Tesla supplies semi-finished electrical products to PepsiCo at its Nevada plant

Tesla delivered its first electric semi truck to PepsiCo on Thursday, more than three years after Elon Musk announced his company would start manufacturing the trucks.

The Austin, Texas-based company officially shipped the trucks to a factory near Reno, Nevada. The event was streamed live on Twitter, which Musk now owns.

Musk drove one of three Tesla semis in front of a crowd at the factory. One was white, one was painted with a Pepsi logo, and another with Frito-Lay colors.

Purchase, New York-based PepsiCo is participating in a zero-emissions freight project at a Frito-Lay facility in Modesto, California. This project is funded by a $15.4 million clean freight technology grant from the California Air Resources Board, which includes 15 Tesla battery-electric tractors and other electric and natural gas-powered trucks.

Tesla Semi drives 500 miles fully charged on a single charge pic.twitter.com/iZzomLcwZF

– Tesla (@Tesla) December 2, 2022

Semi-finished electrical products would also be eligible for a federal tax credit of up to $40,000.

At a November 2017 event where the Tesla Semi was unveiled, Musk said production would begin in 2019 and the trucks would be able to follow one another autonomously in a convoy. But during Tesla’s third-quarter earnings conference call in October, he said the company’s “full self-driving” system wasn’t quite ready to be driverless.

According to Musk, the truck has a range of 500 miles (800 kilometers) per charge when towing an 82,000-pound (37,000-kilo) load. The company plans to ramp up semi production to 50,000 trucks in 2024 in North America.

Competitors working on hydrogen-powered semi-trucks say battery-powered trucks won’t work for long-distance haulage because it would take too long to recharge the huge batteries. Musk said hydrogen isn’t needed for heavy trucks.

Trending News