Tesla failing to deliver Semi-trucks on time to PepsiCo, Sysco, UPS, and Walmart
reuters.com
reuters.com
- first callout was OTR longhauls. Musk clearly didnt want his trucks stuck as lot-tenders where they would work brilliantly, he wanted publicity on the road.
- longhauls cancelled because obvious infrastructure limitations. batteries and motors failing more frequently due to the load and the range. reports of using tesla consumer vehicle components in the drivetrain. switch to regional routes
- regional routes failing between AZ/CA due to thermal and performance issues. range issues.
- professional drivers hate these trucks. worse than international (truck brand). center-seating makes visibility, toll booths and logbook checks a chore. side mirrors are static and too high.
Musk needs to come back to earth. OTR (over the road, long hauls of 1800 miles) is a non-starter and will never work with current technology. professional drivers can not lose 30 minutes every 400 miles on these routes to charge, they will miss all their drop times.
make the tesla semi truck a lot tender. massive power to realign and arrange heavy trailers all day long in a parking lot or warehouse lot. bonus points: make the tesla semi truck a driverless lot tender since lot-tenders dont need a CDL.
EDIT: If you want to see something I think the actual trucking industry is getting excited about, check out Edison motors. They're running a hybrid diesel/electric design that would work wonderfully for things like clean-air city driving where the batteries are getting topped up at every stop and speeds are under 50mph, and a small diesel generator when the batteries need a charge. this is similar to how Great Western Rail in the UK runs their trains (just with batteries) and still supports a traditional truck drivetrain. Its designed to be punished from what i can see...the primary application is as a logging rig.
What was the upside of this design decision? Why did they decide to be different here?
The Mach E's front door handle things are practically at the window line to take advantage of being in the mirror turbulence area, a handle several inches down probably wouldn't be in it very much.
Pretty much all Teslas have recessed doorhandles.
The Mach E has buttons to open the doors. The Lightning has regular door handles.
The Hyundai Ioniq 5/6 have recessed door handles.
The Mercedes EQS has recessed door handles.
The Polestar 1 and 3 have recessed, but the Polestar 2 does not.
The Volvo XC40 has recessed handles. The XC30 and XC90 have regular handles.
VW's EVs tend to have regular door handles.
Seeing as how Teslas make up the majority of EVs on the roads in the US, and they all have recessed handles, by definition in the US the majority of EVs have recessed handles. By number of models, its kind of mixed but it seems there are more models with recessed handles than regular handles.
Hubris.
A lack of anyone to stop them from doing otherwise.
And to think, people demonize standardization and regulation...
center seat tesla trucks mean i cannot take an apprentice. Center seat tesla trucks also mean i cant test in a tesla truck for my license or any inspections. it means the entire truck has to be tested on a closed track to get your license, just like construction equipment.
Long haul trucking is the worst fit for today's EV tech.
Building more freight rail and electrifying it is another option for (some) long haul transport that isn't discussed enough.
Most are, it's just that the electric part is generated by a diesel engine. That being said, they're already several times more efficient per ton than a semi is.
while technically correct, not a useful observation
Both seem really inefficient to me with our current technology.
"Lot-tenders" generally refers to services that involve the management and coordination of truck movements within a large parking lot or a distribution center.
Would it help if instead of charging, do what you do with a toy car - replace the batteries?
They could then charge and be ready for the next truck.
There are several problems with that, you end up with a lot more idle equipment than just the battery pack, you've got to either be constantly switching drivers or drivers have to be constantly switching cabs, you need facilities to swap trailers and charge cabs, etc etc etc.
But tractor trailers already have a convenient modularity built in, is all I'm saying.
The same dynamic limits battery swaps.
Or maybe those weren't production cars?
Also, that demo was pretty much there to get some tax subsidies or something. They built the system to comply with the minimum to qualify, and once they got the money they didn't do anything else with it. Those cars weren't really production at all.
Tesla won't want to because they won't want to deal with dead batteries. The trucking companies won't want to because they don't want to deal with dead batteries and the cost to own/operate such specific infra for just their trucks.
The former seems like part of the service, you deal with dead batteries by charging them up and then putting them in the next truck.
The latter is… trickier.
Especially since batteries don't (typically) just end up damaged but rather degrade over time. One day the battery can hold 96% of it's original capacity, the next 90%. It's a natural and uneven process for batteries.
A battery that is unusable for trucking could still have a lot of value in a context where the energy density is less important. Infrastructure, for example. But making sure the incentives and ownership are calibrated correctly to make sure they get put into hands where they are useful might be a big problem.
