Major New Tesla Semi Update Is Here!

The Tesla Semi is easily one of the most important products that this company has ever developed, it’s definitely right up there with the autonomous robo taxi concept. Both of these inventions have the potential to fundamentally change the way that we transport people and things around our world.

As it stands, our transportation infrastructure is inefficient at best, deadly at worst, and a perpetual source of toxic pollution that is terrible for both human beings and the planet as a whole. So we need to fix that. And the solution isn’t going to come in the form of any one product or company, there needs to be systemic change. But if we did have at least one fully autonomous, heavy duty transport truck on the roads - then that would be a great place to start.

Development of Tesla’s autonomous vehicle software is being done relatively out in the open with their FSD Beta release program. But on the hardware side, the progress of the Tesla Semi and its critical charging infrastructure is a little more under the radar and might go unnoticed by the majority of people.

So today we’re doing a little reporting on the latest news around the Tesla Semi, how it’s rolling out, how it’s going to manage charging and how the Tesla Semi fits into a rapidly evolving cargo transport industry. So let’s get going.

The Long Delayed Electric Semi Truck

Of course it’s hard to talk about the Semi without acknowledging that this is now the longest delayed in Tesla’s line of many delayed products. Unveiled in 2017 to much fanfare at the time, these were supposed to hit the road in 2019. Obviously they didn’t, and we don’t want to dwell too much on that fact because, honestly, it’s good that Tesla didn’t release this product in 2019 because it would have sucked - badly - and it would have set back the entire concept of an electric transport truck by a decade.

Hear me out, if you’re going to introduce a very disruptive product into a very well established and critical industry like trucking - then you either need to do it right or don’t do it at all. The Tesla of 2019 did not have the technology or the manufacturing capability to follow through on the initial promise of the Semi - for the life of me I can’t imagine how any person at that company actually thought that they would. Even now, three years later, Tesla is just barely reaching the point where they are ready to make this thing happen.

I guess the real point of that was to drum up early interest and get some big name pre-orders on the books - which Elon did accomplish pretty well with his sales pitch. By 2018, Tesla had recorded somewhere around 2,000 pre-orders for the Semi. And those orders have continued to stream in, even after the initial delivery date was missed. In late 2020, Walmart Canada announced they would up their Tesla Semi order to 130 trucks Group Enterprises put down for 150 Semis with the option to buy 350 more if they like the product. We should also mention that each one of these pre-orders comes along with a 20 thousand US dollar deposit per truck. So these companies aren’t tire kickers, these are serious buyers.

Pepsi X Tesla Semi

Speaking of large order holders, PepsiCo and their subsidiary Frito Lay are currently waiting on 100 Tesla Semis of their own. And for whatever reason, the Frito Lay facility in Modesto California has become the heart of the action for all things Tesla Semi related. And the irony is not lost on us that an electric truck that is designed to make the world cleaner and healthier will be delivering Pepsi and potato chips, that’s…. unfortunate.

In January 2022 we saw the first ever Tesla Mega Charger station, outside of Tesla’s own facilities, installed at this Frito Lay plant. And then in mid June it was discovered that there is now a second Mega Charger at that same Lay’s plant.

The Mega Charger is the special, heavy duty version of the Tesla Super Charger that will be responsible for Keeping the Tesla Semi on the road. It gets this name because the output from the charger is rumored to be one megawatt of energy. The current V3 SuperCharger is maxing out at 250 kilowatts of energy, there are 1,000 kilowatts in a megawatt, so this is 4 times more power to charge the Semi. The idea is that this capability will be able to restore 400 miles of range to the Semi’s giant battery pack in half an hour, and push it to the maximum range of 500 miles in one hour - EV charging has to slow down considerably the more full the battery gets, it’s a complicated explanation, but that’s why the numbers might seem wonky.

Anyway, we’ve been getting some unprecedented views of both the Semi and its charging infrastructure at Frito Lay thanks to a pseudo anonymous source who has been reporting to Teslaratti, known only as “Ricardo.” Very mysterious.

According to Ricardo, employees at the Frito Lay’s facility have been told that company use of the Tesla Semi is, quote, “coming soon”, end quote.

And that’s not the first time we’ve heard something similar from the Pepsi crew - it was rumored last year that 15 Semis would be delivered to Frito Lay by the end of 2021 - that didn’t happen. Then it was early 2022 - also didn’t happen. And then Elon Musk said in his Cyber Rodeo speech that Tesal would not be releasing any additional products in 2022. So we’re not sure exactly what that means.

