Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a rare mention about bringing the Tesla Semi electric truck to production as the company’s original timeline is starting to approach fast.
When Tesla first unveiled its semi electric truck back in 2017, the company said that it planned to bring the vehicle to production in 2019.
Now in 2019, we still don’t know where they plan to build the vehicle or if the original delivery timeline still holds as we enter the second quarter.
After releasing a picture of the Tesla Semi prototype carrying Tesla vehicles, Musk said that Tesla has been busy with “production and logistics”, but they are now looking forward to bringing the vehicle to production:
We’ve been so mired in production & logistics for past 18 months. Really looking fwd to getting Semi into production.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2019
When asked if production is still planned for 2019, Musk didn’t respond.
Tesla did previously note that they have been extensively testing their truck prototypes over the last year and that they have made improvements to specs for the production version.
This weekend, Tesla started releasing a series of promotional videos of the Tesla Semi prototype carrying Tesla vehicles:
Tesla has previously stated that they plan to be their own customer with it comes to the Tesla Semi program.
Musk specifically mentions the route between Fremont factory in California and Gigafactory 1 in Nevada. He referred to the cost of the flow of parts between the factories as “gigantic”.
The company has rarely released media content about the Tesla Semi over the last year.
Electrek’s Take
How should we read into this? Elon’s comment almost makes it sound like they had to put the Tesla Semi production plans on the backburner over the last 18 months as they focused on Model 3.
While he didn’t outright say it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it means that production is delayed at least a little.
I feel like we should have heard a lot more about Tesla’s plan to bring the truck to production by this time if it’s still planned by the end of the year.
The location, which is rumored to be Gigafactory 1, should have been confirmed by now in my opinion as we should have started to see signs of investments into the plant to prepare for the production.
What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.
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