Diesel Truck Cost Versus Electric Truck Using One Truckers Claims

84 thoughts on “Diesel Truck Cost Versus Electric Truck Using One Truckers Claims”

1. Long haul truckers reading Brian, but then shooting him down, is doing a major disservice to other truckers.

   1) other than regular AA, A, C, D, etc batteries, nearly all are recyclable. In fact, all of Tesla batteries go to :

   https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
   So the argument that EVs have low recycle rates is dead wrong.

   2) long haul truckers have nothing to fear from EV trucks for the next 2-4 years. All the trucks being bought now, are for 500M distance and under. Why? Not enough MW chargers exist. As such, nearly all the buyers will be for companies warehouse 2 warehouse runs. If Tesla cuts a deal with 1 or more of the truck service stations, it will only take them 2 years to have them all outfitted.

   3) For long haul, you need to quit focusing on EVs. These are not a threat to your jobs. But what is, is a new train system that starts manufacturing this year ( they are in gov testing right now and being sped up ).
   https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/01/20220122-parallel.html

   4) for those that continue to buy new diesel tractors, get ready for a shock. The corporate trucks will switch over the next 3-4 years and attempt to dump their used diesel tractors. This is going to destroy the resale value of used AND new diesel tractors. Problem will be competing with companies that have switched to Electric due to major cost savings. So not only will you charge 50-150% more than EV tractors, but u will lose a lot of money trying to sell your used diesel tractor. Google for Norway used car resale value.

2. The whole math diesel vs electric looks good in writing, but put too practical use and trust the words of one president. (Shovel ready jobs I guess where not that Shovel ready )not too figure in that the writer states that I’m time the cost of battles would go done ..you ever remember buying a battery 5 too 10 years ago .it’s gone up ..and lithium is s very scarce and high need material, I e its not coming down in cost .and thr whole pollution free thing ,the weight in metric tons of pollution fir a car driven 250000 miles in carbon emissions is nothing compared too the weight of a used fualty lithium battery from a Tesla for a land fill ,ie lithium is not recyclable at all .
   85%of a gass car is recycled compared too 40%of a Tesla not fold that math into a big semi ..last PARKING how is a electric truck after a run too provided cab comfort on the shoulder of a road or non electric facility like most truck during 10 hour rest period whole the US and Canada have a huge 3000 lb gorilla in the room of parking that in my 25 years still is not delt with ..it’s not like a seasoned tricker dosnt want this kind of new tech ,it’s that in our experience of cluster F$%%& out on the road ,if we tell ya it’s not going too work it’s not feasible at this time .we have miles of experience over your lab experiments, test data ,and desk job analysis..

   • Tesla’s battery is 100% recyclable
     Nothing goes to landfill

   • EXACTLY Right!!!!!!

3. Once the US can sustain affordable energy to charge ev I could see it out performing gas/diesel. That’s not the case now. Each of these (charging plants) would have to be self sustained. Basically mini nuclear plants. All this is about is making less emissions. Unless we have clean power plants to charge the ev then it’s completely pointless to battle ev against diesel Simi. nuclear fusion is the only technology we have that could make it happen but it’s very far off. We start drilling our fuel and make our diesel cheap agin there wouldn’t be much comparison. diesel is a by product from refining gas. ev and magnetism is the future but we don’t have the technology for it yet. ev doesn’t have a argument here yet. government is pushing this on its citizens. until then I’m all diesel.

   • Why not put in diesel or natural gas powered generator for these megawatt charging station, efficiency of them generators would be better, network already exists, would keep strain off power grid, even provide emergency power for power grid. May even gid electric power cost brought down.

4. A noble effort but far too many “should cost” and “could be as little as” qualifications in the electric side of the equation. Also, right off the top you credit a significant federal tax credit which can be legislated away any time and merely reflects a political presumption that EVs are preferable. And, all the coulds and shoulds in favor of EVs here ignore the likely negative coulds and shoulds. For example, we could wake up in five years and realize that our power grid won’t support all this vehicle charging and the price of electricity could skyrocket – affecting even those who don’t own EVs. And, we could recognize sooner rather than later that we aren’t lithium independent and could be reliant on relatively unfriendly countries for the next pack of batteries. Etc.

