The Tesla Semi could be a big deal for electric trucking
The Tesla Semi could be a big deal for electric trucking
特斯拉 Semi 电动卡车可能成为货运行业的重要转折点
The Tesla Semi has officially arrived. The company recently released a photo of the first vehicle rolling off its new full-scale production line. This moment has been nearly a decade in the making: The company first announced the Tesla Semi in late 2017. And now we’ve got final battery specs, official prices, and big news about big orders. 特斯拉 Semi 已正式问世。该公司最近发布了一张首辆汽车从其全新全规模生产线下线的照片。这一时刻酝酿了近十年：特斯拉于 2017 年底首次宣布了 Semi 项目。如今，我们终于看到了最终的电池规格、官方定价以及关于大额订单的重磅消息。
The Semi is a relatively affordable electric semitruck with pretty impressive performance. It also comes at a moment when Tesla has lost its grip on the global electric vehicle market. Let’s talk about what’s new with the Tesla Semi and why this could be a breakout moment for electric trucking. Semi 是一款相对实惠且性能相当出色的电动半挂卡车。它的到来正值特斯拉在全球电动汽车市场的主导地位有所动摇之际。让我们来聊聊特斯拉 Semi 的最新进展，以及为什么这可能是电动货运行业的突破性时刻。
Medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, like buses and semitrucks, make up a small fraction of vehicles on the road but contribute an outsize fraction of pollution, including both carbon dioxide emissions and other pollutants like nitrogen oxides (NOx) and small particles. Globally, trucks and buses represent about 8% of total vehicles on the road, but they create 35% of carbon dioxide emissions from road transport. 中重型车辆（如公交车和半挂卡车）在道路车辆中占比虽小，却贡献了不成比例的污染，包括二氧化碳排放以及氮氧化物 (NOx) 和微小颗粒物等其他污染物。在全球范围内，卡车和公交车约占道路车辆总数的 8%，但它们却产生了道路交通二氧化碳排放量的 35%。
Tesla’s latest addition to its vehicle lineup, the Class 8 Semi, could be part of the solution to cleaning up this polluting sector. (I’ll note here that I briefly interned at Tesla in 2016. I don’t have any ties to or financial interest in the company today.) 特斯拉产品阵容中的最新成员——8 级 Semi 卡车，或许能成为净化这一高污染行业的解决方案。（在此说明，我曾于 2016 年在特斯拉短暂实习。目前我与该公司没有任何关联，也没有任何经济利益往来。）
In November 2017, Elon Musk took to the stage at a lavish event in LA to announce the Semi. At that event, Musk promised a truck that could go from zero to 60 miles per hour in five seconds, could achieve a range of 500 miles, and would come with thermonuclear-explosion-proof glass. (Remember the era before the Twitter takeover and DOGE, when this was what Musk was known for? A simpler time.) 2017 年 11 月，埃隆·马斯克在洛杉矶的一场盛大活动中登台发布了 Semi。在那场活动上，马斯克承诺这款卡车能在 5 秒内从静止加速到时速 60 英里，续航里程可达 500 英里，并配备防热核爆炸玻璃。（还记得推特收购案和狗狗币之前的那个时代吗？那时马斯克以这些创新闻名，那是一个更单纯的时期。）
Soon after the unveiling, major corporations including Walmart put in early orders for Tesla Semis. Deliveries were expected in 2019. That deadline obviously didn’t work out. The date was pushed back several times, and Tesla did start delivering a small number of pilot trucks, beginning in 2022. But this year, things got more serious, with the company releasing its final production specifications in February and rolling its first Semi off its high-volume production line in late April. 发布会后不久，包括沃尔玛在内的大型企业就向特斯拉下了早期订单。交付原定于 2019 年进行，但显然未能如期实现。交付日期多次推迟，特斯拉直到 2022 年才开始交付少量试点卡车。但今年情况变得更加严峻，该公司在 2 月发布了最终生产规格，并于 4 月下旬让首辆 Semi 从其大批量生产线下线。
