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Even though I own a Tesla and love it I can’t see a fully electric, long-haul semi making sense for quite some time. For consumers (at least in my own experien
by MrDunham 5y ago
Even though I own a Tesla and love it I can’t see a fully electric, long-haul semi making sense for quite some time.
For consumers (at least in my own experience) there is a range threshold that, once surpassed, means I almost never have to worry about fill ups again. So the Every day convenience outweighs the once or twice a year inconvenience of longer “fill ups“ vs gas for extended drives.
I bought mine because I hate little annoyances like having to remember/go to the gas station and fill up periodically.
For long-haul trucking though Tesla's benefits would be in automation/assisted driving, not in electrification. Short of some sort of carbon credits/regulations it’s difficult to imagine widespread adoption of a technology that has more downtime and higher initial costs than a previous technology.
The stop/start of small truck deliveries (and subsequent energy recapture) makes sense but for long-haul I can’t see it feasible until the battery energy densities jump by a sizable margin without a corresponding increase in price.
And at that point there's still few financial advantages of electrification I can think of... what am I missing there?
- brianwawok 5y agoMany trucks return home daily. Why not get those 100% first?
- cma 5y agoDelivery or recycling/garbage makes sense first, due to stop and go regen. Long range never made sense as a first step but the FSD replacing truckers and truck-train angle was used to lure in investors, even though it has no relevance to diesel vs. electric (or even better fit for diesel to power the compute without impacting range, remember we're talking 2017/2018 compute for when it was announced).
- onethought 5y agoThe power train on an electric vehicle is leagues more efficient than gas. With fast charging: 300kw+ I think it makes complete sense. Perhaps in super cold climates it starts getting silly though
- __Joker 5y agoSemi and industrials where hydrogen fuel cell makes sense.