   Those who are willing to pursue this experiment should do so on their own, without forcing the entire nation to assume the risks.

   • The Inflation reduction act is in force for 10 years. Let me know when you find examples of major corporate or social welfare programs getting cut back.

   • I love the Diehard Truckers my father and I were over the Road Truckers combined for 150 years electric vehicles are the way of the future yes there are some stumbling blocks and for sure the infrastructure is a big stumbling block but we can’t live in the past or we’re going to lose our future you folks you going to need to get with the program or retire and enjoy the fruits of your labor don’t be a boat anchor it’s not going to help you God bless you all tremendous people you are!

     • Never going to work! Lot more to trucking than what you guys are talking about.45 years cross country .it will bit you in the ass!

5. The one thing the manufacture of EV’s and their battieries that they refuse to mention is the actuall environmental impact of creating those batteries and disposing of them as well. Much like those giant turbine windmills there is currently ZERO recycling systems or protocols anywhere in the entire world, for any of this new technology.
   Furthermore why you should he asking why we arent using more biofuels and more research into those as they also have ZERO emissions and until they lowered the octane rating were getti g as good or better fuel milage than petroleum based products.

   Honestly, ethanol was 93 octane and bio-desiel was 40. Now they are 87 and 25 respectively. Your problem is government and special interest groups not how to replace what we have and make the world a better place.
   #truthhurts

6. Ok. I might of missed it it takes ashort time to fuel a truck off your time FMCSA allows us to run our day before we have to take our10 hour break you cant always get your fuel at the end of your fourteen hours being some of that time loading and unloading so with electric trucks can you get full charge in the same short time it takes to fuel if not than theirvgoes more late deliveries which we have to deal with the FMCSA ON HOS

7. All you keyboard warriors forgot one thing. Pepsi has an army of accountants and an army of trucks. They ran the numbers and decided unequivocally that electric semi’s are much cheaper and are the future. Please stay in your lanes.. it is embarrassing to read some of these anecdotal evaluations.
   As a business owner, I have switched over to Model y’s and without any guesswork or fake numbers, the model Y is free after 5 years of operation as compared to the mini-vans I used to run. That’s right……free. After 5 years I make $10000/ year as compared to running a Gas powered mini-van. I guarantee the fuel savings for an electric semi will be off the charts. Keep digging your heels in but understand this….your competitors that adopt electric semis before you will put you out of business. Carry on.

   • Free after 5 years huh? Is there a special electric rate you are paying? Please tell me the secret 🤷
     Also, if you really think electric prices won’t double or triple in 10 years (or less) you are insane.

     • He’s right, I bought a used I3 and it’s paid for itself in a few years compared to the diesel car I was driving before.

   • Have you ever watched ice road truckers? How far would your electric semi make it in those conditions? How many people do you think will freeze to death during a normal winter in North America?

     • EVs do fine in cold.

8. The only hard data that can be provided is the costs of operating a diesel powered truck all the other data is based on theoretical price drops and the creation of an entire infrastructure that you completely disregard the costs of when equating the operating costs of the Tesla, someone has to pay for them

9. Never rely on an admitted Tesla investor for information. This blog has always been about boosting the stock price.

   The economic “benefits” are not as large as the Tesla fanboys promote and the infrastructure will take far longer to build.

   Electric semis may be the future, but that future is more than 20 years from now.

   • Its a start, before tesla electric cars do you remember how mu h negativity surrounding it. Every car manufacture and people bash the idea, now in todays world every car manf want to get in, lol.

     • For EV 18 wheelers which are long haul OTR biggest issue is enegy density, and Li Ion cannot get there. Quantum Glass with 5x the energy weight density likely can. HOWEVER, Long Haul OTR only makes up a little over 30 % of all trucking. Over 60 % of Local and even many regional trucking routes can use 18 wheeler EVs, and do it with less operating cost even with li Ion batteries. Once quantum glass or similar battery technology is out, then Long haul, even at 1,000 to 1200 miles per day team OTR drivers can feasibly benifit.

       • Long before than, parallel systems will eat into Long Haul.

