A PepsiCo Tesla Semi covered over 1,000 miles on a single work day, as recorded by the monitoring equipment installed as part of the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE) Run On Less program that aims to discover the real-world efficiency of zero-emissions work trucks.
During the 17th day of the program – the penultimate day of the program – the rig that’s labeled as “Tesla 3” logged a total of 1,076 miles and made just one delivery.
According to the data released by Run On Less, Tesla’s Class 8 rig started its journey right after midnight with a battery state of charge (SoC) of 95 percent, which allowed it to travel 371.99 miles before stopping to get a top-up with the SoC hitting the 9.17 percent mark at around 6.45 AM.
After about an hour of charging, the battery got to 47 percent. The truck got moving again shortly after, covering another 166 miles, which got the SoC level to just 2.6 percent. A one-and-a-half-hour recharge followed, replenishing the battery pack to 88.6 percent and allowing for another long-distance stint of 357 miles.
With the battery level at 18 percent, the truck stopped once again for a recharge, this time upping the SoC to 51.5 percent, which enabled the final 167-mile leg of the day to be driven, stopping with 15 percent left, just four seconds before midnight.
The data also shows that this particular rig spent 81.8 percent of the day driving, 11.1 percent of the time charging, and was inactive for 17 percent of the day. Furthermore, the majority of the trips (92.6 percent) were done at over 50 miles per hour.
On days two and three of the program, the same truck covered 1,600 miles, logging roughly 800 miles on each of the days while making a total of nine deliveries.
By comparison, one of the Freightliner eCascadias run by Schneider traveled a total of 186 miles on the second day of the program, made 15 deliveries, and finished the day at 8:42 PM with 18 percent left in the battery, without stopping for a recharge during the day.
The three Tesla Semis that participated in the study are part of PepsiCo’s Sacramento depot, with other participants including logistics company Schneider National with the Freightliner eCascadia, warehousing distribution firm Performance Team with the Volvo VNR, and more.