How Big Was Tesla Semi Payload?

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There have been various controversies over the length and weight of the concrete barriers carried by the Tesla Semi for its 500-mile demonstration.

There are various certain dimensions. The standard height of a shipping container on a regular trailer is 13.5 feet. The Tesla Semi passes a regular Semi truck with a shipping container. The cab of the Tesla Semi was the same height. This means the Tesla Semi cab is 13.5 feet tall. It means the standard trailer used to carrier the eleven concrete barriers is five feet tall.

UPDATE -CONFIRMED 10-Foot Long CONCRETE BARRIERS Carried Which are 4000 Pounds EACH:
I measured the height of the screen capture of the Tesla Semi and the length of the trailer. The Tesla Semi is pulling a 48-foot-long trailer. I measured the height of screen capture of the Tesla trailer (13.5 feet) and the length of the picture of the compact car (assumed 14.5 feet) and both indicate the barrier is 10-feet long.

NEW UPDATE:
I have gone into detailed analysis to determine the cargo capacity of the Tesla Semi versus the Freightliner Cascadia and other diesel Semi. I have a close approximation of the Tare weights and the tractor weight and the cargo capacity.

Other Related Articles:
Typical Diesel truck load capacity per Freightwaves

Other Tesla Semi Articles

Massive State and Federal Electric Semi Truck Subsidies

Worst Tesla Semi is better than best competing electric semi

Bloomberg energy writer admits he was wrong and that Tesla Semi will succeed. Diesel and gas prices skyrocketing means electric trucks will take hold. Links to a detailed truck cost comparison calculator.

Anti-elon and anti-Tesla YouTuber, Thunderfoot was claiming that the concrete barriers was 6 feet long. This is clearly not correct. The barriers carried are fill over 80% of the length of a 48-foot-long trailer.

A passing blue car was about 1.5 times the length of a barrier. A Honda Civic hatchback is 15 feet long. A Subaru Impreza Hatchback is 14.5 feet long. Is one of the barrier less than half of the length of the passing car? No. Is the barrier only barely longer than the 5-foot trailer height? No. Thus, Thunderfoot claim of 6 foot length is wrong.

The height of the Tesla Semi is 13.5 feet.

Every visible and known dimension in the video and picture points to 10-foot length or 8 foot length.

8-foot concrete new jersey barriers weigh 3500-3850 lbs and 10-foot concrete barriers weigh 4000-4400 lbs. As I have confirmed with measurements that they are 10-foot barriers.

Thunderfoots has false claims that vastly less than 81,000 lbs (combined truck, trailer, cargo) weight of demo cargo. The size and weight of the eleven concrete barriers checks out to the Tesla claim of 81000 total weight.

There are already 36 Semi in use at Pepsi and hundreds more will be delivered to Pepsi and other companies like Walmart. Every 5,000 Semi deliveries would be about $1 billion in revenue. IF Tesla hits its target of 50,000 deliveries in 2024 that would be $10 billion.

Thunderfoot is making the absurd claim that companies will not verify the quality of purchases involving tens of millions of dollars.

122 thoughts on “How Big Was Tesla Semi Payload?”

  1. It takes 3 barrels of crude oil to make one battery for those thing’s how is that for these climate change idiots

  2. Somebody seriously thinks Tesla can sell 50,000 tractors in 2024? Class 8 truck sales in 2021 were in the neighborhood of 190,000 units total. For Tesla to sell 50k tractors would mean that they would have to truly dominate the day cab narket. Another serious question is who will service these vehicles. Are 20% of all diesel mechanics going to be retrained in 12-18 months to service, diagnose and maintain these fleets? And I have seen a lot of talk about the range of these trucks with various loads, but I haven’t seen anybody mention the uncontrollable factor. The weather. Specifically headwinds and sidewinder. I had cross country loads where one day I averaged 8 mpg and the next day I averaged 4 mpg simply due to a persistent sidewind. This was the exact same tractor, trailer and load. Until ultrafast charging stations become as ubiquitous as today’s diesel pumps, these battery powered trucks will not challenge a diesel powered tractor for long haul operations. They may very well take over line-haul and P & D operations. Though, to me, this tractor as pictured seems much to long for efficient P & D operations.