     • Oh you mean like Chrysler that are still making v8’s?

     • Actually no. Most LICE makers do not want to go to EVs.
       Tesla eats into their sales and profits. Shortly, China will be dumping subsidized EVs on the global market.

       IOW, LICE makers have no choice.

   • Regular EV chargers just started being built in 2014, or 8 years ago. Look where they are now.

     https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/electricity_locations.html#/find/nearest?fuel=ELEC&ev_levels=dc_fast

     This was without any manufacturing setup or installer companies, etc. at that time.
     Tesla has the best network and doubles their stations ever 18 months or so. Installing MW and regular SC at truck stops will take under a year for the first one.

10. Brian in several other articles you boosted that Tesla Semis will cause companies to but Megapacks from Tesla. Your numbers where 1 Megapack per every 3 to 6 Tesla Semis.
    That means you need to add to the Tesla Semi initial cost $330K ~ $660K, and redo it at least once per every 10 years (although cost of Megapack probably will down significantly by 2033).
    So adding it to your over optimistic calculation (as usual when it comes to anything related to Musk) you get:
    $1000K for Tesla Semi vs $800K for ICE Semi.

    • One megapack every 6 to 10 Tesla Semis. Megapacks do not need to be replaced every 10 years. Megapacks have 30-50% discounts with Inflation Reduction Act and other subsidies. Solar also 30+% tax incentives. Using Megapacks and solar then all of the energy can be prepaid. Instead of $2.1M for the pack it can be only $1.1M-$1.4M after incentives. The $1M of solar for a megawatt is $650k after incentives. $2M and the energy is free if the payments were in cash. 7 trucks. Instead of $130k per year it would be zero. If the trucks were $250k less $40k IRA incentive. $1.47M for the trucks plus $2M for the megapack and solar. $3.5M vs. 7 diesel trucks at $70k per year each for 100k miles each. $490k/year in fuel. After 1 years that is $4.9M for the fuel. Plus you had to buy the diesel trucks at $130-150k each. $800k for 7 trucks. $5.7M diesel vs $3.5M Tesla semi with megapack and solar.

      • Brian,
        The simple fact remains that if it made economic sense, government wouldn’t have to, and would not provide tax incentives. If it made economic sense free enterprise would be all over it. Do you think you are smarter than almost all of the people that run these companies? That would be very arrogant. Pepsi owns thousands and thousands of trucks. Buying a few hundred ev’s is about attracting the young and easily influenced purchaser that used to drink Coke but is now helping save the world.
        There is no doubt that technology will progress and when it makes sense, more of the worlds transport business will adopt this energy source but we aren’t even close yet. Promoting the idea is a good thing, in that perspective, but saying or even inferring that it is a proven path makes you seem completely misinformed.

        • Governments provides loads of subsidies for oil and gas. You can come back and check over the next 2-4 years if my forecasts are on right track. I have a 90% accuracy on my public predictions at the public prediction site Metaculus. The best forecasters I sports are not the players and coaches in sports but the bookies and oddsmakers. I put my effort into making science and technology predictions. The Tesla Model Y was the top selling car model by sales revenue in 2022 and it was the top selling car by units in q4

    • Don’t know what cost will be in 10 years but all material for batteries are most likely going up by 100% plus but only time will tell.

11. First take all the taxpayer subsidised reductions out of the picture as that doesn’t provide a apples for apples comparison…
    Next, batteries aren’t coming down 10%/year, that ceased a while back and if anythi g prices are increasing.
    That 10c/kWH (wholesale)… In what world does a truck operator buy fuel at wholesale. Electricity isn’t 10c/kWH either – try 40-60c/kWH, and that’s only going to increase with demand…
    I could go on… Until we have actual, real-time data on the operational costs, we don’t know what it’s going to take to operate the ET. We have decades and millions of diesel truck data for a proper comparison. And if you take all the subsidies away from ETs, they don’t stack up.

    • Electricity Rates By State (Updated Daily)

      Electricity prices vary in each state. We have compiled years of data to find pricing trends around the country. You can see data for all 50 states below, but deregulated states are labeled in each chart/graph.

