Just in fuel savings over the life of a truck that pays for those whole truck. Not the difference, the entire cost of the truck. Margins in trucking are too tight to ignore that much money.
Getting charging in place is critical, but nobody in trucking can afford to ignore that.
There’s also potentially cheaper maintenance - no engine to keep running, and less brake usage.
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.
A little cheaper, but in the parts that are different between an EV and a ICE are very reliable. You miss oil changes, but most routine maintenance is still needed (though few people rotate their tires as often as they should)
Re:Tesla Semi, a Deep Dive
by aperson_hello on Tuesday December 06, 2022 @07:35PM
(#33889174)
Mostly brake maintenance! But that's rounding error. Most of the savings is fuel.
Re:Tesla Semi, a Deep Dive
by legolas2412 on Monday December 05, 2022 @11:08AM
(#33867420)
0.1$/kwhr? Superchargers now cost up to 0.5$/kwhr. These cost money to build.
https://electrek.co/2022/09/28/tesla-hikes-supercharger-pric...
Re:Tesla Semi, a Deep Dive
by aperson_hello on Monday December 05, 2022 @10:22PM
(#33875483)
That's in CA though - and at retail pricing. I suspect most customers will have captive chargers and will be running at industrial rates (so even less than $0.1/kwh).
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!