Tesla Semi, mixed bag of EV sales, Chinese EVs in the US, and more

Frederic Lambert (0:03)

And we are live by a new episode of Electrek Podcasts. I'm Frederic Lambert, your host.

And as usual, I'm joined by Seth Weintraub. How are you doing this week, Seth?

Seth Weintraub (0:12)

I'm good.

Frederic Lambert (0:13)

All right. It was a pretty slow week in the EV news world, but we have a couple of news items that I wanted to bring to you guys' attention. I thought it would be fun and interesting to discuss.

So we're gonna have plenty of time to talk to you guys at the end of the show too. So I'm gonna remind you as more people trickle into the live stream later on. But we're gonna talk about this. I just released the Tesla Semi European spec ahead of the lunch next week. So that's interesting. Tesla is already adapting the Tesla Semi to the European market, which is already adopting electric trucks a lot faster than North America. We're gonna talk about global EV sales. It's kind of a big mix bag, big boom in Europe, big slowdown in North America. Volvo killed off another EV in the US, which is kind of in line with that. We're gonna talk about that. We're gonna talk about Trump rumor, even though I don't put a lot of weight on that rumor, that Trump may open Chinese EVs to the US market as part of a deal with China, as the Chinese president Xi is visiting, I think, next week also.

We're gonna talk about the Xiaomi SkyNomad that just got its pricing. It's gonna be the third vehicle from the very impressive Chinese brand. BYD cutting the price on the Denza Z9 GT, which is a very impressive vehicle in itself. And Nissan unveiling its new, well, at least getting a first look at its new entry-level EV, the Pixo, Pixo, embarrassing name. All right, let's jump in with the Tesla Semi-Rupian specs that was confirmed this week. Tesla says, up to 550 kilometers of range at 40 tons, which is fully loaded, 100 kilowatt and one kilowatt hour per kilometers of energy efficiency.

Mega chargers up to 800 kilowatts, with the covering 60% of the range in just 30 minutes. EPTO up to 25 kilowatts, that's the power takeoff in the back, so you can power things like refrigerated trailers and that. And then 40-ton girls combination weight at 9,100 kilogram curb weight. So there's a lot of things here that are different than the US version. First off, right away, the range. 550 kilometers, that's 342 miles of range. Now, obviously, the range in Europe versus North America is calculated differently. But that points to Tesla just releasing the DayCab standard range version versus the long range version, which is available in North America right now, with 500 miles of range. So, I'm not sure why exactly, but Tesla is focusing on that first.

Also, they released this picture with those specs here. And there's some controversy right now. Some people believe that Tesla won't be able to deploy that in Europe because of the front end of the truck. You know, European flat trucks. But this is kind of an in-between situation here. So, I don't know. Maybe Tesla thinks it can get away with it. I'm not so sure.

The energy efficiency is the same or roughly the same. It's equivalent to about 1.6 kilowatt hour per miles, which is very close to what Tesla says in North America. But the weight is different here. So, the weight, we only had the weight of the long range version. But this might be the range of the shorter range version, the standard range version, or it might be specific to, grew up, because again, there is some different regulation there. So, that's about 20,000 pounds versus 23,000 pounds in North America for the long range. So, I think it's in between the two, if I'm not mistaken. And in Europe, yep.

Seth Weintraub (4:15)

It's a third spec vehicle, a special European spec vehicle. Yes.

Frederic Lambert (4:22)

Almost entirely sure it is, but closer to the standard range than the long range version in the US. The weirdest one for me is the 800 kilowatt charging.

Seth Weintraub (4:33)

Yeah, why not a megawatt?

Frederic Lambert (4:34)

Yeah. Tesla did say a 1.2 megawatt capable in the US. So, with that point to the standard range being limited to 800 kilowatts with the smaller battery pack, very possible. So, maybe we get an information about the standard range through that release. But we're going to get all the details next week as Tesla actually unveil this truck in Europe. But the European market is maybe the most interesting one for Tesla because it's already full of competition there. And the competition is already well established. They already have service. They already have charging station, even though Tesla will be able to use the charging station for the most part, I think. But obviously, they're going to want to deploy their own in Europe. But Tesla is going more with the higher hand here. So the Mercedes-EAXE 600 is probably the closest competitor because it also has over 500 miles of range on a 600 kilowatt hour batch pack. And similar capacity is Tesla's. The price is what we don't know obviously here. The price is closely guarded.