Elon Musk just requested $100 million from the US government for an ambitious new project — here’s his plan
Tesla made waves when it delivered on orders of its all-electric semi truck, aptly called the Semi, last year — and now the company may get funding from the American government to build Megacharging stations for them between California and Texas.
The automaker has requested $100 million from the United States government to build nine charging stations for the Semis, according to CleanTechnica and Bloomberg. The stations will be strategically positioned between Northern California and the southern border of Texas. Each station would feature up to eight individual 750-kilowatt chargers, which means eight Semis could charge simultaneously at each of the nine stations.
The company also urged Texas state officials to send requests to the federal government on its behalf to encourage the approval of the funding.
The Semi prototype was unveiled in 2017, but the truck didn’t hit the streets until 2022, when PepsiCo received 15 of the vehicles.
The Semi is the first all-electric sixteen-wheeler to hit the market, per CleanTechnica. To slow the dangerous overheating of our planet, it’s essential that industrial shipping embraces clean energy vehicles like the Semi to curb the amount of pollution we put into the atmosphere as we transport our goods.
In 2015, 49.5 million tons of goods were shipped to and from the United States each day — an amount equivalent to 56 tons per person per year and that requires over a billion barrels of oil, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. While this statistic also includes rail and barge movement, the EPA clarifies that trucks are the quickest-growing contributor to dangerous air pollution.
Clean energy vehicles like the Semi will give companies the ability to transport their goods between locations without burning dirty energy sources that directly contribute to the dangerous overheating of our planet. News of Tesla’s funding approval is expected to come later this year, though it’s unclear if the company will invest its own money in the plan if the government rejects its request.
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