Tesla’s Electric Semi Truck Gets Orders from Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt | Hacker News Reader

Tesla’s Electric Semi Truck Gets Orders from Wal-Mart and J.B. Hunt

wsj.com

59 pointshourislate50 comments

Was anyone actually surprised to see this? I had two thoughts:

Imagine the advertising impact - and value - of one of these trucks clad in corporate livery. The initial (and I'd expect it to be fairly long lasting) wow factor is going to be huge.

As a sometimes bicycle rider who struggles with diesel fumes (as would anyone), I for one would love if all trucks were electric. Meanwhile, my Respro mask helps protect my lungs.

These remind me of the first streamlined Kenworths, they look super cool.

Do these things even have wing mirrors? Looks like a death trap for cyclists.

Have you not seen pictures of it? And don't you think they thought of that?

This is only 15 trucks in Wal-mart's fleet of thousands. I wonder how longer the delivery is on these limited orders, given they have failed so badly in meeting delivery for their other models? One thing I find interesting about Tesla is that it has immense cash burn, and in a way is doing a backdoor capital raise by taking preorders.

I think Tesla is a great company, but their cash burn is frighteningly high.

Off topic, but Tesla also started selling USB powerbanks and I really want one. I have a feeling it's no more special than other powerbanks, but...Tesla.

I guess in the end, Tesla can get away with a lot because people believe in the brand. I believe in the brand, I just am skeptical about its balance sheet or its current stock valuation.

> but their cash burn is frighteningly high.

In 2004, I sold a small position in AMZN because they were taking on $100 Million in debt every quarter and taking losses with no end in sight. I lost faith.

That was expensive.

TSLA is taking on $1.5 billion in debt every quarter or so. Not sure if this is the same situation.

That's because Amazon's core business was in a domain where they could make sizable revenues from day one and scale as they went along.

Building 500,000 cars is a bit different than building out a website on which to sell stuff other people already made.

So yeah, I would expect Tesla to be spending more along the way and making less in the beginning.

But Probably it's also easier to raise $400M more than $6B for one more year of losses, which means Tesla has a far higher chance of running out of runway (I am optimistic anyway, I presume once the factory and charger network is built up costs will go down).

That also makes it more risky. Not sure if Tesla can still fail and what it would look like, but they are currently bleeding money that roadsters and trucks 3+ years from now won't fix.

I really hope they succeed but can't really see how it happens.

The USB powerbank, had to Google it. Sold out already. But why is it that I now really want one? Two minutes ago I had zero need.

https://shop.tesla.com/us/en/product/apparel/desktop-superch...

Please Santa.

Regarding the Tesla Semi.

The truck is a true game changer. I am no truck driver but I do know that normal trucks go down big hills on essentially engine braking. The actual brakes are used in 'stab' mode to make sure the engine is going at a sensible rpm for max engine braking. The brakes can't actually be used to do the stopping because they would get too hot going down a reasonably big hill, crossing a modest mountain range.

Now the Tesla Semi just harvests all that energy back in. There is no need for the driver to be in an even lamer gear than he would be in going up the hill going down it.

The depots will have their chargers and the time these trucks can put in on the road will be better than that possible with regular trucks.

There is an electric dumper truck in Switzerland that goes to the top of a mountain, brings down dirt and then goes back up again. It gets enough energy downhill to go back up again, 105 tonnes down, 45 back up. So it travels for free. Tesla customers are going to be lucky in this way albeit not so dramatically.

There is also the small matter of making deliveries in towns late at night or first thing in the morning. I am sure the refrigeration unit will rattle away and the tires make noise, however, a quiet truck will make a lot possible for some retailers as they will be able to sneak their trucks into town centres without waking the neighbours.

I am sure the guys at Wal Mart have seen a bit more of this truck than I have but not much more. They have thought 'let's get one' much like how the place I work for has ordered a few iPhone X's. So a select few will get the new toy but on day one we did not order one for everybody.

15 is a good enough number to take a look at.

Regarding actual manufacture, the truck is probably more Tesla's thing than the car. They will be making these trucks in similar numbers to their premium cars, so of the order of tens of thousands a year. They can build the line for assembling the trucks and get it going in the timeline, obviously adding on many, many months to go from their founder's idea of reality back to earth.

