Like them or not, his semi trucks could completely change the way we deal with freight.
Trucking is responsible for paying a large part of my bills. There's a lot of promise for electrification in trucking and the heavy duty sector but I'm not holding my breath for the Tesla semi, or any long-range semi for many years.
Weight is a huge part of the money calculation in trucking. Semis are legally limited to 80k lbs total for truck, trailer, and load. The less your truck weighs, the more freight you can carry. And the more freight you can carry, the more money you can make.
A modern diesel tractor weighs about 20k lbs. Estimates for the Tesla truck put the battery alone at nearly 15-20k lbs, which ultimately means less freight can be hauled and less money made by the trucking company. It would take some pretty miraculous battery tech for them to keep total weight in line with a modern diesel. We don't know for sure because Tesla hasn't released the weight of their truck, and they never miss the chance to toot their own horn so the fact that they're hush hush about the weight isn't a great sign. Here's a decent overview from the trucking industry perspective:
The next battleground for replacing fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles will be U.S. interstate highways, where longhaul trucks keep the economy moving.
www.ttnews.com
On top of that math stuff/financial issues, there are logistical issues. They currently have no place to manufacture the trucks, charge the trucks, or service the trucks at this time. They have a single production plant that's maxed out making their current vehicles. The chargers needed to charge a Tesla semi sized battery/batteries aren't in existence yet, and the infrastructure needed to have them in place is pretty substantial for places like warehouses or truck stops. That will require significant investment from those places to have available. Tesla's regular Superchargers average 6 figures to install, and these will need WAY more juice than a Supercharger. They have no dealers, no nationwide parts network/distribution centers either. Every minute a truck isn't delivering freight keeps a trucking company from making money. If there's an issue with a truck on the road, how long will it take to get the truck moving again? Right now there are roadside service companies that can grab a Cummins, PAACAR, or Eaton part off the shelf and have a truck fixed in an hour or two, or have it towed to a nearby shop that's experienced in similar repairs because those companies have been in the business forever and have invested in those parts of the business. That's not happening with Tesla for a long time.
And that doesn't even begin to address how difficult it is to convince super conservative trucking fleet managers to spend tons of cash upfront on an unproven new truck from a company with zero nationwide presence or service network and a shaky financial footing. If your job depends on reliability and low cost, you're probably not going to gamble on the flashy new comer that makes big promises about the future while struggling to stay afloat in the present.
I really think Tesla has more than enough other stuff going on right now that they can't afford to jump into revolutionizing another entire segment of transportation. They're stretched pretty thin financially as it is, and the competition in the automotive market is catching up so it's only going to get tougher on them from here out.
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