Tesla semi 1000 mile journey

[PandaBear]

No sleeper in the Tesla Semi. Kind of an oddball layout with the captain’s chair and a jump seat in the rear. It seems to be targeted more for regional deliveries. In this case Pepsi/Frito-Lay took early deliveries. But for well defined routes it might be possible to do overnights.

I’m thinking the charging infrastructure has to be well defined where it won’t be as random as passenger EVs getting charged.

There is a reason for that. It is a custom duty vehicle instead of a general purpose one for mom and pop owner operator. So why would you have to make a left hand drive vs right hand drive version if you can make one and be done with it? Long haul would only work if they use battery swap and they all "lease" batteries from the same guy, or has a fleet contract negotiated between big fleet and Tesla.

Come to think of it, battery swap MAY work for these long haul routes when the volume is there, but most likely they will build UPS / FedEx / Amazon / Walmart etc warehouse at the right spot for this.

 

[PandaBear]

I think at first PandaBear is correct but in the long run they will take over longer routes.

In the long run they can / may improve, maybe not the battery but some custom range extender tow hitch in between just for extra battery range, or future models that have just the motor and driver in the front "truck", then a battery hitch, then the payload so the battery hitch can be linked for extended range to as many as you want.

 

[Torrid]

In the long run they can / may improve, maybe not the battery but some custom range extender tow hitch in between just for extra battery range, or future models that have just the motor and driver in the front "truck", then a battery hitch, then the payload so the battery hitch can be linked for extended range to as many as you want.

This is the current project.

new-electric-powered-trailer-could-reduce-diesel-truck-fuel-use-by-41

 

[JavierH19]

I remember reading articles about teslas that only ever fast charged in their lives needing the pack replaced most under warranty below 100k because the cells were very unbalanced and a note to the owners to not always fast charge and try to slow charge. We'll see because slow charging these things is economically unviable. The pack must have some ultra advanced cell balancing method i presume.

 

[tcp71]

Nor do we know how long a “day” is.
Story is just a “story” unless facts and figures are offered.
Media sensationalism unless given factual data.

A "day" in this case, is 24hours.

Plenty of data in these graphs:

-Started out fully charged at midnight
-drove until 6am, charged until 7:30am, drove until 11am, charged until 12:30pm, drove until 7pm, charged until 7:45pm then drove another 4 hours with one longer stop until midnight with 20% in the batteries.
-steady 60mph driving for the most part
-stopped to charge 3 times at 10% remaining, 3%(?)remaining and 20% remaining in the batteries

 

[PandaBear]

This is the current project.

new-electric-powered-trailer-could-reduce-diesel-truck-fuel-use-by-41

So, basically it is a hybrid system for regenerative braking and acceleration booster?

 

[Torrid]

I remember reading articles about teslas that only ever fast charged in their lives needing the pack replaced most under warranty below 100k because the cells were very unbalanced and a note to the owners to not always fast charge and try to slow charge. We'll see because slow charging these things is economically unviable. The pack must have some ultra advanced cell balancing method i presume.

There's also ones in the 10%-12% degradation area well above the 100k mark that only Supercharged as well. Who knows what caused what, but it would make sense that more supercharging should theoretically open the door to more degradation.

As far as slow charging being economically unviable is a nonsensical statement. It will always be much cheaper to charge slower at home when you don't need to drive the car. Supercharging just helps when you have a lot of miles to cover in a short period of time. I'd never supercharge if I didn't have to.

 

[y_p_w]

There is a reason for that. It is a custom duty vehicle instead of a general purpose one for mom and pop owner operator. So why would you have to make a left hand drive vs right hand drive version if you can make one and be done with it? Long haul would only work if they use battery swap and they all "lease" batteries from the same guy, or has a fleet contract negotiated between big fleet and Tesla.

Come to think of it, battery swap MAY work for these long haul routes when the volume is there, but most likely they will build UPS / FedEx / Amazon / Walmart etc warehouse at the right spot for this.

The company Eviation is planning on providing a battery swap infrastructure for its electric planes. DHL has a contract with them and the swap would be done during unloading and loading.

 

[Torrid]

So, basically it is a hybrid system for regenerative braking and acceleration booster?

It has a center pin sensor that tries to keep the pressure off of the hitch by powering itself to match the speed of the truck or tractor pulling it. It's fully separate from the tractor itself so it would be compatible with both diesel or electric semis. It can regen for braking and accelerate to reduce the power needed from the tractor itself, but it won't ever push the semi.

Basically it's a fully powered separate trailer. It has its own electric motor and battery.

 

[PandaBear]

I remember reading articles about teslas that only ever fast charged in their lives needing the pack replaced most under warranty below 100k because the cells were very unbalanced and a note to the owners to not always fast charge and try to slow charge. We'll see because slow charging these things is economically unviable. The pack must have some ultra advanced cell balancing method i presume.

