Tesla delivers there first semi

[FlatBroke]

Tesla semis deliveredhttps://www.foxnews.com/auto/first-tesla-semis-delivered-tech-mystery

Tesla delivered its first production Semi trucks on Thursday night to PepsiCo for use at its California facilities.

The all-electric tractor debuted as a concept in 2017 with an eye on entering production in 2019, but its development and later the coronavirus pandemic caused the date to be pushed off.

The truck arrives with many of the specifications originally promised, however, including a range of 500 miles per charge fully loaded.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk boasted at the event that it is more powerful than a diesel, and that it can accelerate to 60 mph in 5 seconds unladen and in 20 seconds with a full load, but did not reveal its exact specifications."

[Groover]

Personally, I believe that either the quoted VP doesn't have a clue what he is talking about or there is much more to the range reduction than just weight and range. Note that O'Connell never said why the trips would be shorter or why just the initial trips will be shorter. Since he used the term "initially" it is implied that the trucks will eventually be put to work on longer trips.

My personal experience with a Tesla is that weight has almost nothing to do with range. The increased rolling resistance from the extra weight is nearly negligible. There is no way that a legal load would make power consumption increase by a factor of 4.

The reason that ICE engines are affect more by load is that every time they apply the brakes momentum is turned into heat and the only way to replace that momentum is by burning more fuel. An EV turns the motor into a generator which puts the momentum back into the battery for later use. About 10% of the energy is lost as heat but 85 to 90% gets put back to useful work. You can see that in the energy graph where the range actually comes back up when going down hills. You don't see that with ICE engines.

[Reisender]

Per the link.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

Grit dog wrote:
Just a quick scroll through that video, something weird about those jersey barriers from someone who’s been in heavy highway work his entire career.
Aside from them appearing to be “used” IE a little chipped up at the ends, which makes sense, they are far “whiter” colored than any of the million yards of concrete I’ve poured, set barriers, been around.
That in itself is not a dead giveaway. But the fact that there are no loops for the barrier pins nor evidence of cutoff loops in the ends of the barrier means they are definitively not actual concrete barriers. Period end of story.
They are Jersey barrier shaped pieces of something.

I said that a long time ago Grit. But the fan boi's went all cracker dog crazy on me. :B

And now this comes out:

VP of PepsiCo Mike O'connell wrote:
PepsiCo’s new Semis can haul Frito-Lay food products for around 425 miles (684 km), but for heavier loads of sodas, the trucks will do shorter trips of around 100 miles (160 km), O’Connell said.

Link

Weird? 25 tons of chips must weigh less that 25 tons of Pepsi? Wait what? Ooooooooooohh never mind. It must be the same reason 25 tons of feathers weighs less than 25 tons of lead. Silly me anyway!!!

When Tusk said "fully loaded semi" he must have meant "fully loaded with chips" I get it now!!! :B

[Grit_dog]

Just a quick scroll through that video, something weird about those jersey barriers from someone who’s been in heavy highway work his entire career.
Aside from them appearing to be “used” IE a little chipped up at the ends, which makes sense, they are far “whiter” colored than any of the million yards of concrete I’ve poured, set barriers, been around.
That in itself is not a dead giveaway. But the fact that there are no loops for the barrier pins nor evidence of cutoff loops in the ends of the barrier means they are definitively not actual concrete barriers. Period end of story.
They are Jersey barrier shaped pieces of something.

[Huntindog]

I just did the math. Pepsi is getting 194,000 off each one in subsidies. Pepsi is going green alright, the color of money green!

[time2roll]

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/pepsico-roll-out-100-tesla-semis-2023

Nice but I am still drinking CocaCola...

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

Groover wrote:
The narrator lost me in the first 30 seconds. First, how did he divine how much weight is inside the enclosed trailer? Second, how did he calculate that there is only 5 tons of material on the Tesla's trailer? Those look like standard 10ft Jersey barricades to me and there appears to be 11 or 12 of them on the trailer. A Google search turned up the bit of information "The most common concrete jersey barricade size used is: 10 ft Long x 24 in Wide x 32 in High and weigh approximately 4,000 lbs." That is two tons each. 11 dividers X 2 tons/divider = 22 tons.

Once I realized that narrator was blowing smoke I just shut it down.

Well that's too bad. If you would have continued on to about the 9 minute mark you would have found out that a conventual diesel semi can haul twice the amount of barriers that the Tesla did. Over twice in fact.

And if you would have went to the 25 minute mark you would have learned about the nuclear glass in this semi. Now that's somethin a truck driver worries about. I remember when I drove a truck for a few years long ago it was one of my major concerns.

BTW why the mystery about gross and net weight? Why not show the weight ticket? Seems to me it would be a great selling point......unless the figures are out to lunch. Then I would want to keep it more secret than KFC's 11 herbs and spices!

Speaking of numbers. You might want to watch this video. Lots of numbers in this video. He breaks it down pretty good and comes up with about the same numbers and facts I did years ago.

