You might see truck stops adding "public" chargers after that EV trucks become commonplace (in the same way that truck stops have fuel discount programs for member fleets) but how will EV trucks going to become commonplace if private operators using their own infrastructure are 99.99% of users?
Truck stops are thin margin. I don't see them making the investment without a need. Maybe if a big player (e.g. Swift, Walmart, etc) wants to convert to EV and kicks in a bunch of money to have their fuel partner make the capital investment. But I don't think that's going to happen until EVs are so good that it's a "profitably without nearly any doubt" type investment. You'll probably need to see a decade or two of short haul EV trucks and the accompanying refinement before that happens.
Don't forget that Tesla will probably end up building the most number of chargers over time. Charging is its own business with its own margins (e.g. Supercharger network). In other words, it's a source of net income for Tesla so as they build more trucks, they'll build more chargers as they've done to date with passenger cars and Superchargers.
What if it's not and solely powered by solar (just wondering - Megachargers most likely need help from the grid).
Maybe a huge charging station which has to have large buffer batteries anyway would benefit from a large solar-panel field nearby / above it, if land price is acceptable. That would be a natural extension of the solar roof business.
Chargers at truck stops can only be good for their margins, who would have to cater to people waiting for their trucks to charge on things they actually make money in (hint: it’s not diesel or electrons).
I'm not convinced we'll see electric trucks take over the world in the medium term but I'm sure they'll be visible on our roads in the next 10 years, if only in limited roles.
This is such a typical 1st nation problem,
While China battles droughts and build world's largest high-speed train network in 10 years.
Apparently maintaining toilets for truckers is beyond our capabilities.
Maybe that doesn't mean electric. But if you can get 500miles today at reasonable efficiency then this is one of the really really easy things to decarbonize early. All you need are truck stops with good charging every couple of hundred miles. There are other sectors that are infinitely harder and almost certainly won't work with electric barring unforeseen breakthroughs (e.g. aviation).
It might not be impossible but it's not easy by any stretch.
The parent put a weird disqualification on it that it will only work if demanded by the state. That’s a weasel word word of saying that it will be terrible and nobody will use it unless forced.
That said, if the price of diesel keeps up, there is a chance that Tesla trucks plus all the charging infrastructure will be worth it economically for short haul fleets.
I'm honestly surprised they didn't try to launch a truck in Europe first, it seems like a better market.
I suspect that charging infrastructure is going to be expensive, but cheap enough that if an operator has multiple trucks, the payback will be pretty fast and the low margins will incentive faster adoption for short haul trucking. Long haul is another beast entirely (don't hold your breath for that industry to come around before well into the 2030s), but short haul should eat this up!
Getting charging in place is critical, but nobody in trucking can afford to ignore that.
That could add up. Companies will be looking at these even if they just buy one to use as a yard shunter at first.
If the economics are there it’ll take off like wildfire.
https://electrek.co/2022/09/28/tesla-hikes-supercharger-pric...
Setting aside the cost of diesel for a moment, trucking companies didn't build the entire gasoline infrastructure, either.
The $$ savings may make installing the infrastructure in loading/storage bays worthwhile.
Most distribution centers, factories, etc where trucks load/unload at docks already have 3-phase power from the utility. They may need a transformer and service upgrade or for really large fleets they may even purchase 480 or KV power but when you compare it to the fuel savings its a total no-brainer. If you can save $50-80k per truck per year vs diesel that savings makes the EV trucks free. $1m for electrical upgrades? Sold. Will utilities need to perform distribution upgrades? Yes, but not all at once. They will do the upgrades as demand rises just like they do today.
As many others have noted in this thread it all comes down to your routes and logistics. For local and short-haul where the trucks return to a home base they are an excellent fit. Even if you need 50% more trucks because some of them are always on the charger as I noted the fuel savings make the trucks free so it doesn't matter at all.
It remains to be seen what the maintenance burden is. If it resembles passenger cars in any way I'd expect maintenance costs to be much lower since more components can be permanently sealed with lifetime sealed electric motors so no belts, hoses, bearings that wear out because someone couldn't be bothered to grease them, etc. Some consumables like brakes should also last much much longer.
Part of this is how the law catches up. In some states only a utility can legally sell electricity which means billing for charging is weird.
In a world with gas stations on every corner, your argument would suggest this is foolish.
So perhaps the owners don't consider it a huge amount of capitol. Or perhaps they've found a reason or two.
But if I operated a distribution center where dozens of trucks were parked at my docks pretty much around the clock, I'd do a bit of napkin math. 1000 square meters of rooftop solar feeding giant batteries connected to 10 charging stations selling juice at $.25/kwh to trucks who are stuck here for the next hour regardless.
And I don't have to pay Exxon a penny and I wouldn't need a constant stream of tankers refilling underground tanks?
Hand me another napkin. How much battery do I need? How often would I have to replace the cables that reach from the dock to the cab? How much do those cables cost? Hmmm. Hand me another napkin...
That inherently means short haul trucking which parent says is feasible. With long haul trucking, I’m almost never at a location owned by the fleet operator. Pepsi and Anheuser Busch may have long haul routes that are exceptions, but you can see from the other trucks they are buying they are doing a lot of short haul trucking. They’ve both also bought BYD trucks for the same locations that have a range of 125 miles, so they don’t need the 500 mile range for their activities.