What Tesla’s First Electric Semi Delivery Means for Trucking

Elon Musk recently shipped the first order of the Tesla electric semi-trucks to Pepsi Co. with a few more companies to follow in coming months. This marks the beginning of Tesla’s new long-range hauling vehicle finally hitting the road and entering into the shipping and hauling industry.

Bob Galyen of Galyen Energy LLC notes that this is a landmark move for Musk and the trucking energy, but also wonders how the U.S. infrastructure can support Tesla electric semi-trucks.

“Elon Musk’s announcement yesterday about delivering his first cyber truck to PepsiCo is literally the tip of the iceberg for the commercial truck industry. It’s an evolutionary process that society is looking at for electrification. It’s only been a matter of time. Looking back over the timeframe of the 1990s, when the first electrification movement fizzled out cause of the federal government repealing the cafe requirements, now it’s in full swing.

And, understanding that. This podcast, “Are We There Yet?” Absolutely. We are there because the electrification era will stick this time. And Elon’s announcement yesterday was a basic testament to that because now we’re getting into the heavy-duty truck industry, not just the mobility sector being passenger car.”

Experts seem to be approaching this event from varying different angles. On one hand this shows a push forward for what has historically been a technology-lacking industry that hasn’t had much innovation, especially in the realm of sustainability.

Bob’s Thoughts

“The implementation of these large trucks will also carry with it a burden on the grid. And the grid itself will need structural support through the form of electrified grid. And that electrified grid may actually create even a bigger market for the battery industry because much of the world’s Electrification efforts in the past have been sustainable grids, and presently, particularly in the United States, much of our grid is becoming old and dilapidated compared to many other of the more recent countries like China that have got a very robust and structured grid because it’s been built within the last 20 years.

So our grid structure with charging these large rigs will require additional generation capacity, and part of that may require additional batteries hanging on the grid so that you can fast charge these batteries. So you see more and more battery charging of these electrified machines, not just in the truck level, but also in the past car market as well.

So we’re seeing a complete change in a, and an evolutionary charge, Part of the electrification movement on the power grid, as well as in the mobility sector itself. We’re seeing today not only things like the cyber truck, we’re also seeing mobility in vertical takeoff and landing machines, a lot of brand-new electrified boats, more and more electrification going into the locomotives as, as well as normal passenger car type and mobility sector type of vehicles.”