A trucking company presumably would not be happy if they stopped at a swap spot and got a battery that's only good for the next 200 mi because of normal battery degradation.
There's also now the problem of who owns the batteries that come off a truck - if the battery swap station is a generic service provider, that suggests that some battery network actually owns the packs themselves - does that mean that the swap station needs to keep that battery around until another participating truck company contracted with the owner of the pack comes around?
That seems very complicated.
Or maybe the swap station is the owner of the packs (think gas station chains) - in which case they can put the battery on any truck that comes next... but that means duplicative swap stations for every battery chain out there. There's only so much land accessible to highways... so even more complicated that way.
The "pull the battery out and charge it" part of the idea is oddly enough the simplest. The logistics and chain of responsibility is far more difficult.
You're right that it would take multiple swap stations on nearly any given route that doesn't go too far out of an interstate or frequently traveled highway. So smaller towns or out-of-the-way towns will likely be forced to pay higher costs to get the deliveries using a regular fuel-driven truck, at least until they can solve the EV drive distance issue(s).
I think the biggest point of contention over this will be when Mom-n-Pop stores start going under fast due to the barriers of entry to afford so many expensive, large, and very heavy batteries. That's not even considering possible requirements to use specific machines for safety reasons, which I imagine will also jump when Mom-n-Pop try to wing it.
> "The second storyline is that battery swapping is also helping electrifying China truck sales. BNEF analyst Siyi Mi recently compiled data on all the battery-swappable vehicles sold in the country and found that while swapping remains a niche technology for passenger vehicles, almost half of all heavy battery electric trucks sold last year in China had swappable batteries. That’s up from 34% in 2021. Many of these trucks are operating in industrial sites, port warehouses, mines and steelmaking factories. Lighter commercial vehicles with swappable batteries also are being used in urban deliveries, an area where BNEF expects to see more growth as better economics and tightened emission requirements draw more attention to electric models. Long-haul trucking will be the last, and most difficult, segment to tackle."
https://about.bnef.com/blog/chinas-clean-truck-surprise-defi...
Who owns these batteries? Who owns these trucks? Who eats the cost on battery/truck degradation?
If I pull in with a battery that has 70% of it's original max capacity and get a brand new battery with 99% of it's capacity how do you fairly assess that value add to the truck?
Silly yes. The 90's vision of the skateboard platform has stuck with me a lot. I'd imagined rolling lounges & other passenger vehicles cabins being a way to start decoupling the car, reducing the number of batteries motors and wheels that a town or city had to own in net. The usage cycle of trucks is a lot higher, and the swappability just for sale of switching batteries seems silly, but I couldn't help but see at least one of the core problems of swappability being solved by disaggregation the compartment from the rest here.
For private use, it is far more difficult. The battery is the single most expensive part of the car- who wants to drive off the lot, then two hours later trade that expensive part for one that is heavily used?
Unless the dealer or manufacturer runs all of the swapping stations, and the purchase of the car doesn't include the battery, the economics are terrible.
OTOH, if the consumer isn't paying the full price to own the battery, then the economics of swapping goes way down unless the consumer pays a hefty deposit on the battery.
Then, private sales become harder as you probably want to be able to authenticate that battery is what it is supposed to be, and not some third party knockoff.
But if you can't swap to a third party battery, the vehicle becomes worthless once those batteries are phased out.
Swapping vehicle batteries has been tried before and abandoned (I think in Israel maybe? I forget) because unless you are operating a commercial fleet where you are willing to invest in buying the extra batteries and owning them yourself (or signing a big fat contact with a manufacturer) it just doesn't make sense.
But yeah, long haul was a stupid plan that would have never worked. Not without some massive batteries to kick the range way up to something like 800 miles and infrastructure to allow these trucks to charge overnight.
I just don't think the power density is there currently for trucks.
However, they really should look for low hanging fruit and then try to expand out from there. Trucks that are stuck in stop-and-go traffic all the time are an obvious candidate (low MPG / high pollution per mile with diesel engines, and those applications have low aerodynamic drag and are a huge opportunity for regenerative braking).
I think commuter / local event busses are another obvious fit. I've started to see these around:
https://www.vanhool.com/en/vehicles/public-transport/battery...
Even though these are replacing rear-engine diesels, some of the components will be common with semis. It'll help bootstrap the large vehicle battery + motor supply chain and fleet management logistics at the very least.
One thing to note is that they're using standard form factors. There's no reason to couple the vehicle layout to changes in the power train.