    • No it’s tesla they like their proprietary product. Your going to have to tow your truck half a state a way to get worked on in an authorized tesla shop

    • They will just force people to buy them just like people are forced to buy EVs today by the government mandating them. California and Washington both are outlawing diesel and gas so tesla already has that market

  3. Child labor? Indentured servitude mining? Battery science HAS to advance beyond Li-ion technology. The waste has hardly been addressed. There will be something better.There always is.

    • No. No. No. Tesla makes clear they don’t use such companies in their supply chain.
      Do you prefer the fossil fuels industry record of human rights abuses?

      • Hey idiot what does our power system run on? Also you might want to do some research about what the materials like plastic (which the body is made of) most of the parts are made of petroleum (oil) and in top of that the batteries are made of lithium.

  4. A question for all those opposed to the Electric Vehicle innovation:
    Did your Grandfather write angry letters to the newspaper editor expressing opposition to the horseless buggy invention?

    • For those that support electric vehicles. Have you done any research of your own or just believe what the government tells you?

  5. Whether to EV or not as far as loads are concerned will be argued for a while. I’m more interested in how will the FMSCA handle wait time for recharging of EV’s. Will the 14 hour time continue to click down while charging, or will it stop during that time or something else.

    • Well the 14 hour timer stops at 2 hours and returns to the clock time you initially went off duty..the question is any kind of maintenance or fueling is an on duty task! So by current regulations unplugging it and unplugging it is an on duty task. So expect people to be at the charge station the full 10 hour reset! Otherwise with current regulations you will plug in wait atleast 2 hours in sleeper birth go on duty unplug it and continue your allready long day with an evan longer day.

      • Either way,otr drivers are screwed. Hours of service is out the window, getting a parking spot is hell most of the time, talk about trucks dead on the side of the road everywhere. The infrastructure is non existent. As for cleaning up the atmosphere… Coal will replace diesel emissions 10 fold. Ask people today where food comes from and they’re going to say the grocery store talk about a pipe dream. I can see it now a diesel truck towing an electric truck and trailer off the side of the road everywhere.

  6. Hello, my question once the truck batteries life time is expired what happens to the material to make up the batteries go to and are there any hazard material in these batteries once they need to be replaced? Kind of like solar panels issues what happens to to old materials?

  8. No mention of Nikola’s Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle (FCEV)? They have existed for a few years now and are on the road now. They will be sold next year. Compare them to the Tesla trucks. Niw there is a rivalry in the trucking industry. Musk called Fuel Cells, “Fool cells”. I look forward to your doing that comparison. And in the quality and usability of the trucks (center seat vs traditional). Of course, you can fill up with hydrogen just as fast as with diesel and be on your way. No long charging times. And hydrogen can be hauled to service stations just as diesel is. And hydrogen is much lighter than batteries, allowing more product weight to be hauled. This should be good.

  9. Time will tell. Its rather pointless to speculate here because the true facts will reveal themselves. I for one do believe that the hydrogen trucks by Nikola (NKLA) are going to put these battery trucks to shame but not only in the long haul category. Since FCEV trucks have the potential to weigh less than BEV trucks, and since recharging times are superior as well, it would only be a question of time until FCEVs are adopted once the infrastructure is here. Take a closer look at Nikola and what happened in 2022. At the same time watch for 2023!

    • Most, if not all, hydrogen is sourced from natural gas. The energy required to do this, along with the storage leakage, the requirement to superchill the hydrogen, and the danger of explosion ensure this is a stupid idea.

  10. I haul concrete and steel for bridges, daily.
    And on back hauls a lot of lumber. The average load on these is 80,000 lbs or more. On trombones and super B trailers. Plus, the truck and trailer. Through steep winter mountain ranges. I can’t see this truck handling that.

  11. Did the Tesla trailer work on a truly winter cold place. No, because it may not even make out of the parking place.

    • You really should look at facts in place of your fantasy.
      Cold weather testing of the Tesla Semi has been ongoing since the initial introduction.

  12. For bigger companies like Pepsi why couldn’t they use modular batteries or even a battery in the trailer itself, the load could be charged and ready to go with enough juice to get it to destination. The truck itself would also still have its battery as well.

