How the electric semi truck cost calculator works
On the evening of September 24, 2026, Tesla launched high-volume production of the Semi at its dedicated Nevada factory, a plant it says can build 50,000 trucks a year, with deliveries starting now. That turns an old question into an urgent one for a lot of fleets at once: does an electric semi actually cost less to own than the diesel it would replace? It is a big bet, often the biggest purchase a small fleet makes in a year, and it deserves better than a brochure number or a hunch. This page does the arithmetic for your truck, your miles, and your electricity, and it covers the other electric semis on the market too, because the honest answer depends as much on the price tag and the charging bill as on the badge.
Pick a truck, enter your daily miles and operating days, your diesel price and mpg, and what you pay for electricity. The model builds two ledgers side by side. Up front: both trucks' prices, the 12 percent federal excise tax on both, any charging equipment you are buying, and any incentives you expect. Running: energy per mile, maintenance per mile, and demand charges if your utility bills them. Payback is the up-front gap divided by the yearly running savings. Then it tells you the electricity price at which the savings disappear, checks your route against the truck's range, and charts both trucks' cumulative cost for ten years. Every default is sourced or labeled editorial, and every one is yours to change.
The formula
electric cost per mile = kWh per mile × electricity price + maintenance per mile (+ demand charges ÷ annual miles)
annual savings = annual miles × (diesel cost per mile − electric cost per mile)
price gap = (electric price − diesel price) × 1.12 + charging equipment − incentives
payback years = price gap ÷ annual savings
break-even electricity price = (diesel price ÷ mpg) ÷ kWh per mile
Annual miles are miles a day times operating days. The 1.12 is the 12 percent federal excise tax that applies to the first retail sale of any heavy tractor, diesel or electric (switch it off if your quotes already include it). The electricity price is a blend when you charge partly on public chargers: your depot rate for the depot share and the public price for the rest. The break-even electricity price is the rate at which an electric mile's energy costs exactly what a diesel mile's fuel does; charge for less than that and every mile is cheaper.
Worked example
A Tesla Semi Standard Range at the reported $260,000, against ICCT's $172,500 median diesel day cab, running 250 miles a day for 250 days (62,500 miles a year), with diesel at $6.50 and 6.0 mpg, depot electricity at 14 cents a kWh, and maintenance of 25 cents a mile for the diesel and 22 cents for the electric.
Running costs: the diesel burns 108.3 cents of fuel a mile plus 25 cents of maintenance, $1.33 a mile and $83,333 a year. The electric uses 1.7 kWh a mile at 14 cents, 23.8 cents of energy, plus 22 cents of maintenance, 45.8 cents a mile and $28,625 a year. The electric truck saves $54,708 a year.
Up front: $260,000 plus $31,200 of excise tax is $291,200; the diesel is $172,500 plus $20,700, or $193,200. The gap is $98,000, and $10,500 of it is the tax alone, because 12 percent of a bigger price is a bigger number.
Payback: $98,000 ÷ $54,708 = about 1.8 years. After ten years the diesel has cost $1,026,533 in total and the electric $577,450.
Three dials move that answer more than any other. Charge everything on public chargers at our editorial 40 cents and payback stretches to about 3.6 years. Add a demand charge of $1,800 a month (one 120 kW charger setting your peak on a $15 per kW tariff) and it lands at about 3.0 years. And diesel itself has been climbing fast: AAA's national average was $5.90 on September 6, 2026, when the same truck paid back in about 2.0 years. By September 25 it was the $6.50 used here, within three cents of the all-time diesel record AAA set on September 22.
Tesla Semi: price, range, battery, and charging
Price. Tesla has not published an official price. The Long Range (500 miles) was quoted to a customer at $290,000 before destination fees and taxes, reported by Electrek in February 2026, and that matches the median price in California's HVIP voucher applications for the same truck. The Standard Range (325 miles) is reported at about $260,000 from the same state program data, with another outlet reporting $250,000, so treat it as the softer of the two. Either way, the 12 percent federal excise tax comes on top.
Range and energy use. Tesla's spec table gives 325 miles for the Standard Range and 500 for the Long Range, both estimated at 82,000 pounds gross combination weight, 55 mph, 68 F (20 C), on flat ground, with an aero kit and a CARB-compliant dry van trailer. Both use 1.7 kWh a mile, and that figure is the rare brochure number that real-world data later matched: NACFE monitored PepsiCo's Semis in daily service in 2023 and measured the same 1.7.
