1/ Watching @TeslaJoy 's $nkla video

Disclaimer: I don't know Tesla Joy, I don't know her realms of expertise. Therefore, none of my reactions/feedback are intended to be judgements on her. I appreciate her sharing her experience from her point of view.

2/ - FCA is commercializing their e-axle, claimed it's their own, not Bosch
- Key management and logistics mapping - this is super obvious, would be dumb not to do this with remote unlock and connectivity
- Not developing own ADAS

3/ ... "ton of readily available ADAS on the market" that they can use - don't think that's true for Semis.
- NKLA saying that customers will just ask for various ADAS components and then they'll integrate them - what??

4/- Cut to outdoors: "The A/C fan is blowing hard in 122° heat" LOL, I'm sure that's what he said, but that's their HUGE fan array to remove the 50% lost energy from the FC system. A/C fan for a Semi shouldn't be any louder than the one in your car.

It's louder than a diesel!

5/ - Nikola "filed a patent and it was granted" yes, for the very specific ornamental designs of their cab shape, windshield, and door. https://patents.google.com/patent/USD811968S1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/USD811944S1/en https://patents.google.com/patent/USD816004S1/en

6/ - "It's a race for who gets to market first" - yeah, but Tesla isn't desperate for revenue from this product, so it's more important for the truck to be higher value than be first.

7/ - FC trucks will be on the road "all over the country" next year (2021)
-- Trevor: "there's gonna be a lot of breakdowns, they'll have a lot of issues with them" - high confidence here, truckers love getting stranded on the side of the road.

8/ -- Good question by @WholeMarsBlog on H2 stations for these - having trucks "all over the country" will require a shitload of capex for stations for a handful of trucks - so high station capex per truck. My prediction is this will also be true for their initial production.

9/ - Driver monitoring - e.g. fleet feedback for blowing red lights - is already in use. Nothing novel there except integrating it into the truck. I'd assume Tesla would do this too.

10/ - Plan to use Google voice-to-text.
Battery pack
- Really not that hard to keep cells in their target temperature
- Trevor admits he knows that teams can drive 250k mi/yr (yet his station projections are only for 100k mi/yr)

11/ - "[Tesla] said different numbers" re pack size. They have never said ANY numbers about their pack size.
-- "If they have a MWh batt pack ... they need to have 1.2 [MWh]... 'cause you don't get full depletion of the cell" Still thinks Tesla will need 1 MWh usable for 500 mi

12/ -- Somehow knows that Tesla pays $1.60-1.62 per cell? Don't think that's public info buddy, I'd hedge that they're 20-40% cheaper than you think they are.
-- Says he's just saying what "guys that work there" have told him. Corporate espionage anyone?

13/ Prototype shop
- Most advanced prototype equipment. No real longterm need for this as truck product cycles are very long (lots of large, expensive tooling, short product cycle would be very expensive)

14/ - "would normally take months or a year to do that" re printing out a huge part. Not if you hire another proto shop to do the exact same thing or have it machined from plastic rather than printed

15/ Infrastructure for FC
- "Same cost as diesel station" maybe, but what about on a per vehicle supported basis? 6 handle diesel station can pump 3600 gal/hr. = 86,400 gal/day. NKLA stations can do 8,000 kg/day of H2...

16/ ...So very approximately, IF an H2 and diesel station cost the exact same, on a PER VEHICLE SUPPORTED basis (which is what counts), station will cost ~10x per vehicle. Don't know what size diesel station he's comparing too, but a 6-pump one would be on the smaller side.

17/ - 1:12:50 - HOLD UP - a 750 kWh pack does not take 10x the time to charge as the 75 kWh pack in your M3. There are 10x the cells, but each can charge at roughly the same rate. Therefore, if you give the truck 10x the power, the cells each charge at the same rate....

18/ ...you can charge a 750 kWh pack in the same time as a 75 kWh pack if you have enough power to the handle with the SAME amount of battery degradation that may be incurred by that C-rate.
...

19/ ...
You can charge the truck in 30 mins (2C rate) a la supercharging (worst case for the battery), 10 hrs (.1C rate), or anywhere in between. Just like your car.

You sure don't have to charge it overnight.

20/ You charge at 150-250 kW, which is 2-3.3C. Charge a 750 kWh truck at 1.5-2.5 MW and you get the same charge time.

21/ "Hydrogen fuel cell is a better solution for the trucking world for them to go green... b/c you can fuel up in 15 minutes"

Very few trucks actually need to refuel in 15 minutes.

NKLA wants you do believe they do as that's the only advantage they're selling.

22/22 H2 not being as safe as gasoline doesn't mean it's going to blow up it means things like:

- You can't tell if it's leaking b/c it doesn't smell
- You can't tell if it's burning b/c it burns clear
- H2 being the smallest molecule, it leaks from and embrittles everything

23/22 Coda:

Thanks again for the video, @teslajoy. Happy to answer any questions on my feedback/notes.

Tweet 17 is key to understanding how BEV trucks can be nearly as capable as FCEVs (80-95% of market today) similar to how they are for passenger cars.

15 is key too.