  13. There is no need for any of these arguments. Not every truck OTR. At our warehouse only 10 percent of the trucks drive more than 300 miles a day. So many no sleeper 2 axle trucks could be replaced with electric ones the rest can stay diesel.

  14. As an OTR trucker I can tell you for a fact that we max out our weight roughly 10% of the time except flatbeds. I would be interested to see ranges with loads ranging from 10k to 30k lb loads.

  15. A central seat position will be interesting to backup in tight yards, and the door behind the seat will suck if you have to get out more then a couple times a day. Odd cab layout all around, current cabs are built the way they are for a reason.

  16. It’s funny how the writer here claims that someone else’s educated gas is wrong and his educated guess is right.b (educated guess is mostly pulling things out of your ass)
    But it doesn’t look like he’s done any research whatsoever to confirm anything. Such as actually contacting Tesla and finding out exactly what their payload weight was. Which can be verified through weigh stations.

      • So he has actual data then? Where did he get it from? (now don’t say he worked it out cause that’s what TunderF00t did and we are apparently calling that guessing)

        Literally pot…. Meet kettle.

        • The difference Thunderfoot makes wildly inaccurate estimates. He said the concrete blocks were 6 feet long. I used the screen capture of the truck with the blocks. I used known dimensions. Height of the Semi 13.5 feet. Used a car size estimator for a four door hatchback 14.5 feet and then measured what the size of the blocks had to be and confirmed the flat bed trailer was a 48 foot long standard one. Confirmation with the size of gaps. A 48 foot long trailer with 4 row of 6 foot blocks would have 24 feet of blocks and 24 feet of gaps. Thunderfoot made other 400% errors and a 250% error in an attack on SpaceX starship. He makes huge errors and does not verify. His estimations are off by huge amounts. I show my work in detail. Every step. This I show why my estimation is within 10% or less and how that corresponds to several objects being known standards. Which narrow down the conclusion. I do not cherry pick statements from Elon Musk or others. My calculations get me to white or off white while I have proven it is 10 feet and not 6 feet which confirms the weight. Are you saying that he is right and the flatbed is 30 feet long? It is passing another truck with standard size shipping container box. His claims and yours do not hold up to the visual data.

    • I used a high quality charting compass, after digitally adjusting the angle of the photo to be flat automatically, then measured the barriers. I’m not getting ten feet. It looks like the eight foot estimate may have been right. I’m not going to take the time, but to really measure it the photo needs to flattened and projected and a scale made from the cab height, then the barrier length measured with a gauge.

      • So your claim is that PepsiCo and Frito Lay were duped into buying the Tesla Semi and this author’s careful work is wrong.
        Your claim is obvious motivated reasoning.

    • well you can clearly see that the Subaru is the same size of one of the barriers, and we know a Subaru is not 6ft long. So we know for a fact (no speculation or guessing) that thunderfoot is wrong

  17. Watching people squirm and be worried about electric vehicles is almost painful. I don’t believe the tesla semi can haul as much as far as a diesel truck can now. That being said, not every semi on the road has a sleeper cab is a built for long over the road hauling carrying maximum weight. That’s where the Tesla semi can come in to play, for local courier type of work ie Pepsi. When the first semi was built, it did not run as wel, haul as much, have as much comfort or in any way, shape or form perform as well as a 2022 semi does today. I should also add that when gasoline powered vehicles first emerged, it was not near enough fuel stations for one to drive cross country, easily and quickly. Using the logic of tesla haters, because the Tesla semi cannot outperform a diesel semi today. Then we should never progress and advance from what we’ve been using for the past 100 years. It is the utmost in shortsightedness, and seems to be based solely on fear.

    • But it would be best if everything was in place to support the ev tractors befor we have to depend on them to eat and everything eles we need everyday. All of the trains are run on diesel also. And use way more then all the diesel trucks. Do you remember this past summer when California Told ev owners to not charge their ev. Last winter when all the wind turbines froze up, what happens when there is no power. What I’m saying is they need to get all the duck in a row befor they do away with what we know works.