      The Average Electricity Rate in the U.S. is 10.42 cents per kilowatt-hour.
      Hawaii has the highest average electricity rate of 30.55 cents per kilowatt-hour.
      Louisiana has the lowest average electricity rate of 7.01cents per kilowatt-hour.

      https://www.energybot.com/electricity-rates-by-state.html

      Average residential rates are 16 cents. If truckers are charging at charging station prices then they are idiots. Truckers should not be charging at residential either. Tesla was offering 7 cent per kWh charging for truck customers. If you are driving semis all the time then getting a company with megapacks and solar makes sense.

      This is the advantage of electricity. You have options and ways to lower costs. Oil and diesel do not have those options.

      • Why are you using residential electricity prices when we know prices at superchargers that are much more closer to the use case we are discussing here?
        You can eventually build one mega charger having access to special energy prices but you can’t have a full scale charging network with thousands stations selling electricity at $0.1/kWh.

        You keep cherry picking scenarios that are far from reality within specific contexts.

      • What about the Road Tax.

12. More change stations mean more coal burning to make electric to change electric trucks. I haul coal to power plant to make electric.

13. As a Trucker I support the adoption of green transportation technology. However, the financial analysis provided by non- trucking company bloggers is highly suspect.

    Here’s 3 examples:
    1. The Tesla semi can’t haul a full #48k load because it’s heavier than an ICE engine. That means to haul the same volume of freight a shipper needs to increase the number of loads by 20-25%.

    2. The range limitation means that “refueling” will be required 4 times more often and take 3 times longer than a diesel fill-up. A truckstop that has 10 pumps will require 120 (10 pumps x12) charging stations to handle the same volume of trucks. That’s a larger footprint than most have for overnight parking. That HUGE additional cost will be added to the electricity charges.

    3. The average semi truck pays $22,222 per year in federal and state road taxes at the pump. The Gov’t will still need to collect those taxes to maintain the roads and I don’t see those fees added to the projected cost savings.

    It’s silly to promote electrified heavy trucking adoption on speculation from keyboard warriors. Based on current data and the costs of rebuilding and maintaining electrification of the trucking industry’s support infrastructure, liquid hydrogen looks like a much more logical heavy trucking green technology.

    • A company that has a mix of trucks can use heavy max load hauling ICE trucks for heavier loads and loads under 22 tons (60% of loads ) with Tesla semi.

      • Why don’t you say “electric semi”?!
        You’re extremely biased – you don’t help your cause doing that.

14. Guys are talking about plopping down 4MegaWatt chargers all across the land, easy as if they were wall warts for your iPhone. Wake up please. This is astonishingly expensive infrastructure to deploy…

    • Hydrogen filling stations are at least as expensive and difficult to build and are definitely more difficult to maintain.
      Adoption of EV trucks will happen based solely on the economics – if they are cheaper to run they will get used. Having worked for Cocoa Cola I’m pretty sure Pepsi doesn’t do anything that hurts the bottom line – you can be sure of that. They don’t care about the environment or public health. Bottom line is all the matters.

15. Without going into numbers, my guess is that the cost will only be favorable until the EV’s are dominant over ICE’s. Then, when EV manufacturers have control of the market, prices will increase. It’s a pattern in the marketplace and will no doubt repeat here as well.

16. Electric vehicles are the future.
    I doubt a diesel truck can go 2.000.000 million miles needing just $13k repairs after that… but some trucker said it apparently.
    Tesla semi says 500 miles, you remove the BS and probably it’s more like 400, you subtract poor weather and degradation and average range it’s probably like 350 miles or less.
    That means 1000 charging cycles in 3.5 years (at 100k miles per year), let’s round it up to 4 years, when a new battery is likely needed with current tech.
    Model S’s 8 times smaller battery replacement cost is close to $13k. Even if the semi halves that per kwh, it means over $50k every 4 years. Driving units for a model S cost $10k and they likely fail during the life of the car.
    Using retail price for battery as the expected cost for maintenance is just silly – it’s not how customers pay for vehicle maintenance, my $30k car would cost probably $300k if I was just buying every single replacement part (no labour).
    I don’t know what’s the current average electricity price at superchargers but if it’s anywhere close to $0.1/kWh I’ll be very very surprised.