My guess is that Tesla's trying to replay the luxury -> midrange -> economy playbook that they used to bootstrap the EV supply chain. I don't see how that strategy will work a second time, since the supply chain has already been bootstrapped.
I think you are very seriously underestimating the complexity and economics behind trucking logistics and what a nightmare this would become.
They are often built with a single-person cab with windows on all sides and in some of them the seat, pedals, and steering column can pivot around so you can drive backwards without looking over your shoulder.
Except, that isn't how it would have to work. It would make sense for the company to pay the driver for charging time. In BC a 400 mile drive would cost C$514 in diesel ($2/l, 40l/100km), or $112 in electricity (at 1.25kwhr/km and $0.14/kwhr), so presumably the driver could be paid $100 for the 30 min charging stop, and the company will still save $300 for each 400 mile leg.
Not a lorry driver so just asking.
You bring up a good point that fuel savings may be sufficient to compensate drivers for extra time with plenty left over.
I’m always scared when seemingly intelligent people disagree with math and facts.
And 30 mins of charging every 8 hours is unlikely to significantly change the delivery time anyway.
Companies are in the business of making money, if a private contractor is cheaper (and faster) than their in-house logistics who do you think is going to be axed?
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/werktijden/vraag-en...
Serial hybrid seems like a great solution for trucking, since you don't need to oversize the engine in order to cover high torque needs (the electric motors would handle that), and during flat highway drives the generator could top off the battery using a narrower RPM range.
Long distance trucking is also a place where I think green hydrogen fed fuel cell trucks could work, since range would a non-issue, and also the hinterlands, which long distance trucks travel through, is where most of the renewables are.
If the renewables can be fed to an electrolyzer nearby, which supplies a hydrogen fueling station nearby, then you don't need to build much transmission/transportation to get the hydrogen to the trucks.
This requires electrolyzer cost to drop a lot (and FC Semis to be available), but all the technology components of the system exist in some form.
Many actually have big radiators to dissipate energy regenerated while going downhill by their electric traction motors.
Hopefully, as batteries get less expensive this changes.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a39372219/se...
Here is one (I hope) that isn't paywalled: https://reneweconomy.com.au/fortescue-starts-work-on-world-f... Failing that try googling "infinity train battery". It was a popular story at the time. As the story says, at least two companies are doing it in Australia.
The amount of destruction these things can cause when they lose control of all that energy is impressive: https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2... and https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications/investigation_reports/2... They can not be stopped in a controlled fashion once they get going. The latter one cost BHP $800M from memory.
The man doesn't even know where earth IS anymore.
What do you think about natural gas generators? They could be cheaper and cleaner.
By the way 30% or so of London busses are diesel hybrid so it works although they are planning to replace them by zero emissions eventually.
"But in June 2023, Musk said at an energy conference that "there just weren't enough batteries" for Tesla to reach "volume production" of the truck."
It looks like battery production is the major constraint on Teslas endeavours. Someone at Tesla clearly did the math on ROI-per-cell and decided that Semis just don't pay as well as Cybertrucks or Powerwalls. That's why they're starving the Semi operation until they can spin up more battery production.
I agree it makes sense that battery production is the limiting factor, but my ability to trust what Musk says is close to zero.
I have to agree with both you and parent reply
it's possible if it wasn't or trade wars it would've been easy to source batteries from china but who can control geo politics :)
> "If there are no trade barriers established, they will pretty much demolish most other car companies in the world," he said. "They're extremely good."
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-...
I wouldn't call it crazy to point to someone with a documented history of lying and say that their word can't be trusted. Rather, that's called basic pattern recognition.
he also makes outlandish public claims which are ridiculous at the time and get worse with age. you can appreciate what he's done while simultaneously believing 0% of what leaves his mouth
If Musk ran Apple we'd still be waiting on the iPhone XS, though he'd insist it'll be ready by "end of year", a phone that launched around the time Musk was crowing about these trucks.
I wonder how many deadlines that people miss here, and that's usually just pure software, no materials.
There's a reason why PepsiCo partners are moving to Daimler now.
Overall Tesla is producing more EVs than any American company by far.
Yes, meeting the semi production goal would have been nice, but I'd rather consumer car production be prioritized.
The fact that PepsiCo leaked this to Reuters itself means they are on the warpath right now (eg. probably trying to strong-arm a significant refund and cost reduction, or setting up the paper trail needed to begin litigation over breach of contract).
I mean, it almost might. The problem isn't the underdelivery. It's Musk's loss of credibility. When he says it's about battery production, it might be about battery production, or it might be that he randomly changed the design at the last minute.
Like I've had customers pissed off about missed deadlines, but they didn't leak or churn because we tried to keep them happy.
