This sums up why nobody should believe anything Musk says, and doubly so when he makes some world-changing SFnal claim:
Why is Tesla screwing around with the Semi despite it not being a viable product and Tesla having more pressing needs with other new models? Because Elon needed a pump for Tesla’s stock back in 2017. Keep in mind that Tesla was close to bankruptcy due to troubles with the Model 3 launch between 2017 to 2019, but Elon Musk’s own admission.
And Musk recently said in June that the Semi won’t see higher-volume production until late 2024 “due to battery supply constraints”. This was a blatant lie. Recent earnings calls at Panasonic and LG Energy Solutions revealed that the two battery cell makers are seeing excess capacity as their customers’ EV models are seeing a slowdown in sales (Tesla Models S/X) and others are pushing out their EV capex to 2025 (Ford and GM).
The Semi was simply another pump that never came to fruition, somewhat like battery pack swapping back in 2014 at Tesla. It would be no surprise to see the Tesla Semi discontinued or simply not mentioned anymore after 2024 unless battery packs become as cheap as ICE vehicle engines. For now, I believe it’s safe to say that electric Semis are a joke. And Elon Musk is the master joker.
you have to allow besides the usual three (boingboing, discourse and crwdcblabla) explicitly twimg.com if blocked. thats the fix! finaly. seems like some embeded twitter fucks with the forum-software.
that does suck. as horrible as musk is, i’d rather see the semi succeed than gleen the enjoyment of seeing him fail. for one, he fails all the time anyway, so there’s plenty of other opportunities. and also, we need some solution for trucks… probably about ten years ago
well, one is already here for about a good century; trains. you dont need necessarily semitrucks, at least not for the last 10 miles. electric semitrucks with batteries are not a feasible solution in my humble opinion. at least not in the foreseeable future.
But he’s not failing. California is paying for this mistake rather than invest in a public system.
So I’m pretty sanguine about it failing. It’s not like we need Musk to succeed because he hasn’t solved anything other than how to get rich people to buy electric cars which wasn’t a hard problem imo.
i mean, we all are really. that’s definitely my point. it would have been nice to see that money spent more wisely, but since its spent it’d be nice for it to have been useful.
Better to stop throwing money at the problem hoping for an unlikely breakthrough than to fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. Battery weight alone is enough of a problem to make electric semis a non-starter using current tech. I do like the idea of hydrogen fuel cells though.
Huh? All the big truck companies offer electric semis that are on the road right now. DAF, Scania, Volvo, MAN, Renault, Mercedes, even Toyota.
Musk isn’t the only player. It’s just that he’s taken all the air out of the room while the professionals have been quietly getting on.
ETA: Volvo, the worldwide market leader in electric semis, even offer both a European style and an American style semi, because apparently those aesthetics are important, somehow?
I wont start a discussion here (maybe in its own thread), but e-trucks with batteries have some very serious limitations, which, again, makes them -in my opinion- not feasible for what they actually made for.
in other murks-related news; the FAA cleared(!) the second launch-attempt for his mars-monstrosity;
just as a reminder how stupid and insane the whole concept of “starship” is; even if it “works”, it will need 10-14(!) times refuelling in LEO to get to the moon. that means 10-14 launches of “starships” for refuelling alone. go figure.