17. I think people underestimate the demand require of a semi. Everyone wants to compare to a car, and it’s just not the same.

    To start with driver pay increase will go up as a driver doesn’t make money while sitting. This “suggested 30 minutes charge” actually will become hours to charge and this will become a factor in putting drivers in those semi trucks. Nobody works for free, and drivers are working as long as they are away from home. That pay is not factored into this equation anywhere.

    Another is similar to diesel, there is real problems in cold weather. Diesel will gel up when it gets cold, and that is why a semi idles the truck in the winter. It is an effective measure to keep the diesel from gelling. What will be done for a battery? Keeping on the charger? Keeping the battery heaters plugged in? This will require every parking spot to be equipped with some kind of charging so batteries do not go dead. After all sometimes a driver sits for 2 to 3 days when out of hours, or no freight is moving in the area, and we must cover these issues before they become a problem right?

    Let’s not forget that a huge portion of trucks on the road are operated by teams which requires the truck to run 24/7. Teams will travel a huge length in a 24 hour timeframe depending on the speed of the truck and other factors. As a team driver in a 70 MPH max speed truck we get about 1400 miles in 24 hours. With an EV you are not going to get this kind of range ever. There are too many variables that come into play when it comes to energy consumption. Weather, terrain, driver, traffic, etc. All of which is never the same on any given day.

    Nobody ever talks about the wait times at shippers and receivers either. While it’s true one doesn’t have to charge at a facility all the time, people do not understand that more often than not a load is running behind. In fact almost every load a driver picks up is running behind as the customer will call on pickup and request the load be delivered earlier. That or drivers are at the mercy of people getting paid by the hour to load and unload so they do not care if the load needs to be moving. What happens if a driver has to “rush” the load in and is unable to charge before going in to deliver or pick up? Suppose the cost to have a charging service come out to charge you is not figured into the cost either.

    If you used real world data on both diesel and EV, and the actual requirements needed to really use a semi for hauling freight, then you might find EV will have some hidden cost that nobody every talks about. Just like driver pay, or roadside emergency charging. I for one will be requesting more pay to go from my 8 minutes for fueling to “30 minutes”, or rushed into a facility on empty charge.

    What I see is these hidden cost nobody is talking about will rack up quite a bill and will it truly be worth switching from an already stable diesel setup in place?

    Yes EC semi is here and can possibly be good for the industry, but it’s just not anywhere near useable over the road. By the way, it’s easy to say this or that, but until you drive a truck and see everything that is involved from pulling hills at 80,000 lbs to irate customer because you are still sitting in a dock to be loaded, then one can assume anything that looks good on paper is probably not in the e real world

18. The States and Federal Government have no way presently in place to recover the lost FET from Heavy Duty (Diesel) Trucks and passenger EVs. You can bet they will find a way. And it won’t be pretty.
    States will be looking for ways to collect the Sales Tax they are loosing as well.

19. The States and Federal Government have no way presently in place to recover the lost FET from Heavy Duty (Diesel) Trucks and passenger EVs. You can bet they will find a way. And it won’t be pretty.
    States will be looking for ways to collect the Sales Tax they are loosing as well. Double ugly.

20. Where will all this extra electricity come from the grid has problems keeping up at current usage, also ev have major problems in extreme climates especially cold weather, diesel can refuel and leave in few minutes, also weight ev semi are allowed to be 2000lbs heavier than a traditional semi. Either way things will and have always changed, we know nothing of the impact ev vehicles can have leaking batteries, ev scrap yards, mining for materials the impact could be far worse than we have already caused. Until they have ev commercial planes that ARENT POLLUTING THE UPPERMOST AIR contaminating EVERYTHING below.

21. I agree 100%

    As for tires, when’s is the last time you bought an 11R24/5 steer tire for $250.on ?

    Try $450-500 plus fet and tax.

