When elegant Tesla Semi quickly crossed the apron of the airport adjacent to the SpaceX missile factory in Los Angeles in November, Elon Musk shook the heavy vehicle market with a disturbing vision. But while eager customers are preparing for a two-year wait for the all-electric behemoth, a robust market for electric trucks and buses is already taking shape.
Tesla has quickly accumulated about 400 truck reserves from major airlines such as UPS and Anheuser-Busch by December. But as and when the arrival of these deposits, Proterra company flourishes, with former Tesla employees receiving in December an order for 25 buses from battery-powered Los Angeles transport ministry. While the agency is converting a fleet of 359 vehicles into electricity. This complements the previous $ 138 million from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of Los Angeles County for electric and New Flyer buses based in China BYD, as well as replacing thousands of natural gas vehicles.
“The bus line, due to the set route, the limited daily mileage, drove the number of miles per year while making it a perfect application for the electric battery, so the market will be 100% more powerful than any other transport sector”, said Matt Horton, Commercial Director of Proterra Forbes. The California private companies are approaching 500 sales and have recently added a Los Angeles factory to deliver to its customers on the West Coast.
Electric buses, which can travel up to 200 miles per day in the city, already account for 10% of orders from US transport agencies. In 2017, competitors Proterra and BYD predict that these sales will continue to increase as vehicle performance improves and operating costs continue to rise significantly below the diesel and CNG models. Even with the amazing talent of Musk Marketing, electric battery trailers are taking on more, which Semi Tesla assumes will actually start on schedule in 2019 or 2020.
“Long-haul trucking is the most challenging duty cycle for a battery-electric vehicle to perform, given the long distances required at freeway speeds with a heavy payload in tow,” said Horton.
The pressure to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which is changing the climate in California, Europe, and China has accelerated for cleaner vehicles, the demand from cities, transportation agencies and freight forwarders and to react to companies with low diesel systems. Emissions, plug-in hybrid trucks and all-electric powertrains, including those that use hydrogen instead of batteries. With buses, new players are finding customers ready to use high-impedance battery vehicles in certain applications.
The eye-catching design of Tesla and its purported range of up to 500 miles per charge outperformed even the expected 300 miles and its claim that the semi-fuel savings of $200,000 or more and a period of recovery will two years. That explains why UPS, PepsiCo, Sysco, and Anheuser-Busch, who want to be in $20,000 deposits among their top customers.
Basic charge rate for $ 150 000 Musk for 300 miles Trucks and $ 180 000 for half a pet 500 miles combined with a reduction in operating costs per mile compared to diesel trucks, it also makes them more attractive to companies with large fleets. There is also value in public relations when it comes to buying what could be the most harmful and least harmful heavy truck ever developed.
Despite a thrilling premise, a number of big questions about the Tesla Semi were not answered. These answers, along with Tesla’s plans for an electric harvest, are also promised in the coming years and will arrive punctually.
Part of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, BYD has begun shipping its own Class 8 electric trucks at approximately $ 200,00 to transport heavy goods unloaded at ports. At a new plant in Lancaster, California, which opened in the course of the year in anticipation of a demand, the US group also increases the production of the electric van as well as buses.
Cummins, the leading manufacturer of diesel and natural gas engines, has a class 7 cabin with a 140-kilowatt battery to carry a 22-ton trailer, which will be sold to commercial bus and truck operators in 2019.
Daimler is shipping it’s Fuso electric pick-ups to customers around the world and in October will be presenting a Concept 8 truck class with more than 200 miles per load, the E-Vision Fuso One. This truck will be in direct competition with Tesla Semi when I arrive in two or three years.
The Volvo Group, which owns both the Volvo Trucks and Mack Truck brands, does not yet have a battery-powered Class 8 battery, but hybrid and plug-in hybrid systems, as well as cleaner and more efficient diesel engines.
The battery truck “is moving in the right direction and we are trying to identify where it is, especially in short-range locations,” said Keith Forbes Brandis, vice president of product planning for Volvo Trucks North America.
“It can drive in mid-size trucks before it reaches a longer period. We are ready for long-haul flights of 10, 11 hours a day, that the weight and the cost are necessary to calculate all these things … well, we’re still studying.” he said.
Transport company Ryder, booking an unknown number of Tesla Semis, recently also partnered with Chanje, the US unit of a Chinese company that sells mid-size electric vehicles, payloads of £ 6000 and travel 100 miles before reloading.
Thor Trucks, a small, emerging Los Angeles based company with its own advanced semi-design, has also been testing a Class 8 truck prototype over the past few months, built with a Navistar frame. Thor’s goal is to reach 300 miles per charge with a base price of $ 150,000. But unlike Tesla, it wants to build it in partnership with existing truck manufacturers.
“Many people in this field have tried to integrate vertically, either because they did not have the ability to engage in supplier discussions or volume-related challenges,” said Co-Founder and Executive Director Forbes. by Thor, Dakota Semler.
“We believe that the only way to succeed is to build partnerships, this industry is extremely capital intensive and I cannot do much to avoid this factor, except by building partnerships with well-capitalized and well-funded people, but they have a lot of experience. ”
This approach makes sense for a startup of 17 people like Thor and contrasts with Tesla’s way of maintaining virtually every aspect of the development and production of internal and proprietary vehicles.
After an imminent death experience in 2008, Tesla has become the worldwide standard among the automotive brands for electric cars, perhaps to a greater extent than previously thought. But Tesla will have a big impact only if its Semi arrives more or less in production and with the reach, the design, the safety and the promised performance and speed.
At the moment it seems to be a very heavy burden.
