Tesla Aims to Deliver First Semitrailer Trucks in December to PepsiCo
Elon Musk
said
Tesla Inc.
TSLA -1.11%
plans to deliver its first all-electric semitrailer truck to food and beverage maker
PepsiCo Inc.
PEP -1.93%
in December, roughly five years after the billionaire revealed the vehicle.
Mr. Musk reiterated Thursday that the truck would be able to travel 500 miles on a single charge, as had been planned. The truck, introduced in 2017, initially was due out in 2019.
If Tesla meets its chief executive’s latest stated timeline, the semitrailer truck would be the first new model the company is putting in customer hands since early 2020. Mr. Musk previously said Tesla didn’t plan to bring any new models to market in 2022.
Neither Tesla nor PepsiCo immediately responded to requests for comment, including about the number of trucks Tesla plans to deliver in December.
Mr. Musk’s announcement came hours after a Delaware judge postponed a trial pitting the billionaire against
Twitter Inc.
until Oct. 28. Mr. Musk this week signaled a readiness to move forward with a deal for the social-media company, less than three months after trying to abandon his $44 billion deal to buy it.
Tesla’s planned delivery of its semitrailer truck would come after President Biden in August signed into law legislation that created a new tax credit for commercial electric vehicles, among other incentives.
Mr. Musk touted the product early on with his characteristic enthusiasm, saying on Twitter in 2017, “This will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension.” He didn’t, at the time, share the truck’s sticker price.
In early 2021, Mr. Musk said Tesla didn’t have enough battery cells for it to make sense to begin producing the semitrailer truck. The truck, he said, typically would use five times the number of battery cells as a car but wouldn’t sell for five times as much.
The Tesla boss said in January that he hoped to bring the semitrailer truck into production in 2023, along with the company’s long-awaited Cybertruck electric pickup and a revamped version of its Roadster sports car.
The new vehicle introduction comes at a time Tesla also is pressing to meet full-year delivery targets as it tries to ramp up new plants in Austin, Texas, and outside Berlin as well as recover from a Covid-19-related factory shutdown in Shanghai earlier this year.
Tesla has been aiming to increase deliveries by an average 50% annually. To reach that target in 2022, the company would need to deliver nearly a half million vehicles in the final three months of the year, or about 44% more than the record number it handed over in the third quarter.
Write to Rebecca Elliott at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Elon Musk
said
Tesla Inc.
TSLA -1.11%
plans to deliver its first all-electric semitrailer truck to food and beverage maker
PepsiCo Inc.
PEP -1.93%
in December, roughly five years after the billionaire revealed the vehicle.
Mr. Musk reiterated Thursday that the truck would be able to travel 500 miles on a single charge, as had been planned. The truck, introduced in 2017, initially was due out in 2019.
If Tesla meets its chief executive’s latest stated timeline, the semitrailer truck would be the first new model the company is putting in customer hands since early 2020. Mr. Musk previously said Tesla didn’t plan to bring any new models to market in 2022.
Neither Tesla nor PepsiCo immediately responded to requests for comment, including about the number of trucks Tesla plans to deliver in December.
Mr. Musk’s announcement came hours after a Delaware judge postponed a trial pitting the billionaire against
Twitter Inc.
until Oct. 28. Mr. Musk this week signaled a readiness to move forward with a deal for the social-media company, less than three months after trying to abandon his $44 billion deal to buy it.
Tesla’s planned delivery of its semitrailer truck would come after President Biden in August signed into law legislation that created a new tax credit for commercial electric vehicles, among other incentives.
Mr. Musk touted the product early on with his characteristic enthusiasm, saying on Twitter in 2017, “This will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension.” He didn’t, at the time, share the truck’s sticker price.
In early 2021, Mr. Musk said Tesla didn’t have enough battery cells for it to make sense to begin producing the semitrailer truck. The truck, he said, typically would use five times the number of battery cells as a car but wouldn’t sell for five times as much.
The Tesla boss said in January that he hoped to bring the semitrailer truck into production in 2023, along with the company’s long-awaited Cybertruck electric pickup and a revamped version of its Roadster sports car.
The new vehicle introduction comes at a time Tesla also is pressing to meet full-year delivery targets as it tries to ramp up new plants in Austin, Texas, and outside Berlin as well as recover from a Covid-19-related factory shutdown in Shanghai earlier this year.
Tesla has been aiming to increase deliveries by an average 50% annually. To reach that target in 2022, the company would need to deliver nearly a half million vehicles in the final three months of the year, or about 44% more than the record number it handed over in the third quarter.
Write to Rebecca Elliott at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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