22. It seems impossible to no longer rely on diesel for transport but we have to try: from the EESI ‘Globally, fossil fuel pollution is responsible for one in five deaths. In the United States, 350,000 premature deaths in 2018 were attributed to fossil fuel-related pollution, with the highest number of deaths per capita in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The annual cost of the health impacts of fossil fuel-generated electricity in the United States is estimated to be up to $886.5 billion.’ And from Google ‘annual fossil fuel tax revenues $138bn’. So 6-7 times more costs assoicated with poor gealth, vs taxes collected. And none of this includes carbon and climate change. Of course, most electricity used to make an EV is from coal, but that is rapidly changing in some places.

23. It seems impossible to no longer rely on diesel for transport but we have to try: from the EESI “Globally, fossil fuel pollution is responsible for one in five deaths. In the United States, 350,000 premature deaths in 2018 were attributed to fossil fuel-related pollution, with the highest number of deaths per capita in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia. The annual cost of the health impacts of fossil fuel-generated electricity in the United States is estimated to be up to $886.5 billion.” And from Google “annual fossil fuel tax revenues $138bn”. So 6-7 times more costs assoicated with poor gealth, vs taxes collected. And none of this includes carbon and climate change. Of course, most electricity used to make an EV is from coal, but that is rapidly changing in some places.

24. This article was obviously written by an individual with zero experience with truck maintenance and general knowledge. Quoting maintenance costs from Schneider is laughable as 90% of their drivers are new and have no experience driving. Of course they’re going to tear stuff up. You’re quoting the cost of fuel at todays prices, yet quoting the cost of batteries at future possible prices. Batteries have not gone down and the material to build them is already getting scarce, with governments fighting over rights to what they can procure. Bad business modeling. Clutches and transmissions last almost indefinitely with proper driving. Nobody uses the clutch except to start off. Never heard of floating gears? No self respecting driver who respects their equipment is going to let a Pilot or Flying J touch their equipment unless it’s an actual emergency. Do your own maintenance for one third or less your quoted price. If you are quoting potential reliability of the motors and electrical components, that’s faulty as well. Diesel motors are proven to last, electric is hoped to. Your article isn’t selling anyone who’s been doing this for a minute. Regen braking? Never heard of a Jake brake? Brake related accidents are caused by inexperienced drivers failing to downshift before the grade and use said jake brake. My jake is mechanical and far less likely to fail compared to your electrically controlled regen braking. Finally, let’s talk about equity. The market for a well maintained used diesel rig is already established and proven. I’ve still got some equity after my investment and return. Not the same as an ev. Nothing is established or proven. I could go on and on. I’ll stick with my diesel.

25. Are you people crazy or just that plain stupid. First you can’t calculate what diesel fuel cost now compared to what he spent 20 30 40 50 years ago when it was extremely cheap. Second do you actually think electric cost are going to stay even remotely close to the price they are now. No it will increase dramatically especially with more and more evs being sold who do you think is going to pay for the infrastructure and like everything else their going to gouge you on the electricity price eventually just like they did diesel. 3rd while I easily drove 650 to 700 miles in 11 hours legally. How many years will it take to even come close to that with electric you can say improvements are being made every year which I agree but very minimal look how long Tesla alone has been out not much improvement over that many years and it’s not getting anywhere fast. And as some of those maintenance figures I don’t know where you’re coming from I was a truck driver for 16 years owner operator for 10 I never had any numbers as high as your figures maybe in California. And I could go on. Their already trying to figure out a new way to tax vehicles because less money in taxes for roads because less fuel being purchased and that’s going to continue to go up in large amounts.

26. Hmm, math.
    10 cents per kWh? At a public Megacharger pushing 500+kW at the plug, which is the only way to come remotely close to that bragged about 30 minute recharge time?
    Seems I’ve been reading lots of articles over the last couple of years (even in very pro-EV publications) about Tesla significantly hiking prices at their Superchargers – up to $0.50/kWh at times.
    Whoever owns the chargers will set the rates, and when it comes to the 10+ MW facilities that truck stops will need to charge a dozen+ rigs simultaneously, they’ll be charging a heck of a lot more than wholesale or off-peak residential rates.
    At today’s national diesel average it’s costing me around $0.57 per mile averaging 65 mph. Tesla claims their semi uses 1.7kWh per mile – AT 55 MPH across California. Bet it does worse in the 47 states with highway speed limits of 65 mph or higher.
    1.7 kwh per mile at $0.30 per kWh – MUCH closer to reality on any public charging network, and those are puny car chargers that would take hours to charge the semi – and you’re looking at $0.51 per mile.
    Not bashing EV rigs, but the numbers need to match reality. In the long haul sector truckers will be using public chargers pretty much every day, and I don’t see too many of those charging $0.10/kWh.

