Tesla finally delivered its first Semi

Tesla has finally unveiled its first Semi. It deserved an event with great fanfare at the Nevada plant.

Five years after Elon Musk’s official presentation of the Semi, Tesla’s first electric heavyweight has finally been delivered to Pepsi. The delivery took place this Thursday during an event dedicated to the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada. In total, the cola manufacturer ordered 100 cars.

Tesla finally delivered its first Semi

Introduced in March 2017, the Tesla Semi was originally supposed to cost $150,000 and $180,000 for the 300 and 500 mile versions, respectively. The cost of a standard heat truck is well over $60,000, but Tesla estimates the machine is 20% more efficient (2kWh per mile) and saves up to $250,000 over a million-mile lifespan.

Each car has a 1 MW battery. This monster can go from 0 to 60 mph in 20 seconds, which is impressive considering these machines weigh 80,000 pounds and can be charged up to 80% in just 30 minutes. The semi-trailers are also equipped with advanced autopilot capabilities, as well as systems to prevent it from folding knives, blind spot sensors and data tracking for fleet management.

A well-deserved event with great fanfare at the Nevada plant

The booking was opened in 2017. Deliveries were supposed to begin in 2019, but in April 2020, Tesla officially pushed back that date to 2021, citing production and supply issues due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a month later, in May 2020, Elon Musk sent out an email to the entire company to speed up the process and begin high-volume production. In the same email, he confirmed that this would take place at the Gigafactory in Nevada.

In July 2021, unfortunately, another postponement, this time to 2022, due to the lack of processors and difficulties with the production of batteries. Tesla then opted for its Model Y, in particular over the Semi. This May, Tesla reopened bookings for its electric truck with a $20,000 deposit. Thus, the first delivery took place, and on this occasion, the leaders of PepsiCo were invited to the stage.

Tesla Semi travels 500 miles fully loaded on a single charge pic.twitter.com/iZzomLcwZF

— Tesla (@Tesla) December 2, 2022