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Lets work out the Tesla Semi-Truck Technical Specs
- Thread starter lnpurnell
- Start date
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Do you have to use PG&E or can you sell to "anyone"?
Here in UK we can "buy" and "sell/export" to anyone. They basically deal with the meter reading, and have to put that amount into the grid. So I can choose to buy from a Green supplier (i.e. maybe pay more).
Of course what we actually have is a morass of complicated tariffs designed to catch people out, and consumer organisations encouraging everyone to switch providers ever year to get the best deal ... and Service suffers in that environment of course.
If you have similar [in USA] perhaps Tesla Energy could set themselves up to buy from every home rooftop in the country? We have "deals" over here where you can "rent" your roof to a PV company. They install (and pay for) the PV, they get the Government Subsidy and any export payment, and the householder gets to use any generated PV (for free). (Apparently the deal is not great if you want to sell your house) So I suppose Tesla could "rent" roof space from houses across USA, install PV and export any excess into the grid - and take it out again at their Super/Mega-chargers.
Price of electricity has two main components: electricity itself and transfer fee (fee for grid maintenance).
One component of transfer fee is substation at the client's end. Tesla likely will buy high voltage juice and
have their own transformer for each megacharger location (so they skip grid providers substation).
Another transfer fee components is capacity limit.
Tesla can optimise maximum current with buffering packs.
Another component is electricity price itself. Which fluctuates. I, for example, pay strictly by market price
(whatever electricity costs, I pay that, it changes on hourly basis). Tesla can use buffering to buy the
cheapest juice available during the whole day. I bet 7c is doable.
And, each and every Megacharger location can be used as peaker plant. I bet grid operators are happy to
give Tesla some discount for that mutual cooperation.
One component of transfer fee is substation at the client's end. Tesla likely will buy high voltage juice and
have their own transformer for each megacharger location (so they skip grid providers substation).
Another transfer fee components is capacity limit.
Tesla can optimise maximum current with buffering packs.
Another component is electricity price itself. Which fluctuates. I, for example, pay strictly by market price
(whatever electricity costs, I pay that, it changes on hourly basis). Tesla can use buffering to buy the
cheapest juice available during the whole day. I bet 7c is doable.
And, each and every Megacharger location can be used as peaker plant. I bet grid operators are happy to
give Tesla some discount for that mutual cooperation.
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A corn tortilla costs more than the price paid to the farmer for a fraction of a bushel of corn. Tesla can pay whatever price the negotiate when making a connection directly to a electricity seller, including you home. But the "rule of thumb" is that when a road is crossed the public utility becomes a party to the transaction, AFAIK.
Tesla's plan is probably to connect directly to a power plant where possible. Either their own solar farm or a wind farm. But they are going to pay transmission and distribution fees to buy the solar off you roof.
Tesla almost certainly plans to participate as a DER in California and generate revenue for a variety of grid services. As intermittent renewables increase as a percent of generation, the value of DER services should steadily increase. Also, Tesla can't shoot for 7 cents. They need a plan that has a good ROI. The price of the semi suggests that the profitability of semi is in Tesla Energy.
As California Prepares for Wholesale Distributed Energy Aggregation, New Players Seek Approval
Brando
Active Member
Electricity rates in the US are about as complex as taxes.
Aluminium companies on the Columbia River were buying electricity so cheap, they shut down their smelters, (eventually sold equipment to China) and just re-sold electricity to make money. Here is one example from 2001 - Kaiser Aluminum.
"Turmoil in California's energy market is having unexpected consequences elsewhere. Along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, for instance, government dams produce cheap electricity for big industrial users, including aluminum makers. But with electricity prices skyrocketing, some of these plants are halting operations and reselling their federally-subsidized power at a hefty profit. Nathan Johnson reports from Spokane, Washington. " Kaiser Aluminum from 2001
Living on Earth: Kaiser Aluminum
open markets for labor, socialism for corporations
"JOHNSON: Kaiser buys this power for less than two-and-a-half cents per kilowatt hour. And since December, they've been selling it for ten or 20 times that amount. It's simply more profitable to sell the electricity than use it to make aluminum.
STROM: I work in a department where there was 300-plus people. We're not making aluminum right now, so those people are basically gone, laid off. "
Aluminium companies on the Columbia River were buying electricity so cheap, they shut down their smelters, (eventually sold equipment to China) and just re-sold electricity to make money. Here is one example from 2001 - Kaiser Aluminum.
"Turmoil in California's energy market is having unexpected consequences elsewhere. Along the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest, for instance, government dams produce cheap electricity for big industrial users, including aluminum makers. But with electricity prices skyrocketing, some of these plants are halting operations and reselling their federally-subsidized power at a hefty profit. Nathan Johnson reports from Spokane, Washington. " Kaiser Aluminum from 2001
Living on Earth: Kaiser Aluminum
open markets for labor, socialism for corporations
"JOHNSON: Kaiser buys this power for less than two-and-a-half cents per kilowatt hour. And since December, they've been selling it for ten or 20 times that amount. It's simply more profitable to sell the electricity than use it to make aluminum.
STROM: I work in a department where there was 300-plus people. We're not making aluminum right now, so those people are basically gone, laid off. "
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Brando
Active Member
Look for Tesla Energy to start building windmills?
Isn't there a lot of shared technology between electric motors and dynamos? And the electronics for both?
Sounds like a good idea to me. Seems GigaFactory has plans for windmills already, right?
