Tesla

Some want to believe Tesla will succeed. Others believe Tesla will fail. Based on recent updates, you decide.

An Uber self-driving SUV struck and killed a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, the first known time a pedestrian has been killed by an autonomous vehicle.

Volkswagen invests $25B in EVs; Tesla exposed to neodymium supply shocks; FedEx to announce earnings today; Union Pacific plans $127M capex in Arkansas; Maersk says Canadian container trade growth will outpace U.S. in 2018.

The Tesla is not a zero-emission vehicle as it produces a tremendous amount of CO2 during its production and largely utilizes electricity which is drawn from non-renewable resources.

The Tesla Semi has finally hit the road. Tesla founder Elon Musk posted a picture of two Tesla Semi’s leaving the company’s Gigafactory in the Nevada mountains for a trip to California.

It’s estimated that Tesla produces battery packs at a cost of $157/kwh, and the company has stopped claiming that it can dramatically reduce their cost. This puts the 1 mw Tesla Semi battery at $157k.

It is a curse to have everything go right on your first attempt.

Panelists from Bosch, eNow, Motiv, and Thor discussed the state of the electric truck industry and the technical and commercial challenges facing automobile electrification, especially battery technology.

Freight brokers’ revenues went up but margins went down in 2017; Amtrak blames CSX for yesterday’s crash; Hazelwood won’t testify in Pilot trial; oil tanker shipping rates crater; click through for more!

Some early adopters of the Tesla Semi are receiving another advantage – help with designing and building electric charging stations for the trucks.

Current and former Tesla engineers are blowing the whistle on the company’s sloppy manufacturing processes, citing problems with testing, assembly, and employee qualifications. 

If you’ve ever had your doubts about Elon Musk’s grand visions, you aren’t alone, but at some point maybe we should get on board the Tesla fan-wagon. Production issues are one thing, but they’re breaking new ground all over the world.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is the long-distance infrastructure of superchargers.

FreightWaves’ readers made the past year a great one for our young brand. Today, we take a fond look back at your favorite articles from 2017.

Ashlee Vance, who wrote a popular biography of Musk in 2015, observed Musk’s ability to get the most out of his engineers. He asks them “to do the impossible.”

Tesla is taking pre orders for its Semi, asking for $20,000 each. Participating in such an exercise is likely to end in disappointment

Oil prices finished 2017 above $60 a barrel for crude, surpassing their highest level in more than two years. Delivery of light, sweet crude for February was up 1% to $60.42 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude was up 71 cents to $66.78 a barrel.

Tesla is now accepting orders for its Tesla Semi in three European countries. The different dynamics of the European freight market represent some different challenges for the company.

The Canadian province of Ontario has announced an electric truck rebate of 60% of the incremental purchase cost compared to an equivalent conventional fuel vehicle, up to a cap of CA$75,000 per vehicle, under the new Green Commercial Vehicle Program.

From all green e-vehicles to the hyperloop to the rocket-to-Mars, one thing we should all be hoping for is that Elon Musk’s visions become reality. On the one hand, you can say the only way to make a vision happen is to possess the vision in the first place.

In a strange twist, Tesla’s stock took a hit yesterday in spite of the apparent good news of e-trucks. Why?

Thor describes themselves as a “transportation lab with a goal of tackling fleet management problems.”

The Budweiser brewer says this is part of its strategy to reduce the company’s carbon emissions by 30% by 2025.

Anheuser-Busch’s private fleet is among the leaders in the country when it comes to efforts to cut carbon emissions through alternative fuel use. The company is taking another step, announcing it has reserved 40 Tesla Semi electric tractors.

Tesla is losing investor support as losses continue to mount as competition from the Chevy Bolt stiffens and Model 3 production issues linger. This might impact their ability to compete in the commercial vehicle market 

Nikola Motors, a leading startup that is building the next generation of truck tweeted out that Elon Musk was full of it and his claims on performance and range were invalid 

On Thursday night, Elon Musk announced Tesla’s new Semi tractors. Although the promised range of 500 miles impressed industry observers, the event left analysts and investors with even more questions about the truck’s specifications and Tesla’s production capacity.

Amazon has officially entered the freight app business with a new option called Relay. The app debuted last month, CNBC reported, and will make it easier for truck drivers to get into and out of Amazon facilities.

An Ohio state legislator has introduced a bill that would require trucks operating in Ohio to have side guards to help protect pedestrians and bicyclists.

This is what being “deep in production hell” looks like. Yesterday Tesla reported wider-than-expected losses of $671M for the third quarter, the largest quarterly loss in the company’s history, which comes right on the heels of a $336M loss in Q2.

Former Tesla shareholder Daimler seems intent on upstaging the upstart with its own electric truck program, reports Bloomberg. Weeks before Tesla is set to unveil its own electric vehicle, Daimler introduced its own model, the E-Fuso Vision One.

Elon Musk has delayed the public unveiling of the Tesla semi, citing issues with the Model 3 production rollout and a focus increasing battery production to help Puerto Rico, Musk tweeted late on Friday.

Do we have a picture of Tesla’s new semi truck? A Reddit user named itookapicofarocket posted a picture of what he said was the Tesla semi before mysteriously removing the picture.

Elon Musk has been teasing the world for nearly a year about his Tesla electric semi. Information has been coming out mostly via cryptic messages and tweets from Musk himself, but no definitive announcement. But Wednesday, Musk tweeted that the semi will be unveiled on Oct. 26 in Hawthorne, CA.

Warehouse facilities are a key component for logistic operations and managing the warehouse efficiently can have a noticeable impact on the bottom line. Reining in electricity costs, though, remains difficult. That’s why warehouse operators need options.

Cummins has unveiled a Class 7 electric powertrain that will power Class 7 trucks by 2019 and could recharge in as little as 20 minutes.

The never-ending mystery over what kind of truck Tesla is building may have moved one giant step closer to being solved on Thursday when it was revealed the electric truck will likely have an operating range of 200 to 300 miles.

Analysts continue to argue that EVs are not ready to compete with internal combustion engines (ICE), and technology advances will need to come in the next decade or two before EVs can dominate the marketplace. But the Tesla Model 3 is challenging that, and it’s success is something that trucking will watch closely.

According to an internal company email obtained by Reuters, Tesla has spoken with the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles about testing autonomous electric trucks with no driver in the cab on Nevada roadways.

As governments start to phase our incentives to purchase electric cars, there are some who believe the electric car revolution is about to come to a quick end.

On Tuesday, during the company’s shareholder meeting, Tesla founder Elon Musk updated investors on a number of initiatives and pushed back against critics of the Tesla Semi electric truck. Also, when is a fuel tax on a fuel tax, and inside the supply chain’s tech revolution.

This Week in Trucking, Elon Musk adds some details to his electric Tesla Semi program; the U.S. trade gap with Mexico is growing larger and Amazon faces a carrier lawsuit for refusing to pay shipping fees.

UPS has announced an expansion of its large alternative vehicle fleet with the addition of hydrogen fuel cell delivery trucks. The vehicles will be in operation in California later this year.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has been teasing audiences for months on the company’s secretive electric truck project. At a TED Conference in Vancouver, Musk posted this shadowed picture of what the truck may look like.

Much has been written about Tesla’s electric truck project and while opinions vary on the viability of a heavy-duty electric semi, some are wondering if the truck is only a vehicle to reach a different end game for Elon Musk.

Since last summer, Elon Musk has been teasing Tesla fans with word the company is building an electric “semi truck.” What form, shape and size that truck will take is still under wraps, but at least now we have a more definitive timeframe.