September 16, 2023
By Brian Wang

Pepsi Tesla Semi Proves Real World 80,000 lbs Maximum Gross Weight Operation With Long Range on a Single Charge

There has been official reporting that Tesla Semi is able drive over 420 miles on one charge with 80,000 pounds of total load (including the weight of the truck and trailer). This was a heavily disputed capability. The range was with driving speeds of 65 mph which has 15% less range than trucks driving at 52 mph. The Tesla Semis have been driving over 400 miles on a single charge with full loads and average speeds of 65 miles per hour. Tesla can do 70% charge in 60 minutes and 90% charge in 90 minutes. 15-30 minutes for 15-35% topoff charges. Pepsi has 750 kw chargers installed. Tesla Semi were charging during the day to get operated distance.

UPDATE: Tesla Pepsi Semi crushing all other electric trucks on endurance and distance over multiple days. Semi trucks need to operate long distances day after day. Tesla Semi outrange the competing electric Semi by three to six times multiple days.

North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE)’s is the group running the Run on Less event. Mike Roeth of NACFE has been cited as saying that the Pepsi Tesla Semi are performing some of these real world tests with 80000 lbs gross weight loads. This is within 2000 pounds of the legal maximum payloads.

OverDriveonline reports that North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE)’s Mike Roeth has given a good summary of how Pepsi’s Tesla Semi trucks are being loaded for the Run on Less real world testing event:

“We’re tracking the beverage. It’s impressive, a fairly heavy haul at nearly 80,000 pounds. It goes to one location and drops off soda, but maybe picks up some waters, goes to another location to drop off waters but pick up Gatorade. We don’t really know the payload, [but] NACFE has verified that these are fairly fully loaded when they leave and stay fairly loaded. They’re not out there gaming Run on Less.” So these things are running heavy (no chips and rarely empty), all efficiency numbers should be understood in that light. Given that heavy load, the efficiency numbers that can be inferred from the data should be understood to be on the low end of the spectrum – same for the range on a single charge.

As for how much payload capacity the truck loses due to battery weight Mike says that “that run yesterday is with less beverages than if it was a diesel truck, but not much less” speculating here, but I’d personally guess that the lost payload is 1t-2t when including the extra 1t allowance that electrics get.

All in all, doing 806 miles a day in heavy load applications (like Tesla 3 did yesterday – probably the subject of another post) is a really impressive demonstration of this technology. If I told anyone 5 years ago that such a thing were possible I’d have been chased out of the room.