This video was made possible by you, and my Patreon supporters. Without you, this channel would not be possible. Thank you! Last month, Elon Musk unveiled a
curiously anticipated Tesla truck. A vehicle that most people
will never step inside or drive. Yet it was met with hysterical screaming and cheers. The power of Elon Musk to generate hype for his next project is the envy of CEOs across the world. So, what is the big deal about a truck, and why is creating a battery-powered truck
such an impressive feat? In the U.S. alone,
the trucking industry contributes to about 23% of the total greenhouse gas emissions, equating to 1.475 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. Converting this industry to renewable energy sources would be a huge win
in our battle against climate change. But this isn't just a matter
of throwing some batteries in a truck, adding some motors, and marketing it
to bejesus using Elon Musk's hyper powers. There are actual technical issues
we need to overcome first: the most prevalent of which
is the energy density of the batteries, which is the amount of energy provided
per kilogram of their own weight. Vehicles like semi-trucks
are categorized as Class A vehicles, bound to a maximum weight of 36 tons
by the Federal Highway Administration. This weight includes the weight
of the truck and payload, so any increase in the truck weight will result in a decrease in payload–
the part that pays the bills. For an energy source like batteries, which have a low energy density
when compared to fossil fuels, this creates issues when
attempting to create a vehicle that will offer a value proposition
to the trucking industry. Let's assume our truck, without batteries,
will weigh about 7 tons. This is based on current trucks without an engine. That leaves us 29 tons to play with to figure out how much
of our weight to assign to batteries, and this is where designers need to make a decision: include more batteries,
and the truck will have a greater range, but will be able to carry less payload. Or create a smaller battery pack,
which sacrifices range for a greater payload. A diesel truck can carry over 20 tons
with a range of 1,500 km, or 900 mi. We know Tesla will be creating two variants of its truck:
a 300-mile and a 500-mile variant. And while Elon hyped the 0-60 acceleration
that no truck driver is ever going to use unless they want to be fired
the moment they arrive at the depot, they left out the one crucial bit of information
everyone in the trucking industry was waiting for: the weight of the empty truck, which will determine
exactly how much cargo the truck can carry, and thus how quickly a buyer
will get a return on investment. I found the purposeful secrecy
behind this information incredibly suspicious, but it may just be a case
of Elon wanting to wait another 2-3 years, with possible energy density improvements
on the horizon, to make that announcement. The continued improvement of energy density
was the driver of this new era of electrical vehicles, and Tesla has been on the vanguard
of many of the technological advancements, and it's in their best interest to do so. There really isn't any proprietary technology in Tesla that someone like BMW or Ford couldn't copy, and quite frankly, improve upon. Tesla, without their own battery production,
is really just a very well-marketed brand. So let's calculate the energy these batteries
will need to provide these two trucks, and more importantly, how much they will weigh. To do this, we first need to estimate how much energy
this truck will consume for a given range. This is relatively easy.