      • My biggest question is fuel costs. Electric VS Diesel
        With diesel at $2.00 per liter in Canada in retail outlets. I would hope truck stop rates are lower as well as right off of taxes in other words cost per KM / MILE including the cost of basic maintains including filters etc

  18. The batteries are very recyclable because they contain mineral value that far exceeds the cost of recycling them. Same goes for electric motors and the rest of the truck should be similar to a diesel rig. This is a day cab, truckers who want to save money and be home every night like me will buy them. Saving roughly half your cost of energy and half your cost of maintenance, is a no-brainer. Not to mention, no down time for major engine or transmission work. Adding a sleeper will add weight so that likely won’t make as much sense until the batteries are switched to 4680s (roughly 1700lbs lighter). And until there’s sufficient charging infrastructure along major routes.

    • According to recycling companies. It costs an average of $30 to recycle a lithium ion battery and you get only about $4 in materials out of it.

    • So here is a question, as battery technologies get better, such as the Na-S cells that are much more energy dense, lighter, cheaper, and environmentally friendly. Once these are able to replace the Li batteries in these cars and trucks, would these be easy to swap out or would you need to redesign the charging systems and other components of these vehicles to take on the new battery technologies? I know we are still years out from implementing but if these aren’t able to be easily swapped once available then it wouldn’t make sense to buy an EV if battery tech they take will soon become obsolete – kind of like our cell phones after 10 years. I might be completely wrong here but have just wondered about this.

      Thank you

  19. The main problem I see is getting the charging rate and schedule the same as a driver’s sleep/rest schedule. Unnecessary down time will kill it. The other problem I see is the complete lack of a proper quick charging system for a Semi Battery! There’s going to be generator trucks EVERYWHERE for years!

    • What sleep schedule… There’s no sleeper on the truck! And the cab design is ridiculous too, how are you supposed to hand any paperwork out that window when you go in for deliveries, I don’t know or at a toll booth.

    • You may be right but have you ever charged your phone off a battery pack. The generator trucks don’t necessarily have to be diesel. Just a thought.

    • Since they are only day cabs, they will not be use for over the road trucking. The driver will drive it and at the end of the day plug it in and go home. He will come back to work the next day to fully charged truck. Rinse and repeat.

  20. The main problem I see is getting the charging rate and schedule the same as a driver’s sleep/rest schedule. Unnecessary down time will kill it. The other problem I see is the complete lack of a proper quick charging system for a Semi Battery! There’s going to be generator trucks EVERYWHERE for years!

      • Even with the Mw charger, it takes 4 hours to get 70% charge. With a short amount of range with a nominal load, in inclement weather, you could find yourself spending a quarter of your day stuck at a charger. Pepsi already announced that they’re limiting runs with Pepsi drinks to 100 miles vs potato chips at 250 miles. 🤔

        • “Tesla hasn’t said how big the battery is but the company has previously stated that a 70% charge in 30 minutes is possible using a new one-megawatt charger (1,000 kw) designed for the Semi. Musk said at the Reno event that the megawatt charger will also be compatible with the upcoming Cybertruck pickup truck.Dec 2, 2022”

  21. The main issue I see is the charging time vs refueling. If they can’t get the charge schedule on to the same rate as the drivers sleep schedule, there’s going to be a problem. The other problem is the lack of proper charging stations. There’s nowhere near enough and portable generator trucks are going to be EVERYWHERE for years!

    • What is the maximum charge rate for these trucks? How long do they take to charge and how much of the battery life is used in a 12 hour haul? if there is a generator trucks involved, who cares? I don’t understand why that’s a terrible thing as a temporary solution. My last question would be why do you think that the chargers will take years to be installed at truckstops?

      • 12hr haul? They can’t drive 12 hr without charging. They’re only designed for an 8hr day, including loading and offloading times. Recharging takes a minimum of 4 hours with the Megawatt charger or 2 Superchargers, for ~70% charge. And the battery is only designed to last 10 years and costs about 85% of the trucks purchase price to replace. And in true Tesla fashion, only Tesla can repair them. Need brakes, that will take months and cost 10’s of thousands to replace. Burn out a motor, several months and likely 6 digits to replace. Get in a wreck, probably a year in the shop and half the cost of the truck to repair! The cheapest costs are wiper blades and tires…

        • Recharge times for the Tesla Semi are far shorter than your claimed 4 hrs. Please correct your nonfactual post to show this.

