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Is the Model S/Pilot comparison useful here? Wouldn't most of the weight of a semi would be in the trailer? It doesn't seem intuitive to me that increasing the weight of the cab, even by several multiples, would meaningfully increases the weight of the semi.

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It won't, because the gross combination weight is limited by law.

Any weight you add to the cab comes out of the payload for a vehicle application that hauls at the legal limit.

Per the report, road wear does not increase linearly with weight, so more semis at or near the weight limit will end up damaging the roads more overall.

Page 9 shows that even pickups cause 7x more wear than a passenger car.

Additionally, any extra weight comes from the haul capacity of the truck, this means that more trips will be needed to move the same amount of cargo, and again causing a disproportional amount of wear on the road.

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