> PepsiCo investor Green Century Capital Management has reservations about the company's time table for rolling out the Semis. > > "The fact they're running behind schedule is concerning," said Andrea Ranger, a shareholder advocate at Green Century. The investment firm has followed PepsiCo's use of electric vehicles and is pushing the company to consider its impacts on biodiversity at its annual meeting in May.
Green Century (as its name implies) has a "three-pronged approach combines a fossil fuel free sustainable investing strategy with award-winning shareholder advocacy and support of environmental nonprofits to deliver impact in a way other mutual fund families can't" (quote is from their homepage). My guess is that Green Century are the ones feeling the heat here -- they need to have their fund's emmission figures come out right yesterday, and Pepsi can't make them right unless they get their EV fleet, whether via Tesla or someone else.
If you read between the lines, you'll notice that no one at PepsiCo says anything bad about Tesla per se, only that they're committed to deploying more EVs and a bunch of other green systems. The rest of the article is other supply & logistics companies pointing out that they're having good results with trucks from other manufacturers and/or that they're also unhappy with Tesla's timeline, then someone from GC saying they don't think Tesla can hit their schedule. With the review coming up in May ("the investment firm has followed PepsiCo's use of electric vehicles and is pushing the company to consider its impacts on biodiversity at its annual meeting in May.") this is probably GC trying to convince Pepsi to stop waiting for the bloody Teslas and just get whatever EVs will get their fleet going this year.
That's the goal isn't it? Cheaper EVs for everyone to replace ICE cars?
I keep hearing about competitors, but I never see any of their EVs, new or used. I see Teslas everywhere.
And cheap model 3's may "hurt" Tesla, but it hurts every other EV maker too. Good for the consumer though.
But what's the excuse for the other American EV companies?
Statistics for the EU, EV sales in January 2024: https://alternative-fuels-observatory.ec.europa.eu/general-i...
Around these parts, we see a lot of non-Tesla electrics. Many of them are not obvious at all, until you realize that an SUV has a Clean Pass sticker, and no tailpipes.
But there are also many 3s and Ys. I think, for a time, Tesla was the biggest-selling brand in the US.
And frankly it seems to be greed. They have proven hybrid and PHEV tech yet deny the US market the hybrid ranger, 'because US buyers can get the maverick'.
Except... they don't make enough of those either.
That contrast is definitely striking.
I've been on both sides so I get it, and the only solution is to have blunt and honest communication from all sides - Field Facing teams need to not overcommit, and Internal teams actually need to execute and COMMUNICATE why they cannot.
As an employee, we are all working to make the company more money. That's the only goal.
Musk hasn't just "missed deadlines". He's outright lied.
For example, in 2016 he claimed Tesla already had self driving capabilities it hasn't shown today, 8 years later.
He lied about bulletproof windows on the CyberTruck. His own demo disproved this.
He lied about the solar roofs. The entire demo was false and staged and the tiles on the roofs were not solar tiles as the demo strongly implied. And testimony showed that he personally knew that it was a lie.
Musk doesn't just miss deadlines. He blatantly lies. And that raises the legitimate concern that a lot of "missed deadlines" weren't just deadlines that were missed, but deadlines that were never feasible and he just lied about.
I’ve been late on deadlines before, but not 7 years late.
And again, you're not dealing with global mass production of materials, or are you?
That's not the flex you think it is. Software is pretty unique in delivering products that the companies don't want to stand behind--think of every software license that basically says "if this software doesn't work, it's YOUR FAULT".
In most industries, missing deadlines is generally grounds for your customers to get very cross with you, especially when your customers are businesses and not consumers.
Tesla promised 100 trucks in 2017.
Seven years late, they're only at one-third of that.
Mind you, no surprises here.
FSD, this year, 2016. FSD, this year, 2017. FSD, this year, 2018. Every year. Here we are, still.
Look... I'm an investor in the Tesla IPO ($4k -> $200k+). I own a Tesla vehicle.
Current Elon has run off the deep end into conspiracy theories and utter nonsense. Buying Twitter because he was butt-hurt over some of his tweets being punished is just asinine. It is also a massive distraction on something utterly trivial.
There was absolutely a massive whisper campaign to say that EVs would never work. Elon did a lot of great things in the beginning. Some of those things include making lofty promises even though delivering on those promises took a lot longer than he thought. The most important thing in the beginning was proving EVs could work to the early adopters, ensuring Tesla could survive long enough to reach volume ramp-up. Volume means parts suppliers start returning your calls and economies of scale improve everything. Doing things differently got them noticed. Making cars fun was a brilliant marketing strategy... does anyone really need the Toy Box stuff Teslas can do? No... but it makes a lot of people (me included) smile. (My kids think Emissions mode is hilarious on our drive to school drop-off and now consider all other cars to be inferior because those cars can't make fart sounds. That's mind share you can't fucking buy even with unlimited money.)
