So wait...he talks about how important the weight is because it determines the load that can be carried. He does the weight calculations and then immediately starts talking about the cost of the truck and never finishes his weight analysis.

According to his estimation, the weight of the unloaded truck with trailer is 7 tons. If the batteries on a 500 mile truck weigh 8 tons then the total 15 ton vehicle is lighter than the ~17 ton average for a standard semi with trailer. I'd round up for the weight of the motors and since his empty weight calculation seems a tad low. So you can assume the weights of a Tesla truck and stardard truck are at least within spitting distance of each other.

Range is less of an issue since a driver is only allowed to drive a maximum of 11 hours in a 14 hour period. So assuming they drove a solid 11 hours at 60 miles per hour (since that's what the 500 mile range is based on), the standard truck can drive 160 miles further. But if you're driving 11 hours without a break, you're an idiot. And Tesla indicates that a battery can fully charge in under 30 minutes.

Last point, he estimates the battery cost alone will be $108K and $180K but Tesla has set the expected price of the actual trucks as $150K and $180K. Considering a traditional truck runs $80K - $150K, it seems the return on investment for a Tesla truck might be shorter than a traditional truck, given the economy of electric compared fossil fuel.

Great video though. Love all the math.

Seems he's taking some heat on reddit for some of what he states in the video https://www.goo.gl/8BtUSw

His responses to some of it https://www.reddit.com/user/TaytoCrisps

Since he repeatedly begs for money for his website, *commercial

Adding video to channels (Commercial) - requested by newtboy.

The video is right that pretty much the number one most important question is the weight of the truck (basically tare weight, which is actually the tractor plus empty trailer). When I watched the announcement, I thought Musk was slightly cagey about that, but I thought that he said that it would be in the ballpark of a normal ICE semi. Guess I should watch again.

I think Musk made some semi-optimistic predictions about battery tech improvement and economy of scale. Frankly, I think he's earned the right to be semi-bold with his predictions, given his and Tesla's track record (paying off govt. loan very early, single handedly pushing forward battery tech and production, etc. etc.). His optimistic predictions have a tendency of panning out.

The average American is never going to switch to an electric car purely or even largely for "green conscious" reasons. The switch will happen when the electric car is better than the ICE alternatives in concrete metrics like performance, reliability, and operating cost. Musk is pushing that date forward at an incredible pace. Arguably it is already true for many use-cases at the high price-point range of the Model S, but that price point limits the scope of the impact quite a bit. He knows that to really shake things up, he's got to get that price point down, and he knows that to do that he's got to improve the economy of scale on battery tech. Which he's doing by expanding it into adjacent markets like home batteries, etc.

I think he deserves a lot of credit for "walking the walk" when it comes to working hard to protect/improve the environment, as opposed to Al Gore et al. "talking the talk".