And last week, WattEV announced an order of 370 Tesla Semis. WattEV offers electric freight operations, essentially providing trucks as a service to companies so they don’t have to purchase their own or supply their own charging infrastructure. The company will pay over $100 million for the new trucks, and the first 50 should be delivered this year, with the full fleet expected by the end of 2027. Those trucks will be supported by megawatt-charging systems located in Oakland, Fresno, Stockton, and Sacramento. 上周，WattEV 宣布订购 370 辆特斯拉 Semi。WattEV 提供电动货运业务，本质上是为企业提供“卡车即服务”，这样企业就不必购买自己的卡车或提供充电基础设施。该公司将为这些新卡车支付超过 1 亿美元，首批 50 辆预计将于今年交付，全部车队预计在 2027 年底前交付完毕。这些卡车将由位于奥克兰、弗雷斯诺、斯托克顿和萨克拉门托的兆瓦级充电系统提供支持。
With the factory up and running and a huge order on the books, it feels like the Tesla Semi has truly arrived. And some of Musk’s claims from 2017 ring true: The base model has a range of about 320 miles, and the long-range version about 480 miles (quite close to his 500-mile claim). 随着工厂投入运营且手握巨额订单，特斯拉 Semi 似乎真的已经到来。马斯克 2017 年的一些说法也得到了印证：基础版续航里程约为 320 英里，长续航版约为 480 英里（非常接近他当初 500 英里的承诺）。
Delivering this much range for this big truck means a whopping battery. The base model Tesla Semi battery pack has a usable capacity of 548 kilowatt-hours, according to a document filed with the California Air Resources Board (CARB). But the battery is even more massive in the long-range version, which boasts a whopping 822 kilowatt-hour battery. Compare these to the Tesla Model 3, which typically comes with a 64 kilowatt-hour pack. I reached out to Tesla to confirm the battery size and ask other questions for this article—the company didn’t respond. 要为如此庞大的卡车提供如此长的续航，意味着需要巨大的电池。根据提交给加州空气资源委员会 (CARB) 的文件，基础版特斯拉 Semi 电池组的可用容量为 548 千瓦时。而长续航版本的电池更为巨大，拥有惊人的 822 千瓦时电池。相比之下，特斯拉 Model 3 通常配备的是 64 千瓦时的电池组。我曾联系特斯拉以确认电池尺寸并询问本文的其他问题，但该公司未予置评。
These trucks cost quite a bit more than they were expected to in 2017, though. At that time, the expected price was $150,000 for the base model and $180,000 for the long-range. Today, Tesla is pricing the trucks at $260,000 and $300,000, respectively, according to documentation filed with CARB. That’s considerably more expensive than the median diesel truck being sold today, which rang in at $172,500 for the 2025 model year, according to research from the International Council on Clean Transportation. 不过，这些卡车的价格比 2017 年的预期要高出不少。当时，基础版的预期价格为 15 万美元，长续航版为 18 万美元。根据提交给 CARB 的文件，如今特斯拉的定价分别为 26 万美元和 30 万美元。根据国际清洁交通委员会的研究，这比目前销售的 2025 款柴油卡车的中位数价格（17.25 万美元）要贵得多。
But it’s much cheaper than similar battery-electric trucks available today, where the median is about $411,000. And in California, where companies can get vouchers that cover $120,000 towards the purchase price of an electric truck, the Tesla Semi is competitive right away, especially since electric trucks tend to be much cheaper to run and maintain than diesel ones. 但它比目前市面上类似的电池电动卡车要便宜得多，后者的中位数价格约为 41.1 万美元。在加州，企业可以获得高达 12 万美元的电动卡车购车补贴，这使得特斯拉 Semi 极具竞争力，尤其是考虑到电动卡车的运营和维护成本通常远低于柴油卡车。
Over the years, it wasn’t always clear that the Tesla Semi would ever actually hit the roads. (At that same 2017 event, Musk announced a new Roadster sports car, and that’s nowhere to be seen.) So it’s encouraging to see the factory starting up, and a large order that looks like it could lend this project some commercial momentum. Tesla had a massive impact on the electric vehicle market, and if it can scale production and support charging infrastructure, it could help do the same for trucking. 多年来，特斯拉 Semi 是否真的能上路一直存在不确定性。（在 2017 年的那场活动上，马斯克还发布了一款新的 Roadster 跑车，但至今仍未见踪影。）因此，看到工厂投产以及一份看起来能为该项目带来商业动力的巨额订单，令人感到鼓舞。特斯拉曾对电动汽车市场产生过巨大影响，如果它能扩大生产规模并完善充电基础设施，或许也能在货运行业实现同样的成就。