Even if you managed a large fleet and thought the Tesla Semi was a dream come true then you probably wouldn't put in a ten billion dollar order on day one without having seen the product. You would buy one or two or even fifteen first, take a look and go from there.

Isn't that normal, that if you are one of the big guy that you look into all possibilities and always re-evalute what gives you the best option for the money?

It's common enough that these orders, alone, don't single-handedly vouch for the product. It's unusual enough to be worth mentioning, particularly since the trucks are heading for actual deployment. Strategically, this is Tesla pissing on their post, primarily with the aim of deterring new entrants.

We are only talking $5k deposits so far, peanuts for these companies.

I called this last night right after the event, after another ill-informed HN user was calling for Elon to step down. (shaking my head)

> I'd say Elon is doing just fine. The semi business long term could be a game changer that propels Tesla beyond a car company. Think fleets, partnerships with FedEX, UPS, DHL, long haul companies, van lines moving companies, Amazon deliveries. Lot's of very lucrative business opportunities. Also, the pickup truck market in the United States is huge, Tesla is getting into that as well.

Before you get too excited, ordering 10 trucks as a test doesn't mean fleet orders will happen. It depends on how well they do.

As long as they don’t break down and the numbers Tesla advertised are real world, what would be a show stopper?

>As long as they don’t break down

that's probably the big one. They will break down. all industrial vehicles do, it's just a factored-in cost. the question is how often will they break down, and how much of a hassle will it be to repair them when they do break down?

I would assume their Tesla Ranger service would be deployed for break downs, replacing your traditional emergency roadside contracts your fleet might have, amortizing the Rangers across both passenger and semi vehicles.

When your Diesel engine fails, you’re stuck on the road. The Tesla Semi can limp home on two out of four motors (although a battery failure is going to require a tow).

why that last - do they have only a single battery for all four motors? I would have thought in a vehicle this size, that splitting the battery bank into controllable sections would make ultimate sense. If a part of the power pack fails, just shut that off and get the service agent to replace it at the next convenient place.

which reminds me of the old trope about Rolls Royce, where dealers were supposed to have a replacement vehicle ready to go in the back of an unbranded lorry at all times so that if you broke down, they could show up and get you off the side of the road in short order, avoiding bad press and maintaining their image of never failing.

The small, early order is Walmart not assuming those things.

Longer term the thing that will make or break adoption is the availability of chargers. Even overnight charging will require significant infrastructure.

Walmart controls their real estate at their stores and distribution centers. It is trivial for them to install the electrical service and equipment to charge these vehicles on their property.

The Tesla Semi can do a 250 mile run one way, and have enough charge to return without charging at the destination/delivery point (500 mile range). I haven't looked on a map at Walmart stores vs distribution centers, but I'd hazard a guess that most stores fall within a footprint that negates the need for charging mid-run between distribution center and store.

I meant more generally with the second paragraph.

Walmart operates thousands of tractors so charging them everyday would require something comparable to the Supercharger network. Not a big deal for Walmart it they want to do it, but I'm not sure it is trivial.

Congratulations.

Walmart ordered 5. they have 5000 trucks. this is a non event.

It's something - means they're interested in checking it out at least. Obviously they're not going to order 1000 off the bat. (Also, they ordered 15 total - 10 for Canada.)

at $250k per unit, 15 trucks is $3.75M. That's less than the cost of a 30 second superbowl commercial for wal mart to hop on the Tesla PR machine for a day or two. The trucks could never leave the lot and they'd have gotten their moneys worth.

That an electric semi would be used in the same manner as conventional fossil fuel-powered semis is what you believe you’ve correctly predicted? Or am I missing something?

People are upset because Elon made public statements about production numbers. 1,500+ Model 3's by September and 5,000 by year's end. They delivered 220 last quarter, are losing reservations, and are running out of time and money. My bet is the Semi doesn't see one delivery.

That's a bold bet. You don't think they can deliver one?

Before they are bankrupted? Possibly.

It would be great to have electric semis in our cities. Less noise and less air polution.

This order already show that Tesla's semis are a succes because it's the first small step to a better world.

