Nice.<p>Tesla claims they will "ramp up" production to 50,000 units per year. When does the 100th unit roll off the line? Let's see some actuals. Tesla's volume and delivery time estimates do not have a good history of reliability. Volvo has 5,000 electric semitrucks on the road right now.<p>Tesla also announced that MDB Drayage is using Tesla tractors to haul container chassis around the Port of Los Angeles.[1] But the pictures show a Tesla tractor hauling an ordinary box semitrailer, not a container on a container chassis. The MDB Drayage is just a three-week test, too. Drayage is almost the ideal use.<p>[1] <a href="https://electrek.co/2026/04/29/tesla-semi-drayage-operator-mdb-pilot-port-freight/" rel="nofollow">https://electrek.co/2026/04/29/tesla-semi-drayage-operator-m...</a>
I hope so. Regardless of who does it, generations of children in Los Angeles growing up in the corridors of the 5,10,110,210,405,605,710 freeways have asthma, likely caused from the soot of diesel trucks.
Edit, couldn't leave out the worst experience in the US, i405.
Born in 1975 in LA and have asthma. I suppose I'm pretty smart compared to most, but I do wonder if they had removed leaded gasoline earlier if I would have had a few more IQ points. So, yes, please do root for electric transportation!
You can't discount the dust from the tires either unfortunately
A 30 minute charge means each charger can service a maximum of 48 tractors per day, and realistically probably less than that. I wonder how many trucks fill at a typical diesel filling station per day.
Could they automate the "grab the charging cable and plug it in" part (as well as the "take the cable out and stow it away" part)? Trucks would then be able to just pull in, charge up and pull out quickly.
~10 min to fill diesel semi.<p>So electric can only service 1/3 of semi, <i>when truck stop is at full capacity</i>.
Seems like about 10 minutes, and a single pump averages around 100 a day (although guessing that second one could have some serious rounding)
Have you seen the demo's of "truck pack" batteries being removed from prime mover, transferred to charge station, replaced with already charged truck pack, all done with a mini fork lift?<p>It's a 15 minute roll in / roll out kind of turn around.<p>The game's not over and the big transport operators (eg: Rio Tinto mine fleets moving a billion tonne per annum, etc) are still doing the R&D pipeline and trialling pilots.
This has been tried before for public use and failed for all of the obvious reasons.<p>It should get adoption from companies big enough to run their own fleets (such as the mining company mentioned) but it won't be a suitable method for a good percentage of the long haul trucks in the States.<p>With that said, I would think chargers should be fine for a lot of those trucks if the infrastructure builds out for them. The drivers are already taking breaks every few hours by regulation, so they can top off rather than going from empty to full.
Have you seen the demo of what you can get with some wires and low friction traction options :P
My first job was pumping gas at regular neighbour gas station and one day a semi rolled in because he was low on gas. He insisted that we use both diesel pumps on the pump so that it would take faster and it still took forever. I can't remember if he filled both side of his truck but if he did that would have required him to go around the island to get the other side tank.<p>I've only been to a cardlock station a few times but the pumps seem like regular pumps.<p>I just looked it up and apparently regular gas station pumps in Canada are limited to 38 L/min (10 US gal/min) but some cardlock stations can have larger pumps with a higher rate on them.<p>If a semi truck has two saddle tanks that's 200-300 gallons, but some trucks can apparently carry more? I'm not an expert on this, But I can reach out to a friend who owns a crane and trucking company if someone else doesn't chime in with a more detailed response.<p>So at 200-300 gallons and 10 gallons per minute it can take 20-30 minutes to fill a truck.
Truck stop pumps can do 30 GPM "on both sides" as they have two pumps connected to one bay.<p>There are faster (600 GPM or more) but those are specialized for loading boats, etc; the air can't escape the tank fast enough to use those on a truck.
stats vary. seems ~250 is common (2x 125 gals) and long haul ranges up to 2,000 miles.<p>Though another way to think of filling up is miles per minute. At 10Gal/Min and 7MPG that's pumping 70 miles a minute into the tank.<p>an 80% charge in 30 minutes on a 500 mile range battery is ~13 Miles a minute so roughly 5x slower
I don't know about exact rates, but diesel pumps in banks intended for semis have a larger diameter nozzle that flows faster than the normal sized ones, yeah. They won't fit diesel cars/vans/light trucks.
I think we should do is have a second trailer that basically functions as the primary battery pack. The tractor's pack is back up or range extension<p>So when a semi pulls into a truck stop, you swap that caboose cab with a fully charged one.
