Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

bombcar

Tesla Semi is not the only contender out there now (or at least in progress):

https://freightliner.com/trucks/ecascadia/

https://www.peterbilt.com/electric-vehicles

https://www.macktrucks.com/trucks/lr-electric/

View on HN

Those "contenders" are referenced in the article:

- Escadia has less than half the range of Tesla Semi and ~6 times slower charging rate per mile.

- Peterbilt has 3.5x less range that Tesla Semi and ~10 times slower charging rate per mile.

- Mack has 5x less range than Tesla Semi and ~10 times slower charging rate per mile (not in the article — I looked at the spec on the link).

What are they exactly contending on?

You’re assuming that range is actually useful. There’s a reason Tesla is also producing a 300 mile semi, EV’s really only work for short haul trips anyway so a big battery is pointless for many users.

Ideally you have charging infrastructure at a loading dock between shore trips not along the highway at which point a 250 mile Escadia vs a hypothetically faster charging 300 mile Tesla isn’t really worth much without a much larger investment in charging infrastructure.

> You’re assuming that range is actually useful.

I'm not assuming that. The entire trucking industry keeps talking about how they won't buy low range stuff. Also, while batteries are still slow to charge, any extra minute spent waiting to charge multiple times on a trip is money lost.

EDIT: instead of speculating, get hold of someone in those companies that put order down for Tesla Semi and ask them why in their right mind they would do that. Then come back and enlighten us with their response.

Not quite, the long haul industry has ~zero interest in the 500 mile Tesla Semi, but that’s hardly the only market for semi’s.

Safeway, Walmart, etc are using semi’s for relatively short daily deliveries from regional warehouses. That model is very different from companies picking up random freight from LA’s port and shipping it to arbitrary locations across the US.

PS: As to your edit the list of buyers was exactly the kind of companies I described with long haul trucking companies ordering token amounts. Walmart, Pepsi, Anheuser-Busch, etc took a bigger bite.

Sysco: The food distributor has reserved 50 Semis. while Flexport: Ryan Peterson, the freight company's CEO, announced the company has ordered one Semi.

https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-that-ordered-tesla...

Burning diesel with unpredictable prices is also money lost, there would have to be a tradeoff or niche where it makes sense

As a strawman, it should just possible to have a kind of "B-train" with a smaller, detachable battery unit just behind the tractor (apologies to truckers if I am using the wrong terminology). This way it would be possible to swap this out super fast. Maybe it could be at the back for faster swap.

And even if not, you could "pony express" a route across the USA with locations that just have the trucks charged and ready to go.

Pull in, grab dinner while the crew unhooks your trailer and hooks it to another already charged semi, and then off you go.

Wouldn't work for owner-operators but a large enough line could do it if they wanted to for the climate/PR benefits.

Of course, that kind of hauling can be done by railroads, too.

Isn’t having crews doing this hooking/unhooking going to kill the price competitiveness of EV semis?

I think pack at the back designs would be quick to swap out. Going on a long trip - use two.

Theres already designs for doing quick swaps, like always its the challenge of standardization:

https://youtu.be/g4EbWRDXzZw?t=49

Assume an average delivery truck driver's job is 10 hours a day. Assuming no time for unloading, that would be 50 miles an hour at the 500 mile range.

50 miles an hour is probably high for the average speed of an in-town deliver truck. And even if all it is doing is dropping off trailers and picking up new ones, that would be adequate for quite a bit.

And if the truck is stopping and the driver is unloading pallets, etc, then 500 miles is way more than enough; 300 comes into play.

You need some margin for days with headwinds or cold or road closures / detours.

You just assumed a brand new battery, fully charged, and then taken to empty in optimal conditions.

Nobody would actually use a truck like that day to day, you need slack for every thing from aging batteries to making it to charging infrastructure and running the AC.

These trucks can all be charged with 240V whereas the Tesla semi requires a 1000V (mega charger) which isn't available anywhere yet. So these trucks are all contending with being far more practical.

Existing Teslas can accept various voltage for charging. Obviously, the lower the longer to charge. Pretty sure the Tesla Semi CAN charge at up to 1000V, but doesn’t require it, while the competitors CANNOT charge at 1000V.

What's your source that Tesla Semi can't be slow charged with 240V? I'd be pretty shocked if that was the case.

I read it as "requires 1000v to get the charge speeds advertised" - at 240v the trucks would all charge at about the same rate, and 240v may be what everyone goes with (though I doubt it, might as well install a dedicated charger if you're buying a truck).

There's a difference between AC and DC charging. All current Tesla's accept 240 volt AC and there's no reason to expect that the semi won't either but with the such a giant battery pack 240V will simply not be fast enough. The 1000 volt is for DC fast charging. Tesla's current models use 350-375 volt battery packs. 1000 volt will just allow them to charge faster for DC fast charging, and more efficiently.

To add to this, for AC, there is a conversion stage (ie inverter) that needs to convert it to DC to charge the batteries. This unit, at the currents that the Semi requires to be charged in a reasonable amount of time will be wasting too much energy in conversion losses.

Due to its inpracticality, AC charging is unlikely to be an option, but maybe they include it for those exceptional circumstances.

Many trucks do only short hauls anyway. It is easier and less risky to develop a truck whose main usage do not already need a wide and extensive charger network.

I think it is more about opportunity than capability.

There are also European and Chinese manufacturers. E.g. Volvo already has trucks on the road and the Chinese have a huge head start for producing all kinds of electrical vehicles. So companies like Geely, BYD, etc. are also entering this space.

But you are right that Tesla is neither the only one in this market nor the first to market. They would have been five years ago when they first announced their plans. A lot of companies have started building their own trucks since then. However, product announcements are one thing and volume production is another thing. If Tesla manages to get to volume production over the next two years (like they announced), they'll still be early enough to grab a decent chunk of the market. Especially in the North American market which is pretty much wide open still. Tesla seems uniquely positioned with their supply chains to pull this off.

Company close to where I live has also been selling semis with a 1MW battery pack for a while: https://www.designwerk.com/en/high-cab/

https://www.renault-trucks.com/en/electromobility

Why not Volvo and Scania?

I didn't list all the ones, just the ones I found while looking at "the market".

I am surprised that everyone is going relatively strongly toward semis instead of box trucks; it seems that would fit the "current" capabilities much more.

There are box trucks in the market and in service already. They're definitely further along than semis. Tesla is really good at pushing the public perception of EVs and yet doesn't make one, so it's possible it's just a less visible part of the market right now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com