It’s been five years since the Tesla Semi originally debuted, but it could soon be put into service with Pepsi.
If you’re following Elon Musk’s Twitter feed, you’ll see one of his most recent tweets noting the Tesla Semi truck will begin deliveries to PepsiCo in early December. Initially, we expected Tesla to delay the Semi until 2023, like the Cybertruck and Roadster. PepsiCo ordered 100 Tesla Semi trucks in 2017 at a price of about $180,000 each. That price should drop thanks to a component of this year’s Inflation Reduction Act that can lower the cost by up to $40,000 for each rig.
There are a ton of unanswered questions about the Tesla Semi truck’s numbers, including how charging will work in real-world fleet situations. There have been unofficial reports that the forthcoming Tesla MegaCharger station can deliver up to 1.5 megawatts of power to the Semi. Musk claims the truck has a range of up to 500 miles, and you can guess its battery must be immense to meet commercial drivers’ needs.
Back when PepsiCo reserved the trucks, they indicated that they wanted to lower their fleet’s carbon footprint and fuel consumption. Per a recent Reuters report, PepsiCo did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this latest development.
