Summarizing All 18 Days of Real World Electric Truck Data

The Run on Less electric truck and electric depot -truck stop event is over after 18 days. There were 22 trucks. Here we summarize what happened with all of the trucks and the complete payload, mileage and operation for the three Pepsi Tesla Semi. The three Tesla Semi trucks averaged 511 miles per day per truck. The three trucks were driven for 27614 miles with over 85% loads for 18 days. The three Tesla Semi trucks had average 1530 mile combined mileage days.

The Tesla Semi had triple the daily mileage for the average eCascadia Semi, double the Volvo VNR and Nikola Tre BEV. The BYD semi was barely operated.

On average days, the other 19 electric trucks had a total of about 2000 miles per day. 18 days would be about 36,000 total miles for the other trucks. The three Pepsi Tesla Semi drove for over 40% of the total mileage for all 22 trucks.

Pepsi reported that the three Tesla Semi were mostly running with gross vehicles weights of over 70,000 lbs over the 18 days of the event. This would be with 33,000 to 44,000 lbs payloads.

The one Nikola Semi did the best on overall mileage (for a non-Tesla Semi) with 200-300 miles no most days.
The Volvo VNR and the Freightliner eCascadia did alright with 150-250 mile days. The two Volvo VNR might have done a bit better on overall average daily miles. This is likely due to some of eCascadia being shorter range versions.

OK Produce (Fresno) had an OrangeEV with mainly 20 mile days and an eCascadia with about 150 miles days.
Frito Lay (Queens) had to eTransit box trucks with about 20-35 miles days.
Penske (Ontario) had three trucks. (eMV box truck, eTransit work van and an eCascadia). The first two would do about 70-100 miles per day and the eCascadia about 80-120 miles per day.
Performance Team (Commerce) had two Volvo VNR electric semis which cost about $350000 each and should have single charge range up to 230 miles. They had mainly 140-240 mile days on each truck.
Purolator (Richmond) had an Motiv electric van and eTransit electric van. The Motiv usually was never operated. One day it did 30 miles. The state of charge indicated it could have done maybe 100 miles but they did not drive it that much. The eTransit was mainly operated for 20 mile days.
Schneider (South El Monte) had two eCascadia semi trucks. These tended to operate each for 130-250 miles per day with most days at 140-180 miles.
UPS (Compton) had an MT50e electric van and an eCascadia semi truck. The eCascadia only ran a few days. It had an 88 mile day and a 117 mile day. The MT50e electric van had 20-50 mile days.
US Foods (La Mirada) had two eCascadia semi trucks. They tended to run them for 80-100 miles each on each day.
Watt EV (Long Beach) had a BYD semi truck and a Nikola Semi truck. They had many days without operation of the vehicles. The Nikola had up to 425 miles on a day (Day 17) and many days in the 200s and 300s. The BYD was only operated for about 2 or 3 of the 18 days. It had one 68 mile day and one 300 mile day. The Nikola did not report any charging or state of charge. WattEV has a goal to put 12,000 heavy-duty electric trucks on California roads by the end of 2030, exceeding existing forecasts. WattEV wants to create charging hubs for electric trucks. The Nikola Tre BEV cost about $300,000 each.

Nikola paused production in May, 2023 as it was losing $240 million per quarter. In 2023, Nikola CEO Michael Lohscheller said the company was forecasting production of”between 375 and 500 truck” for the year. They will boost production of its hydrogen fuel cell trucks and assembling battery-electric models on a build-to-order basis. They had an order for 50 hydrogen fuel cell semi trucks to Bayotech in July 2023. As of June 30, 2023, Nikola had $226.7 million in cash on hand. This was up from $121.1 million as of March 31. Nikola raised $233.2 million in cash during the second quarter of 2023 by selling stock and some physical assets. The stock has been trading around 50 cents to $2.50 over the last few months. In August, Nikola raised $328 million by selling convertible notes. They have about $570 million in cash and a $150-250 million per quarter burn rate.

BYD
Truck Class Class 8
Type Heavy-duty Tractor
OEM BYD
Model 8TT
Production Level In Series Production
Battery Capacity 422 kWh
Estimated Range 124 miles
NIKOLA

Truck Class Class 8
Type Heavy-duty Tractor
OEM Nikola
Model Tre BEV
Production Level In Series Production
Battery Capacity 733 kWh
Estimated Range 330 Miles

Type of Charging Hardware at WattEV- Installed 360kW DC
Quantity of Charging Hardware 13
Charging Hardware Manufacturer Charge America

2021 Lion6 Electric – 756 Miles Over All 18 Days

Lion Electric is a Canadian company selling Semi trucks for US$200,000 to $400,000 each. Two years ago they had 56 miles per day. They were not at the 2023 event.