A Tesla big rig that caught fire kept both directions of California's Interstate 80 closed in the Sierra Nevada for more than half a day on Monday.

A Tesla big rig that caught fire kept both directions of California’s Interstate 80 closed in the Sierra Nevada for hours on Monday.

Cal Fire crews responded to the scene of an electric semi-truck fire around 3 a.m. near Emigrant Gap. California Highway Patrol later confirmed they were dealing with a hazardous materials situation due to potentially toxic fumes from the big rig’s batteries.

First responders say that the batteries of the electric big rig were still burning hours later.

    • navi@lemmy.tespia.org
      13·
      2 months ago

      There delivered at least a couple hundred to Pepsi and Fritolay but have been heavily iterating in the design.

    • Addv4@lemmy.world
      7·
      2 months ago

      Nah, they’ve just been really slow about testing it. It’s range is actually pretty impressive, but it requires very high energy superchargers on testing routes.

      • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
        13·
        2 months ago

        Range is one thing, as is acceleration, but the issue all electric semis have is haul weight. They are all bad at actually hauling goods. They have to give up 5-10k in goods carried for each truck, at least. With a standard semi hauling 80k, that’s a huge amount of lost capacity. The actual carrying capacity of the Tesla Semi is one of the data points that they won’t release, which tells you its not something they want people to know.

        Semis are the good use case for clean hydrogen. Batteries won’t fly without radically different chemistries.

        • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          Hydrogen is a way bigger scam even than anything Musk pushes.

          Frankly, the real solution is for the vast majority of long-haul freight to switch back to rail, and for the remainder to just keep using diesel, but make it out of waste cooking oil instead of squished dinosaurs.

          • Tilgare@lemmy.world
            2·
            2 months ago

            I mean, if we’re talking about real solutions - a highly effective and efficient option would be airships. Could replace mid and long distance freight trucking shipments. Could replace international freight ships too.

        • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          2 months ago

          Edison makes a better electric truck – it’s small deisel genny feeding the motors. Tesla’s advantage would be the driving, one day, but maybe Edison can deliver that while waiting for Tesla to do it too!

      • skyspydude1@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 months ago

        Except they promised it was going to be the NBT in trucking and that companies would be stupid to buy anything else, and it was supposed to be in mass production 5 years ago. In actuality they delivered a couple dozen prototypes to a single company (at least as far as I’m aware) that is using them solely for greenwashing their delivery fleet. Even then, they’ve been absolutely unreliable heaps that probably have cost Frito-Lay far more headache than the slight PR bump they got from them. Oh, and don’t forget that any truck driver will tell you they have an absolutely useless cabin that was clearly designed by someone who had never even been in a truck cab before, and was designed solely for the techbro demographic to gush about, in between its 0-60 time and unrealistic range.

        Meanwhile, I see Rivian-made Amazon delivery vans literally every single day, and have legitimately seen more companies operating Nikola semi trucks (the ‘scam’ company that supposedly only could roll a truck down a hill) than the Tesla Semi. And that’s just startups, not counting the actual Mercedes and Volvo Class 8 trucks that are already on the road. It amazes me how people seem to act like Tesla has delivered on literally any promises they’ve ever made, when in actuality it’s just an incredible feat of goalpost moving.

  • gothic_lemons@lemmy.world
    27·
    2 months ago

    Engineer: We can’t just put the self driving data from the Cybertruck into the semi truck. They handle compelety differently. Turning radius, weight distribution, acceleration, braking all different.

    Elon: Shut physics removed and make it happen

    • IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
      6·
      2 months ago

      Trucks break down all the time, it’s when, not if nor is Tesla that far off on recent year models of the y and 3.

      The challenge is EV batteries typically are spicy. I hate Tesla but this crap will happen to other companies unless the spicy pillow issue is mitigated.

  • catloaf@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    Do these things use lithium batteries? Do the sodium ones pose less of a hazard if compromised?

    • ASDraptor@lemmy.autism.placeEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      AFAIK, lithium becomes inflammable when in contact with the air (that’s why a battery puncture is so dangerous). Sodium doesn’t, so a fire from a hole in the battery shouldn’t happen.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        13·
        2 months ago

        My understanding is that it is not the air, but moisture. Water reacts with the battery chemistry to emit heat which can then turn into flames. But moisture on the air can be enough to trigger a fire. There are videos testing this on YouTube. Puncturing a battery is not instant fire, but it will turn into a fire if exposed for long enough, and water will only feed the chemical reaction, making it worse. Which is why it is so hard to fight battery fires.

    • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
      2·
      2 months ago

      Sodium batteries are much less energy dense than the batteries used for semis.

      Were over a decade a way before it’s even maybe possible. It may never be

      They’ll be great for small commuter cars and energy storage where size doesn’t matter.