EVwire brief: HMD Trucking is buying 50 Tesla Semis to join a fleet of nearly 700 diesel big rigs across Illinois and Indiana. Founder and CEO Henry Malukas says the Semi’s draw is lower maintenance and operating costs, and the electric truck could be an ideal solution for Midwest winters, when HMD's diesel trucks need a yard crew or a night of idling just so they could operate smoothly the next day.
During a conversation with MotorTrend during the Tesla Semi rollout event in Sparks, Nevada, Malukas stated that he expects electric trucks to eventually replace HMD's current fleet, which is comprised almost entirely of diesel Peterbilts.
“It’s an amazing product. It’s efficient, low maintenance, also the fuel cost. It’s unbelievable. And for the driver, I think it’s a dream come true.”
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Malukas said HMD doesn't have real numbers yet, but he expects the Semi to be much cheaper to fuel. The bigger win, in his view, is dropping the oil changes and routine upkeep that a diesel truck needs just to keep hauling loads.
For charging, HMD plans to use Tesla's growing Megacharger network, which delivers up to 1.2 megawatts, along with its own chargers that the company is currently setting up in Chicago.
Malukas also expects the Semi to change how HMD gets through Midwest winters, when diesel trucks either have to idle all night or be coaxed into starting in the morning:
“In the wintertime, we get to 10 below zero or even 20 below. And it’s not much different than 100 years ago; we’re still running with 20 people in the yard with fires [to keep them warm] to help start the trucks. Or we have the trucks running overnight. This Semi is going to change that big time.
“I mean, you just open your app, you set the temperature for your cab, 72 degrees or whatever you prefer, and you drive away. There’s no more need for a full crew to make sure the truck starts or to put the additives in the diesel.[…] In wintertime, it’s very complicated. Semi will take it all away. It’s going to be so much easier, just to leave your location, and you don’t have to worry about not being able to start the truck.”
He acknowledged the range hit that comes with the cold. A Semi left outside overnight without being plugged in loses about 20% of its charge in the first half hour of driving while it preheats, he said, but even this is not a bad option when compared to running a team of employees just to ensure the company’s diesel trucks will actually start.
“If it’s cold outside and we have our own charging station, we would have our trucks plugged in. The battery is being charged and preheated, so that we would not lose much range. Now, if you keep the truck outside, not plugged in, and it stays out overnight, and you get in the truck and drive away, the first half hour, you lose like 20 percent of battery charge to preheat everything.
“You lose some range, but it’s much easier to lose the range than to have all these people around to make sure we’re able to start the diesel trucks or let them idle all night. We have to have security guards for the yard, all the people … there’s a lot involved until five or six in the morning before the trucks pull out to deliver the peanut butter.”
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Context:
Henry and Daiva Malukas founded HMD 28 years ago as a one-truck, husband-and-wife operation. The company now brings in $250 million a year and employs more than 1,000 people. Henry Malukas has also bought 19 Tesla products since his first Model S in 2012, and after test-driving the Semi, he called it "a dream."
HMD's interest in the Semi first became public days before the rollout event, when its branding appeared on one of the customer trucks Tesla lined up outside its new Semi factory in Sparks. Until then, the company had not been publicly tied to the Semi program.
HMD joins a growing list of Semi customers. PepsiCo already has more than 86 Semis in service since the trucks’ pre-facelift days, Einride has placed a 500-truck order that remains the largest Semi deployment on the books, and IMC Logistics committed to 50 Semis for California drayage and long-haul routes. The trucks come out of Tesla's 1.7-million-square-foot Semi plant next to Gigafactory Nevada, which the company has said is designed to build up to 50,000 trucks a year.
Source: MotorTrend
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