Tesla Semi is finally on the assembly line — Musk promised to ship the first batch of Pepsi electric trucks by December 2022
Tesla has (finally) started serial production of the Tesla Semi electric truck — the company’s CEO, Elon Musk, tweeted that the first tractors will arrive at Pepsi by December 1.
Musk confirmed that the Tesla Semi will be able to cover 805 km on a single charge, and separately noted that it will be “super fun” to drive (it wouldn’t be Elon Musk).
Excited to announce start of production of Tesla Semi Truck with deliveries to @Pepsi on Dec 1st! pic.twitter.com/gq0l73iGRW
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2022
Tesla first announced the Semi back in 2017 alongside the new Roadster sports car, but Tesla’s first truck, which is set to revolutionize the world of trucking, has yet to go on sale. The truck belongs to class 8 (according to the American classification) with a maximum permissible weight of more than 15 tons.
In the spring of 2021, Tesla was actively testing new prototypes of the Semi — at first it was expected that the basic version with a 500 kWh unit, which could cover 480 km on a single charge, would be the first to go on sale, and a longer-range version capable of driving 1,000 km on a single charge would be released later. In May, Tesla opened pre-sales through its American website and began collecting orders for the Semi with a mandatory deposit of $20,000, and in August, Musk confirmed that the Semi would be released this year.
As for Pepsi, the well-known soft drink maker became one of the first Tesla Semi customers in 2017 and ordered 100 trucks.
Tesla Semis are currently only produced at Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. In March 2021, it was reported that Tesla was assembling about five trucks every week. Tesla wants to start production of the Semi in much higher volumes at the new Giga Texas plant, which opened in April.
The Tesla Semi is equipped with four independent electric motors on the rear axles and can accelerate from 0 to 96.56 km/h in 20 seconds. At least such characteristics were announced from the very beginning and the company has not changed them yet. Prices start at $150,000, and since the announcement, Tesla has received several large orders from companies like Walmart and FedEx. To date, at least 745 Tesla Semi trucks have been ordered from Tesla — this is from what is known. Now we are waiting for the new Roadster and Cybertruck.
