Musk Rallies Tesla Team to Get Semi to ‘Volume Production’

Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk told employees in a note that it’s time to go “all out” and move the Tesla Semi to “volume production.”

“It’s time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production,” Musk said in the note reported by Reuters. “It’s been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design.”

The automaker said in its Q1 update that deliveries of the Semi will be pushed to 2021. When the vehicle was debuted in 2017, Tesla expected to deliver the Semi in 2019, then pushed to 2020, now to 2021.

“Production of the battery and powertrain would take place at Giga Nevada, with most of the other work probably occurring in other states,” the letter said.

Texas and Oklahoma are two states that Tesla has investigated for a new factory that would likely produce the Cybertruck and Semi.

Tesla has reportedly secured thousands of orders for the Semi. Many companies with giant fleets of heavy-duty trucks are waiting on delivery, including Walmart, UPS, PepsiCo, FedEx, and Anheuser-Busch, among others.

The Semi is expected to have a range of 300-500 miles per charge and ability to tow up to 80,000 pounds.

 

[GigaGrunt]

Production secured.

 

[GZDongles]

Production secured.

Any news on the battery cells for the semi? Will they be new chemistries optimized for cost and longevity, or will they be using packs made of the 2170 cells?

 

[DanCar]

Been coming since announced in 2017. Only two years late. I'd be very surprised if it doesn't use the new million mile battery.
Here is the latest news: In a leaked email Elon says it is time to bring the Semi to volume production.
Tesla Semi: Elon Musk says time to bring electric trucks to volume production - Electrek

Wikipedia article:
Tesla Semi - Wikipedia

 

[scottf200]

Tesla has reportedly secured thousands of orders for the Semi. Many companies with giant fleets of heavy-duty trucks are waiting on delivery, including Walmart, UPS, PepsiCo, FedEx, and Anheuser-Busch, among others.

Google sheet: Tesla Semi Reservations Tracker

 

[SmartElectric]

With 700 reservations, and each Semi using ~30 equivalent Model 3 SR+ battery packs equivalent storage, that would be like the capacity of 21000 vehicles. If Tesla is making $4K profit/car (10% profit at ASP $40K), Tesla would need to make $120K profit on a Semi to make equivalent profit margin... seems like a stretch. Is my math off?

 

[GZDongles]

With 700 reservations, and each Semi using ~30 equivalent Model 3 SR+ battery packs equivalent storage, that would be like the capacity of 21000 vehicles. If Tesla is making $4K profit/car (10% profit at ASP $40K), Tesla would need to make $120K profit on a Semi to make equivalent profit margin... seems like a stretch. Is my math off?

I think you're math is right, but that's only true if they have unmet demand for 21,000 extra cars that they are not able to produce for lack of batteries. I don't think they are battery limited anymore. The wait times for a new Model 3 are relatively low (i.e. it's easy to get a car delivered quickly if you order at the right time of the quarter), and wait times are stable, indicating that production is relatively close to demand and there isn't a big backlog of people waiting for Model 3s anymore. Also, are you sure of the battery pack size? That would put it at >1.5 MWhs, which would be over $150K in battery costs alone, assuming a very optimistic $100/kWh, which probably won't be reached until new low cost batteries go into full rate production and get down the learni.

 

[GZDongles]

* learning curve

 

[doug]

Some off topic stuff got moved here: Confusion in comment thread

 

[GigaGrunt]

Some off topic stuff got moved here: Confusion in comment thread

just keep sweeping under the rug....

 

[adiggs]

Scale of US semi market - 300k / year.

Given 1MWh (*) worth of batteries / truck, you need 1 GWh of batteries to build 1000 trucks.

Does scaling up production mean 10,000 semis / year? That's 3% market share, so maybe that qualifies. That's 10 GWh worth of batteries and that is a significant fraction of Teslas battery supply this year (last I knew, Tesla was ~34GWh / year total battery supply; I wouldn't be surprised if today's battery supply isn't 50 GWh, but much less than 100GWh).


The point being that ramped production is going to eat batteries like popcorn. The way I see it, scaling semis means that battery scale needs to start being measured in 100's of GWh instead of 10's of GWh.


