“Whether you hate me, like me or are indifferent, do you want the best car, or do you not want the best car?” [Apartheid Manchild] told audiences at an event in November.
Well, for starters I don’t want a car at all. I’d rather use public transit. You know, an actually effective means of reducing emissions.
If I were in the market, yes, I would want the best car. Which is why I’d never buy a Tesla. I’d buy an XPeng or a BYD or the like.
There are several videos and essays explaining why the Tesla Semi is a non-starter. The basic concept, boiled down into a detail-erasing nutshell, is that it’s too heavy and will always be too heavy. It’s a dead end.
Yes, it’s a bit heavier than a Diesel, reducing the maximum payload. However not all trips are at the maximum weight.
Yes I’ve read “armchair generals” proclaim it’s too heavy to be useful, but I’ve also read reviews from it in actual use where it’s worked really well. What I have NOT read is anything about what percentage of trips that reduced payload weight would affect.
Apparently they have happy pilot customers, enough to plan on mass production and to start building chargers
Edit: fascinating plan to build out zero emissions truck corridors covering most of the us by 2040. We need this to pan out!
This looks like a great plan to build out a useful charging network relatively quickly, so manufacturers can start ramping up production and sales
I also like that it covers both charging for EV trucks and hydrogen refueling. While I’m not convinced that hydrogen is anything more than oil companies trying to remain relevant, it does have some advantages - let the market decide what mix of technologies works!
They have happy customers for the Cybertruck. Doesn’t make that any less of an idiotic waste of metal.
And Tesla has a long history of “planning” things that never quite come to be. I won’t be holding my breath on any kind of mass rollout of their semi rigs. If it happens, colour me surprised. Until it happens, though (and I mean really happens, not fake events like the recent robotaxi and optimus one), I will cheerfully say that it won’t happen.
Because looking at Musk’s grand pronouncements, the odds are on my side.