Tesla

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Milestone

Tesla Semi enters volume production 7 years after 2017 unveiling

The new Nevada factory can build 1,000 trucks a week, betting vertical integration finally makes electric heavy-haul freight pencil out.

• Tesla launched high-volume production of the Semi at a new dedicated factory in Sparks, Nevada, with first customer deliveries starting this week.
• The Semi is Tesla's first Class 8 heavy-duty electric truck, aimed at long-haul freight customers like PepsiCo, DHL, US Foods, ABF and Einride.
• The 1.8-million-square-foot plant is designed to build up to 50,000 trucks a year, or about 1,000 per week, across Standard, Long Range and European variants on one line.
• Tesla redesigned the truck around in-house 4680 battery cells and a steel-caged rotor motor sharing parts with Cybertruck, saying vertical integration is 'the only real way to bring cost down.'
• The long-range Semi is rated for 500 miles on a charge versus 325 miles for the standard version, with pricing reportedly around $300,000 and $260,000 respectively.
• The truck was unveiled in 2017 with production promised for 2019, but battery shortages, the pandemic and shifting priorities delayed volume output by roughly seven years; small hand-built batches went to PepsiCo in 2022.
• Industry coalition ZET SCALE ordered 2,500 Semis and freight tech firm Einride committed to 500 more, while rivals Aurora Innovation and Kodiak Robotics already run driverless trucks on public roads.
• Heavy trucks generate 16% of transportation emissions from just 1% of vehicles on the road, making commercial freight one of the highest-leverage sectors for electrification even as charging infrastructure lags.