Preface. Many dismiss my writing about why heavy-duty class 8 battery electric trucks can’t replace diesel trucks because there are class 8 electric trucks.
Most famously the Tesla semi trucks, which are under a trial at the PepsiCo Frito-lay plant in Modesto California. It is hard to imagine an easier test to pass. It would be hard to find a lighter cargo. Lay potato chips weigh 56 kg/cubic meter (m3), lighter than rice Krispie’s 90 kg/m3, corn chips 178 kg/m3 or marshmallows 210 kg/m3. There will be no hills, central California is flatter than the Midwest. The roads are in excellent shape and so great for rolling efficiency, and wind so calm there is little aerodynamic drag.
The 15 Semis in Modesto hauling chips can go 425 miles, but the 21 in Sacramento can go just 100 miles hauling PepsiCola (Reuters 2022).
No one knows the price, performance, maintenance, or time to recharge yet. It’s all a big secret. What was it Hamlet said about something being rotten in Denmark? Tesla says they will ramp up production at the end of 2024, though given the many years of delays so far that remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, there are commercial class 8 BEV trucks made by Daimler, Volvo, DTNA, Kenworth, Peterbilt, Navistar, BYD, and Lion that cost $350,000 to $500,000, or three to five times that of a diesel semi (Rogers 2022, Buysse 2022, TTNews 2023). The Department of Energy estimates the average BEV truck will cost $457,000 (Fletcher 2023). These trucks have ranges of 150 to 220 miles, far less than the 500 miles Musk claims for the Semi, and prices far more than the $180,000 he said the Semi would sell for. We’ll see.
There are huge $185k incentives in New York, $120k in California, and $40,000 from the Inflation Reduction act to temp cpmpanies (Wang 2022), since new diesel semi trucks cost $130,000 to $160,000 and have diesel engines that can last 40 years, four times as long as a BEV battery (which costs as much as a new diesel truck to replace).
Sure, lower maintenance costs, cheaper fuel, but as the electric grid continues to fall apart, the prices of renewables skyrocket, and the price of electricity in California three times higher than the average in the nation due to renewables, it remains to be seen if electricity will cost less than diesel. Sure diesel will grow more expensive when it starts to decline, but that will increase costs to manufacture goods, raising the price of electricity along with it. At some point a recession arrives, prices drop, unemployment increases, and many people can’t afford electricity or gasoline at any price.
A diesel truck can go 1200 miles and be refueled in less than half an hour. An electric truck that could go 100 miles needs a 350 kWh batter which takes 12 hours to recharge. This is because ultra-fast charging is not an option yet since it can reduce battery lifespan, and these are very expensive batteries indeed. It may never be available. Scientists at U.C. Riverside recently fast charged batteries similar to Tesla batteries using existing highway fast charging technology. They found that batteries cracked, leaked, lost storage capacity, and suffered internal chemical and mechanical damage, reducing their lifespan. The high heat generated is also a danger that could lead to fire or explosion (Quimby 2020)
But these chickens aren’t going anywhere until the eggs of charging stations are hatched. Without fast charging it will take 12 hours to recharge their battery. If fast charging can be made to work it could be done in 30 minutes but would use as much power as 4,000 households over a year, putting the electric grid under tremendous stress (Harris 2017).
Each charging station, fast charge or not, will use as much power as a small town, quite an expensive undertaking of grid expansion that may require a new substation.
The San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District partnered with Frito-Lay of PepsiCo to create a “showcase for environmentally sustainable manufacturing, warehousing and distribution which will transform the 500,000 square-foot Modesto, California manufacturing site” by replacing all diesel equipment with zero-emission (ZE) and near zero-emission (NZE) technologies (CARB). Some stats from the grant:
Grant Amount
- CARB contribution: $15,382,234
- Matching Funds from partners: $15,382,244
Partners: Frito-Lay; American Natural Gas; BYD Motors LLC; Café Coop; CALSTART; ChargePoint; Crown; Gladstein, Neandross & Associates; Meritor; Peterbilt; Project Clean Air; Tesla; University of California, Riverside CE-CERT; and Volvo
It looks like a practically free experiment for PepsiCo & Tesla.
What was paid for
- 15 Tesla semi battery electric tractors
- 6 Peterbilt 220 EV battery electric trucks
- 3 BYD battery electric yard trucks
- 12 Crown lithium-ion battery electric forklifts
- 38 Volvo VNL tractors with ISX12N low NOx engine (these run on Compressed Natural Gas)
Equipment
- Compressed natural gas fueling station providing renewable fuel
- 1 MW solar carport with energy storage
- Truck charging infrastructure and energy storage for battery electric vehicles
Conclusion
This society is driven by ruthless capitalism so unless prices dropped by half or more it is hard to see how this experiment can succeed. Prices are likely to go up as energy and ore qualities decline.
As far as electric trucks go, the first attempt should have been electric tractors, so we could grow the fuel that keeps us running.
It is hard to imagine off road class 8 electric trucks which will also be far from the electric grid. Logging, mining, maintaining dirt and country roads, oil and gas, utilities, pipeline construction, forestry, snow plows, and military tanks and equipment. Yyou’ll be relieved to know that the military was advised by the National Academy of Sciences against mobile nuclear power plants to keep electric tanks charged on the battlefield — what could go wrong with that?!
Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Women in ecology Podcasts: WGBH, Financial Sense, Jore, Planet: Critical, Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, Kunstler 253 &278, Peak Prosperity, Index of best energyskeptic posts
REFERENCES
Buysse C (2022) How much does an electric semi crally cost. ICCT
CARB (2021) Frito-Lay zero and near-zero emission project Modesto California. California Air Resources Board.
Fletcher N (2023) DOE outlines higher upfront costs for green heavy trucks. TTNews.
Harris B (2017) Tesla’s electric truck ‘needs the energy of 4,000 homes to recharge’, say researchers. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/12/tesla-s-electric-truckneeds-the-energy-of-4-000-homes-to-recharge-say-researchers/.
Quimby T (2020) Debate over DC fast charging points to feet needs, expectations. https://www. ccjdigital.com/dc-fast-charging-points-feets/
Reuters (2022) PepsiCo is using 36 Tesla Semis in its fleet and is upgrading facilities for more in 2023, exec says
Rogers M (2022) The future of hauling freight: new electric semi unveiled in North Florida. WCTV.
TTNews (2023) Electric Truck Options Expand. Ttnews. https://www.ttnews.com/articles/electric-truck-options
Wang B (2022) Shopping buide for electric semi trucks. Prices, weights, and payload. Nextbigfuture.
Zukouski R et al (2021) Navistar SuperTruck II. Department of energy annual merit review. ace103_ Zukouski_2020_o_5-24_1003am_LR (energy.gov)