11,000pounds for a battery implies 170Wh/kg. High end lithium ion cells can do about 300Wh/kg, and even with some overhead for the battery, we’re talking 250Wh/kg.. So… That’s beatable, & we can’t back out the weight directly from the energy of the pack as we know Tesla has been working on improving chemistry and specific energy and pack efficiency.
The vehicles that they delivered did not use all the available aerodynamics tricks that their prototypes did, and uses duals instead of super singles, so it also makes sense it’s only achieving 1.7kWh/mile right now.
Note that a ton of people claimed a 500 mile electric semi with a full load wasn’t feasible. This proves that it is. (The jersey barriers they pulled weighed about a standard 44,000pounds.) The Toyota hydrogen semi has only about a 300 mile range and with fuel an order of magnitude more expensive.
Anyway, the claim by Musk that they can achieve 1.5kWh/mile is reasonable, and fits in with my calculations here: https://selenianboondocks.com/2017/11/tesla-semi-part-1/
The vehicles that they delivered did not use all the available aerodynamics tricks that their prototypes did, and uses duals instead of super singles, so it also makes sense it’s only achieving 1.7kWh/mile right now.
Note that a ton of people claimed a 500 mile electric semi with a full load wasn’t feasible. This proves that it is. (The jersey barriers they pulled weighed about a standard 44,000pounds.) The Toyota hydrogen semi has only about a 300 mile range and with fuel an order of magnitude more expensive.