Tesla’s SemiTrucks

As I was looking through Ars Technica’s website, one article really caught my eye just because I had no clue something of the sort was even in production. What I am talking about is the Tesla semi-truck. As I was reading the article my first thought was that this was a really cool concept and would aid us in moving to more renewable energy sources. However, as I started reading more and more a specific line stood out to me, “In test runs, Tesla completed a 500-mile haul of 81,000 pounds (a total that includes the truck’s weight and cargo), but that didn’t impress everyone gathered. Oliver Dixon, a senior analyst at the consultancy firm Guidehouse, told Reuters the truck is “not very impressive” and still could not be considered a “definitive proof of concept” without key details that Tesla failed to share during its event.” (Belanger, 2022). If Teslas semis are not as efficient as the diesel ones already being used, that would result in one of two scenarios. The first is that many of the companies that placed pre-orders for these trucks or pledged to use them, back out and continue to use the diesel ones. As a result, the benefits associated with renewable energy use would go away and would effectively be a step backward. The second scenario is that these companies would order and use more of Tesla’s semis in order to meet their transportation needs. This wouldn’t be good either because the production of these vehicles has negative environmental effects, so the production of more of them wouldn’t be beneficial.

Hopefully, Tesla can create a more efficient semi-truck before either of these scenarios plays out, I also believe that we need to come up with some better alternatives to these vehicles because of their negative environmental effects. However, until then I do believe that the use of electric vehicles is far better than diesel.

I included a link to the article below if anyone else would like to read it:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/12/tesla-ships-first-electric-semi-but-price-and-efficienc y-data-still-unknown/