Tesla electric truck can compete with cars with ICE

Ilon Musk often surprises everyone with unexpected news or announcements. For example, in April of this year, he announced that his company Tesla Inc. plans to create an electric truck. A few months later, information appeared on the Web that the first copies of such trucks would soon be tested in Nevada, a state in which innovative cars from several companies, including Google, Mercedes, Volvo and, of course, Tesla, are often tested.



In addition, negotiations on the possibility of "field" tests on public roads are conducted with the administration of California. A couple of weeks ago, state officials confirmed this information, stating that a joint meeting with Tesla employees took place, and there was a “conversation about the nuances of the company that produces autonomous trucks”. The fact is that these towers Tesla is going to make not only electric, but also “smart”, so that the driver only watches the work of the robotic system.



Musk promised to announce electric trucks as early as September of this year. It was also reported that the power reserve of this kind of vehicle is 2-5 hundreds of kilometers. Is this enough for electric trucks to start buying in large quantities? Perhaps, although this point of view has opponents. Unfortunately, representatives of Tesla, when asking journalists to clarify this issue, said they did not want to speculate on the rumors about the creation of an electric truck.



But suppose the creation of such a vehicle is a reality. Will it have enough range of 200-500 kilometers? Some experts believe that yes. According to statistics, only a small fraction of trucks travels more than 300-500 km per day. The overwhelming majority overcome the shorter distance. So Ilon Musk can quite count on the fact that his cars will find their niche as transport workers for delivery of goods over medium distances.



On the other hand, there are representatives of the transport sector who disagree with this point of view. For example, Ken Harper, one of the executives of DATSUN (car manufacturer DAT), believes that diesel trucks are more profitable in many situations than electric vehicles. The fact is that in the transport sphere there are implicit problems that few people remember when they talk about the advantages of electric trucks. For example, truck drivers can not work longer than the statutory time.



As elsewhere, there are rules here that cannot be broken. By law, the time spent in the cab while charging the truck will go to the driver in the overall standings. Well, since charging takes much more time in this case than in the case of refueling with diesel fuel, the lion’s share of the driver’s working time will be waiting. Accordingly, the transportation of goods itself will not have much time.



This problem can be solved, but transport companies will lose their money. And if a diesel truck delivers more money than an electric car per unit of time, then you don’t need to be a genius to figure out which vehicle the company chooses.







On the other hand, a significant part of the cost of the transport company is the cost of fuel and car maintenance. In this regard, electric trucks are in a more advantageous position, since electricity will be cheaper than gasoline, and servicing electric cars is simpler in technical terms than servicing diesel engines. If the trucks are from Tesla Inc. According to these two parameters, transport companies will be cheaper than diesel engines, they can easily compete with their internal partners. Well, the fact that electric trucks will have zero emissions of pollutants into the atmosphere - another big plus.



By the way, it is quite possible that Tesla electric trucks will be actively used by the company itself in its “Gigafabrika accumulators”. The distance between this object and Tesla's assembly shops in Fremont is about 350 km.



Unfortunately, so far with Tesla Inc. trucks. You can only build guesses. The fact is that the company does not disclose the details of the design of its new systems, so for now we know almost nothing - neither the power reserve of the electric truck, nor the other characteristics of such cars. But knowing Mask, we can assume that if the trucks are really considered by the company as an important project, they will definitely appear on public roads. And this can happen much faster than we can expect.