Tesla Semi

Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed today, on the eve of the New York International Auto Show that the company plans to unveil its all-electric semi truck, called ‘Tesla Semi’, in September.

Tesla Semi truck unveil set for September. Team has done an amazing job. Seriously next level.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 13, 2017

He also teased that it will be “seriously next level” and briefly discussed the upcoming Tesla pickup truck and next-gen Roadster… 
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When Elon Musk released his‘ Master Plan Part 2’ for Tesla last year, he surprised a lot of people in the industry when he announced that the automaker will soon venture in the semi-truck business.

Musk confirmed today that the project, which has been called ‘Tesla Semi’, is making good progress, but we shouldn’t expect much until Tesla can get the Model 3 out the door.
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While Tesla’s Vice President of Vehicle Programs, Jerome Guillen, is working on the automaker’s all-electric heavy truck program, Tesla Semi, CEO Elon Musk made rare comments about the vehicle and more especially, its autonomous driving capacity.
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Tesla has long been a 1-car company. From when it first started production of the Roadster in 2008 to the end of the program and the start of Model S production in 2012 — and finally to last year when Tesla started delivering the Model X. The automaker has only been really producing two different models in volume for the past few months and it’s a significant accomplishment for a new automaker.

Other most recent American auto startups, like Fisker Automotive and DeLorean, all folded before they could bring a second car to market. Now Tesla plans to go from being a two-car company to have over half a dozen vehicles on the market by the end of the decade.
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The US Department of Energy (DOE) has an initiative called “SuperTruck”. Under the program, the DOE gives significant grants to truck manufacturers to increase the fuel economy of medium- and heavy-duty vehicles by developing new technologies.

Daimler is one of the truck manufacturers taking the most advantage of the program. Under the first version, it developed the 12-MPGe Freightliner SuperTruck, and it recently announced that it won $20 million out of the DOE’s $80 million in grants for the second round of the program – appropriately named ‘SuperTruck II’.
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You might remember Nikola Motor for unveiling renderings and estimated specs of the Nikola One, their first electric truck, earlier this year. Or maybe for when they claimed that they received over 7,000 pre-orders worth over $2.3 billion for the vehicle.

In our last report, we highlighted their weird claim that the vehicle will achieve “zero emissions” despite being powered by both a 320 kWh battery pack and a natural gas range extender, which undoubtedly produces emissions. Today, Nikola Motor explained how they can claim that: they dropped their entire powertrain technology for a new hydrogen fuel cell concept.
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In a conference call with analysts today, Elon Musk gave more details on the expected timeline for two major programs he announced last month: ‘Tesla Minibus‘ and ‘Tesla Semi‘.  The CEO originally said that we should expect an unveiling of these products next year, but now he clarified and said that we should expect the events to happen in the next 6 to 9 months.
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In a weird and clearly reactionary move after Elon Musk announced that Tesla will venture in the semi-truck business, electric truck startup Nikola Motor, which like Tesla borrowed its company name from Nikola Tesla, announced that it will unveil a working prototype of its first truck, the Nikola One, on December 2nd in Salt Lake City.
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Today, Daimler unveiled its first all-electric truck – coincidently, only a week after Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the electric automaker is currently working on its own vehicle in the space. While Musk doesn’t plan on unveiling his ‘Tesla Semi’ until next year, there’s no rush to beat Daimler to market since the German automaker doesn’t plan to bring its electric truck, called the eTruck, to production until 2020.
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As we reported yesterday, the news that Tesla is developing a semi truck set to be unveiled next year is probably the biggest surprise to come out of Elon Musk’s ‘Master Plan Part 2’.

When reading the plan and despite containing little details about the new division, I was already pretty excited at the prospect of an electric Tesla truck, but now that Musk confirmed that Jerome Guillen is in charge of the program, which he dubbed ‘Tesla Semi’, I’m even more excited.
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Probably the biggest surprise to come out of Elon Musk’s ‘Master Plan Part 2’ is that Tesla is developing a semi truck set to be unveiled next year. Although completely in line with its mission to accelerate the advent of electric transport, it’s still a whole new business for Tesla.
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