    • Agreed but they don’t have common sense and have no clue about actually driving a semi truck especially OTR. It didn’t work out when the truck stops had cable and AC/heat you could purchase at specific parking spaces it was a big mess.

    • If electric vehicles become as common as some people predict, I imagine there will be numerous charging stations get built over time so that they become as abundant as gasoline and diesel stations are now. Competition among that large number of charging stations should keep prices from getting higher than they ought to be, unless the government in some way limits competition.

      • The owner of a charging station can set the price of electricity to anything they want.
        And the owner of a diesel pump can set the price of diesel to anything they want.

        Providing they aren’t the only place in town, they tend to cut their margin down to a perfectly reasonable figure.

        • That is not true. Fuel prices are generally set by the world market, with small variations in the retail price depending on local market conditions, and a good percentage of the variation is the amount of taxation applied by various governments. Electricity prices are set by the producers, not by the people who own the chargers. They are also usually regulated by government.

      • These days there will be competition to se who can charge the most and get away with it!!!

    • 0.1 seems low, 0.5 absurdly high. Id say that for corporate owned trucks it’s important to remember that most of the charging would come from destination hubs at least company owned and operated chargers (ie a WalMart truck charges while stopped at a warehouse or even store, meaning the rig is only paying the actual cost of the electricity… 0.1-0.2).

27. The only exception I see is that current charging stations charge a lot more than $.10 per KW.

28. Testing and improving the EV trucks is alright, not much that was ever invented was perfect on its maiden voyage. Over time, I’m sure improvements will be made. But for now, DON’T SHOVE THIS DOWN OUR THROATS!! Our energy repairs WON’T be fixed OVER NIGHT!! FOSSIL FUELS are more reliable at this time and will probably carry on for quite a while. The current’POWER GRID’ is unreliable with extra usage and weather issues. I, personally, won’t buy an EV because of price, reliability, and extra time to take a long journey.

    • Who is trying to shove this down your throat?

      • When governments subsidize the Manufacture and Use of EVs and “green” energy then pass laws that penalize the use ICEs and fossil fuels, that’s “shoving it down our throats s.

      • I AM
        I love to force things down the throats of truckers.
        They might object at first but eventually they learn to accept and later love

      • The government, led by California elimination of ice vehicles and the feds artificial raising of fossil fuels. I don’t hate EV tech and will look harder at a Tesla now that they are becoming less expensive for a short haul vehicle, but I don’t expect to get rid of my 5.9 Cummins Dodge with its 600 miles range and quick filling time. I will probably keep my Ridgeline pickup as well as it tows kayak trailer with better range than any EV. Gonna take a long time for the change.

      • Governments, for one.

29. Diesel engines are dependable and reliable, they’re relatively cheap to maintain and replace – which is the comment’s whole case. So are electric motors and batteries – they’re just unfamiliar. Some small independent owner-operators will remain skeptical like this until they see the results real fleets are getting and try the trucks themselves. Then their resistance will crumple too.

    There is no need or purpose to convince all the skeptics. Real performance that everyone can see will take care of that. For the first five years large fleets that don’t operate the way independent long haul truckers do will absorb every electric Semi that can be produced.

    • I don’t want to speak for the author, but I don’t think he is trying to convince anyone. He’s just laying out the math. …and we’ll done, I think. Math is math. Make up your own mind.

      • No, he is trying to convince everyone that electric semis are better and more cost effective. Take out all the incentives and add in all the cost of producing the electricity mining for the batteries etc. All of these electric vehicles will destroy the planet via massive extra mining and China still controls most of the minerals needed. This is just another environmentalist whack job trying to convince everyone that somehow electric vehicles are better and safer for the planet.