Charging. A Megacharger delivers up to 1.2 MW and adds up to 60 percent of range in 30 minutes. The lower-power Basecharger, meant for depots and overnight, delivers 120 kW and adds up to 60 percent in about four hours (Tesla quotes both for the Long Range).
Battery. Tesla does not publish the battery size, but its own figures bracket it nicely. 500 miles at 1.7 kWh a mile is 850 kWh for the Long Range, and 325 miles is about 550 kWh for the Standard. A 120 kW Basecharger running four hours delivers at most 480 kWh, and if that is 60 percent of the pack, the usable pack is near 800 kWh. Figures around 822 kWh have been widely reported, which sits right between the two. At that size, 60 percent in half an hour works out to roughly 1 MW on average, comfortably under the Megacharger's 1.2 MW peak. The numbers hang together.
Everything else on the spec sheet: up to 800 kW of drive power from three motors, a curb weight under 20,000 pounds for the Standard Range and 23,000 for the Long Range, an 82,000 pound gross combination weight rating, and up to 25 kW of electric power take-off for things like refrigerated trailers. In California, the Semi accounted for 965 of the 1,067 Class 8 tractor voucher applications between January 2025 and February 2026, according to ICCT.
Every electric semi on the list, side by side
| Truck | Price we use | Usable battery | Range | Energy use | Charging | Payback at our defaults |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tesla Semi Standard Range | about $260,000 (HVIP data) | not published, about 550 kWh implied | 325 mi rated | 1.7 kWh/mi published | 60% in 30 min at 1.2 MW | 1.8 years |
| Tesla Semi Long Range | $290,000 (quote and HVIP median) | not published, about 822 kWh reported | 500 mi rated | 1.7 kWh/mi published | 60% in 30 min at 1.2 MW | 2.4 years |
| Freightliner eCascadia | about $460,000 (HVIP median) | 438 kWh | 230 mi typical | about 1.90 kWh/mi implied | 80% in about 90 min at up to 270 kW | 6.1 years |
| Volvo VNR Electric | about $436,000 (HVIP median) | 452 kWh (565 total) | 220 mi typical, up to 275 | about 2.05 kWh/mi implied | 80% in 90 min at 250 kW | 5.7 years |
The table's payback column runs every truck through the same defaults as the worked example, and the striking thing is how close the running costs are: each truck saves between about $52,000 and $54,700 a year against the same diesel. The payback spread is almost entirely a price spread. At a median of about $460,000, the eCascadia costs $200,000 more than the Standard Range Semi before tax and before a single mile is driven. For context, ICCT puts the median price of all model-year 2025 battery-electric Class 8 trucks at $411,200 against $172,500 for diesel, so Tesla's pricing sits well below the field.
A word of fairness on the other columns, because they are not measured the same way. Freightliner and Volvo publish usable battery and typical range, and Freightliner says its range figures are drawn from more than a million miles of real operation, which is a conservative way to quote range. Tesla publishes an estimate at 55 mph on flat ground, and its energy use has since been matched in service. So the kWh per mile for the eCascadia and VNR is implied (usable battery divided by typical range), and a truck with a conservative range figure will look a little thirstier than it drives. The legacy makers also bring something a spec table cannot show: dealer and service networks that fleets already use, and trucks that have been earning revenue for several years. At our default 250 miles a day, both also need a midday top-up, which the range check will flag.
The newest name is Windrose, whose R700 has been reported at about $270,000 to $290,000 with first US deliveries in 2026, still in small numbers. It is not on our list yet; if you have a quote, choose "Another electric semi" and enter its price and energy use.
No federal credit in 2026, and the 12 percent tax still applies
From 2023 through most of 2025, electric trucks carried a federal tax credit: Section 45W paid the lesser of 30 percent of the price or the extra cost over a comparable diesel, up to $40,000 for vehicles of 14,000 pounds and up. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act ended it for any vehicle acquired after September 30, 2025. A truck bought in 2026 gets nothing, and the calculator's table shows that line as $0 so nobody has to wonder. Plenty of electric truck cost articles were written while the credit was alive, and they were right when they were written; the law simply changed underneath them. In our worked example the credit would have been worth the full $40,000 and cut payback from 1.8 years to about 1.1.
