Back in 2017, Tesla announced that it was going to revolutionize the heavy transport sector by unveiling the Tesla Semi truck. It finally started to fulfil the vision by delivering its first few fully electric Semi trucks in December last year.
Now a report from Bloomberg has revealed that it’s also about to revolutionize the charging infrastructure needed to support fully electric long-haul trucks in the US.
According to the latest report, emails have been seen by the publication that reveals that Tesla is planning on seeking funding to build an interstate Semi charging station route.
The funding of $US100 million from the Department of Transport that Tesla is asking for will help it build a network between Texas and California in the US. The report suggests that Tesla will be putting $US24 million of funds towards this network as well.
A total of nine charging sites are being proposed. Each site will contain a total of 12 Semi Chargers with capacity of around 750kW. Eight of these will be dedicated to Tesla Semis and there will also be four additional chargers at each of the nine sites that could be used by other electric trucks.
The size of the charger is interesting, as some had suggested bigger capacity would be needed for the Semi. At Fortescue, the company is installing its own 3MW charger at one of its mine sites to trial the massive haul trucks it is trialling there.
Other groups, such as Janus in Australia, have proposed swappable batteries, with stations provided along main routes to enable truck drivers to swap their batteries in a matter of minutes. Of course, most trucks – like the Tesla Semi – will not come with swappable batteries.
Sites along the route also happen to connect Tesla’s factory in Fremont, California to Austin Texas plant along with being in close proximity to Tesla’s upcoming Mexico factory.
Tesla has previously installed its Megachargers for Semi trucks at PepsiCo’s Modesto production facility. That was to get the facility ready for the imminent supply of Tesla Semi trucks to the company.
PepsiCo has now been trialling the truck for the last 8 months and with an order of 100 Tesla Semi trucks in total, having reliable charging infrastructure to back up the investment is key for both companies.
Tesla aims to ramp production of the Semi up to fulfil orders on trucks with an 800 km of range.
Riz is the founder of carloop based in Melbourne, specialising in Australian EV data, insight reports and trends. He is a mechanical engineer who spent the first 7 years of his career building transport infrastructure before starting carloop. He has a passion for cars, particularly EVs and wants to help reduce transport emissions in Australia. He currently drives a red Tesla Model 3.