Tesla Semi tractor may come in way under 17000lbs meaning more range

Discussion in 'General' started by 101101, Oct 4, 2020.

To remove this ad click here.

  1. 101101

    101101 Well-Known Member

    Noticed that GM's plans with Nikola now include releasing the "TRE" 100% BEV semi at the end of next year and producing a hydrogen prototype that can be tested by the end of next year. These are nothing but their typical claims that they will be able to compete with Tesla- which they never meet. The hydrogen is an obvious dead end even with the help of BOSCH that will never come to anything. The battery electric truck clearly won't be ready but what GMs whole strategy is to say that in theory it may have something ready to compete with Tesla. It has never successfully competed with Tesla on anything, but these are the lies it tells to string Wall St. along. And between now and GM's coming bankruptcy that isn't going to change.

    If the Tesla Semi is lighter than 17,000lbs than that will just add to the plus in 600 plus miles because they have to meet a minimum weight for stopping power. If they add 11kwh of solar panels to the top of a trailer that might add another 100kwh a day or another 75 miles. Regardless based on estimates below it could far exceed 600 miles on a single charge and at launch disrupt all segments of the semi industry including the longest hauls. Regardless I don' t think it will be possible to sell ICE semis after it launches. Tesla however up to this point has never said that but I think they always knew because even with a 600 mile range 1200 mile straight hauls cease to make economic sense. Quite certain the Semi will be out late next year.

    Based on what we saw at Battery Day these are my guesses.

    6.43 oz per 4680 cell
    86.50 watts per cell
    $4.45 per cell
    5.14 cents a watt
    800kwh battery
    3722lbs pack weight (no actual pack)
    9248 cells required
    $41153 pack cost
    800lbs for 4 Model 3 motors
    4500lbs for motor and battery total
    494 kg/kwh pk level (pk has neg weight- very funning about approaching 400wh/kg)
    1.33 watts a mile under full 80k load
    7 cents a kwh (Tesla quoted rate)
    $56 to take 80k rig 600 miles
    $112 to take 80k rig 1200 miles

    Based on https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/fact-620-april-26-2010-class-8-truck-tractor-weight-component guessing there may be about 5500lbs of missing weight or enough to fit another battery pack and then some. Like another 886 miles or 1486 miles total for another 61k or about $102k in total batteries. Solar on the trailer could bring it to 1561 miles. Could be way way off but it doesn't matter because the economics of even 600 miles will end even 1200 plus mile long haul trucking- Tesla isn't aiming at 80% of the market its 100% of the market.

    These will be hugely profitable- fat margins on construction. Hope they get rigid wire harness ready in time. Million mile is clearly already resolved. My guess is almost 3 years ago when they showed the semi they had the full truck design including cast aluminum chassis- frame and structural member battery pack and they also had the 4680 cell design. They have been testing prototype semis largely based on this specification since the unveil almost 3 years ago but I think they have had the production quality cells in the Semis for 5 months now. They are just waiting for the yield to come up on the 4680s but everything is done. They can build the powertrain of this truck for under 45K, might be able to include self-driving hardware and the power train under 50K. Still leaves 130K to fit margin. Right now these would cut a big fuel bill down to about 17% of current consumption and eliminate it maintenance or cut 11k in maintenance costs per year.

    Average Diesel Semi in the US uses per year about $52833 on diesel and $15,000 on maintenance so that's about $67,833 to run and Tesla Semi would only be about (not including likely much cheaper Tesla insurance) $8981 for charging and $4K (just tires) for maintenance about 13K per year to run saving about 53K a year in operating costs and paying itself off in savings in about 3.4 years. Now the savings could be greater still. You see even a year ago 8 Minute Energy using battery backed utility solar in CA was offering 1.1 cent a kwh. It is probably down to below one cent now and you can definitely beat utility scale prices with small scale roof top if you do it right and in the future roof top will be invincible setting a ceiling for utility scale. We have to void natural gas utility contracts and force the rates down anyway.

