The Run on Less – Electric DEPOT is an 18-month study and demonstration event that explores how trucking fleets can scale up from one or two electric trucks to 15 or more. The North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) and RMI are hosting the event, which is scheduled for September 11–30. The event will track the performance of 21 electric trucks as they are used in real-world freight operations. The trucks are from 10 fleet depots and are delivering goods in a variety of applications. The event will examine the challenges the trucking industry faces when developing a charging network and the necessary infrastructure.
Pepsi has several Tesla Semi trucks at the event. The Tesla Semi are getting 370-420 miles of range on 80-95% of their charge. This is roughly consistent with 400-450 miles of range. It should be noted that the driving speeds of the Tesla Semi in the real world tests were 62-65 miles per hour. Driving an electric semi for optimal longer range is 50-55 miles per hour.
The daily online results are not showing the total payload weights. The final reports will include data on the payloads.
UPDATE:
North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE)’s Mike Roeth is the group running the Run on Less event. He has been cited as saying that the Pepsi Tesla Semi are performing some of these real world tests with 80000 lbs gross weight loads. This is within 2000 pounds of the legal maximum payloads.
Pepsi Semi drivers have said that three of the 21 Tesla Semi trucks are used for long half deliveries of 250 to 450 miles with full payloads.
There were various youtube videos by Elon Musk and Tesla haters that the Tesla Semi could not transport a full payload of 82000 including the weight of truck and trailer for anything near 500 miles. Those people were wrong. Among those who were saying that and electric semi truck would not work is Bill Gates.
This disproved the insane assertion by Thunderfoot that the eleven concrete barriers carried by the Tesla Semi truck in the 500 mile demonstration were only 6 feet long.
9 minutes into the Thunderfoot video is where he claims that Tesla was carrying 6 foot long barriers.
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 barriers are 10-feet long.
The other passing Semi truck with its standard shipping container is 13.5 feet tall. The shipping container is a standard height above the ground on its wheels.
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Why are there all these comments about lithium ion recycling and hazardous waste in regards to an article that has nothing to do with either ?
There’s a big difference in DOT HazMat and EPA Haz Waste. Gasoline and Diesel are DOT HazMats too – that’s not regulating them out of business.
The EPA Link nowhere says that lithium batteries are USEPA hazwaste. It says that mismanagement of lithium batteries in disposal can be a hazard.
Financially, Lithium battery management/recycling is no where near Hazardous Waste. If its expensive per that article, its because they are trying to process batteries for toys and drills. When it gets set up for scale, like Redwood is doing, it will be very efficient.
Why two comments about recycling batteries to an article about real world performance of Tesla Semi?
It’s a topic getting a lot of attention.
https://cleantechnica.com/2023/01/20/jb-straubel-on-redwood-materials-electrify-everything-recycle-endlessly/
My sad-faced prediction is that lithium battery recycling will be made a developing-world problem
It will be politically impossible to build all of the necessary hazwaste facilities here in the US (or EU).
We will simply ship dead li-ion batteries overseas to some some 3rd world country (China is not taking our waste anymore) and call it “recycling”.
Same thing we do now with e-waste.
eWaste processing is low value – that’s why it goes to third world countries.
Lithium is not haz waste in the US, and it would have significantly higher value than eWaste.
Lead-acid and NiCad battery management is lightly regulated in the US, if proper protocol is followed.
This is not a problem.
Bit of problem with going full EV for personal transport.
According to the USEPA, Lithium batteries are hazardous materials and are subject to the Department of Transportation’s Hazardous Materials Regulations (HMR; 49 CFR Parts 171–180). But more on that in a moment.
https://www.epa.gov/recycle/used-lithium-ion-batteries
There are almost 287 million registered cars in the US in 2020.
Suppose you replace them all with Teslas.
The battery of a tesla weighs about 1,200 lbs – or a total of about 172 million tons of batteries.
A tesla battery warranty is 8 years or 100,000 miles with a battery retention capacity of 70%.
Tesla car batteries are supposed to technically last for 300,000 to 500,000 miles, which is 1,500 battery cycles. That’s between 22 and 37 years for the average car driver, who, according to the Department of Transportation, drives about 13,500 miles per year. This is not the same distance that Tesla warranties. After 100,000 to 150,000 miles, Tesla does not cover repairs and replacements for you if your battery degrades past a certain point. So the typical owner will replace the battery after about 8 years.
That’s an average of about 21.5 million tons of battery replacement annually if 1/8 of existing tesla batteries are replaced annually.
Recycling li-ion batteries is incredibly expensive unless heavily subsidized and confined to low labor cost markets (which China no longer is) that are also capable of massive economies of scale. Not impossible – but very, very difficult.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004221007550
And the proper cost comparison is between recycling vs. disposal. Assuming transportation costs are similar for both options, hazwaste disposal can run anywhere from $0.40 per to ton to over $1,800.00 for incineration (depending on the type of hazwaste being disposed of)
https://www.profitableventure.com/cost-dispose-hazardous-waste-per-ton/
So that leaves us with li-ion battery disposal.
Remember, according to the USEPA non-recycled li-ion battery is defined as hazwaste.
America currently disposes of 1.6 million tons of hazwaste each year.
Replacing the projected tonnage of tesla batteries (assuming a cost competitive means of recycling li-ion batteries that does not require government mandates or subsidies is not found) increases the amount of of hazwaste disposal in America by a factor of 13x to 14x.
Again, not impossible but very, very difficult.
And nobody is preparing for a potential tsunami of hazwaste from complete conversion to EVs.
And it normally takes 5 to 10 years to design, permit and build a new hazwaste landfill -assuming the locals don’t string you ups at the first public hearing.