[Groover]

Turtle n Peeps wrote:

Reisender wrote:

stsmark wrote:
While it is capable of going up the Grapevine at 60, is there video of that? It would have been speeding as the towing limit in CA is 55. I’d really like to see the consumption doing it as if I understand correctly all 3 motors would be working in that situation. I’m sure it’s well under a mile per KWh then.
Said it before, Pepsi is beta test. I’m sure it will do great for them as the use pattern is set for success.

There is a time compressed video on you tube. You can kinda see the display and topography so I guess that’s a yes. I won’t bother to look at it but if you have the time you might be able to see all the details.

Here is the video that explains everything about the Tesla Semi. It even talks about the thermal nuclear glass that is in this truck and many, many other details about this Semi.

Pretty cool!!! I never heard about the thermal nuclear glass? I learn something every day!

The narrator lost me in the first 30 seconds. First, how did he divine how much weight is inside the enclosed trailer? Second, how did he calculate that there is only 5 tons of material on the Tesla's trailer? Those look like standard 10ft Jersey barricades to me and there appears to be 11 or 12 of them on the trailer. A Google search turned up the bit of information "The most common concrete jersey barricade size used is: 10 ft Long x 24 in Wide x 32 in High and weigh approximately 4,000 lbs." That is two tons each. 11 dividers X 2 tons/divider = 22 tons.

Once I realized that narrator was blowing smoke I just shut it down.

[ford_truck_guy]

Well,

The Paccar has a Peterbilt here are its technical specs... note the the daily mileage
Battery Recharge Time – 3 Hours
• Estimated Daily Range – 150 Miles

[Thermoguy]

I learned yesterday that Tesla is getting a lot of press for Pepsi receiving these Tesla Semi's. However, they already have a couple dozen EV Trucks from Paccar, which is Kenworth and Peterbilt. So, this is not their first or will it be the last EV trucks they purchase and put to use.

In addition, Paccar mentioned they are working on hydrogen fueled and hydrogen hybrid trucks and engines. Much like BMW, Toyota and others. So, the big question, what alternative fuel vehicles will become main stream in the long run.

[stsmark]

Ok couldn’t sleep, watched both videos. I’ve driven I-5 to SoCal a lot of times. If you look at the graph Tesla provides for the trip you can see the point where it starts the climb up the Grapevine. The area at the base is named Wheeler Ridge it’s at the south end of the flat Central Valley a mile or so further starts the real climb. The top of the climb is Tejon pass at 4136 ft as they say. Beyond it a mile or so is the town of Gorman. It is 18 miles from Wheeler Ridge to Gorman after Gorman the road flattens for a bit before you start down. On the graph it’s at 50% charge when the elevation starts rising per Tesla. It at 32 % as it crests the pass so it used 18% to go 18 miles uphill. I think it has a 1000 kw pack it has to be at least 950 kw. So 18% of the pack is 180 kw or 10 kw a mile. No magic there.
It’s interesting I ran same experiment of miles and percentage used on the leg from Tesla factory to Kettleman City and it used about 1.8 kw a mile. So under ideal weather and traffic (from the video) on level ground at 55 it seems like will do what they said.
Now let’s see what Giga Factory Reno to Salt Lake City which is 502 miles per Apple Maps looks like. Iirc I-80 is 70 or 75 mph all the way. Your probably looking at Wells or Wendover max at that speed.

[Turtle_n_Peeps]

Reisender wrote:

stsmark wrote:
While it is capable of going up the Grapevine at 60, is there video of that? It would have been speeding as the towing limit in CA is 55. I’d really like to see the consumption doing it as if I understand correctly all 3 motors would be working in that situation. I’m sure it’s well under a mile per KWh then.
Said it before, Pepsi is beta test. I’m sure it will do great for them as the use pattern is set for success.

There is a time compressed video on you tube. You can kinda see the display and topography so I guess that’s a yes. I won’t bother to look at it but if you have the time you might be able to see all the details.

Here is the video that explains everything about the Tesla Semi. It even talks about the thermal nuclear glass that is in this truck and many, many other details about this Semi.

Pretty cool!!! I never heard about the thermal nuclear glass? I learn something every day!

[Reisender]

fj12ryder wrote:
I read a review of that video, and the main complaint was the amount of time the speedometer was blocked from view. The person felt that much of the time it seemed to be done deliberately. I dunno, I've not watched it.

I haven’t seen it yet. Liability reasons maybe?

Pepsi now has 5 of them. They took delivery of all 5 on the first but apparently only 2 were branded. They apparently have the other three now. They are supposed to have roughly 15 by the new year but Pepsi hasn’t confirmed when they get the rest.

[fj12ryder]

I read a review of that video, and the main complaint was the amount of time the speedometer was blocked from view. The person felt that much of the time it seemed to be done deliberately. I dunno, I've not watched it.

[Reisender]

stsmark wrote:
While it is capable of going up the Grapevine at 60, is there video of that? It would have been speeding as the towing limit in CA is 55. I’d really like to see the consumption doing it as if I understand correctly all 3 motors would be working in that situation. I’m sure it’s well under a mile per KWh then.
Said it before, Pepsi is beta test. I’m sure it will do great for them as the use pattern is set for success.

There is a time compressed video on you tube. You can kinda see the display and topography so I guess that’s a yes. I won’t bother to look at it but if you have the time you might be able to see all the details.