
FedEx reserves 20 Tesla Semi all-electric big rig trucks - ExcelSaga
https://techcrunch.com/2018/03/26/fedex-reserves-20-tesla-semi-all-electric-big-rig-trucks/
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rawrmaan
It's becoming clearer and clearer that the main things preventing total EV
takeover are lack of good products on the market and production capacity. I'm
excited to hopefully watch both of these problems erode in the next 5 years.

Really really ready to stop breathing fossil fuels all day every day in the
city.

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mrep
Fedex has 14,500 trucks [0]. That will put tesla's at .13% of the fleet which
sounds just like they are buying some to test the economic viability of them.
I would hardly use this as a sign "that the main things preventing total EV
takeover are lack of good products on the market and production capacity".

[0]: [https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/fedex-
statistics/](https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/fedex-statistics/)

~~~
rawrmaan
Fair point, but you have to take this development in context. EVs
technologically outpace ICE vehicles on every axis other than refuel time,
upfront cost and range. EVs can improve on all of these metrics, whereas ICE
vehicles cannot. Therefore a complete switch is only a matter of time—it
remains to be seen how quickly it will happen.

~~~
bri3d
ICE still have a decent amount of efficiency headroom, so range and
operational cost will continue to improve if auto and truck makers choose to
spend the 80% investment to squeeze the last 20% out. Automakers seem pretty
split - some are building initiatives to go full electric while others are
focused on the ICE endgame. We'll see what large equipment and truck
manufacturers do but I think the time horizon is quite long.

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MrFoof
Indeed. For plain-jane passenger vehicles, Toyota is rolling out new engines
with a different stroke-to-bore ratio, and a wider angle between the intake
and exhaust valves to speed up combustion. With some changes to ancillaries
they've increased thermal efficiency from 35% to 40% (41% in hybrid vehicles).

Mazda (of which Toyota has a fair stake) is rolling out their second
generation SkyActiv which uses spark controlled compression ignition (SPCCI),
in conjunction with a lean supercharger, to switch between spark ignition and
compression ignition based on engine load. They've not thrown out a thermal
efficiency number, but it's likely in the ballpark of 43-45%. They're
targeting 56% thermal efficiency for the third generation of the tech, which
is already well into its development, and we'll see sometime after 2021.

The current benchmark is Mercedes' Formula 1 engines, which are 50% thermally
efficient, but understandably cost an arm and a leg.

This is excluding other things like Koenigsegg's FreeValve which uses
pneumatic-hydraulic-electronic actuators (PHEA) to replace the camshaft. The
only licensee so far is the Chinese manufacturer Qoros, which is a shame as
Koenigsegg got pretty significant adoption of their FlexFuel tech by GM, Ford
and Chrysler in the US (> 17 million vehicles sold).

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amluto
I would love to see Tesla demonstrate that their Superchargers are anywhere
near super enough. A couple days ago, I supercharged at the “120 kW” Tesla
factory in Fremont. For quite a few minutes, I got 23kW. After a while, it
went up to 50kW or so. I checked the other car sharing my charger, and the
total was well under 120kW. I suspect the station has an overall power limit.
Also, there was a line.

For trucks, you need something like a megawatt to recharge on a lunch break,
and a line blows the whole thing up.

~~~
ams6110
Electric semis for true long haul will never be viable unless there is a major
breakthrough in battery tech. 300 gallons of diesel fuel has so much more
energy than even the best batteries could pack into a reasonable size and
weight.

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KillerRabbitt
Major breakthroughs in autonomous driving may change that. If drivers are
eliminated, the costs of waiting 30-60 minutes while charging becomes almost
0.

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TillE
With the kind of infrastructure required for that, I can't help but think it
would just be a lousy version of an electric railway. At least for long hauls
with high throughput.

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colordrops
That's like saying that circuit switched networks are better than packet
switched.

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amluto
They would be if packets had enormous per-packet overhead.

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modeless
How is Tesla getting all these companies to put out press releases announcing
that they are buying Tesla's products? Brilliant marketing. Maybe they offer
discounts?

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notatoad
the chance to put out one of these press releases definitely factors into the
purchasing decision for these companies. They're buying good PR almost as much
as they're buying trucks.

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rconti
And no doubt they have every escape clause in history in their contract. Great
marketing for both companies, no risk for FedEx, and Tesla probably values the
PR as much as the money at this point. They're not getting paid unless and
until they can actually deliver the trucks, so why not get good press in the
meantime?

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ams6110
Twenty trucks is really nothing for a company like FedEx. As the article
noted, this is a very small pilot project for them.

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toomuchtodo
UPS preordered 120. It’s not the amount that is important, it’s how many
conservative logistics companies are interested that matters.

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asddddd
Less conservative than you might think:
[https://sustainability.ups.com/committed-to-more/fuels-
and-f...](https://sustainability.ups.com/committed-to-more/fuels-and-fleets/)

At 3 billion miles driven per year, there's a lot of room for experimenting
with a few hundred/thousand new vehicles.

Anyway, electric freight works well for this business assuming the range is
decent. There are lots of lower range freight routes with well forecasted
volume, and controlled environments at both ends allows for installing
charging infrastructure.

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toomuchtodo
I agree entirely. I believe Tesla is quoting a _two year_ payback period
versus traditional diesel class 8 semis, which means they will be sold out
indefinitely until production ramps.

It’s a smart move. Between passenger vehicles, stationary storage, and their
semis, the Gigafactory should be fully utilized.

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lunchbreak
The biggest issue with electric semis is that trucks have a maximum weight
limit, and the battery is much heavier than fuel for the same mileage. As much
as you may get the same range, if you can't carry as much cargo, you lose the
benefits of price per mile.

Note that Tesla didn't mention the weight of the battery when announcing the
truck. (Though I assume they believe they can get it even lighter before they
release production models)

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paranoidrobot
Do you think Fedex (20), Walmart (15), Anheuser-Busch (40), Pepsico (100), and
UPS (125) would have put down money to buy hundreds of these without checking
if they can actually carry a load?

They're being rated to carry a 80,000lb load at highway speeds for 500 miles -
clearly the weight distribution isn't a problem.

The other thing you're forgetting is that it's not a battery vs fuel weight
you need to compare it's battery+motor vs
engine+transmission+gearbox+fuel+urea+etc.

There's so much less that needs to be in an electric truck.

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lunchbreak
True points - though I would think for at least FedEx and UPS carry
significant amount of light cargo in some trucks (boxes with empty space
around the actual contents, and other lighter contents) compared to other
trucking groups which carry almost solid cargo (a truck carrying sugar for
example). Pepsi specifically is an interesting one - because I assume that
most of the cargo space is liquid, though I wonder how much empty space is in
their cargo areas due to round bottles

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tptacek
FedEx had over 70,000 trucks 15 years ago. Obviously most of them aren't long-
haul, but you'd want to know what percentage of the FedEx fleet this
represented to judge how much the impact of this is about PR versus
operations.

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BinaryIdiot
Total isn't a good number to compare against. The number of trucks they buy
_per year_ would be a better number.

Even if the Tesla semi is the end all, best semi in the world by orders of
magnitude, they still wouldn't be replacing an entire fleet in a year.

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suspectdoubloon
Those trucks look like beluga whales. I wonder if that's what their
inspiration for the design was.

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aviv
FOMO is a powerful incentive.

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akhatri_aus
What exactly do you miss out on, going forward its only likely these trucks
will be cheaper and more in abundance. If anything its better to wait.

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aviv
PR, or lack thereof, when these ship.

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mygo
FedEx could be delivering my packages by horse as far as I'm concerned so long
as they arrive on time