Passing into the volume phase has killed a lot of companies. There are many more opportunities for things to go wrong and mistakes cost you a lot more. Your company also transitions from "we need exposure at any cost" to "we are a brand leader who has set expectations".
During this critical time Elon has failed to change his messaging. He is still in "we need exposure" mode, making outlandish promises and starting too many projects at once. In the end it is all a self-own. There was no need to get into semi-trucks. They have enough trouble scaling up Model Y and even shipping the Cyber Truck. They still haven't really delivered on FSD, despite charging for it and continuously increasing the price. It was 100% unnecessary. Focus on execution, leave the semi-truck idea for a few years down the road. You have enough irons in the fire. Your #1 focus should be a Model Y refresh since it is by far your top seller and is what is generating all that cash making Tesla an ongoing concern.
tl;dr: Tesla is no longer in survival mode but it is in a critical phase of its growth. Elon should have stopped making outlandish promises some time ago and focused on execution. His thin-skin about Twitter, resulting in trying to get a board seat, on a whim turning into buying the company has been a massive distraction that hurts Tesla at a time when it needs strong leadership and the traditional automakers are still fumbling on EVs.
There are more full-electric buses running in London than Tesla had orders for the Semi.
Yes and: Perhaps the Semi uses cells which are supply constrained. The Limiting Factor does updates on which models use which cells, where those cells are made, their current chemistry, and how cell supply might impact vehicle production numbers. Analysis based on data gleaned from public data, so uncertainty is stated as needed.
My own quick search didn't yield any answers.
Most people I know are buying LG (small system) or Enphase (large system) batteries instead, or going with other competitors (Anker announced something that looks pretty sweet).
Also, Powerwalls are notoriously unreliable compared to those other brands; our local Tesla installer said they refuse to install them except when they are acting as a Tesla subcontractor, and pushed us to enphase or generac.
For semis, they took deposits then didn't deliver, so marquee customers are complaining publicly and buying semis from competitors.
For solar roofs, we talked to their competitors, and they were all backlogged because they were absorbing cancelled tesla contracts.
Tesla is great at marketing and making the sale, but then letting their competitors close out the deal.
It was fun when I pumped my portfolio with a quick $10K (0dte TSLA put options) when the ceo would say some controversial shit on Twitter (before the leveraged buyout) or smoke weed during after hours with some random podcaster.
But the entertainment is over and the constant news coverage is just spam and reiteration over what we know about this company and its products: very shiny things, but like the CEO’s ego, they are very fragile and have a tendency to be unreliable; or just not live up to the hype.
His entire job is understanding those constraints and ensuring they don’t get in the way of creating an actual shipping product. When they do, he is not fine, he’s failing.
He isn't devoting enough time to Tesla. He is distracted by Twitter and his other companies.
Right now they have to carry around far too much weight and bulk in batteries, and take far too long to charge, and the batteries don't have a long enough lifespan.
Right now this whole effort feels performative. Its greenwashing.
Some day it will likely become very practical, but that day is not today.
That's why electric Semis are heavily subsidized by the IRA - in order to incentivize the economies of scale needed to spur innovation in the space.
It's a similar move to the PEV industry and Obama's, California's, and Texas' subsidies for it in the 2008-12 period establishing that market in North America.
Really, the funding should go more directly to general battery RnD - not eSemis specifically.
> The social cost of carbon dioxide (SC-CO2) measures the monetized value of the damages to society caused by an incremental metric tonne of CO2 emissions and is a key metric informing climate policy. Used by governments and other decision-makers in benefit–cost analysis for over a decade, SC-CO2 estimates draw on climate science, economics, demography and other disciplines. However, a 2017 report by the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine1 (NASEM) highlighted that current SC-CO2 estimates no longer reflect the latest research. The report provided a series of recommendations for improving the scientific basis, transparency and uncertainty characterization of SC-CO2 estimates. Here we show that improved probabilistic socioeconomic projections, climate models, damage functions, and discounting methods that collectively reflect theoretically consistent valuation of risk, substantially increase estimates of the SC-CO2. Our preferred mean SC-CO2 estimate is $185 per tonne of CO2 ($44–$413 per tCO2: 5%–95% range, 2020 US dollars) at a near-term risk-free discount rate of 2%, a value 3.6 times higher than the US government’s current value of $51 per tCO2. Our estimates incorporate updated scientific understanding throughout all components of SC-CO2 estimation in the new open-source Greenhouse Gas Impact Value Estimator (GIVE) model, in a manner fully responsive to the near-term NASEM recommendations. Our higher SC-CO2 values, compared with estimates currently used in policy evaluation, substantially increase the estimated benefits of greenhouse gas mitigation and thereby increase the expected net benefits of more stringent climate policies.
