[Edward64]

I do hope this is successful and encourages competitors to do the same.


Tesla delivers its first electric Semi trucks promising 500 miles of range | CNN Business

Tesla made the first deliveries of its Semi truck to customers Thursday evening, five years after the heavy-duty hauler was first unveiled. The event included two truck cabs decked out in the livery of Pepsi and Frito-Lay, PepsiCo’s snack foods subsidiary.

The fully electric semi truck features an unusual design in which the driver sits in the center of the cab rather than on one side. Tesla has boasted of the truck’s performance — saying it accelerates much more quickly, even with a full load, than traditional diesel-powered semi trucks. A video during the presentation showed, according to Tesla, a fully loaded Tesla Semi accelerating up a steep grade and passing other trucks.

Since it has no multi-geared transmission, as diesel trucks do, it’s also much easier to drive than other semi trucks, Musk said. The truck can drive 500 miles on a single charge, according to Tesla. It has three electric motors, one of which drives the truck most of the time while the other two are used mostly for acceleration and hard pulling. The truck can pull up to 82,000 pounds, Tesla claims.

I wasn't able to find out how much % of gas/diesel semis use as compared to total (e.g. how much will this save if we replace the old semis over 20-30 years). But I found this.

Why New Semi Trucks Are a Win for the Environment

Cutting that by 20 percent means a savings of 5.8 billion gallons of fuel (diesel, mainly), which, based on the EPA's estimate that the average passenger vehicle consumes nearly 500 gallons of fuel a year, is roughly the equivalent of 12 million cars off the road. Yes, it's fuzzy math, and passenger cars usually run on gas, not diesel, but that's still a massive savings. By 2050, the White House projects that current standards will save 10 billion gallons of fuel a year for trucks alone.