Tesla trucks

Do you remember Tesla's semi-truck announced back in 2017? It was an exciting launch, and was meant to be the start of a new era in heavy-load transportation. Since then, Tesla has delivered a handful of trucks, but that project seems largely forgotten.

I was surprised to read that 22% of trucks sold in China for the first 6 months of this year were electric, with forecasts of 50% market share in the next three years. I thought electric trucks were used in some niche situations, and mostly for good PR. According to the International Energy Agency, though, 90 000 electric trucks were sold last year, meaning they are becoming more mainstream.

The biggest restriction to long-haul trucking is battery life. Given the size of the batteries needed, even the rapid charging stations aren't very quick. The Chinese solution is to do battery swap-outs, which requires extensive industry collaboration to get right.

The infrastructure to support an electric truck industry is impressive in itself. Truck batteries are one megawatt-hour in capacity (more power than the average house uses in a month), and in most cases, a truck will use all of that power in less than a day. No wonder China installed more solar capacity in 2024, than the rest of the world combined.

You can read an interesting article on the subject here - China won the electric car race. Up next: freight trucks.