(*) I use 1 MWh per truck, as I expect some trucks will use less (say 600 kWh), but that some trucks in the near future will be at more like 1.5MWH. My rationale for the latter is that for the full range of truck usage (at least in the US), 500 miles of range under ideal circumstances isn't adequate. That doesn't account for non-ideal circumstances; rain being common, up and down hill, and snow / ice in the winter. Ooh - and headwinds.

I suspect that the average over the range of trucks built will come in under 1MWh, but close enough that as long as we're guessing then the 1MWh per truck gets us easy math at the right order of magnitude.

 

[ThomasD]

20 below with a 15 mile an hour headwind would suck

 

[ThomasD]

Does anyone know how much acreage will be needed for each mega charger. If I was a large fleet manager I would want to have the capability of charging more than one truck at a time. Does anyone know if they have started installing mega chargers at customer locations yet?

 

[mongo]

Does anyone know how much acreage will be needed for each mega charger. If I was a large fleet manager I would want to have the capability of charging more than one truck at a time. Does anyone know if they have started installing mega chargers at customer locations yet?

It's potentially the same as the v3 charger, 1MW split into 4 250kW feeds and one cabinet per truck. Possibly with a load leveling battery (MegaPack?).

 

[SmartElectric]

20 below with a 15 mile an hour headwind would suck

Lost range in winter :

• heating cabin - in a semi, cabin heating is far lower percentage of overall energy usage , non-issue
• denser air - affects Tesla Semi less due to aero efficiency vs standard diesel trucks
• road resistance due to wet, slushy roads - affects all trucks equally

Tesla Semi needs to compete on dollars per mile, and lower efficiency in winter affects both, but maybe affects Semi less as noted above, so the dollar per mile advantage could grow, even if the total range of the electric semi is lower, dollars count.

 

[SmartElectric]

It's potentially the same as the v3 charger, 1MW split into 4 250kW feeds and one cabinet per truck. Possibly with a load leveling battery (MegaPack?).

Tesla 8 bay supercharging location has been known to cost $250K all-in.
This likely means a 2 bay megacharger location would be similar.

Price out diesel storage (+ permits, insurance), pumps and distribution system and it will be expensive in comparison.

 

[adiggs]

Does anyone know how much acreage will be needed for each mega charger. If I was a large fleet manager I would want to have the capability of charging more than one truck at a time. Does anyone know if they have started installing mega chargers at customer locations yet?

I figure the mega charger itself is pretty space efficient. Sort of like diesel pumps. I'd guess not much different from superchargers (maybe 2-5x the controller space, which is ~nothing). What will eat space is all the acreage you need to make in and out easy for tractor / trailers. Therefore, I figure you're looking at truck stops as they exist today - not only fuel, but showers, food, expanded convenience store, and bathrooms. Stuff people need that are on the road all day, day after day.

Customer locations will have more flexibility, depending on their own needs. A distribution center that sends trucks out in the morning, and has them return in the afternoon / evening, just needs chargers for the trucks to charge overnight. In this case, something more like a supercharger but with many outlets is probably what you want (100 kw will provide 1MWh over a 10h charging window, going from 0 to full).


Short answer - no. I think all we've seen in the wild are the testing semis setup so they can use 2 or 4 superchargers simultaneously.

 

[scottf200]

New video from a couple days ago and mentions Tesla semi.

How Long-Haul Trucking Works
667,639 views • Jun 16, 2020

 

[KeithT]

Any news on the battery cells for the semi? Will they be new chemistries optimized for cost and longevity, or will they be using packs made of the 2170 cells?

Can't see how a Semi even with a 750kwh battery could be sold at a profit with 2170s. But 4680 could change the equation and with a shorter range option could start production this year out of Kato Rd factory. Giga Nevada is out of the question this year. My punt is that the Semi will not be produced with current batteries (Bill Gates will be right on that) but that iterations of 4680 will make it viable.As regards the "volume production" aspiration - dreamland.

 

[ThomasD]

Have they built any Mega Chargers yet