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Comment by jillesvangurp | Hacker News Reader

Whether they are ready or not, they'll have to deal with competitors that won't have to worry about diesel fuel expenses. Tesla is not going to have any demand issues here. If this thing works as advertised (and that seems to be the case) and they ramp up production to 50k vehicles/year over the next two years, there are going to be two classes of truck companies: those driving electrically and those who don't. My guess is that when the dust settles, there won't be a huge market for ice trucks in a few years. Unlike cars, trucking companies operate based on financials. With razor thin margins, decimating fuel cost is going to matter a lot.

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Yes - if there is money on the table, someone is going to grab it. Perhaps it's true that "Like they literally don’t have the software or expertise to plan the loads around electric needs without losing money on every load.", but if so those guys are going to end up having their lunches eaten by more nimble competitors that do.

Before Tesla launched model 3, targeted at 35k$, there was another EV launched. Chevrolet bolt launched at the same price range, and at a similar range. It didn't have the sleek look of a Tesla, lacked a supercharger network, and didn't have the lies of self driving, the hype machine and status symbol of a Tesla. As a result, it was a failure. When model 3 was actually launched, and much costlier than originally announced for, it was 50% costlier than the bolt. People still bought the model 3 over the bolt.

So, no, financial scrutiny is not why Tesla sells vehicles. It does because of the hype, the status symbol, the better design, and lies of self driving. And these don't really matter for trucks (except stock market rewarding hype, just like Bitcoin mania). So no, Tesla won't dominate the niche of short haul trucks that EV trucks have opened up.

> Tesla is not going to have any demand issues here. If this thing works as advertised (and that seems to be the case) and they ramp up production to 50k vehicles/year over the next two years

Pretty big “if” they’re chief. While they very well may not have any demand issues, I’m going to go out on a limb and say they’ll probably will have supply issues. Launching the production of a new model is no walk in the park and the organization already seems to have problems with QA on the existing models.

Tesla has a lot of experience with this. They managed growth and profit throughout the covid crisis and related supply chain disruptions and invested in expanding production capacity further all while many of their competitors were basically struggling with staying profitable.

So, I would not dismiss their ability to execute on what they've announced here. They are obviously well aware of supply chain challenges and have been heavily investing in solutions for that. And they obviously waited with this until they had the logistics and manufacturing in place. And it seems that they are re-using a lot of components they already have - like their drive train and batteries. And they do have a lot of new production capacity coming online.

I don't think Ford has particularly struggled to stay profitable making the MachE and Lightning truck. Neither has Volvo (Tesla's biggest competition in the Semi market).

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