Tesla aims to increase production of Tesla Semis to 50,000 electric trucks per year – as early as 2024. This would make Tesla one of the largest manufacturers of Class 8 trucks.
After five years of waiting, Tesla is finally in production with the Tesla Semi electric truck.
Electrek exclusively reported that Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near Gigafactory Nevada. At the time, we were told that the production equipment installed would be around five electric trucks per week.
It would only be 250 trucks per year.
However, Tesla has always planned to move to higher volume production at Gigafactory Texas.
During the conference call following the release of Tesla’s Third Quarter 2022 Financial ResultsCEO Elon Musk announced that Tesla is “tentatively” targeting 50,000 semi-electric Tesla trucks in 2024:
It takes about a year to ramp up production. We are therefore tentatively targeting 50,000 units in 2024 for Tesla Semi in North America. And of course, we will expand beyond North America.
Musk would not share the price of the vehicle, but said:
And these would sell… I don’t want to say exact prices, but they are so much more than a passenger vehicle.
Interestingly, Musk also confirmed that Tesla Semi does not use 4680 battery cells. It hasn’t confirmed which cells it uses, but it’s likely the same 2170 cells found in most Tesla Model 3s and Model Ys in production today.
Electrek’s Grasp
The fact that Tesla doesn’t have to rely on 4680 cells for the Tesla Semi should go a long way to helping the electric truck’s production ramp up quickly.
This is good news as Tesla Semi could have a massive impact on the large-scale transportation industry. This will not only reduce emissions across the industry, but it also has the potential to significantly reduce operating cost per mile.
The reduction in transportation cost per mile impacts virtually all products that are transported by trucks, and basically anything you can think of that has been in a truck at any given time.
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