    • These trucks can charge while being unloaded. That’s a game changer along with all the safety advances and tech Included for fleet management.

      I say we give it a chance…it will only get better over time.

  22. Really Brian, you think that Elon needs defense when attacked by a single physicist? It is kinda sad if you think that, but not for you, for Elon and Tesla it is. Time will tell, sooner or later data about payload is going to be disclosed, and it will be a disappointing one (also, nobody says you cannot load it a bit more, but in that case you should check how the range drops).

    And, you must acknowledge that the biggest problem here is that Tesla is not disclosing that information yet. Why do you think they are so hesitant about it?

    • There is the cartoon with a guy typing furiously on his computer. Someone is wrong on the internet. Elon does not need my defense, but I am correcting someone who is wrong.

  24. The problem with all Teslas info, and your posts is that nothing is verified from an independent third party.

    Unless we get a verified test, we have nothing and all your posts has no meaning.

    • I want to also correct him. The video shown with the concrete on the back is NOT the 500 mile test trip. I was just a video of the semi on the road. If you actually watch the trip video the driver has a closed trailer that he is hauling. The video starts with him showing the inside before closing both back doors.

    • I thought PepsiCo and FritoLay were third parties with a great interest in making profitable decisions regarding trucking.

  25. All Tesla has to do is bobtail to any certified public scale (most truck stops have one) pay the fee and publish the scale ticket.
    The fact that they insist on this infantile secrecy is mind boggling. As always, they talk a lot while saying very little.
    The battery electric Volvo VNR weighs around 24,500 pounds. It has six 1,200 pound battery packs totalling 540kWh and good for 275 miles. The diesel version (same wheelbase, cab configuration, general horsepower, etc.) weighs 16,000 pounds.
    All this arguing about weight is pointless – the slackers at Tesla have finally released the semi to the public, if only a few of them. We’ll all know soon enough what it weighs.
    I’ll put my marker down right here … The tractor will weigh 25,000 to 28,000 pounds, probably five tons more than a comparable diesel day cab.
    After all, it’s easy enough to extrapolate out from Tesla’s car batteries, which weigh 1,000 to 1,300 pounds and use the exact same cells as the semi.
    If a 100kWh Tesla car battery pack weighs 1,300 pounds, what do y’all think a 900kWh battery pack made with the same cells will weigh?

    • 99% of the audience did not need to have proof that they were hauling 22+ tons. Fortunately I have done all of the work. The eleven 4000 pound concrete barriers were visible masses. I have confirmed that they were 10 foot concrete new jersey barriers. I counted the pixels for the known height of the tractor at 13.5 feet and the 5 foot level of the cab and the 14.5 length of a compact 4 door hatchback car. Those are about 4000 pounds each. Some are heavier at 4200 or 4400 pounds. The trailer is 5 tons (10,000 pounds). There are some chains, driver and a log (Maybe 600-1000 lbs). The remainder is the tractor including its batteries.

      82000-55000 is 27000 lbs.

      • How can we sure that those barriers are made of dense concrete? Moulding and pouring foamed concrete is a cheap and simple matter.
        We also have no certainty that the truck shown climbing that hill did do as part of a long journey.
        Companies tend to omit data that would hurt them. The engineer’s responsibility is to factor in the worst case when data is missing or unreliable.

        • Then the claim is that Tesla (SP500 company) $80+ billion sales performed complete fraud. Elon was on stage lying that they stated the gross vehicle was not 82000 lbs. They used foam or a hollow concrete block. Then dozens of customers getting such vehicles would either not notice or care.

            • It is very difficult to find tractor weights for diesel trucks. They are not displayed on their sites or brochures. I have to go to third party truck comparison sites. When I bought my Tesla powerwalls I did not get comprehensive specs and all details. Until I was into the ordering process. They do not need to bore the general audience with details. Also details that they could rapidly modify. They are working with real customers. Get into the real ordering process and they give the numbers. It is just getting out of the prototype phase by a few weeks. The value of my site is I figure it out. I figure out trucks. Quantum computers. Nuclear fusion. I figure out all technology. I figure out space rockets. I back into their pricing and costs. Materials. Labor. Production levels.