EDIT: I stand corrected wrt which emissions DEF and DPF mitigate. I rarely interact with diesel propulsion systems.
Wow. Back of the envelope math suggests that driving a typical passenger car 1000 miles should carry a tax of ~$75, which would be no small burden. At 40 mpg, gasoline cost for such a trip is less than $200 in most of the U.S. right now.
Edit: actually if you assume 40 mpg the social cost of emissions is closer to $40.
(Of course in practice you'd want to handle this as a tax on gasoline purchases, but that would need to be implemented federally to be effective, probably.)
Assuming that tax money is being used effectively (lol), the negative externality could completely disappear with the right tax level. You could even turn driving into a positive externality if the tax is high enough, while still polluting.
Does that sound right to you?
Incidentally, 2023 Bolt specs [2] indicate an efficiency of about 4 miles per kWh, and the EPA reference above states a typical US grid efficiency of 4.17 × 10^-4 metric tons CO2/kWh. This gives us 15.38 km per kg CO2. So ~105 kg of CO2 would be released by driving a Bolt for 1000 miles on typical grid sources. [3]
I'm surprised to learn the US grid is this inefficient. In theory, an ICE car with an efficiency of 85 mpg would emit less CO2 than an electric car. Obviously that's not reachable at this point, but a hybrid like a Prius that can hit 57 mpg cuts it a lot closer than I would've thought.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gases-equivalencies-ca...
[2] https://media.chevrolet.com/media/us/en/chevrolet/vehicles/b...
[3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=1000+miles+%2F+%28259+m...
Edit to add: That $185 is in 2020 USD, which is $223.26 in current USD. [1]
1. Trends in generation/grid investment will change such that the EV transition _can_ happen.
2. The EV mandate will get walked back before much of anything changes.
3. The EV mandate will _start_ to get implemented, slowly, begin making things terrible proportionally to how far it has progressed, then, when things reach some (pre-total collapse) level of badness, get reversed, and things will go back to normal-ish after having wasted a bunch of money and having made some things somewhat worse.
4. And, I suppose for completeness, I should include the possibility of: nothing changes, nothing gets rolled back, and the grid utterly collapses under the overwhelming burden and the CA economy goes up in smoke and fire.
I do not think that last one has a significant chance of occurring. I think the most likely options are 3 and 2, followed somewhat distantly by 1, and much, _much_ more distantly by 4. If trend lines seem to point towards utter calamity, and any of the trend lines are under human control, the safe assumption is that something will change before total calamity.
Spread over the month, that's 9.87GWh per day, or 411MW. California produces around 500GWh each day, so we need a 2% increase. (Or, equivalently, a 2% decrease elsewhere.)
[1] https://kentico.portoflosangeles.org/getmedia/452bad8c-4e16-...
Nobody wants to talk about the fact that just shipping less unnecessary shit would do tremendously more for the environment than the greenest tech available, in the same way it initially made such big waves during the early days of the pandemic. Like, imagine how much CO2 would be saved if we just shut down essential oils tomorrow. The whole thing, the entire industry, because it's flagrantly bullshit. I'm not even saying it's an industry that produces a ton of CO2, I'm just saying it's an industry that produces CO2 while accomplishing nothing useful.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54511743
Ammonia has no carbon atoms in it, just hydrogen and nitrogen which are abundant. It can be synthesized using the Haber process, and electrolysis, all energy inputs can be green. On the con side, its energy density isn't as good as fuel oil (half as energy dense). It needs to be compressed to stay liquid (like LNG). Also it's a poisonous gas. Could be corrosive to certain metals too. Maybe those issues can be worked around though.
"The iPhone is too slow for the web, the screen is too small, and it's too expensive. This is a waste of time" (About the iPhone 1).
"This Gemini program is a silly waste of time, and will never get to the moon".
"The MacBook Air is really underperformant and too expensive" (The first one).
and so on.
Things improve over time, but only when someone is willing to actually make them. Try stuff. Learn lessons. Improve the technology, drive the price down and make iterative improvements.
