Tesla has delivered a new fleet of up to 21 Tesla Semi electric trucks to PepsiCo as the automaker slowly ramps up the much-delayed vehicle program.
Tesla unveiled the production version of its Tesla Semi class 8 electric truck and delivered the first units in December.
It came after years of delays in the program.
Reservation holders are glad to see the electric truck in the hands of customers finally, but it hasn’t been clear how fast Tesla can ramp up production of the vehicle.
PepsiCo took delivery of the first Tesla Semi trucks. Within weeks of taking delivery of the first truck, PepsiCo said that it would be deploying 36 Tesla Semi trucks, but it wasn’t clear how many were already in operation.
Now the giant food and beverage company has unveiled a new fleet of Tesla Semi trucks to be used at its Sacramento facility:
The company confirmed that it is using 15 Tesla Semi trucks at its Modesto facility, and now up to 21 trucks are going to operate from the Sacramento plant.
We also learned that Tesla is selling its electric truck to PepsiCo for $250,000.
It was the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District that confirmed it when it said that it paid for 18 of the 21 trucks to be used at the Sacramento bottling plant with $4.5 million in grants.
On top of the trucks, Tesla also installed four 750-kW Megachargers at the Sacramento facility as it did at the Modesto plant.
Electrek’s Take
It’s still hard to estimate Tesla’s production of Tesla Semi trucks at this time.
Chairwoman Robyn Denholm previously said that Tesla could deliver 100 electric trucks in 2022, but it looks like the automaker delivered half of that.
Top comment by Clint Watt
Semi trucks seem to me to be the sweet spot for EV's. Big savings on fuel costs, better performance, less driver fatigue and more impact on air quality per vehicle. I hope Tesla and other companies find great success with these platforms.
Electrek previously obtained information pointing to Tesla having the capacity to build about five Tesla Semi trucks per week at its facility near Gigafactory Nevada.
But the real capacity is going to come from the expansion of Gigafactory Nevada announced in January.
In the meantime, I wouldn’t expect any meaningful deliveries of Tesla Semi trucks, but it’s still great to see PepsiCo getting some on the road.
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