      • I somewhat agree he’s laying out math, but also the wrong math. He tried to compare the cost of fuel in a truck with almost 2 million miles on it as one of the main expenses… the fuel… but used todays fuel price average as the benchmark of all the fuel purchased in that truck. Diesel fuel used to be abundantly cheaper years ago, so his math is actually not a factual or fair comparison if you really think about it. I’m not bashing the electric trucks, we’re just no where near ready for full implementation. Also he compares a quick charge to being the same time as filling a truck with diesel. Filling a truck with diesel from the time you pull up to the pump, to hanging the pump up, on average takes me 8 minutes for 165-200 gallons of diesel. And we are an industry of being on a clock

30. From previous posts I have read the semi battery is not one battery, but several battery packs. If one of the packs fails it could be replaced while the others sty in use. So the cost to repair a battery problem might e a lot less than is projected in this article.

    • The replacement most people mean when they are talking about that is the replacement that is needed due to the diminished capacity to hold a charge that develops inevitably as lithium batteries age. In that case, you really will need to replace the whole battery when its capacity gets down to the point that the car does not have the range you need for typical day to day usage.

      Your suggestion that some unexpected failure might affect only part of the battery seems theoretically possible, but I do not know whether cases of that have been seen very much. Whether it is practical to replace only a portion of the cells in a battery depends a lot on the approach used to assemble the cells into a full battery. If unexpected failures are rare, the car manufacturers probably would not put much priority on designing their batteries for partial replacement.

      • When the diminished battery is replaced at 80% it can go into another vehicle that does not need the full range. Remember the average car travels only 30 miles per day .

31. Eventually, politicians will tax chargers.
    They ruin everything.

    • My understanding is that diesel & gasoline taxes are used to pay for construction & maintenance of roads. If vehicles go all electric, how would you say that should be paid for?

      • I would say that a per-mile charge should be put on all electric vehicles. The amount per mile would depend on the type of vehicle — more for heavier vehicles that put more wear on the roads.

        In states that have a regular vehicle safety inspection, the mileage could be collected and sent to the state at every inspection. In those states, the cost to implement this approach would be very small. In states that do not have such regular vehicle inspections, some other way to collect the mileage at regular intervals would have to be developed. I imagine people will think of different ways to collect the mileage that piggy-back on some existing business and would cost only a little more than piggy-backing on an annual inspection.

        • Commercial trucks already pay fuel taxes based on mileage driven in each state so that’s already been figured out. And each state may have different tax rates.

        • Some way to collect the mileage…. uhmm… from the data link of the eld… 🙂

          The states will jump all over that coast to coast… probably have to swipe your comdata card as you log on driving.

          Havent seen it mentioned but ev tires are ridiculously expensive.

32. He’s out of his mind if he thinks the semi battery replacements would be triple $13K an order of magnitude more,throw in Teslas notorious unreliability except for its well know tendencies to catch on fire and then to scrub any mention from the internet.
    Still,the T semi, should do pretty well,as well as other BEV and FCEV semis, we need them all.
    Teslas have used FSD since 2016 ,so there is no need for any driver, saving even more.

    • What is the rate of diesel Semi fires?

33. That’s a comprehensive breakdown thank you

    Ultimately the hailers will (like Hertz and y/3) do their own maths if you are right they will buy in droves to them this is business and money talks bull$ walks

    • Agreed. Money talks, BS walks. So, the moment that EVs can be bought and operated and total cost of ownership SANS ANY “SUBSIDIES” is better than ICEs, I will buy one. “Green” energy the same.

      • Sans any subsides = B$.

        The entire oil industry all over the world is subsidized up the wazzo.

        No one cares about your claims as to when YOU will buy and electric vehicle.

        They are like cell phones – they sell like hotcakes and relentlessly replace land lines, whether you choose to be a late adopter or not.

        • If the government suddenly stops subsidies to the fossil fuel industry, diesel prices will skyrocket.

          They need to reach their CO2 reduction target somehow or our future generation will blame them for not doing it.

          and maybe put all the money into subsidizing the renewable energy industry, making batteries and electricity cheaper.

      • What are the total subsidies for fossil fuel Semis?

Comments are closed.