Tesla is buying car-hauling trucks and trailers using $13 million in TSLA shares

Tesla announced today that it is buying car-hauling trucks and trailers from a trucking company in California using $13 million in TSLA shares.

The automaker wrote in an SEC filing issuing new shares today:

“As part of Tesla’s ongoing logistics strategy to increase its vehicle transport capacity, reduce vehicle transportation time, and improve the timeliness of scheduled deliveries, Tesla agreed to issue shares of Tesla’s common stock in connection with its acquisition of certain car-hauling trucks and trailers from Central Valley Auto Transport, Inc. (“Central Valley” or the “selling stockholder”), an automotive transport provider. We are registering these Tesla shares pursuant to registration rights granted to the selling stockholder in connection with the acquisition.”

According to the filing, Tesla is registering 49,967 shares for total max proceedings of $13,843,357.35

On its website, Central Valley Auto Transport is described as a used car transport company operating a fleet of about 100 trucks that can carry 1-9 cars out of Strathmore – a few miles north of Bakersfield in California’s Central Valley.

Last year, Tesla announced that they were “acquiring trucking capacity” in order to shorten the delivery timelines for Model 3 before the end of the full tax credit for electric vehicles in the US.

In a tweet to Electrek, CEO Elon Musk said that it would involve buying “some trucking companies” and securing “contracts with major haulers to avoid trucking shortage”.

The company never confirmed which trucking company they were acquiring.

Based on the filing, it sounds like Tesla is not outright buying Central Valley Auto Transport, but the automaker is acquiring a significant part of their fleet.

At one point last year, the shortage of car-hauling trailers put enough pressure on Tesla that the company decided to start building its own car carriers in order to handle their higher volume of deliveries, according to Musk.

It’s unclear how many of its own truck and car-hauling trailers Tesla is operating at this point.