The federal excise tax, on the other hand, is alive and well. It is 12 percent of the retail price on the first retail sale of a heavy tractor, and there is no exemption for electric ones. Because it is a percentage, it widens the gap between a pricier electric truck and a diesel: $10,500 of the worked example's $98,000 gap is tax. Two details worth knowing. If the maker sells to you directly rather than through a dealer, IRS Publication 510 adds a 4 percent presumed markup to the tax base, nudging the effective rate toward 12.5 percent, so ask how your quote figured it. And bills to repeal the tax entirely, the Modern, Clean, and Safe Trucks Act (H.R. 2424 and S. 4657), have been introduced but have not passed.
Why electric semis can weigh 82,000 pounds
The federal gross weight limit on the Interstate System is 80,000 pounds, and batteries are heavy. So federal law (23 U.S.C. 127(s)) lets a truck powered primarily by battery, or by natural gas, exceed the weight limit on the power unit by up to 2,000 pounds, to a maximum of 82,000. That is why Tesla's spec sheet says 82,000 and not 80,000: the allowance keeps an electric tractor from hauling a ton less freight than the diesel beside it. States set their own rules off the Interstate, so check yours for local routes.
Inside that limit, weight is a trade. The Semi Long Range weighs about 23,000 pounds against under 20,000 for the Standard Range, so its extra 175 miles of range cost at least 3,000 pounds of trailer-and-freight capacity at the same gross weight. Freightliner lists its eCascadia at about 18,750 pounds for the long-range single-drive model and 21,800 for the tandem. Whether that matters depends on your freight: parcel and beverage loads that fill the trailer before they reach the weight limit barely notice, and heavy loads notice every pound.
Electricity is the whole question
At $6.50 diesel and 6.0 mpg, the diesel truck spends 108.3 cents a mile on fuel. The Semi's 1.7 kWh a mile matches that at 63.7 cents per kWh, so any electricity cheaper than that makes every mile cheaper. The US commercial average was 13.85 cents over the twelve months to July 2026 (EIA), and industrial customers averaged 8.91, which is why depot charging is where the electric truck's economics live.
Public charging is harder to pin down, because no truck charging operator publishes a price per kWh. One truck maker estimates California public truck charging at 25 to 55 cents; our editorial 40 cents sits in the middle, and it nearly triples the energy cost of a mile against depot charging.
The line that surprises fleets is the demand charge: many commercial tariffs bill a monthly fee on your highest burst of power draw, on top of the kWh rate. One 1.2 MW charger setting that peak on a $15 per kW tariff adds $18,000 to the month. NREL found that nearly 5 million of the 18 million US commercial customers can be on tariffs with demand charges above $15 per kW, and state medians of the highest charges range from about $3.60 in Georgia to $18.50 in Arizona. Managed charging (spreading the fleet's charging across the night), lower-power depot chargers, and EV-specific tariffs are how fleets keep it down. Enter your expected monthly demand charges in the calculator and the break-even price updates to include them.
California's voucher, and what the headline number leaves out
California's HVIP program pays a base voucher of $120,000 for a Class 8 zero-emission truck, up to $330,000 for small businesses (limited to five vouchers, all time), and $150,000 for drayage trucks, with combined public incentives capped at 90 percent of the truck's cost for private fleets. Stacked with other state programs, that is how headlines reach numbers like a $290,000 truck for $50,000, and those stacks are real for the fleets that qualify at the top of every program while the money lasts. Two cautions: standard HVIP funding is currently closed, with the program aiming to reopen by the end of 2026 (drayage and public fleet funding remain open), and most fleets outside California see none of it. Enter what you actually expect to receive. In the worked example, a $120,000 voucher makes the electric truck $22,000 cheaper up front and still $54,708 a year cheaper to run.
What this page does not model
Resale value (nobody yet has a decade of used electric semi prices), financing costs, insurance, charging time against driver hours, the lead time and utility make-ready work for a new depot charger, battery aging, and California's Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits, which can pay fleets for the electricity they use. We also hold every price flat for ten years, which history suggests is the one assumption certain to be wrong in some direction. For the per-mile cost of running any truck, electric or diesel, our trucking cost per mile calculator goes line by line, and the EV semi emissions calculator covers the other ledger: the CO2, NOx, and soot an electric truck takes off the road. If you are sizing the charging stop itself, the EV charging time calculator does the physics.