Fast and slow are relative. Tesla Semi has 850kwh battery and a regular Model 3 has what, 60-100? So in theory Semi can charge 14x as fast as Model 3 without causing any battery issue.

 

[PandaBear]

It has a center pin sensor that tries to keep the pressure off of the hitch by powering itself to match the speed of the truck or tractor pulling it. It's fully separate from the tractor itself so it would be compatible with both diesel or electric semis. It can regen for braking and accelerate to reduce the power needed from the tractor itself, but it won't ever push the semi.

Basically it's a fully powered separate trailer. It has its own electric motor and battery.

Now that's innovation!

 

[Torrid]

Now that's innovation!

The guy that is representing the company was on Matt Farah's podcast The Smoking Tire. I got to hear the ins and outs of how it's supposed to work and it's something I've had a lot of interest in since then.

 

[JavierH19]

There's also ones in the 10%-12% degradation area well above the 100k mark that only Supercharged as well. Who knows what caused what, but it would make sense that more supercharging should theoretically open the door to more degradation.

As far as slow charging being economically unviable is a nonsensical statement. It will always be much cheaper to charge slower at home when you don't need to drive the car. Supercharging just helps when you have a lot of miles to cover in a short period of time. I'd never supercharge if I didn't have to.

Nonsensical for a regular car yes but I'm talking about the semi. Semi's are used hard in relation to cars and charging a semi at a slow 50 KW DC fast charge rate is a snail's pace and unviable because they're not going to let it sit there for 16+ hours. They want it to charge in an hour by using that 750kw mega charger. But that thing is incredibly expensive and will cause degradation and unbalancing. It will be interesting to see these semis.

 

[Torrid]

Nonsensical for a regular car yes but I'm talking about the semi. Semi's are used hard in relation to cars and charging a semi at a slow 50 KW DC fast charge rate is a snail's pace and unviable because they're not going to let it sit there for 16+ hours. They want it to charge in an hour by using that 750kw mega charger. But that thing is incredibly expensive and will cause degradation and unbalancing. It will be interesting to see these semis.

I really don’t see the need to have them break out from local use for the time being. That covers a lot of trucks.

 

[JeffKeryk]

I really don’t see the need to have them break out from local use for the time being. That covers a lot of trucks.

Yeah, I am not sure how many of those giga Semi chargers have been installed. I imagine a 110 v would take a year and a half or so...

 

[ripcord]

I really don’t see the need to have them break out from local use for the time being. That covers a lot of trucks.

CARB is deep into the rule making process of mandating that all new diesel trucks sold in the state be electric by 2040 and full fleet replacement be finished by 2042. That's not a very long time in terms of industry wide changes.

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022/acf22/isor2.pdf

 

[Torrid]

CARB is deep into the rule making process of mandating that all new diesel trucks sold in the state be electric by 2040 and full fleet replacement be finished by 2042. That's not a very long time in terms of industry wide changes.

https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2022/acf22/isor2.pdf

That is the start to figure it out at least. It'll be much easier to replace short haul than long haul.

 

[y_p_w]

I really don’t see the need to have them break out from local use for the time being. That covers a lot of trucks.

Drayage is almost an ideal use. It's pretty obvious that all those trucks idling at shipping ports is not ideal. There have been criticisms by residents in lower income neighborhoods around ports that their air quality is particularly bad. That and living near freeways where it may not correlate that much with income levels.

However, I think we discussed how inductive charging might help when a tractor is waiting, although that comes with efficiency issues.

 

[ripcord]

Drayage is almost an ideal use. It's pretty obvious that all those trucks idling at shipping ports is not ideal. There have been criticisms by residents in lower income neighborhoods around ports that their air quality is particularly bad. That and living near freeways where it may not correlate that much with income levels.

However, I think we discussed how inductive charging might help when a tractor is waiting, although that comes with efficiency issues.

Inductive charging at those current levels would be like parking on top of an active MRI machine. I can't see how that would be safe for people to be around constantly. Plus it would have a loss rate of about 10 to 15%.

 

[Brons2]

For EV cars I think we are at the point where long trips are pretty easily do-able along the Interstates, my 70 something parents did a 5K mile road trip this summer in their VW ID.4 using mostly Electrify America for DC fast charging. They only got stuck on a slow charger in Lubbock on the way back. And if they would have heeded my advice not to go through Lubbock, it would not have happened.

For the Tesla semi, I think we're a long way off from replacing diesel owner-operators for long haul. How many mega chargers we gonna need? Don't know the answer but it's way more than we have. What I think will happen is that regional operators that want to use these will build their own charging infrastructure.