    No other kind of big rig will be sold after these are introduced late next year. GM sure as hell won't have anything that competes nor will any other maker. I think Daimler's truck business goes under- and they deserve it for promoting the stupid hydrogen delusion. I am strongly of the opinion that any company that has an in earnest hydrogen program has total idiot management and they won't be around except through state bailout but even they continue they hydrogen it will be multiple state bailouts. All these other delusions from synth fuels (save for rockets) and bio fuels- all that stuff is dead no amount of intervention can ever rescue it. I also think Hindenburg (the title is telling) and the fate of Nikola means they won't even be able to run their usual bs anymore about it. Lobbying, elections, not even wars can reverse this. It is over and time for them to eat their much deserved losses.
     
  2. To remove this ad click here.

  3. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    I think your estimate of 1.33 Watts per mile is a little low. I expect it'll be close to 1.9.

    Tesla's self driving hardware is $500 not $5,000. This is one of the major advantages over other self driving efforts where the hardware costs exceed $30,000.

    I agree with the battery day advancements we may see room for Tesla to either increase the range of the Semi, or reduce it's weight. It'll be interesting to see which option they take.
     
  4. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    What's interesting is Hyundai's hydrogen semi weights 21,500 lbs and has a pitiful range of just 250 miles.

    I think it's clear now Nikola have no secret sauce. I doubt they'll even be able to match Hyundai's range with any of their hydrogen trucks.
     
    Domenick likes this.
  5. But the "refueling" time (about the same as with diesel) for hydrogen is a fraction of electric charging for the same miles. And range is just a measure of the "tank" size.

    It's interesting that a number of large aircraft (airliner) manufacturers are now leaning towards hydrogen electricity rather than batteries. The drive train would be the same, but the energy storage would be different. Perhaps at some point (when batteries become more feasible), hydrogen fuel cells could be swapped for batteries.
     
  6. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    Yeah. I'm starting to think that there's no way that commercial jets will be battery powered. The charging logistics alone would make the peak loads on airports insanely high. Atlanta's Hartsfield airport would probably have a peak demand increase of 1 GW to meet the charging demands for all the planes coming in. That's not a small matter.

    That doesn't take into consideration the challenges for island nations with a lot of plane travel. Battery planes, cargo, and cruise ships would probably require them to increase their total generating capacity several times over - in many cases for what amounts to a seasonal peak use. There's no way that will make sense over a hydrogen storage tank.
     
  7. To remove this ad click here.

  8. And hydrogen production can make better use of solar and wind, as no need for large intermediate battery storage or grid usage. The ground hydrogen storage can be huge, and can better utilize the variable solar and wind generation of electricity needed for hydrogen production. And excess electrical production could still be pumped back into the grid.

    I can see where hydrogen might work better for large energy requirements and fewer refueling stations, such as airports and transport stations for trucks and trains. Batteries and charging station may work better for smaller vehicles such cars, which require more charging stations on the road, and can also be charged at home.
     
  9. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    Not remotely. Refueling time for hydrogen in 250-mile increments is infinite, because the infrastructure doesn't exist.
     
  10. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    For grid applications hydrogen is better suited to long term energy storage. There are seasons when both wind and solar don't provide enough output and I'm not very certain on the long term scope for nuclear because of existing regulatory conditions :(. Batteries work fine for smoothing out daily fluctuations and peaks, but not for long term storage.
     
  11. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    Well, the infrastructure to fast charge battery-powered semis don't exist either, so guess hydrogen and batteries are even. lol
     
  12. To remove this ad click here.

  13. Well, your point is kind of meaningless. It doesn't exist for large transport trucks/trains and aircraft battery charging either... And that's what we are talking about on this thread.
     
  14. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    No we are not. We are talking about a BEV truck with several hundred miles of range, inside of which the required electrical capacity likely does in fact exist. Slapping a supercharger down is far simpler than building H2 infra.
     
  15. What size truck are you talking about,... gross weight?
     
  16. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    eh. That may still be true for semis. Not sure though. I wonder how much simpler it really is at the kW load a truck station would require.

    You really don't have to do anything crazy to put out a few high powered DCFCs for an electric car. For many of these high powered DCFC locations, the power output reduces with an increased number of cars plugged in - like a going from 300 kw down to ~150-175 when another car plugs in.

