Tesla Semi production to get ‘serious’ by 2020, says investor after Gigafactory 1 tour

Tesla Semi was announced to go into production in 2019 when it was officially unveiled in 2017.

A Tesla investor now says that they were told in a Gigafactory 1 tour that “earnest” production would only start by 2020.

Some media are framing it as a delay, but Tesla says that the plan hasn’t changed.

As we reported yesterday, Tesla investor Worm Capital released a report about their visit of Tesla Gigafactory 1 last month.

In the report, they had a mention of the Tesla Semi production that we glossed over:

“They will also begin to earnestly produce Semis by 2020.”

Some media have been framing this as Tesla delaying production of the electric truck, but there’s some nuance to the comment.

Electrek contacted Worm Capital about the situation and they clarified their comment:

“In our wording “They will also begin to earnestly produce Semis by 2020,” not “instead of”. There will obviously be a ramp up in production preceding, but we don’t have additional color on exact timelines. Overall, we didn’t perceive anything overly material in the statement.”

Tesla also said that they haven’t changed their plan.

CEO Elon Musk recently said that they are currently working on “finishing the production design and building it.”

Electrek’s Take

I don’t think anyone expected Tesla to produce the electric truck in any fashion of serious volume next year.

It sounds more like Tesla plans to start production in low volume in 2019 and ramp up to more serious production in 2020.

What I find most interesting about this whole thing is that it sounds like Tesla is indeed planning to produce the semi electric truck at Gigafactory 1 as many suspected.

It makes a lot of sense since the electric truck uses several Model 3 drivetrain components that are already being produced at the factory.

They are certainly not short on space at the location.

Quite an exciting time for Tesla’s electric truck program.

Top image: Tesla Semi by Jerome Guillen, head of Tesla Semi program and Tesla President of Automotive.