      • After looking at the truck and load there is no way the total can be 82000. That would make the load 2000 over max. You are only allowed 12000 on the steer axle 34000 on the drive axles and 34000 on the trailer axles.

  26. Why is it nobody is asking where the batteries go when they’re worn out? Or for that matter how much of the rest of the truck is recyclable? What impact will it really have after I’m gone? Just like the light bulb Obama gave us that has to go back to home Depot when it fails the liberal nutjob democrats don’t care if the batteries pollute either. No trucker will buy one because we can’t be tied down to a power cord. This crap is a joke. By the way termites do more damage to the earth than semis. Look it up.

    • The batteries are very recyclable because they contain mineral value that far exceeds the cost of recycling them. Same goes for electric motors and the rest of the truck should be similar to a diesel rig. This is a day cab, truckers who want to save money and be home every night like me will buy them. Saving roughly half your cost of energy and half your cost of maintenance, is a no-brainer. Not to mention, no down time for major engine or transmission work. Adding a sleeper will add weight so that likely won’t make as much sense until the batteries are switched to 4680s (roughly 1700lbs lighter). And until there’s sufficient charging infrastructure along major routes.

    • The batteries are very recyclable because they contain mineral value that far exceeds the cost of recycling them. Same goes for electric motors and the rest of the truck should be similar to a diesel rig. This is a day cab, truckers who want to save money and be home every night like me will buy them. Saving roughly half your cost of energy and half your cost of maintenance, is a no-brainer. Not to mention, no down time for major engine or transmission work. Adding a sleeper will add weight so that likely won’t make as much sense until the batteries are switched to 4680s (roughly 1700lbs lighter). And until there’s sufficient charging infrastructure along major routes.

      • Except almost all batteries are not recycled. This is obvious or we wouldn’t need to mine so much more and more of the ‘minerals’.

        • A company in Ontario, Canada just opened that recycles all lithium batteries, and is setup specifically for EV batteries. The thing is, an EV battery is considered “dead” when it has degraded to 70% of original capacity. For the Tesla Semi which starts with a 900kWh, it will be replaced when down to 630kWh – still plenty of juice left for a second life as a solar off grid battery! So wont need to recycle for at least a couple of decades!!

          • Except that with every cycle the battery loses more and more capacity, then loses stability (which leads to catastrophic failures). All you need is one cell to fail and you have a fire bomb.

    • The batteries used in electric vehicles it is recyclable. And, given the fact that the minerals in them are valuable, they will most certainly be recycled. As for the shell of the vehicle, who knows. Probably just as recycle more as the shell of any other vehicle that’s sitting in junkyards.

  27. Even if thunderfoot was wrong on the weight of the barriers, his point still is relevant. At 4k a barrier plus trailer that’s 56000 lbs. So if it is at max weight that leaves the truck at 25 or 26k lbs. Which is almost 10k over the weight of a conventional diesel truck. And if the weight was not issue why hasn’t Tesla disclosed it and even asked Pepsi not to disclose.

  28. Thundrf00t did not dispute the 81k lb. claim. He asserts that the Semi’s payload is little more than half that of a diesel truck because of the Semi’s massive battery.

    • He says the payload is 6 tons. He is wrong it is over 22 tons. This is comparable to other diesel trucks. Diesel semi tractors weight about 25000 pounds and this weighs 27000. There can be some lighter diesel tractors but the semi is competitive and electricity is $17000 for 100,000 miles with the Tesla Semi vs $80,000 for 15000 gallons at 7 mpg.

      • #1. Empty flatbeds with conventional sleepers will weigh around 24,000lbs. That leaves 56,000lbs in payload availability.

        #2. At 81,000lbs, that leaves the unit 1,000lbs overweight, legally, with a daycab.

        #3. Even if the batteries are able to reach 500miles, that is 1/3 of what my tractor will go on a tank. It takes me 15minutes to reload fuel for another 1,500miles. The last complaint I saw was it’s 4hrs to charge it.

