Elon Musk announced that Tesla will start production of the Tesla Semi and Pepsi will get the first electric trucks from December 1.
Tesla Semi, an all-electric Class 8 truck, was introduced in 2017. At the time, it was supposed to arrive in 2019.
The vehicle program was delayed for years and, until recently, was not expected to go into production until 2023.
However, Elon Musk surprisingly announced in August that the Tesla Semi would actually start shipping later this year.
Today, the CEO confirmed that Tesla has started production of the electric truck:
Musk reiterated that the vehicle has a range of 500 miles (805 km) on a single charge.
Tesla semi-electric trucks are being produced in Nevada, near the Tesla Gigafactory. last year, Electric exclusively reported that Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near the Gigafactory
At that time, we were told that the installed production equipment would be for about 5 electric trucks per week. Tesla plans to move to higher volume production at Gigafactory Texas.
In today’s tweet, Musk announced that Pepsico would receive the first Tesla Semi deliveries on December 1.
After the launch of Tesla Semi in 2017, PepsiCo placed one of the largest orders for Tesla Semi: 100 electric trucks to add to your fleet.
The company planned to use 15 of those trucks for a project to convert its Frito-Lay Modesto, California site to a zero-emissions facility.
Last year, PepsiCo said it expected receive deliveries of those 15 Tesla Semi trucks by the end of the year before it was delayed again.
While the company didn’t take delivery of its Tesla Semi trucks last year, Tesla did install a Megacharger station for the trucks at its Modesto facility, leading many to believe it would be the first to receive the electric truck.
electrical socket
This is exciting. Tesla Semi has real potential to change the game in the trucking industry with its useful range of 500 miles and its efficiency of less than 2 kWh per mile.
At $0.20 per kWh, that’s an operating cost of $0.40 per mile. That’s about half the cost of operating a diesel truck.
Considering that businesses can spend up to $80,000 on fuel per year per truck, you can imagine how attractive going electric would be.
If successful, it could rapidly electrify the trucking industry and significantly reduce freight transport emissions.
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