We need electric semis. Are the version 1.0 ones being made now fantastic in every way? no. Will they get better over time, of course.
In 20 years we'll look back and say damn I'm glad companies were willing to try new stuff and advance technology so that things could actually get better.
I really do want electric vehicles to get better, but that doesn't change the fact that they objectively do suck right now.
And to be clear, they objectively suck, by nearly any measure, for a consumer. They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive. Yes, you get to have a smug feeling of superiority for pretending to save the planet with electric cars, I guess that's worth something, but that doesn't undo the rest of the problems.
Until electric vehicles stop being crappy, corporations simply aren't going to use them, and they can hardly be blamed for it. I do think they'll get better, I think they'll get longer ranges and faster charging and the mechanical problems will get sorted out, but I don't think that pretending the problems aren't a real makes them go away.
[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/electric-vehicles-consumer-repo... This one keeps bothering me because people keep saying that electric cars "cost more to fix but they're so much more reliable so it almost doesn't matter!!!!", when that's objectively not true, at least not yet.
Of course, some products will be a success and some will flop, but the successes can only happen so long as someone keeps trying and keeps improving it.
> I really do want electric vehicles to get better
Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
> They break down more often [1], cost more to fix, they have shitty range, they take forever to charge, they're more expensive.
last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-maintenance/the-cos...
No argument here, I just was questioning the assertions because, and maybe I misread it, it seemed like you were suggesting the success was implied, which I disagreed with.
> Then you should be happy companies are trying to improve them. This is a good thing that Tesla (and others) are trying to make the semi work. It may eventually result in better outcomes for you, vs the alternative where nobody tries and it is guaranteed that nothing gets better.
Yes, I am glad companies are trying to fix them, but I don't blame other companies for not using them in their current state. They simply do not solve the problems that current corporations have to deal with for the reasons I listed.
What bothers me is that a lot of the electric car advocates seem to look at the future at the expense of the present. It's like saying "Everyone should use the Apple 1 computer right now because the Apple II will probably be better", and I don't really think that parses. Yes, it's good that Tesla and other companies are running the necessary experiments to make these things not suck, but that doesn't really change anything.
> last week Consumer Reports listed Tesla as the lowest cost of 10 year ownership of any brand.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers corrected for the Cybertruck launch.
Also, I don't know how that squares with the thing I linked that indicates that as of December of last year Teslas were considerably less reliable than Lexus, Toyota, Buick, and Honda [1]. Consumer Reports is generally pretty good but I suspect that they're measuring different numbers for each article. It doesn't seem clear-cut to me.
[1] https://www.consumerreports.org/cars/car-reliability-owner-s... Transitively linked in my previous post but figured I'd put a direct link.
I thought the German experiments of allowing the trucks to charge while driving with overhead charging wires was clever and could be a potential solution to this, since then you wouldn't have to waste any time waiting for the truck to charge, but it looks like the infrastructure for that might be too expensive to justify that.
It is also hard to buy the argument that there is a shortage of batteries when there are other Tesla vehicles sitting unpurchased. Why miss a Semi sale when there is slack demand for Model 3/Y? Probably because actually delivering more of them is just a future liability.
There are many people who say that the technology is not appropriate, and these are mainly based on two claims: firstly, that electric propulsion will not be more environmentally friendly whilst the electricity is still produced from fossil fuels, and secondly that existing electric trucks are less reliable than their diesel counterparts. Neither of these are reasons to abandon overhead lines on an efficiency basis, though - the concept is sound.
That seems very low and not really worth it. Does it really make that little difference?
That only takes into account electricity production, though - these countries might still import large amounts of oil and gas for burning, such as Germany, or simply buy their electricity from other countries.
Should that occur, electric semis are no more danger than a regular semi.
My point is that we ought to wait until that's actually the case.
What's it called?
Hyperloop!
> Well, sir, there's nothing on earth
> Like a genuine, bona fide
> Electrified, one-car hyperloop
> What'd I say?
Hyperloop!
- sung to the notes of the song "Monorail!" (humor)
I don't care how much I'm taxed if it means the US will use it for decent transportation that isn't car-based.
https://www.freightliner.com/trucks/ecascadia/
They're also offering charging logistics services, etc. The main innovations on the truck cab are creature comforts for the driver, and safety features like blind spot detection. That looks like a winning strategy to me.
They're also building lower range trucks, which makes sense. They can build more trucks with the same battery supply, and local deliveries are a much better fit for current EV trucks than long range routes.
