Elon Musk unveiled Tesla's new electric Semi truck, which he said "will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension."
The electric semitrailer would have a 500-mile range and will roll out in 2019, if all goes according to plan.
On top of that, Musk surprised the crowd gathered at the event with a new version of the Roadster, the high end sports car that originally got Tesla going about a decade ago. The new Roadster would have a range of 620 miles and is due out in 2020. Musk said the Roadster would have a zero to 60 miles per hour time of 1.9 seconds. "These numbers sound nutty," Musk said at the unveiling on Thursday.
The truck will also have Tesla's semiautonomous driving system, which will help assist drivers and also have the ability to drive autonomously with other trucks. The convoy system would allow a lead truck to guide a group of other autonomous trucks to follow close behind, a system that would save on labor and fuel costs.
Critics were quick to point out that the Semi event comes at a time of particular turmoil for Tesla. The Model 3 has run into production problems-it only produced 260 of them in the third quarter. Musk had promised to hit 5,000 Model 3s per week before the end of the year, but said that the company probably won't hit that until towards the end of the first quarter of 2018.
But he hopes the hype over these new products will put the sheen back on Tesla's share price, which is down nearly 20 percent since September.
It's unclear how Tesla's Semi will compete with existing trucks. Musk boasted that they would be cheaper to operate than diesel trucks and potentially cheaper than even freight rail. He cited fewer parts-no need for an engine, transmission or powertrain-which would significantly save on maintenance. No fuel costs would also trim the cost of operating a semi versus a diesel truck. Musk said that the all-in costs of the Semi would come in about 20 percent cheaper than its diesel competitors. However, he declined to offer a sale price.
There are reasons to be skeptical. Bloomberg New Energy Finance estimates that the amount of batteries needed to power such a large truck could alone cost $100,000; a hefty sum when considering conventional long haul diesel truck costs a total of about $150,000.
But the 500-mile range exceeded analysts' expectations and would be within a distance typically traveled by a truck on a single haul. Tesla says it will install megachargers that allow the Semi to recharge in 30 minutes, giving the truck 400 miles of range. Related: China's Mysterious Arctic Silk Road
"The specs on the new semi truck and sports car would put both vehicles at the top of their segments-assuming they can be produced and sold as part of a sustainable business plan," Karl Brauer, executive publisher of Kelley Blue Book and Autotrader, told the Wall Street Journal. "So far that final element has eluded Tesla Motors, which makes it difficult to see these vehicles as more than 'what if' concept cars."
Tesla will have competitors in the electric truck segment. Bloomberg reports that Daimler AG has shown some electric truck prototypes this year; Paccar Inc. has electric, hybrid, hydrogen fuel cell and natural gas trucks in the works-Volvo is testing its version of an electric semi, and Volkswagen rolls out an electric model out in 2019.
There's been a lot of excitement about the coming electric revolution for passenger vehicles, but electrifying road freight is an entirely different matter, and would present another massive threat to crude oil demand.
"The point of doing this is to just give a hardcore smack-down to gasoline cars," Musk told the crowd at Tesla's design studio near Los Angeles.
The IEA notes that governments around the world have substantially raised the efficiency of passenger vehicles-an estimated 80 percent of global passenger car sales are subjected to fuel efficiency standards. This would put oil demand in permanent decline in about a decade, except that there are three sectors where the agency still sees oil demand growth: petrochemicals, aviation/shipping, and road freight. Related: Tesla's Surprise Unveiling Reveals Fastest Production Car Ever
While most governments are targeting efficiency in passenger vehicles, only the U.S., China, Canada, India and Japan have heavy duty efficiency requirements (although the EU is in the process of implementing their own).
As such, the IEA shrugged off the threat of EVs to oil demand when it released its World Energy Outlook, largely because it assumes strong oil demand growth for road freight. That is, oil consumption for heavy duty trucks grows so much over the next 25 years, that it offsets all the reductions that will be made from the switch over from gasoline to electric vehicles.
(Click to enlarge)
There are plenty of reasons to doubt Musk, and some argue that the unveiling of Tesla's Semi only exacerbates the company's growing credibility problem. But if Tesla is successful with its new Semi, the IEA's scenario of robust oil demand for freight will quickly be thrown out the window.
By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com
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Nick Cunningham is an independent journalist, covering oil and gas, energy and environmental policy, and international politics. He is based in Portland, Oregon. More
Comments
Note that the car will not be "ready" and "deliverable" for three years according to Master Touter Musk.
What happens if "three years" turns into "never"?
You flushed $250,000 down the toilet.
May I remind you that Tesla is a money-losing enterprise and has been since it was founded. It has never made a profit, it has zero in retained earnings and you will be an unsecured, back-of-the-line creditor with your "reservation" -- which they will spend the minute it comes in the door.
If the "Reservation" was a modest amount of money this might be defensible. $5,000 as a punt on a "supercar"? Sure, why not.
How can Elon Musk get away with this BS?? This guy has not made a 1$ profit yet, and soon his EV tax incentives will run out. Nobody wants to say "checkmate". The Wall Street music band keeps on playing, and people keep on dancing:)
Short tesla stock. Soon.
Even with 1/2 of a car and a pile of engine they still can't beat the P100D.
It will carry 7 passengers and has 2 trunks. Yet a 2 passenger Corvette with a dinky trunk can not compete. Same for other flashy "supercars". THEY CAN NOT COMPETE!
WHERE is their 5 star SUV to compete with the Tesla Model X...
And GM is what? $70 Billion in debt and still behind in tech....
What 5 years down the road?
And if they want to get into EVs.... Where is their battery factory?
Mercedes, BMW, Audi & Co. all thought that first the Model S and then the Model X can't be built. Guess what? They are building some 100k of these cars a year now. That's a few billion USD of revenue that the Germans are not taking home.
Will the Tesla Semi takeover all world trucking in the coming 3 years? Of course not, that's a silly proposition. Will the Tesla Semi be late? Most probable.
But will it be coming to market and disrupt things? I would bet good money on that. The problem is not the trucks that Tesla builds, the problem with Tesla is, that they shame, push, bully and harass the rest of the automotive industry into doing electric vehicles. And that's what will kill oil demand.
Don't believe me? Look at Cummins share price (ticker symbol is CMI) and how it plunged after Tesla unveiled the Semi - that's what I mean with bullying. Rest assured that they will build electric trucks and many of them. That's their only chance.
Another Tesla problem is loot, their burn rate is phenomenal and it would be foolish to send them a nickel until they have a product available. Owners of this stock are certainly brave, as this company will only have a future after a bankruptcy, so they can ditch their debt.
I dont dismiss him as incapable.
Simply dishonest.
He is a self-promoter of epic proportions, and as people enjoy being fooled they line up for him, for as we all know "This Time Is Different!"
My name for him and his endless delusions is I.T. Barnum, a modern version of P.T. Barnum, the legendary conman of yore.
Lots of promises, delays, and attention-shifting away from the current rubble to The Next Big Thing!!
And an endless supply of starry-eyed True Believers treating cant-miss predictions of inevitable results no more than 5 or 10 years off...
Tesla is the 2nd oldest American car company (both Chrysler and GM had to take billions of USD from the US government, go bankrupt and would not be here today if capitalism was alive in the US).
In his side job, he makes rockets that supply the IS, get telcoms satellites up in the orbit and land back on earth.
All of the above was ruled by many experts as straight-up impossible.
So do I like the guy? Who cares
Would I want to bet against this guy? Heck no!
Would I ever want to own a business in competition with him? NEVER!
Again, he maybe - whatever we want to call him. But betting against him? Many people have paid a very high price for that...