Tesla had announced its long range Semi Truck back in 2017, when the company also released the exclusive Megacharger for the model, though an official installation had yet to happen due to technical factors and the delayed delivery of the vehicle.
However, Tesla installed the first unit of Megacharger at the Frito Lay factory in California on May 25. Frito Lay is a subsidiary of PepsiCo, who happens to be a major client of Semi Truck by having pre-ordered 100 units of the vehicle, and the installation of the first Mega charging station probably means that it is the first company to be receiving the shipment.
This implementation also confirms Frito Lay’s previous comment on receiving 15 units of Semi Truck by the end of this year that will go into operation. The Semi Truck has become an attacking point for many anti-Muskers since they believe that Musk is constantly making empty promises, and the postponed production and delivery of the product has only aggravated this accusation.
The yellow section is where the Semi Truck’s charging station locates at the Frito Lay factory. （Source：@MarcoRPTesla）
Tesla finally has the extra capacity for Semi Truck and Cybertruck this year after mass producing Model 3 for several years. Looking at the design schematic of Frito Lay’s factory, a certain area has been segmented for the carpark and charging station for Semi Trucks, which is where the Megacharger is located.
There isn’t an official Chinese name for Megacharger yet, though as the name suggests, the charging station will have a power of 100MW, which is 4-5 times more than the existing Supercharger. According to the official statistics, Megacharger is able to provide more than 600km of driving range within 30 minutes.
The sizeable Semi Megacharger. （Source：KmanAuto）
Megacharger’s charger is adopted with a water cooling technology similar to the Supercharger that lowers the high temperature of ultra-high power. From the outside, Megacharger looks like a combination of two Superchargers, but the product actually has 8 chargers that are two times larger than that of Supercharger.
The pre-order volume of the Semi Truck is close to 1,000 units, which are mostly ordered by major businesses, though the largest issue does not lie on the selling of the vehicle. “The shortage in battery cells is the main issue,” commented Musk during a recent earnings conference, who then said that the battery cell is the only restriction to the production capacity, which must be resolved as soon as possible.
Despite difficulties in large-scale production, the delivery of the first small batch shouldn’t be a problem, and we may see this electric truck on the road at the end of this year.
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