EV Semi will be brought down to the ~250mile range... for 500mile range the battery will have to be in that 15,000lb range meaning load capacity will be about 10,000lbs less than a typical diesel in the 53-56,0000mile range.
I work for UPS, we been testing a Tesla truck for couple years now. These trucks are ideal for CA roads to go south or north of Sacramento, we use our trucks 24/7, none of them sit more than 1-2 hours, we will likely not get any it’s not gonna benefit us at all. I do 400 miles a day, an EV will suck
? contradict yourself much? Perhaps it's the run-on sentence.
Not sure how ideal EV trucks are for CA, considering the electricity cost here :(
@@jamesryan7684 How is your Cyber Truck running?