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Tesla's Supercharger Team was recently laid off. We discuss what this means for the company on today's TMC Podcast streaming live at 1PM PDT. You can watch on X or on YouTube where you can participate in the live chat.
Off Shore
Off Topic Member
Land for solar fields could be problematic, but I expect Tesla to use grid power initially and PPAs where cost effective.
Any guesses on the ratio of trucks to Megachargers? I've been thinking that Megachargers would cover about 20% of charging and a 40MW charger with 40MW solar and 40 to 160 MWh of batteries coukd handle about 200 trucks per day. So this implies 1000 trucks per 40MW Megacharger station.
Solar PPAs would be capital efficient, but I do think they'll need substantial battery capacity to manage peak demand.
At any rate, we may need only 100 Megachargers to sell the first 100k semis. So building out what is needed for say a 1M truck fleet will be a long term project, 5 or more years. So what will take longer building 1M semis or 1000 Megachargers? To deal with land acquisition and permitting issues, I would expect that Tesla would start broadly identifying five year pipeline of locations to develop. So sure there can bottlenecks in particular locations, but more than for Model S/X, demand for Semis will follow where the MC network grows. I'm certainly not worried about Tesla getting to a demand constrained situation where lack of MC stations impedes demand such that production stalls. That would just be poor planning on Tesla's part.
I also would expect that state and local government could play a bigger role in MC build outs than was the case for SC stations. So that's something to watch out for.
Axles are pretty much all the same, you'll option the trucks with different spring packs and suspension for the load you plan on. One fleet manager optioned his trucks with 14.5K front springs because his drivers liked the stiffer feel and helped the front end feel more planted.
They spent a whole lot more than 200 million.
dc_h
Active Member
He had 200 million and started SpaceX and Tesla. He has spent billions, but started with a very small nest egg, and has changed the world.
dc_h
Active Member
Last reply. Without him and his money no Tesla. It’s f’ing god darn amazing what has been done.
Esme Es Mejor
Member
Esme Es Mejor
Member
Maybe you need to brush up on your knowledge:
Summary of Hours of Service Regulations
If you can’t figure out how to plan your hours and your 30 minute break, you need better planning software. Most of the trucking industry has no problem figuring this out.
They probably wouldn't do so frequently, but on occasion to fill in Megacharger gaps, why not? An hour or two of duty time equates to a certain sum of money. If that sum is less than the overall savings associated with using their Tesla Semi for that route or in general, then the economics would be in favor of occasional Supercharging.
For our personal road trips, we primarily rely on Superchargers but we take comfort in knowing that we have other, slower options such as Tesla Destination Chargers in the event a Supercharger site is down or there's a bit of a gap in Supercharger coverage. As we like to say, "Electricity is everywhere." Particularly for some early Semi buyers, I think the existence of an extensive Supercharger network, in addition to the smaller number of Megacharger sites, could provide an analogous security blanket. While it would be a bit of a disaster to be stuck for a few hours at a Supercharger, I'd imagine that'd be preferable to running out of juice.
If we are talking duty day restrictions, why did they start the day with a less than fully charged truck? Or are you saying the truck owner took on a route that was not possible for their equipment/ personnel? Or are you just saying there are use cases (Long distance) where the Semi does not yet make sense (while acknowledging that there are currently a grand total of zero megachargers).
Did she move after you bought the car? If not, that was again a failure in the requirmemts stage of the acquisition. If she did, that is a poor analogy for a business.
With current superchargers, I can barely make it to some of my peeps up north and back. So.... I haven't bought a Tesla, if I were to, and planned to do this route, I'd install an outlet at their place first.
If I rent a Tesla to see the FH launch, the trip will take longer than using an ICE, this is known. I would also spend 0 on fuel. These are known quantities a business can use to determine if their use case fits with the Semi operating profile.
I will be surprised if "MC routes" become a reality any time soon. They would need to install dozens at each location, as they have done with the Superchargers, which is going to need way more investment than a supercharger site due to the higher power requirement (plus batteries & solar, which I guess they will need to leep the price low).
IMO we will see more single "emergency" MCs at the bigger SC sites (i.e. Kettleman) along some key routes, which the truck company route planners will try to avoid using due to the probablity of a long wait when the truck arrives there.
AZ Desert Driver
Rare combination
So the current SuperCharger pedestals have a short "nozzle" that requires me to carefully back my car into a slot. Clearly not something I could see a Semi doing. But would there not be an "extension cord" where a truck could park near, and just unreel his cord from truck to charger pedestal and not block stalls? [that cord may not yet exist, but this seems like a simple solution that does not require rocket scientist]
dhanson865
Well-Known Member
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The longer the cable the thicker it has to be. Something long enough for a Semi to be far away from the pedestal would be too heavy and cost too much to even consider doing.
The longer the cable the thicker it has to be. Something long enough for a Semi to be far away from the pedestal would be too heavy and cost too much to even consider doing.
Depends on allowable voltage drop/ power loss. Self heating is the same per unit length.
Range does not equal miles traveled, pretty simple.
I know what the HOS is. All of the trucking industry has no problem because they have dedicated stops every 20 miles or so. If you get caught behind an accident or construction or weather, what are you going to do if you run out of hours? In a diesel it's simple, pull over at the next truck stop, they are all over the place. you can fuel and do everything else on your remaining 3hrs of duty time.
because the mega chargers go do 80%, because they couldn't make it to a charger before they ran out of drive time, because part of their route didn't even take them near a charger. It's like asking why don't diesels start their day with a fully fueled truck. Because it simply doesn't happen, not everyone has the luxury of making it to a truck stop. A whole heck of a lot of people have to stop at rest stops or just the side of the road.
Nope, always been there. Tesla just hasn't managed to put enough super chargers in place to make the trip on super charges.
..on an ideal route. I'm guessing you're missing Fort Stockton (still in permit) and Willcox (under construction).
Where in California? I know I could drive from Atlanta, GA to Loomis, CA, where my parents live. But all this is along interstates. Getting to places far from the interstate can still be challenging.
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