Tesla Semi truck unveil & test ride set for Oct 26th !
Everything We Know About Tesla's Semi Truck I wonder what the range is ?
Forum Discussion
How much energy does an OTR semi use in electricity? Lets work it backwards and find out.
We know from science that a US gallon of diesel contains 40.7 kwh of electricity. We also know that a OTR gets around 5 miles to a gallon.
So a 500mwh battery contains a little over 12 gallons of diesel equivalent. Now, an electric motor is around twice as efficient as an ICE so that little over 12 gallons now becomes around 25 gallons of electricity equivalent.
So now your OTR diesel will have a 25 gallon fuel tank to drive from coast to coast. It gets worse. Your 25 gallon semi will not take less than a minute to fill up. It will take hours and maybe tens of hours to refuel.
And I don't want to hear anymore of this stupid "need a rest period BS." Most OTR trucking is a team driver deal now days. Those wheels are turning 16 to 18 hours/ day. And the times they are not turning the drivers are eating taking a shower or washing their cloths ect.
So 25 gallons of diesel in an OTR truck that gets 5mpg will go 125 miles. So your electric Semi will also go 125 miles. In reality it really won't. When pushed to extremes (like OTR trucks deal with every day) the electric motors start giving off a ton of heat and this will needs tons of cooling to deal with that. When you start dealing with heat issues, it will use a ton more power and suck up a ton more power from the batteries.
Here is a really good video that shows what we are dealing with.
We know from science that a US gallon of diesel contains 40.7 kwh of electricity. We also know that a OTR gets around 5 miles to a gallon.
So a 500mwh battery contains a little over 12 gallons of diesel equivalent. Now, an electric motor is around twice as efficient as an ICE so that little over 12 gallons now becomes around 25 gallons of electricity equivalent.
So now your OTR diesel will have a 25 gallon fuel tank to drive from coast to coast. It gets worse. Your 25 gallon semi will not take less than a minute to fill up. It will take hours and maybe tens of hours to refuel.
And I don't want to hear anymore of this stupid "need a rest period BS." Most OTR trucking is a team driver deal now days. Those wheels are turning 16 to 18 hours/ day. And the times they are not turning the drivers are eating taking a shower or washing their cloths ect.
So 25 gallons of diesel in an OTR truck that gets 5mpg will go 125 miles. So your electric Semi will also go 125 miles. In reality it really won't. When pushed to extremes (like OTR trucks deal with every day) the electric motors start giving off a ton of heat and this will needs tons of cooling to deal with that. When you start dealing with heat issues, it will use a ton more power and suck up a ton more power from the batteries.
Here is a really good video that shows what we are dealing with.