The charge time is 90 minutes for about 200 miles of range, so it's pretty clear this is for short routes.
edit: I wonder how much wattage it takes to charge one of these things in 90 minutes. Whatever it is, it's about 1/3 as much as a 30 minute charger would be. Since they're helping out with logistics, it wouldn't surprise me if building faster chargers is currently infeasible.
There are 400 kW chargers in use, so it must be some other reason.
Is there any solution to this kind of increase in weight apart from "build stronger roads/bridges"?
"We are not happy with the situation at Tesla," Sollie said. "(It's) almost seven years now, it's a long time to wait.”
...
Meanwhile, UPS, Walmart Canada, Sysco and Schneider National (SNDR.N), a transportation company that works for PepsiCo's Frito-Lay, said they are turning to Daimler Truck, maker of the Freightliner eCascadia. All four companies said they had begun to put dozens of eCascadia electric big rigs on the road.
on the plus side, having competition, especially from the mercedes subsidiary in daimler, is a great thing
At some point though, it's hard to even blame him; investors keep enabling him. It's extremely easy to find all the cases of outright dishonesty that he's said (e.g. "We'll have full self driving next year", every year since like 2018), investors should really know about this, and they still give him money.
I don't really get it, outside of S&P500 ETFs that I don't really control the strategy of, I won't give Tesla any money, since it seems like everything Musk does is kind of corner-cut. The Cybertruck release epitomizes this, where they're charging an extra $20,000 for the potential of a Full Self Driving feature eventually just seems cartoonish, and maybe getting to fraudulent territory? (IANAL)
I invested in Tesla's IPO with some chump change (mostly because I was a lot poorer then). $4000 turned into $200k+, at which point I sold half. So perhaps you are right but I'm $100k cash / $100k paper richer for being "wrong".
Being right won't pay your rent or keep you warm, but it can sometimes help you miss out on a lot of gains.
See my other comment for my bearish negative thoughts on Tesla and Elon.
On the positive side they have crossed into volume production territory. The place where suppliers not only return your phone calls they send people to ask you for meetings and offer discounts not available to the plebs. They have great brand awareness. They have a best-selling vehicle that continues to sell every single one that rolls off their 100% full production lines (at least in the US, not sure about elsewhere). That's demand and inventory positions other car makers would kill for.
Tesla foresaw battery production as being limiting and their joint venture with Panasonic in Arizona has given them battery supply and battery economics that other automakers simply can't match right now no matter how much they try.
There is a reason investors are bullish on Telsa.
Twitter has been a massive distraction for Elon. He seems to have surrounded himself with yes-men and enablers who just want to cash in on him. None of this is good but in a way the Twitter distraction has kept him more hands-off from Tesla than in the past so it may end up being a blessing in disguise.
Ponzi schemes will often lead to people making money in the short-to-mid term. Not saying that Tesla is an outright Ponzi scheme but I do think that their stock is overinflated and following something Ponzi-adjacent. I can find plenty of examples of charismatic people that develop large followings that really don't deserve it, and then everything eventually tanks.
The rest of what you said is more or less ok.
Looking at how frequently Tesla is slashing prices, they may not be in the hardware business for too much longer.
> In October 2022, Musk told investors that his goal was to make 50,000 Semis in 2024.
If they achieve a tenth of it 5 years' late, that's still incredibly good for humanity.
What is ambitiousness worth if the product/delivery is delayed by years and has to be discounted heavily to chase market share?
These contracts typically include exclusivity clauses. They lock PepsiCo in, preventing them from purchasing electric semis from other companies that ramp up production sooner. PepsiCo has to lawyer up and nullify the contract with Tesla in order to purchase electric semis from companies other than Tesla. Meanwhile,
So Tesla is locking companies into contracts, failing to deliver, and leaving them in the lurch in the meantime. Cleaner transportation and fewer emissions is good for humanity - so let's celebrate the companies that are actually bringing us electric semis. The Freightliner eCascadia, Volvo VNR, Kenworth EV, and BYD 8TT are all in production. The eCascadia and the VNR are each being produced in higher volumes than the Tesla Semi.
Every other manufacturer already has the customers, the employees, the manufacturing, supply chains, and they know the market better. Tesla is now a decade in to their Gen 1 and haven’t shipped anything because of their distracting engineering goals… they need to focus on the customers.
It's taken them seven years to deliver THIRTY SIX.
And Musk is saying that battery sourcing is still difficult. But somehow you think it's feasible to push out FIVE THOUSAND in the next few years.
"Incredibly good for humanity" remains to be seen - batteries at that scale have their own environmental issues.
> but the scale of the ambition is frankly wild
The scale of his ambition, at this point, is frankly delusional.