But reports of rail’s impending death may be exaggerated.
“Is this going to be a game-changer? No, not yet anyway,” says Larry Gross, an intermodal analyst at Gross Transportation Consulting.
Industry analysts say the Tesla Semi does not appear to match the hype surrounding its debut. The truck can go 500 miles on a single charge, and 400 miles after spending just 30 minutes in a Tesla charging station. Production is scheduled to begin in 2019.
Tesla’s announcement left out key details, such as price of the Semi and the weight of its battery.
Musk said the Semi would be expensive. Trucking companies will need to know whether a battery-powered rig’s lower operating costs are offset or even negated by the higher purchase price.
And if the Semi’s battery pack weighs more than a traditional diesel engine and related components, then it will eat into the truck’s carrying capacity.
“These guys are not going to be sold on sizzle,” Gross says of truckers. “Hard numbers are the only thing that counts.”
One of those hard numbers is the battery weight.
Trucks can weigh a total of 80,000 pounds, a figure that includes the rig and its payload. Some analysts estimate that the Tesla battery may weigh 10,000 pounds, or roughly twice the weight of a diesel engine, fuel, and transmission.
If Semi’s battery weighs more than the equivalent diesel truck’s powertrain, its use would likely be severely limited, Gross says, because truckers operate general purpose fleets that are one size fits all.
They are not going to try to manage which rigs can handle full loads and which are payload-constrained by the Semi’s battery weight, he explains.
Tesla faces additional obstacles to wide deployment of its Semi. Chief among them may be the limited availability of charging stations, says Anthony Hatch, an analyst with ABH Consulting.
Where the trucks can roam will depend entirely on the network of charging stations.
“Right now I see it as a help for drayage, possibly,” Hatch says of moves between intermodal terminals and shippers’ docks. “Rails aren’t really focused on the sub-500-mile market.”
The Tesla Semi aside, intermodal is under the looming threat of continued advances in truck technology.
Big rigs are becoming more fuel efficient. Platooning — or running a convoy of trucks closely together to save fuel — may be common in a couple of years. And autonomous vehicles have been tested in the U.S. and abroad.
All of these advances would reduce the cost of trucking and erode the cost advantage intermodal has, except in very long hauls, analysts say.
“The combination of autonomous operations, electric traction power, peloton, or long combination vehicle operation is an intermodal killer,” says John Larkin, an analyst with Stifel. “Getting to that point, however, will likely take decades. Other elements of the supply chain will be automated first.”
Walmart and trucking company J.B. Hunt have said they would reserve a few Tesla Semis to test the technology.
“Reserving Tesla trucks marks an important step in our efforts to implement industry-changing technology,” said John Roberts, president and chief executive officer at J.B. Hunt. “We believe electric trucks will be most beneficial on local and dray routes, and we look forward to utilizing this new, sustainable technology.”
In the absence of details about the trucks, the purchase reservations are more symbolic than anything else, Gross says. Any company that is among Tesla Semi’s first customers will be seen as being technologically advanced and green, he says.
None of the Class I railroads would comment on the potential impact of the Tesla Semi.
