Sawyer Merritt@SawyerMerritt
WSJ: Tesla Finally Has Its First Semi-Truck and It’s Already a Hit With Truckers.
"Truckers who drove it in pilot tests say they loved features including a centered driving position, faster charging and longer range for about $100,000 less than other battery-electric trucks. Angel Rodriguez, a 56-year-old truck driver for Hight Logistics in Long Beach, Calif., recently swapped out a 13-gear diesel truck for a Tesla Semi, which is automatic, for a one-month pilot test. “It’s just easier on your body. It’s less stressful because you’re not really having to engage the clutch and the stick shift.”
Big F Transport employs five mechanics to service more than 40 diesel-powered rigs and a fleet of trailer chassis in Wilmington, Calif. “If we go all EV we will only need one [mechanic] to service chassis,” said Geovanny Melendez, the carrier’s VP of operations, who went to see the Semi earlier this month at a ride-and-drive event near the Port of Long Beach.
Jennie Abarca, co-founder and CEO of King Fio Trucking in Long Beach, Calif., once worked as a truck dispatcher and her husband is a truck driver, so she knows all too well the toll a diesel engine takes on people’s lungs and hearing. She eventually wants to swap out King Fio’s 27 diesel trucks to create an all-electric fleet.
King Fio already has 11 battery-electric trucks from Volvo and Nikola. But the company limits those trucks to shorter trips to and from local ports because they only have a range of about 225 miles.
The Semi, by contrast, can travel 500 miles on a single charge, according to Tesla. For King Fio that means two or three round-trips a day from Long Beach to warehouses in the nearby Inland Empire or a single round-trip to Las Vegas. She has 20 Semis on order.
“The Teslas change everything,” Abarca said. “It opens up a whole different type of delivery that I can make.”