"Energy" is simply given as "power" by 'time". We can calculate "time" by dividing the range
by the average speed. And "power" equals "force" times "velocity". We can now swap in the power components
for this equation we made earlier. And, voila, we have our equation
for the battery capacity needed for the truck. Okay, jokes aside, this an equation taken
from an absolutely fantastic paper by Shashank Sripad
and another lad who needs less syllables in his name, which goes into depth in this problem. But I'll give you a quick rundown of its components. To adequately calculate the force acting on the vehicle, we first need to calculate the force
required to overcome inertia, that is, how much force
it will take to get the vehicle moving, which is this part of the equation. This takes into account the efficiency
of the electric engines and brakes and the energy recovered from regenerative braking. Now, we need to calculate
the forces acting to slow the vehicle down such as drag, the rolling friction on the wheels,
and gravity as the vehicle travels uphill. Musk specified that the range for the vehicle
was calculated on a flat road, so this component goes to "zero". So if you work on mountainous roads,
this truck may not be for you. From the event last month, we know that the truck
has an astounding coefficient of drag of 0.36- that's slippier than a Bugatti Chiron- thanks to the lack of air intakes to cool the engine. We will take the mean rolling resistance
of the truck tires at 0.0063, and the average speed at 50mph (this accounts for city driving too), and with the average acceleration
and deceleration at 0.112 m/s², and a frontal area of 7.2 m². The rest are constants that you don't particularly
need to worry about for this example, but you can check
the full calculations in the description where I've included
an interactive website that we created so you can easily change these variables yourself
to see how they affect the vehicle. With this tool we can see that the 300-mile variant
would need a 550-600 kWh batteries, and the 500-mile variant would require 900-1000 kWh. With current batteries' energy densities and prices,
these would weigh 4.7 and 7.9 tonnes, and cost $108,000 and $180,000 respectively. These are the two most important metrics
for any company considering buying this truck, as it determines the exact return-on-investment time. The batteries for the 500-mile version are going to be more expensive than a traditional truck alone while having a shorter range
and smaller hauling capacity. That's going to make
the return-on-investment time longer, even if the operating cost per mile is
20% lower than a conventional diesel semi-truck. But profitability is not everything in this world. This truck will use approximately
25% the energy of a conventional truck, thanks to the extremely efficient engines, and much of this will be provided by renewable energy. This truck has the potential to drastically reduce
the greenhouse gas emissions of the trucking industry. Tesla leading the way on this technology
and ignoring skeptics like me, while risking bankruptcy for the sake of improving the planet is exactly
why I admire Elon Musk so much in the first place. Honestly, I came into this video
expecting the truck to be a deeply flawed technology, After the event, I ranted on Twitter
about how suspicious it was that Musk didn't unveil the empty weight of the vehicle. I honestly thought the whole event
was created to stir up hype and generate funds for
a cash-poor company through pre-orders. I expected my calculations
to confirm my preconceived ideas, but I've never been so glad to be wrong. There are many other factors that will affect this truck, but you can investigate them on our site at battery.real.realengineering We can see how adding a 5% grade hill for 5% of the journey will increase the battery capacity required for the 500-mile range by more than 200 kWh and the weight of the truck by almost 2 tonnes and increase the price by $44,000. Go ahead and play around with the tool yourself,
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go straight back into this channel, whether it's hiring more web developers
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Did i miss something? his video is missing the actual result he came up with. he does the calculation and spits some numbers at you and then just jumps to his concluding statements where he says he was surprised by the pleasantly surprised that the numbers contradicted his pre-conceived notions. what? but you just said the battery alone would cost more than a diesel truck and increase the time to return your investment. how are you now saying your calculations made you glad to be wrong?
It’s an interesting note that Tesla doesn’t have and proprietary technology that would keep competitors from entering the space. I’m sure the bigger companies are waiting for the technology to advance a little more.
If it wasn't obvious, he's using metric tons (as opposed to US tons) for those calculations.
We need plutonium trucks!
Why is there a weight limit on trucks? Accident reasons?
So basically this is 2 minutes of a video leading up to this guy saying he has no clue how much the truck weighs and therefore it's impossible to make any kind of judgement about payload... then 6 minutes of him explaining basic physics.
It says nothing. It literally says nothing. He has a small suspicion they won't be able to carry much. I'm pretty sure they're aware of the importance payload at the Tesla truck development meetings. "The truth" my arse.
He mentions that profitability isn't everything which I get.
But I would think the trucking industry is one where margins are pretty small so I can't help but think losing profits in the name of lower carbon emissions and greater social responsibility wouldn't entirely work in this case.
Another truth about Elon Musk...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNFesa01llk
Thought his comments about adding gradient to the equations were foolish. He said if you need to climb hills this might not be the truck for you. Then at the end of the vid he adds a 5% gradient for 5% of the range, without adding in an equivalent downhill grade which actually puts energy back in the batteries.
For an idea of what electric vehicles are capable of when towing, watch this video.