> This order already show that Tesla's semis are a succes because it's the first small step to a better world.

I'm all for electric trucks (buses, garbage trucks, etc). But how can we call this a success before they ship their first unit? For all we know it might end up failing so bad that everyone gets spooked off of the idea and delays actually getting sizeable traction on electric trucks. Or maybe they will be successful. But not yet...

Walmart Canada apparently ordered 15 and Loblaw (Canadian grocery retailer) ordered 25, on a claimed move to a completely low-emissions fleet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/tesla-electric-truck-walmart...

During the unveiling Musk's cost was 1.51/mile for diesel semi, 1.21/m for Tesla @2.5/diesel & $.07/kwh.

But a bit of Googling says avg. US prices are $.12/kwh, so $2.07/mile--133% the cost of a diesel semi.

So is Tesla able to negotiate subsidized rates? Or are buyers purchasing for some other reason? Or is somehing way off here? 0

$.12/kWh is the residential price; for industrial consumers the average price of electricity is $.0725 ( https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph... ). A truck depot with chargers is more like an industrial consumer than a residential one.

Thanks for pointing that out.

Given the grid is 65%+ fossil fuels, it is counter intuitive that:

A) Fossil fuels+nuclear+renewables to generate chemical/heat energy -> converting to mechanical energy -> converting to DC electric energy -> converting to AC -> transmitting over long distances -> charge & store it in a chemical battery -> convert electrical energy back to mechanical.

Is cheaper than just the first two steps in the above,

B) Burning fossil fuels to generate chemical/heat energy -> converting to mechanical energy.

Large heat engines (power plants) can be more efficient than small heat engines, but all those conversions above have significant losses.

I suppose it's some combination of coal & gas being cheaper than gasoline, but I suspect some significant regulatory manipulation (whether for better or worse) is at play here.

In other words, perhaps if electric semis are viable, it will have more to do with Regulatory Capture than purely a free market outcome.

Fuel has a step equivalent to the "transmitting over long distances".

In many areas a considerable portion of fuel transport is a semi hauling a tanker, which is a bit less convenient than a pipeline or power line.

It should also be noted that companies with large fleets may well station their initial Tesla Semis in locations with lower electric rates - for example, Oregon and Washington have quite cheap power due to a large amount of hydro ($.0685/kWh up to 1mW for residential in Portland, e.g. [1]).

With only 15 orders to add to Walmart's 6,000 trucks, it will be quite a while before they need to send any to the more expensive locales.

[1] https://www.portlandgeneral.com/residential/power-choices/ba...

During the presentation, Musk says that Tesla will guarantee $.07/kwh for all their trucks. So his numbers are based upon that.

I wonder how that guarantee will be realized? Subsidies? Unless I am missing something, this seems to be artificially lower operating costs of the Semi in order to make to favorable to diesel.

Not an expert in this field, with costs or anything. My guess if not subsidies, it's a bet that electric energy will be cheaper, or batteries get more efficient to meet that price point in the 2-3 years it takes to ramp up production. In that time, they can get pre-orders.

This reminds me of car companies advertising guaranteed gas prices for certain types of cars back when gas started hitting $3/$4 mark. I would see commercials of new cars saying $2.50/g for the next 5 years or something similar.

Found one: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/chrysler-extends-gas-card-...

Chrysler, $2.99/g for 3 years if you buy new car.

Solar chargers built by Tesla’s solar business unit

they said their factory would be powered by solar panels (it's not) and their superchargers would be solar powered as well (they're not). Kind of one of those things like battery swapping that's not as practical as it sounds.

Solar can cost as low as $.06 / kWh (without subsides) : https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/solar-now-costs-6-pe...

>installed cost for utility-scale solar

This article seems to be perhaps a bit loose about what exactly is being quoted here. AFAIK this is cost per kwh generated at utility scale.

This is great for Tesla but have they increased production for batteries? If they can't pump out batteries just as fast this all will be for naught.

If a semi truck is all electric, does that mean it could be allowed in the HOV lanes? Especially the restricted lanes, like those around DC?

Wow, Wal-Mart and JB Hunt.

Elon Musk had better spend some vacation time in Arkansas. That 'tiny' state is helping him at an opportune time.

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