Tesla Hands First Semi Trucks to Customers After Delays

CEO Elon Musk did not attend the event. He was at President Trump’s state dinner with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, according to TechCrunch. Other Tesla executives led the presentation at a new factory dedicated to the Semi, adjacent to the company’s first Gigafactory in Reno. Tesla plans to build as many as 50,000 trucks a year at the plant, or roughly 1,000 per week, and create 3,000 jobs for the local economy.

The most capable version of the Semi is expected to travel 500 miles or more on one charge, depending on the size of the load, and cost just shy of $300,000 before incentives. Tesla will also offer shorter-range variants. Executives did not reveal the final sticker price. They promised the truck would help fleet owners lower their total cost of ownership, reduce emissions and benefit from greater reliability.

Customers will be able to take delivery of the truck whenever they are ready, though charging infrastructure remains a hurdle, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. Tesla is building a network of megawatt charging stations, and the company used part of its 30-minute event to show a Semi going from 3% battery to 60% while plugged into one of those chargers, TechCrunch reported.

Dan Priestly, head of Tesla’s Semi program, said heavy trucks produce 16% of emissions despite making up just 1% of vehicles on the road. “We’re super excited to be deploying these into our own operations because it’s fulfilling the mission that we originally started out [with],” he said.

The Semi was originally slated to go into production in 2019. The pandemic, a global parts supply and semiconductor shortage, and changes made in response to pilot customer feedback contributed to the years-long wait, according to TechCrunch. Priestly and Lars Moravy, who leads most of Tesla’s engineering efforts, detailed some of those changes at the event.

Tesla has cut roughly 1,000 pounds from the vehicle compared with its original version. The company also reduced the number of oils used in the Semi’s drive axle from three to one. Moravy said the previous axle design that needed three different oils had “always frustrated” him, and he admitted Tesla tends to prioritize “super bespoke” designs. Priestly said changes to the motor design and work from Tesla’s lubricants team allowed the company to cut out the other two oils. “Occasionally we get a little too far out there,” he said.

Tesla also changed the Semi’s side windows. The original design used pop-out windows that did not fully open, a problem raised for years by truck drivers and automotive bloggers. Priestly called the original design “not sufficient” and said the new Semi has standard roll-down windows. “We fully admit we were wrong about the windows,” he said. “Turns out there’s a lot of infrastructure in the world, whether it’s a badge reader, or your toll booth, or you’re talking to somebody on a call box. There’s all kinds of stuff right at that height, and it became evident that we needed a roll-down window in order to make that infrastructure easier to interface with.” Moravy added, “It’s okay to be wrong, Dan.”

Tesla’s claim that the truck could travel 500 miles on a single charge while fully loaded was made by Musk at the original 2017 event and drew skepticism for years. Bill Gates wrote in a 2020 blog post that electric big rigs would “probably never be a practical solution” because “batteries are big and heavy,” according to TechCrunch. Without naming Gates, Moravy and Priestly poked fun at that skepticism during Thursday’s event, pointing to the compounding effect of making the vehicle more efficient.

The launch comes during a transition for Tesla. Musk now describes Tesla as a robotics and AI company even though nearly all of its revenue comes from vehicle sales, TechCrunch reported. He has also changed Tesla’s mission to “build a world of amazing abundance.” When Musk showed off the Semi in 2017, Tesla’s mission was still “to accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy.” Despite that change in positioning, Thursday’s event included extensive discussion of reducing trucking emissions.

Editor's Summary

Tesla has started customer deliveries of its all-electric Semi after years of delays, with production planned at a new Reno factory and a top-range model expected to travel 500 miles or more and cost just under $300,000 before incentives. Executives highlighted design changes such as weight reduction, a simplified axle and roll-down windows, while charging infrastructure remains a hurdle. The launch comes as Tesla emphasizes robotics and AI under CEO Elon Musk, even as the Semi event focused on cutting trucking emissions.