PepsiCo wants 100 Tesla electric trucks on the road but can Semi really deliver?

In a recent interview with Reuters, VP of PepsiCo Mike O’Connell confirmed the company is planning to have 100 Tesla Semi electric trucks in its fleet before the end of 2023. That ambitious plan is met with an infrastructure rollout - new 750 kW Tesla chargers are being fitted in two of PepsiCo’s locations ready for the new fleet of electric trucks.

Initially the company will have 15 Semis operating from its Modesto distribution center and 21 from Sacramento. PepsiCo is focusing first on the central US with the East Coast to follow. The company already secured a $15.4 million state grant for its fleet update and each Semi qualifies for an additional $40,000 federal EV subsidy.

100 electric trucks is an ambitious goal. With UPS and Sysco waiting for their Semis it’ll be interesting to see how this story unfolds. With Walmart testing alternative electric trucks, it’ll be the shopping giant who will first benefit from zero-emissions Pepsi and Frito-Lay deliveries with Kroger next in line.

And that brings us to a rather interesting comment from a PepsiCo executive. We all know how Tesla tested its Semi and showed the video of its entire 500 mile trip on a single charge - an achievement of huge proportions. Then, during the Semi official delivery event, the company showed another video boasting about the truck’s immense performance - we all watched in awe as the Semi loaded with concrete blocks overtook other trucks up the steep hill without breaking sweat. Awesome, right?

Well, not entirely. Because those two videos are completely separate from each other and yet when shown during the same presentation - they lead to a presumption. That presumption is that Tesla Semi can drive 500 miles on a single charge while fully loaded to its maximum weight capacity of 82,000 lbs or nearly 37,200 kg.

The hint that something is afoot came from Mike O’Connell himself. When asked about intended use for the trucks, he said that Semis will haul Frito-Lays on a 425 mile route but the ones used for hauling Pepsi will do only 100 mile trips but both routes mean the trucks will have 20 percent battery charge left when arriving at destination.

We never saw what was in the boxes of the “fully loaded” Semi that completed the 500 mile trip, Tesla never not only confirmed its weight but it simply refused to comment. While the Semi racing up the hill against other trucks may have been carrying 80,000 lbs, we don’t know how far it managed to get. Two different trucks, two different scenarios.

Let’s not get distracted - 500 miles fully loaded with Frito-Lays is still a huge deal. It’s still better than the closest competition but the real question is - how far can Semi really go FULLY loaded at 82,000 lbs? Is it 120 miles as O’Connell suggests? That’s not really a revolution the world has been waiting for.

It’s common sense and we don’t expect a miracle but when Elon Musk said “fully loaded” the world thought “fully loaded.” Unfortunately it seems Elon’s definition of “fully” is quite different from the rest of us. In the end, a Nissan Leaf could probably pull a trailer full of Cheese Puffs while pulling a trailer full of Pepsi is a whole different ball game.

Tesla is not doing itself any favors here by keeping this information away, in fact it is making it far worse and we all know what’s coming. There will be a bunch of excuses, fancy words about efficiency and zero-emissions goals and Elon will tease Cybertruck and the Roadster just to make us look the other way while Tesla releases the real-life range of the Semi.

At this point we can safely speculate that Tesla’s share price will be directly tied to those numbers - the lower they are the lower the shares will sink. If it is the case then it is simply sad that Tesla would reach so low and play silly tricks like that. On the other hand, there’s a sliver of hope that this is just an elaborate marketing ploy and Semi can actually do 500 miles fully loaded - not “fully” but FULLY.

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