Walmart, JB Hunt to give Tesla's electric truck a try

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Tesla got on Friday high-profile orders from Walmart and fleet operator JB Hunt for its future electric truck, but would-be buyers indicated they are giving the big rig a whirl, not ordering in volume.

Most of the customers who announced plans to put down 5,000 US dollars deposits for the Tesla Semi indicated they wanted to test a few of the vehicles. Walmart said it plans to order a total of 15 Tesla trucks, five for the United States and ten for Canada. The company operates a fleet of about 6,000 trucks in the United States.

Walmart said it plans to order a total of 15 Tesla trucks. /Reuters Photo

JB Hunt was the first major US trucking company to announce an order for Tesla’s new “Semi” electric trucks, saying it had reserved multiple vehicles for use on the US West Coast.

Hunt did not say how many of the vehicles it would reserve. Tesla unveiled the Semi on Thursday without specifying prices.

The early orders reflected the uncertainty about how the market for electric commercial vehicles will develop. About 260,000 Class-8 trucks are produced in North America annually, and that market has a value of nearly 28.6 billion US dollars, said Don Ake, vice president of commercial vehicles at FTR, an industry economics research firm.

Class 8 is the heaviest weight classification on trucks.

The 500-mile (800 kilometers) range between charges that Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk promised on Thursday for the Tesla Semi is about half the range between fill-ups of a diesel Class 8 truck. Heavy batteries cut payload and add cost, potential deal killers for fleet buyers focused on operating cost per mile.

However, Tesla, and incumbent truck makers such as Daimler AG, Navistar International Corp and its partner Volkswagen AG are investing in electric trucks in a bet that the market will shift over the next decade.

The interior overview of the new Tesla electric truck /Reuters Photo

For global truck makers, the biggest market for electric trucks will likely be China, where the government is moving aggressively to convert the transportation system to electrified vehicles.

Regulators around the world are ratcheting up pressure on the trucking industry to slash emissions of soot and carbon dioxide from diesel trucks.

In the United States, the government has estimated that heavy-duty trucks represent four percent of vehicles on the road but account for 20 percent of carbon emissions. Under President Barack Obama, the United States required truck makers to boost fuel efficiency through 2027.

Separately, some cities and ports are discussing banning or heavily taxing diesel vehicles. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in Southern California have a goal of only having zero-emissions trucks by 2035. California is committing 140 million US dollars to subsidize low-carbon freight transportation.

Tesla has been trying to convince the trucking community that it can build an affordable electric big rig with the range and capacity to compete with relatively low-cost, time-tested diesel trucks.

The Tesla Semi /Reuters Photo

It was not clear how many orders for Semis Tesla had in hand. Among companies announcing plans to acquire small numbers of Tesla trucks were Michigan retailer Meijer and Canadian retail chain Loblaw, which has said it wants an entirely electric corporate vehicle fleet by 2030.

Some big logistics companies stayed on the sidelines. United Parcel Service said the courier had nothing to announce regarding Tesla’s vehicles but would always look for options that fit its needs.

Brad Pinchuk, chief executive of Dubuque, Iowa-based Hirschbach Motor Lines, said his firm was looking to test non-diesel big-rig options but needed longer ranges than Tesla could provide and speedier fuel-up times.

Pinchuk said he plans to buy two hydrogen-powered trucks made by Salt Lake City-based electric Nikola Motor Company when they are available in 2020.

“It’s a different application – putting liquid hydrogen into tanks – so it will be very similar sort of situation to diesel,” Pinchuk said. “You’d be able to fuel up. It would take about the same amount of time to fuel up a diesel and go about the same distance.”

Source(s): Reuters