Pepsi has described its experience of using 21 Tesla Semi trucks for ten months and how they operated during the Run on Less trucking event. In December 2022, PepsiCo took the first delivery of the all-electric Tesla Semi trucks and as of September 1, nearly 680,000 Zero Emissions (ZE) miles have been traveled.
Pepsi Confirms that They Have Gotten Over 500 Mile Runs Loads Up to the US Highway Max of 82,000 lbs
The Tesla Semis being deployed out of Sacramento run two different types of routes: long-haul routes that transport between 250 and 520 miles per run and with a gross vehicle weight plus load of up to 82,000 lbs.; And 18 different delivery routes where the trucks cover less than 75 miles per day, hauling a diminishing load that leaves nearly full and lightens throughout the day as deliveries are made.
The three Tesla Semis participating in the Run on Less are driving slip-seated long-haul transport routes. After two weeks (Sept. 11 – Sept. 23), these Semis have accumulated a total of 19,122 miles. Approximately 65 percent of miles driven during the first two weeks of Run on Less were loaded to a gross vehicle weight plus load of over 70,000 pounds.
Preparing for the deployment of the Tesla Semis included installation of four 750-kilowatt Tesla chargers for a total of 3 megawatts of installed charging capacity at a time at the Sacramento facility. The chargers are supplemented with the Telsa Megapack Battery Energy Storage System. PepsiCo worked closely with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District to ensure the 24-hour a day fleet’s operational needs could be met.
Some of the progress in expanding PBNA’s electric fleet was made possible by a grant provided by the California Air Resources board as part of their California Climate Investments initiative.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
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The fact that the Electric Class A Trucks are Now Allowed an extra 2000 pounds of gross vehicle weight on the Hiways is highly unfair to the Other Class A Truck Owners…to be taken unfair advantage of the Gov’ts rules on E. Vehicles on the Roads.
Yes, [sarcasm] it is shocking that government would be unfair to achieve their policy goals.
Everything should be fair with diesel truckers forced to pay for all air pollution.
Hold on a minute, so if the engine equivalent is 1500hp and the total allowable weight is 81000 doesn’t this put it in the realms of the class 8s which then negates all the speculation as class 8 tractors will weigh more than the Tesla semi on average anyway? Straight away the fuel savings from a business standpoint will be enough to convince a business owner then to throw the maintenance in the mix which yearly can be almost as high as the fuel costs this has to be a no brained.
Zero Emissions is a fabrication of some elite leftist wish casting… Where do they think the electricity comes from to charge these machines?
If you left an EV running in your garage, then you will not be exposed to any meaningful emissions. If you leave your combustion engine car running in your garage then you will be killed by carbon monoxide poisoning. Particulates from 1.5 billion cars and trucks kill about 1.5 million people per year out of the total of 7 million air pollution deaths. Bad air days increase the hospitalization rates of people with vulnerable health that very day. Air pollution (particulate, smog) cause a large fraction of hospitalizations. Centralized power plants have better air pollution control systems than the smaller and cheaper mobile pollution control on cars, lawn mowers and other small combustion systems.
some promo I heard yesterday claimed $200,000 over three years fuel saving.
there would be reduced brake wear, maybe offset by the slightly quicker tire wear.
In the recent Jay Leno video they quoted 1500 hp for the Tesla Semi.
Nice compilation of stats.
agree with Geoff above. Please add some popular ICE tractors to the list for comparison- or atleast mentioning the typical weights of comparable ICE tractors would be useful.
Thanks
82,000 pounds include the heavy battery pack. How much more does the tractor weigh than a diesel one? That means less freight. Good for some things, not for others.
82000 lbs is the max gross weight. electric trucks are permitted 2000 lbs of extra gross weight in North American and 4000 lbs in Europe. The Tesla Semi Tractor weighs about 25000-26000 lbs for the 500 mile range and about 20000-21000 lbs for the 300 mile range. The ~900 kWh battery weighs about 10000 lbs.
Tesla has not officially released the weight of the Tesla Semi itself. Brian, please provide a source for the numbers you just stated.
Tesla released a video showing that they moved eleven four thousand pound concrete jersey barriers. Elon Musk tweeted that for the 2022 drive, it had a gross weight of 81,000 pounds. Gross weight is tractor + trailer+ payload etc… Basic definitions, knowing the payload moved. Ten foot concrete barriers are 4000 lbs. I know they are ten feet because I counted the pixels and worked off of the known length of a hatchback vehicle, the known height of a standard semi truck which was also beside the Tesla Semi, the known size of Semi truck tires. Basic algebra to solve for an unknown.
A standard 53 foot flatbed weighs 10,000 lbs. There is 200 lb driver. There are chains that weigh a few hundred pounds.
81000 = Tractor weight + trailer + payload + chains and person
81000 = tractor weight + 10000 + 44000 + 1000
25000 = Tractor weight
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/12/worst-tesla-semi-is-better-than-best-competing-electric-semi.html
Thank you for the detailed response!
As far I can tell, Elon’s tweet about 81k GVWR was the one where they completed 500 miles and Tesla posted that video which showed an enclosed trailer, not the one with concrete barriers.
While looking into this further, I came across a video from Sam Alexander where he has a snippet from a Tesla presentation where Dan says 82k lbs GVWR about the concrete barriers video.
I agree with your other estimates but now I come up with ~27k lbs for the tractor weight. Either way, we are in the ballpark. Thanks!
Here’s the link to Sam’s video: https://youtu.be/G2oiGa0p4Mw?si=Gnr_6lFt6MaozBsA
It seems like Tesla has some low hanging fruit in the weight department since they can pull out the battery and it still weighs as much as other semis.
We dont know the exact weight of the battery pack or the other parts. But they would make things more conservative on the first version which is still mostly handbuilt and not automated with mass production. They do have a path to go from 1.7 kWH per mile to 1.5 kWh per mile. They are already way ahead of the others at 2.0-2.6 kWh per mile.
Per chief engineer Dan Priestly on Jay Leno:
GVW of a Semi hauling a Semi on an 18k lb trailer = 60k-70k lbs.
So the tractor weight 21k-26k lbs.
Huh. Looks like if Volvo got their weight down they’d be pretty competitive there. It’d be nice to see a popular diesel model in the list as well, purely for comparison purposes. Can’t measure electric’s progress if there’s no baseline.