What we do know is there absolutely have been a number of Tesla Semis that have been spotted testing on public roads around the US this year. Again in mid June, a Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley member happened to drive past a Tesla Semi on high 508 West in California. This particular one was white, and we have seen these pop up in silver, blue and red as well - so unless they keep repeating the same truck over and over again, there are a fair few of these kicking around right now. A couple of days after that on June 17th, a white Semi made an appearance all the way over in Detroit at the Michigan international Speedway. And then by June 29th a white Semi was seen delivering a prefabricated Tesla SuperCharger station to the Laguna Seca Racetrack in California. So these things are getting around. I had really been hoping to see a bunch of Tesla Semis out around the end of June helping to push out the final deliveries for Q2, that would have been sick, and it would have made this video a lot better, but for whatever reason that didn’t happen.

All of these newer models, or prototypes, of the Semi that we are seeing around have been manufactured at a temporary facility near Tesla’s battery factory in Spark Nevada. Obviously there wasn’t enough room left in the parking lot at Fremont to do it there, and Giga Austin just isn’t ready yet.

As for when the production line might arrive at its permanent home in Giga Austin - we’re probably going to be waiting a while. Elon seems intently focused that the Cybertruck will be the next vehicle to enter production in Texas after the Model Y. We know that Tesla has a new and more powerful variation of their Giga press casting machine coming from Italy later this year. And we’ve also got word that Tesla has put in an order with a German supplier for production equipment that will build the Cybertruck drive units.

So, it’s very possible that some of that stuff can serve double duty and also be used to build parts for the Semi - but it's also pretty clear that Semi will remain low priority until Cybertruck is rolling out to customers.

The Mega Charger

Getting back to that Mega Charger, our boy Ricardo at Frito Lay came through with some up close and personal photos of the Mega Charger connector and cable - and this is like nothing we have ever seen from an electric vehicle charger. First off this is an entirely different connection port than what Tesla uses on their production cars, it’s much bigger, with two wide, multi pin connectors side by side and a row of three smaller, round connectors. And the cable that it’s attached to is a beast - this is a liquid cooled charging cable with a woven insulation layer. The cooling fluid will flow into that giant electrical socket and pull heat away from the charging port - allowing the charger to maintain its maximum output for a longer period of time.

So this is really the key to making the Semi a genuinely useful, sustainable product that can directly replace a diesel powered truck. Overall range is obviously important, but the speed that it can be replenished is arguably even more critical. 

I’m no expert on trucking, but from what I’ve gathered, the typical semi truck is going to have two humongous fuel tanks strapped to the sides and those will give the driver a range of something between 1,500 and 2,000 miles on a single fill. Batteries are never going to be able to replicate that - I don’t think at least, not without some spectacular advancement in technology. But as it stands, the human driver is actually the limitation on the range of a truck - they can only drive for an 11 hour shift, with a 1 hour break during that shift. And then they have to rest for 10 hours before their next shift. So, at average highway speeds, a driver will likely cover 600 to 650 miles per shift. That’s more than the 500 claimed by Tesla right now for the Semi - but it’s not much more, that’s pretty damn close. And then if we factor in that one hour break - if there is a Mega Charger available at the location where the driver takes their break, then by the time they get back to the truck, the 500 miles of range will be fully restored. So that will give a potential max range per shift of 1,000 miles, which would be more distance than the driver would be able to cover in their 11 hour drive.

Now again I’m not an expert on trucking, and this whole example relies entirely on their being a Tesla Mega Charger conveniently available - which will not be the case for a while yet - but it’s just an illustration that the idea of using electric vehicle for long haul trucking isn’t as far fetched as you might think, it is well within the realm of possibility. 

And the Tesla Semi will be entering the trucking industry at a very important time. We have a new proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency in the United States that came through in the Spring of 2022 - this new plan led by President Biden would create strict new tailpipe emissions regulations for tractor trailer rigs in the US. The EPA proposal would require a 90% reduction in smog and soot forming nitrogen oxide emissions in all heavy trucks and buses by the year 2031. The rules would begin to take effect in 2027 and ramp up in 2030.

So that begs the question - is it even possible to do that with a diesel engine, to reduce smog by 90% of the current standard? And if you could, what effect does that have on the engine’s performance? If we remember back to the days when tailpipe emissions standards were first introduced to American cars, the manufacturers had to tank the efficiency of their engines to meet the requirements. Take the Ford Mustang as an example - in 1968 a Mustang with a 302 cubic inch Windsor V8 was making 230 horsepower - by 1978 after the tailpipe emissions standards had been fully implemented, a Mustang with that same 302 cubic inch Windsor V8 was making only 139 horsepower - that’s a massive drop off in efficiency.

Obviously technology has come a long way since then, but it makes you wonder about the futility of trying to fix and improve the diesel engine, when that time and resources could be better spent advancing electric and battery technology.