        I’m sure some day the tech will be here to make some sort of electric truck viable in some way for city driving. It’s not today. These batteries are much more detrimental to the environment than all the diesel my unit has ever put out there, if you follow it from the mining to use to disposal. It means very little to me if it is “zero emissions” on the use, but destroys 3,000 acres of land for acquiring the materials for one battery, and makes another 200acres uninhabitable forever on disposal. As it should you, if you have indeed, researched this subject.

      • I am actually a bit suspicious of teslas video with the barriers.
        1. Those barriers definitely aren’t the ones they used in the 500mile test. First clips contradict. Also look at the direction the truck is going in the clip
        2. Knowing tesla which loves to show off its specs, theyd have shown the weight of the loaded truck with those new Jersey barriers. My guess is that it was over weight and therefore, couldn’t be spoken about. Instead, theyd let the public think that because its 11 10ft long barriers, this would reduce the weight est of the truck itself.

        Pepsi did say the range was about 425 miles if I’m not mistaken, with chips that are quite significantly light, leaving about 20% charge. I’d be interested to know why Pepsi won’t do over 150 miles with heavier loads, and not just speculation

      • You are VERY incorrect on how much a standard semi tractor weighs. I have a 2020 Peterbilt with an 80″ sleeper. My truck is on the heavy side. It weighs 20,000 pounds. The non-sleeper trucks (day cabs) at the company I drive for weigh around 15,000 pounds. Some of our loads are light, but others put us right at the limit. Our company would be unable to fulfill many of our contracts with a truck that weighed anything more than my truck.

      • Even if TF is wrong about the load capacity, he still has a valid point which you are ignoring (not surprised seeing your other stuff). Diesel tractor weighs anywhere from 10,000 pounds to 25,000 pounds, they vary widely but the heavier ones are often sleeper trucks meant for long distance hauls — which Tesla semi isn’t and thus isn’t comparable. You are comparing apples to oranges.

        It’s more like 10,000 pounds heavier compared to the average short haul diesel truck, which also means the cheaper cost-per-mile might not be enough to compansate for the lost load — especially if it’s something valuable. This obviously does not apply to light and cheap things like potato chips, but even for things like beverages companies have to weigh if it’s advantegous to carry that much less cargo per trip or not.

        Tesla semi will also likely be more expensive to purchase than short haul diesel truck, just because of the large battery pack. They also need to take into consideration charging, as no mega chargers exists — it’s out of their own pockets to build fast enough chargers to make Tesla semi even usable. So, it’s not quite as simple as you make it sound to determine if Tesla semi will be economical or not, it highly depends on what the company is actually hauling.

        As a final note, Tesla semi also isn’t compatible with European trucking market at all due to its long nose design (Europe has very strict regulations when it comes to how long the truck + trailer may be). Both markets are comparable in size, so right now Tesla is losing that market completely until they redesign the whole truck (or regulations in Europe change).

  29. Watching Elon fanboys wet themselves to defend Tesla is amusing.

    Does the semi have a weight problem?Maybe. We don’t have real data yet. Will the truck be economical doing 150,000 miles a year for 10 years? Time will tell.

    But nobody can dispute that Elon and facts have a loose relationship and he has a credibility problem.

    • Lol sez who? .. The dude took on the big 3 years agobwith his Electric are which guys like you had same negativity towards now Tesla #1.. Did you see the stats on the Semi ??? Its all good.. Se Boring Co…See Space X…See Paypal… Who are you?? Let ot go man

    • Issue is that Teslas engineers in general do often have a good creation but their CEO ruins the work or doesn’t even understand what their engineers have done causing an overselling. Each thing they have done thus far if even a flop in general still contained something novel or cutting edge. It’s going to be a shame if Elon doesn’t properly pivot on this Semi debacle. The truck is going to flop but it has things they can source out to freightliner or peterbilt who understands the actual user needs.

      SpaceX is slowly going to have this fate too. Companies like Relativity are a real threat.

