Watch Tesla Semi get test driven by UPS: ‘one smooth ride’, they say

A Tesla Semi prototype is evidently on tour to visit potential customers at the moment since it has been spotted at J.B. Hunt last week and now UPS is taking a look at the electric truck.

The delivery giant’s employees even had the chance to test drive it and they say it’s ‘one smooth ride’.

After we reported that Tesla Semi showed up to J.B. Hunt in Arkansas almost 2,000 miles away from its home base, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla Semi made it ‘across the country alone’ with only Supercharger network and an extension cord.

Now it is back on the road and it made it to UPS’ hub in Addison in Illinois, which is about 600 miles north from J.B. Hunt in Arkansas.

UPS is one of Tesla Semi’ largest reservation holders with 125 electric trucks on order and that’s apparently enough to make UPS employees eligible for test rides in a prototype.

A UPS employee wrote on Twitter: “Tesla drove their electric tractor to Addison so UPSers could check it out! How cool is that?” and shared some pictures:

Jerome Guillen, the head of the Tesla Semi program, was present at the event (he is the one in the gray shirt).

The UPS employee shared images of the Tesla team prepping the truck:

https://twitter.com/IllinoisUPSers/status/1034162962611752970

And a video of a test drive, which he noted was “smooth”:

https://twitter.com/IllinoisUPSers/status/1034163909484335105

Those Tesla Semi reservation holder visits and test drives come amid the industry having doubts about Tesla’s ability to deliver an electric truck with the capacity that it announced last year.

Tesla has been promising a range of over 500 miles with a full load and an industry-leading cost of operation of about $1.26 per mile.

While the industry has its doubts, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently said that “most major [Tesla Semi] customers have tried it and love it.”

One thing that the trucking industry can’t deny is that the Tesla Semi prototype is able to cover a lot of distance, which is something unprecedented for an electric truck.

Considering this same prototype was spotted in California just a few weeks ago, it appears to have traveled close to 3,000 miles over the past few weeks.

Musk says that they now need to “finish the production design and build it.” Tesla previously announced that they aimed to bring the truck to production in 2019.