<This is not a Tesla bashing note. Genuine information questions ><p>50,000 vehicles per year capacity is a lot. Is there really demand for so many vehicles?.<p>>> This makes the Tesla Semi the lowest-priced Class 8 battery electric tractor on the market,<p>How much is the difference?. Critical details left out.<p>>> specs confirm a 500-mile range<p>Aren't there trucks with this range already?<p>>> "Tesla Semi as a Service" model is needed to eliminate the capital expenditure barrier entirely,<p>Good but how is this novel?
Longuest I know of in Europe is Volvo’s claims of 700 on the new FH Aero ER, afaik. Renault and Iveco are at 600. And that would be at 90kph.<p>However euro trucks may not bother extending range given given the driving regulations: drivers can only drive 4.5h before a mandatory 45mn rest break, so as long as the truck does 400km (with a bit of safety margin) and can charge fast enough in 45mn to do that again afterwards it’s probably going to do the job for long range trucking.<p>On the other hand, the eu allows electric semis to weigh 4 tonnes more than diesel, in the US it’s just 2000lbs <i>and</i> not every state has implemented that.
At least the Mercedes-Benz eActros a6000 has only 500 km range.
as we know from tesla none of these claims will actually come to fruition once these reach customers
meanwhile Freightliner, Volvo, and BYD already have active fleets.
In Europe I’m pretty sure every brand has e trucks: Mercedes, daf, Renault, Scania, …
But do they have Self Driving? A Semi with self-driving would be a game changer. I just got FSD v14.3.2 and it is quite impressive. I drove all over the Bay Area today (SF -> East Bay -> PA -> RWC -> back) and didn't have to touch the steering wheel practically at all.
They have ADAS systems. And Volvo is already working with Aurora which is doing live tests of actual self driving, similar to Waymo.<p>There's no news here.<p>Self-driving is no longer the future of Tesla. That stock pump has largely run its course, and is being replaced by AI and the robot army.<p>Once SpaceX goes public, SpaceX will acquire Tesla (solving Musk's control issues with Tesla stock), and that'll be the end of Musk pretending to care about cars.
> But do they have Self Driving?<p>lol, does TSLA?
I don't understand the point you're making, are you saying that because there are already electric semi's on the market, Tesla shouldn't compete?<p>Or are you being critical that Tesla didn't enter the market first?<p>If it's the second point, are you accurately comparing the vehicles and their capabilities?
It's not newsworthy. There are more than a dozen companies shipping electric semis in low quantities, and at least three who have been shipping and supporting them for years. Anybody who thinks this the Tesla Semi is notable should go learn about the existing market.<p>Tesla announced this thing a decade ago and they rolled one off of a theoretical line. Who cares?<p>There's nothing new here. There's no new information about this late-landing product. There's no story of huge guaranteed bookings, or new unexpected capabilities. It's a non-story.<p>As for your demand that I provide an accurate product comparison -- driver reviews routinely indicate that the 'driver at the center' seating position makes it harder for truckers to actually do their work, because they can't easily reach out their window to access terminals, perform document exchanges, etc.<p>So, I'll augment my position: not only is this a non-story... it's a non-story about a vehicle with a notable design flaw.
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Uh...does Electrek.co not do basic math or understand how factories (and markets) are valued? This is waaaay too early to judge anything.<p>The "milestone that matters" is $/defect/volume. Until this factory has measurable volume and measurable costs for defects on that volume, it's not an actual factory.
Tesla is trying to escape launching the semi TEN YEARS after announcing it. Instead, they are attempting to launch a mere nine years after announcing it.<p>The Pepsi trials with this truck were a disaster, we’ll see if they fixed the numerous problems.
"High volume"?<p>Coming from Tesla, I'll believe it after they actually ship a high volume of those units.
The Model Y is neck-and-neck with the Toyota RAV4 as the most widely sold car model in the world.
Bonus points if the body panels don't fall off and it can drive through a puddle
>0 is a high volume for something that was supposed to start rolling off the production line back in 2019....
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I am willing to bet this semi underperforms in all relevant categories. Just like the rest of their overpriced consumer products.
I wonder how truckers are going to like having to get up and walk over to the door to talk to gate security or hand over paperwork.<p>Feels like a dumb design to me.
> Tesla enters high-volume production with a meaningful lead on price and range.<p>I'll take that bet on price and range. And I'd bet it'll have lower cost of ownership than diesel.