After a launch several years ago which looked like a lot of smoke and mirrors and typical Elon Musk hype, there are now Tesla trucks out in the wild. A 12-minute video produced by the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) has been released focusing on the operational performance of the 21 new Tesla Semi trucks which have gone into operation with PepsiCo in the US.
PepsiCo recently announced its decision to trial a hydrogen fuel cell powered truck, from Pure Hydrogen and Hdrive, in its delivery fleet in Australia. This Taurus truck is destined to be the first hydrogen truck on Australian roads. See more on this truck and its driving experience in the next issue of PowerTorque.
Pepsi is deploying the 21 Tesla Semis at its Sacramento, California location in long-haul applications with heavy loads. Trip distances are up to 450 miles (720km) on a single charge from the 750kW mega-chargers at PepsiCo facilities. These are said to be able to charge the battery back up to 80 per cent fully charged in 45 minutes.
The way PepsiCo calculate the equivalent to miles per gallon on these Tesla trucks is in kilowatt hours per mile. The Teslas are reckoning the trucks are using 1.7kW/mile (1.06kWh/km?). PepsiCo says it pays 14 US cents per kWh at its Sacramento depot and that this consumption is a 23 per cent reduction in costs compared to its diesel powered trucks.
In the material around these trucks there is no mention of the capital cost of these trucks, but this is one of the perennial discussion points around alt-power. We cannot currently calculate the cost of an alt-power truck until they are being mass produced in large numbers.
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