      • Your bias and Elon hate is showing. SpaceX will fail and get out-competed by Relativity? Relativity is a nice company and so is Rocket Labs. They are both PLAN to make a Falcon 9 class vehicle. Relativity has not launched its first 1250 kilogram payload rocket yet. It is on the launch pad hoping for January launch. Relativity is not profitable, but neither is SpaceX. However, SpaceX is not critical to the US government and military. Relativity has not earned any revenue from launch. SpaceX has 85%+ of commercial launch revenue. In the recession and potential shortage of venture capital, Relativity could easily fail its first launches and go bankrupt.

        SpaceX was awarded $2.2 billion and $2.8 billion in federal contracts in 2021 and 2022. SpaceX gets $2-3 billion from various launch contracts. SpaceX now gets over $1.2 billion from Starlink services. Starlink satellites in orbit now can provide services for 5-10 times the customers by making more dishes and getting them to potential customers beyond the USA.

  30. An enclosed trailer was used for the 500 mile range test although the load was quite squat which you can see in a yt video on their channel. However they did state it’s 81k lbs.
    The Pepisco statements were that fritolay transport managed a 425mile range with 20% left meaning the full range with that load is about 530 miles. You’d assume these are physically bulky but quite low weight and not the full load the semi can take but it’s not that far off the 500 mile claimed which seems a bit off.
    The comment regarding the pepsi transport range being lower is logical as it’s likely to be a more dense product and potentially closer to the max load. However 100 miles is probably the distance between their depots and we have no indication of % battery remaining to draw a decent conclusion from. It could implied that it couldn’t make the 425miles the chips did but this is more distance between depots and what each one stores.
    I guess with fritolays being lighter and probably not close to the max load yet near the 500mile range and pepsi being more dense and more likely being close to the max load but with concerns about range then something seems off. Time will tell is Tesla aren’t being honest here

  31. Until Tesla or some of the customers that got the trucks provide the data.
    The payload capacity is still an open question.

    We know that Mike O’Connell PepsiCo VP clearly stated that “the new Tesla Semic can haul Frito-Lay food products for around 425 miles, but for heavier loads of sodas, the trucks will make shorter trips of around 100 miles.”
    So to me, it is likely that the Tesla Semi has a payload/range issue.

    To date, there is no good reason for Tesla not to clearly indicate the payload capacity and the calculations on the weight of the Jersey Barriers are not conclusive as hollow barriers do exist.

    It would be quite simple for Tesla to provide the specs, the only good reason for Tesla not to do it is that the specs are not good.

    • The distances that go with sodas or chips is not strictly a weight issue. pepsi has to balance the amount of product delivered at a customer with the volume of product that fits in the trailer. If they can fill the entire trailer floor to ceiling with no empty space is preferable. But in many cases you cannot fill the trailer due to product limitations or delivery issue. filling the trailer due to limits other than eight Also some trucks will drop off product at one customer site before heading back to reload. While other trucks make multiple stops before they head back to reload. Without knowing what factors affected the numbers Pepci revealed we cannot conclude that it has a wait issue the affect the driving distances.

    • The short range soda thing might not be the obvious reason. Perhaps they are trying to improve delivery cycle time by exclusively fast charging to lower battery levels, which necessarily limits your max range.

    • My understanding of the shorter trips is they are being cautious until more Mw chargers are installed and this does not indicate how far the Tesla Semi can go fully loaded.

  32. I think the weight issue has been debunked. Anyhow, I doubt Tesla would lie about the 82k pounds. The only issue I see is why did they test without a regular trailer? That is the more typical case after all. Would the aerodynamic loses be greater or less?

    • By regular trailer, I suppose you mean the enclosed sort?

      The sort of trailer they actually used is specialized for heavy loads. The open top and sides allow placing the loads with external equipment.

    • If they were running a fully enclosed trailers then there would be people on twitter and youtube claiming it was completely empty. Or maybe filled with hydrogen to provide negative weight.

      At least slabs of concrete show there was at least some weight.

    • I suspect it is something as simple as a flatbed with concrete jersey barriers being more visually compelling than a dry van that ‘trust us’ has 44k lbs of soda. Dry vans are more aero than flatbeds, so the economy/range would likely be better than with a flatbed, though the payload might be slightly less.

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