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Tesla Semi Gets Ridiculed by Renault Trucks in New Commercial

Elon Musk said the Semi would reach its first customer – Pepsico – on December 1. While Tesla investors celebrated that it only took the company five years to deliver its Class 8 electric truck, others seized the announcement to make fun of the delay. Renault Trucks even made a commercial to remind Tesla it has already put 300 electric trucks on the roads.
Renault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercial 7 photos
Photo: Renault Trucks
Renault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercialRenault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercialRenault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercialRenault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercialRenault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercialRenault Trucks mocks Tesla Semi in funny commercial
The advertisement starts with billboard installers doing their thing and gluing the posters for something we later discover to be a Tesla ad. This is obviously just a representation of what Musk did on Twitter. The company is famous for bragging about never spending money on marketing, which is not true if you check what it does in China.

After the installer finishes his job, he looks at his teammate driving a truck driver, and they both share expressions of doubt and “if you say so…” That is when the spectators realize that the billboard installers got there in an electric Renault Truck – to be more precise, on an E-Tech D.

This electric truck has battery packs ranging from 200 kWh to 565 kWh. With the largest one, it can have a range of up to 560 kilometers (348 miles). With a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 16 metric tons (35,274 pounds), it would fit as a Class 8 truck in the U.S., even if it has a much lower capacity than that of the Semi (82,000 lb, or 37,195 kg).

Renault Trucks said a truck with a 265-kWh battery pack could take less than ten hours to charge with a 22 kW charger. This is the recommended charging solution for it, even if that means it will have to sit for a good chunk of the day, which will not fit most truck owners.

For those in need of using the E-Tech D most of the time, Renault offers a fast charging solution, but it is quite conservative: 150 kW DC, or a bit more than one-tenth of what Tesla may need to recharge the Semi’s battery pack to 70% in half an hour. According to Renault Trucks, the battery pack can recover its charge in two hours. The truck maker did not disclose which battery pack recharges in that period, but we suspect it is the one with 256 kWh, which the company was using as a reference with the 22-kW AC charger.

If Nikola was into making commercials, it could also tease Tesla as much, or even more, than Renault Trucks did with the video below. Despite having its former CEO convicted of fraud, the electric truck startup delivered such a product to customers way before Tesla did. Perhaps not 300 units, as Renault Trucks, but this is the sort of game in which a single electric truck already settles any discussion.

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About the author: Gustavo Henrique Ruffo
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Motoring writer since 1998, Gustavo wants to write relevant stories about cars and their shift to a sustainable future.
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