Tesla Starts Deliveries Of The Semi Trucks After 9 Years

The Tesla company has started deliveries of the first serial copies of the semi-electric truck, almost nine years after this model was presented to the public; company representatives announced at an event at the factory in the American state of Nevada, Reuters reported.

Among the first customers are large companies such as PepsiCo, DHL and US Foods, with which Tesla expands its business from passenger cars to the field of commercial transport.

Tesla has not announced the truck’s price or current production volume but has confirmed a plan to reach production of up to 50,000 vehicles a year at the Nevada plant.

According to the company, the long-haul version of the Semi can travel about 800 kilometers on a single charge and full payload, while the basic version has a range of about 520 kilometers. Tesla states that these results were confirmed during exploitation with customers.

Production delay

The Semi model was first introduced in 2017, and the start of production was originally planned for 2019. However, the deadlines were postponed several times, so the first serial truck came off the production line only in April of this year.

Tesla started limited deliveries of this model as early as 2022, including deliveries to PepsiCo.

Meanwhile, Tesla received an order for 2,500 trucks from a consortium of companies that includes, among others, Microsoft and PepsiCo. An agreement was reached with the Swedish company Einride to include 500 semi-trucks in its fleet.

The start of wider deliveries marks Tesla’s entry into the heavy-duty vehicle market, at a time when high diesel fuel prices are increasing interest in electric trucks.

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