Wait continues for the Tesla Semi

More than six years have passed since PepsiCo ordered 100 units of the Semi electric truck from Tesla at the end of 2017. However, according to an agency report, Tesla has only delivered 36 of them to PepsiCo so far. Other customers are apparently also still waiting for their ordered Tesla trucks.

PepsiCo was the first to order the Tesla Semi around six years ago. In April 2023, the soft drink manufacturer was also the first company to present the electric truck as a fleet vehicle with the company’s own livery. Tesla started deliveries of the Semi at the beginning of December 2022. The company itself does not provide an update on its deliveries. However, a recall by the US authority NHTSA in June 2023 revealed that PepsiCo had only received 36 of the 100 Semis ordered at that time: 15 at its subsidiary Frito-Lay in Modesto, California, and 21 at its site in Sacramento.

As Reuters now reports, citing information from PepsiCo and a senior employee of the company, these 36 units are all that remain. Semi-pre-orderers such as Sysco, UPS and Walmart Canada are also still waiting for their Tesla trucks and, according to the news agency, are increasingly turning to competing manufacturers of electric trucks. UPS, Walmart Canada, Sysco and Schneider National, among others, are said to have started fleets of dozens of the Daimler Truck Freightliner eCascadia.

According to the Reuters report, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is said to have stated at an energy conference in June 2023 that Tesla simply does not have enough batteries to achieve volume production of the truck. Musk did not specify what output he meant by volume production. Tesla intends to overcome the bottleneck this year. Tesla is currently using the largest fleet of Semis to date itself: Almost 100 units are said to be travelling between the factories in Fremont, California and Sparks, as Tesla manager Lars Moravy mentioned on the reality show Jay Leno’s Garage in December.

reuters.com