Here in the Northwest, wind is already cheaper than hydro. Causing problems for BPA.gov which raised rates because of wind taking away business.
Interesting times.
Replying from a semi thread.
Some thoughts regarding charge on site:
Due to how semi loading docks are set up, it seems like, if they want to charge and load/unload at the same time vs drop trailer and go, they will need either overhead gantries with minimal posts to hold the cables or the charge from beneath system we've seen on patents. Under is more dependent on a specific trailer length for alignment.
If tractors swap trailers constantly anyway, then a separated colocated MC area works too. Overnight charging could use lower power and longer cords.
Separate tax.
For example, my country:
Teekasutustasu Eestis
(and tariffs are available in the menu).
As long as diesel trucks are not paying their fair share of the externalities related to the economic impact of climate change, this is the least of our worries. We are a long way off worrying about this.
Excellent, thanks @Jeff N , a pretty thorough analysis.
The bottom line from them is: it appears that all of the performance/weight/hauling specs are reasonable. However they think the price is off, and Tesla would have to take a loss selling them.
The biggest contributor to this is the battery pack, which they estimate to cost $140/KWh at the cell level (they include costs for the packaging/thermal mgm't/BMS separately). With their estimated ~900KWh pack, that works out to $126K of cell costs.
I suspect that's too high. Based on several tidbits, perhaps the most telling of which was Jeff Dahn's reaction would questioned about cost, I suspect Tesla's cost are already approaching $100/KWh. By the time the Semi is shipping, they could be even less.
That would make the pack ~$90K.. or less. That would make the Semi production costs $18K or more less than the sales price, rather than $18K greater than the price.
While Tesla might be willing to take a loss to get their foot in the door... I find it more likely they are willing to break even or make slight profit, with the longer term cost reductions in view...
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Have I read it completely wrong here?
... and that is my criticism to this article series: While they did manage to separate out weight for cells, cooling, cabling etc. to estimate the pack weight, they did not do the same for the pack cost. They just used TMS historical pack cost (that I do believe include BMS?) and scaled it to the size of the Semi pack and estimated a price reduction by 2019. And included BMS (a second time?) separately.
I do agree that the cell-cost should be close to USD100/kwh by 2019.
Hmm... good catch... I was paying more attention to the table here:
It seems they allot an additional $4K for BMS and Thermal Mgmg't System (TMS). And that's separate from the $140.KWh cell cost.
Although they don't specifically discuss the cost for the pack casing, in the second part of the series, they talk about it being a less percentage of overall cost as a result of the lesser surface are for the overall cell volume. So maybe that is factored in to the "battery" cost... but if so I have a hard time believing it would account for more than a couple thousand dollars as well.... so maybe an additional $2-3/KWh?
So perhaps that table is separating out the components of the BMS/TMS system external to the pack (radiators, fans, pumps, tubing, etc...)?
Even so... I think $140/KWh is too high.
It all hinges on the pack cost. I started to write a reply a few times, and wasn't happy with my ability to articulate the point. The article even mentions the need to change the pack price in the conclusions, but the graphics and math state the cost as a give.
Tesla clearly believes that they will be able to build the packs for a lot less than the article authors think - and they are presumably better equipped to know.
Brando
Active Member
Tesla has been transparent about working toward 20-30% margins for vehicles.
[Technically, any product ever engineered/designed starts our at a loss in the beginning, right?]
As Elon has often said profits are necessary if you want your company to survive. And if you can't you should go out of business.
Tesla plans on making money. See compensation plan for Elon for more proof.
To learn how corporate managers can be more concerned about making money (vs company viability and customer needs) you can read about Navistar (formerly International Harvester)
Navistar International - Wikipedia
I know it is wikipedia, but still a reasonable overview of this International Harvester history and I think indicative of the US vehicle industry.
At this point I find Tesla pursuit of profits a necessity and not a primary goal - which makes them exceptional at this stage of US capitalism.
Reciprocity
Active Member
I'm totally sold on all this. What still has me guessing is how the heck are they going to have this range after 2500 recharges or more. Also, Elon clearly stated that 500 miles was a worst case number, meaning even in bad weather where you can lose 20%... Actually you are not going to lose that much in you have a damn 800 KWh pack because heating the cabin is a much smaller precent of the pack as a whole. Also, maintaining the heat of the pack on a long drive is actually easy because of the discharge is constant so it will basically self heat. Cooling the pack could be made more efficient as well, because space is less of an issue so the cells don't need to be as tightly packed. The size of the truck actually helps the pack architecture by just having more room. It could be better insulated to maintain the temps you want.
But still the number of recharges is what I still wonder most about. Up to 2 charges per day if around 180% for 225 working days a year for 10 years is 4500 cycles. That is a lot for NCA. Now maybe the stuff that Jeff Dahn was alluding n that recent video that magical disappeared, is the secret sauce. It was specifically a break through in degradation and number of cycles in high density cells like those in cars. This is really the only battery break through you really need. The rest are just lighter materials, more efficient model 3 motors and an awesome aero dynamic design.
The pack could actually be slightly oversized and some might be locked out to improve charge rates and degradation. If the pack is say 880kwh instead of 800 and the excess is there as a buffer for degradation and cold weather and used automatically as the battery degrades until eventually, the entire pack minus the anti brick portion is usable then including some Jeff dahn improvements in degradation would allow for a guarantee of a million miles with no degradation and another million miles with at least 90%. That would be sick.