    The load requirements for charging trucks will be at least 2x greater than for a light-duty vehicle. Plus the time element matters way more for a semi than for light duty vehicle, so the charging requirements may be even higher. Plus, the amount of energy in a single truck battery may make stationary batteries at the station cost prohibitive. Just the 800 kWh battery of one truck alone could completely charge about 16 60kWh light duty EVs to 80%. The same for trucks would require 10,240 kWh of storage, or 10.24 MWh. That's not a small amount of storage and that's s just for 16 trucks. The peak charges and possible powerline upgrades (even substation upgrades) alone may make things more similar cost wise. It would be interesting to see.
     
  17. bwilson4web

    bwilson4web Well-Known Member Subscriber

    Grid storage solves any local peak demand for aviation or any other transportation. As for rapid recharge, the 4680 cells are a great start.

    Bob Wilson
     
  18. gooki

    gooki Well-Known Member

    This statement assumes large scale hydrogen storage is significantly cheaper than battery storage. Do we have prices on hydrogen grid storage?

    But is it? Hydrogen refiling for semi trucks is to be estimated at 20 minutes for low range semi (200 miles), and 45 minutes for long range semi (600 miles).

    And we know from EV cars adding more battery cells doesn't increase the charge time. Most EV cells are capable of charging in 30 minutes. So the only remaining limiter for battery semi truck charging being as fast or faster than hydrogen is the power supply.

    So the question is, are 1-2 mWh chargers or battery swapping for trucks more or less likely than global hydrogen infrastructure?
     
    petteyg359 likes this.
  19. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    Also note that A/C power loss percentage in transmission is measured in single digits. Unless hydrogen is generated on the spot at every station, it's going to have more unrecoverable "loss" simply from needing to use it to transport it. And then you have the power requirements to generate hydrogen. Skip the hydrogen middleman already. It's just oil companies wanting to keep a finger in the pie.
     
  20. Lots of articles to be found about hydrogen vs battery powered trucks and trains. But seems the freight hauling industry (and large aircraft) seems to favour hydrogen at this time. Main reasons are refueling time and energy density (range). Electric motors and drivetrains are the same for both, so potentially one could swap your fuel cells for batteries or vice versa.
    https://www.commercialmotor.com/news/buying-advice/closer-look-hydrogen-fuelled-trucks
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2020/12/29/heavy-duty-hydrogen-fuel-cell-trains-and-trucks-power-up-for-the-2020s/#4aa50391260c
    https://www.airbus.com/innovation/zero-emission/hydrogen/zeroe.html
    https://newatlas.com/aircraft/zeroavia-first-commercial-scale-hydrogen-fuel-cell-electric-flight/

    Lots of issues to be worked out, so will be a while before this is mainstream. Hard to beat the low cost and efficiency of diesel for trucks. Meanwhile, I expect BEVs to become prevalent first with cars (happening now) and then delivery and short haul trucking. Long range trucking and trains will take longer to become feasible.

    I think whether for BEVS or hydrogen power, we need to boost the source of electricity production away from fossil fuels to renewables. That is where we need the big break-throughs.
     
  21. SouthernDude

    SouthernDude Active Member

    Yeah. Fantastic. Whatever. That still doesn't address what actually matters, which is what the cost will be to shipping companies. I just think that for semis it isn't explicitly clear cut, so I'm interested in seeing what pans out. Semi trucks are not the same or comparable to light duty vehicles. They don't have the same utility nor do they have the same time and cost constraints.

    Ok, so its apparent now that you can't have a discussion on this topic in good faith.
     
  22. petteyg359

    petteyg359 Well-Known Member

    Got anything that actually shows hydrogen becoming a viable and globally available fuel source without massive waste?
     
  23. Why are you so against hydrogen? Maybe it will work, and maybe it won't,... for long range freight transport. But at this time, electric batteries (and associated infrastructure) aren't there yet either. It will take some more time to determine which is best.

    I don't think we should put all our eggs in one basket. Who knows what could happen to the electric grid. It seems to be falling apart in CA right now, and maybe elsewhere. Could be big trouble after 2035. Having to depend completely on oil wasn't the best either, esp when you were dependent on foreign countries for supply.
     

Share This Page