• Tesla Semi delivered to Pepsi
• Speculations about unsatisfactory range
• Tesla competitor also gets an order from Pepsi
The market launch of Tesla’s semi truck was bumpy: after various delays, delivery started in December 2022. 36 vehicles went to major customer PepsiCo, among others, who intends to expand their semi fleet to around 100 trucks by the end of the year. The first recall was only shortly after the start of delivery: Problems with the parking brake apparently made adjustments by Tesla necessary.
Pepsi manager gives the first sobering clues
A little later there was a first update from Pepsi. A responsible manager revealed details about the range of the e-trucks – and they should be rather sobering. Tesla itself promises a range of up to 500 kilometers without charging. But these are apparently more theoretical assumptions, as Pepsi’s Vice President Mike O’Connell indicated in an interview with Reuters: When transporting chips – the well-known snack brand Lay’s is part of the American portfolio – the Tesla vehicle should travel around 690 kilometers . However, if Pepsi transports crates of drinks, the semi is used for short distances of around 160 kilometers, according to the Pepsi manager. A little later, O’Connell tried to put his statements into perspective again and explained that Pepsi also intends to use the semi to transport beverages over longer distances. The connection between the payload and the range of the Tesla Semi has already been taken up in the market: “Towing around a trailer full of chips is not the most intensive and difficult task,” quoted CNBC Oliver Dixon, a senior analyst at the consulting firm Guidehouse. “I still think Tesla owes a lot of evidence to the broader commercial vehicle market,” Dixon said of Tesla’s unwillingness to provide payload and pricing information.
Pepsi awards contract to the competition
Meanwhile, Pepsi continues to focus on electrification but no longer exclusively on Tesla: The Swedish startup Einride has won the US group for a three-year partnership. In a first step, trucks with Einride technology will be used for journeys between the Walkers production sites in Leicester and Coventry in Great Britain. In total, the fleet of trucks powered by Einride’s intelligent Saga platform is expected to cover more than 750,000 miles previously driven on fossil fuels and save the equivalent of more than 1,600 tons of CO2 emissions, according to one Einride press release.
“Our partnership with Einride is a small but important step towards this goal that will help us make significant advances in sustainable transport,” said Archana Jagannathan, Head of Sustainability, PepsiCo UK. We look forward to better understanding the “potential role that electric trucks can play in our transportation business.”
Einride only contributes the technology
Unlike Tesla, Einride does not build its electric trucks itself, but supplies the Saga software platform, which is used as the operating system in the trucks of major manufacturers. According to Einride, it invests in the charging infrastructure of other companies. However, the Swedes are already working on an autonomous electric truck – it remains to be seen whether this can compete with the Tesla Semi.
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Image Credits: Alexis Georgeson / Tesla Motors