Tesla Promises Semi Truck Production to Begin in Late 2025
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Tesla Inc.’s touted Class 8 Semi tractor is likely to begin rolling off the company’s Reno, Nev., production line late next year, according to a senior executive.
Austin, Texas-based Tesla — which made headlines earlier in the week by revealing the largest job cuts in the company’s history — expects the first customers to start receiving the long-awaited Semi in early 2026, the executive revealed.
“Our first vehicles are planned for late 2025 with external customers starting in 2026,” Vice President of Vehicle Engineering Lars Moravy said during an April 23 question-and-answer session with analysts after the release of the company’s first-quarter 2024 results.
“So we’re finalizing the engineering of the Semi to enable like a super cost-effective high-volume production with our learnings from our fleet and our pilot fleet and Pepsi fleet, which we are expanding this year marginally. In parallel, as we showed in the shareholders’ deck, we have started construction on the factory in Reno,” Moravy said.
Moravy
Production of the Semi, proclaimed to be an industry-changing tractor when unveiled by Tesla CEO Elon Musk in 2017, originally was due to begin in 2019. Musk promised a battery-electric truck with a 500-mile range at the landmark event.
RELATED: Tesla Semi Skepticism Lingers Months After Musk’s First Delivery
Since then, few carriers have got their hands on demonstration models outside Pepsico Inc., which ranks No. 1 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America. Pepsico operates 12,590 tractors, according to TT data.
Tesla Semis did, however, take part in the North American Council for Freight Efficiency’s Run on Less-Electric Depot event in September, providing more data for industry watchers.
The Tesla Semis at PepsiCo’s Sacramento Beverages depot completed 384 miles on a single charge and 806 miles in a single 24-hour day during the event.
The Tesla numbers speak for themselves. They are showing us sort of the future.
Mike Roeth, NACFE executive director
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“The Tesla Semis are showing us what fast charging can do,” NACFE Executive Director Mike Roeth told attendees of a Sept. 18 LinkedIn Live event.
“The Tesla numbers speak for themselves. They are showing us sort of the future. It’s like the art of the probable here; we hear art of the possible, well, this is more the art of the probable because it is real trucks, real freight,” Roeth said, so that longer regional-haul options open up.
As Tesla’s Class 8 truck took more time to emerge, legacy truck makers built more battery-electric and other alternative-fuel, heavy-duty tractors, including models that rival the ballyhooed range of the Semi.
In further headwinds, the world’s most-watched automaker dominated Q1 industry headlines with declining sales, job cuts and the first sustained stock price reversal in some years. Seeking to stem the tide, the company on April 24 revealed plans to bring forward the launch of a number of cheaper models.
RELATED: Tesla Cybertruck Review: It’s Weird, Brash, but Not Bad
Tesla’s Q1 revenue totaled $21.3 billion, down 9% year-over-year as sales fell almost 9% globally due to tougher competition and demand for electric passenger vehicles slowing.
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Gross profit margin, the revenue Tesla retains after expenses, narrowed to 17.4% from 19.3% a year earlier. Gross profit margin slid steadily over the past two years from a 29.1% peak in Q1 2022.
Analysts expect a continuation of the downslope for Tesla earnings in the coming quarters.
“We see the risk of further negative earnings revisions and continued multiple compression after 1Q24 results tracked softer even than estimates that had recently been significantly reined in,” J.P. Morgan Securities’ Ryan Brinkman said April 24.
The plan to bring forward the launch of the cheaper models comes with risks, too, Brinkman said. There is precedent, with Brinkman saying, “We note, too, the execution risk that can come with attempts to accelerate production, including Tesla’s initial difficulties in manufacturing the Model 3 and again in [Q1] with the recall of recently produced Cybertrucks.”
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