We haven’t heard much about the Tesla Semi recently, but in a new interview impresario Elon Musk—Zooming into the European Battery Conference—claims his company's new EV semitruck will get not 500, not 600, but 621 miles per charge.“If you want, for long-range trucking, you can take the range up to, we think, easily 800 km, and we see a path over time to 1,000 km range for a heavy-duty truck,” said Musk.Four electric motors -- one for each wheel -- borrowed from the Model 3 power the truck. It also boasts regenerative braking, Musk claiming it gives the truck "quasi-infinite brake life." Tesla also claims the truck can get to 400 miles on a 30-minute charge using a Megacharger installed at the trucks' base locations."A diesel is 20 percent more expensive than a Tesla from day one," Musk said in unveiling the truck. "And that’s assuming the Tesla is operated in the worst-case scenario."One main problem is the size and weight of a battery pack to go those distances. Musk thinks an EV truck would take about a 1-ton penalty compared to diesels. Trucks in the U.S. have a total weight limit of 40 metric tons or 80,000 pounds with their load.
The commenters over at Electrek are going justifiably nuts. Well, not justifiably, but they did raise some good points.In the U.S., truckers are allowed 11 hours of driving a day during a 14-hour window, with a 30 minute break in between. If a truck averaged 50 mph over that time, with breaks it would move 550 miles in a day. If it was going 60 mph it would be 660, a little more than what Musk promised. Either way, that’s a long day.
This also assumes companies would be using a Megacharger that can get that range back overnight at one of the home bases.
Check out the video above for the full 20-minute interview.
Side note, Musk just caught up to Microsoft creator Bill Gates on the world’s richest people list. And Tesla’s stock is now worth more than Visa, the credit card company, at a half-trillion dollars. That is all.
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