Tesla semi-electric truck will have up to 621 miles of range, says Elon Musk

Elon Musk commented again on the Tesla Semi program, Tesla’s next electric semi-trailer, and said the vehicle will eventually have up to 1000 km (621 miles) of range.

This new range will be achieved, thanks to Tesla’s new internal battery cells and battery technology.

When Tesla Semi launched in 2017, the automaker said production versions of Tesla Semi, which is a Class 8 truck with a capacity of 80,000 lbs, will have range options of 300 miles and 500 miles. for $ 150,000 and $ 180,000, respectively.

However, CEO Elon Musk said he found opportunities to expand this line during testing.

A year later, Musk said the production version of Tesla Semi would have a range closer to 600 miles.

Now the CEO explained the Tesla Semi lineup in new comments during an interview early this morning:

Getting a range of say 500 km is, in my opinion, pretty easy, trivial to be frank, for a semi-truck and that assumes a truck pulling a load of 40 metric tons. If you want, for long range trucking you can bring the range up to, we think, easily 800 km, and we see a path over time up to 1000 km of range for a heavy truck. .

These first two range figures are in line with what Tesla had previously announced for Tesla Semi: 500 km or 310 miles and 800 km or 497 miles.

However, 1000 km (621 miles) is the new information here.

Also, Musk meant that the total truck weight with load would be in the range of 40 metric tons and not actually pull a 40 metric ton load, as that is 88,000 pounds and trucks in the US have a limit. total weight of 80,000 pounds with their load.

Speaking of Tesla Semi capacity, the weight and load capacity of a semi truck is very important because the amount of cargo it can carry affects its profitability.

This has been a problem for electric trucks due to the weight of the battery.

Musk first commented on this and he said Tesla might have to give up a ton of capacity to the weight of the Tesla Semi:

You can basically transport the same cargo as a diesel truck. We think there may be a one tonne penalty. May be. At this point, we believe that we can reduce the freight by less than a ton, and we believe that in the long term, there will be no reduction in freight for electric trucks.

Here’s the interview in which Musk made the new comments:

The CEO also confirms that Tesla Semi will use Tesla’s new 4680 cells and even the new structural battery design that Tesla unveiled with the new cell at its Battery Day event.

He said these kinds of ranges are achievable for an electric semi-trailer at “around 300 Wh / kg” of energy density at the cell level – alluding to the energy density of Tesla’s new cells.

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