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First Tesla Semi Rolls Off High-Volume Production Line (electrek.co) 96

Posted by BeauHD from the almost-one-decade-later dept.
Tesla has produced the first Semi from its new high-volume production line at Gigafactory Nevada, a milestone for the long-delayed electric Class 8 truck program after years of pilot builds and delays. Electrek reports: The Tesla Semi has had one of the longest gestation periods in Tesla's history. First unveiled in 2017, the truck was originally promised for production in 2019. That target slipped repeatedly -- to 2020, then 2021, then 2022 -- before Tesla finally delivered a handful of units to PepsiCo in late 2022. Those early trucks were essentially hand-built on a pilot line. Tesla spent the next three years refining the design, cutting roughly 1,000 lbs from the truck, and building out a dedicated factory adjacent to Gigafactory Nevada in Sparks. The company revealed the final production specs in February, confirming two trims: a Standard Range with 325 miles at full 82,000-lb gross combination weight, and a Long Range with 500 miles of range.

Tesla is quoting $290,000 for the 500-mile Long Range version and roughly $260,000 for the Standard Range -- making it the lowest-priced Class 8 battery electric tractor on the market. The shift from a pilot line to a high-volume production line is significant. Tesla's Semi factory is designed for an annual capacity of 50,000 trucks, though the company will ramp gradually. Analysts project deliveries between 5,000 and 15,000 units in 2026, but that sounds way too optimistic. [...] Both trims feature an 800-kW tri-motor drivetrain producing 1,072 hp and support 1.2-MW Megacharger speeds, restoring 60% of range in roughly 30 minutes -- conveniently timed around a driver's mandatory rest break. Tesla has opened its first Megacharger station in Ontario, California, and has mapped 66 Megacharger locations across 15 states.

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First Tesla Semi Rolls Off High-Volume Production Line

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  • Did it roll off under its own power? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by T34L ( 10503334 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @03:21AM (#66119808)

    Because we've had issues with semis (admittedly, for once not Teslas), being demonstrated with a little bit of gravity help...

    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      by Linux Torvalds ( 647197 )

      Berlin to Warsaw in one tank!

    • How much can it haul? (Score:4, Informative)

      by cecst ( 2002578 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @12:38PM (#66120482)
      Class A CDL driver here. The batteries are very heavy but Tesla may have found a way to compensate. Background: conventional wisdom was that EV tractors cannot haul as much as diesel tractors can. The total weight of the tractor-trailer combination is limited to 80K pounds because that's the limit of the design for bridges in the USA. If the EV tractor weighs more, the weight of the trailer it hauls has to be less than if a diesel tractor were hauling it. But the value of the shipment decreases if less weight is hauled.

      Per here [electriccarsreport.com], the tare weight of the standard and long range tractors are 20K and 23K lb, and the maximum combination weight for EV tractors is 82K lb (increased by 2K lb for EV tractors), yielding maximum trailer weights of 62K and 59K lb, respectively.

      For diesel tractors, the manufacturers make it hard to find the weight because the exact weight depends so much on the features of the tractor (for example, sleeper versus day cab). But an online calculator [fleetworthy.com] offers 25K lb as a representative weight for class 8 tractors.

      So if a typical diesel tractor weighs 25K and the new long-range Tesla EV tractor weighs 23K, weight would appear not to be a factor in the comparison with diesel technology, and the other considerations (charge time, range, safety) would appear to be the important ones.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        The weight issue isn’t nothing, but it’s amenable to solving because structural batteries mean you can get rid of heavy ladder frames and in-axle motors mean you can get rid of engines, differentials and a bunch of other stuff, too — which in an artic account for thousands of kilos.

        I don’t know about the US, but in Europe, most freight is volume-constrained, not weight-consrained

  • Promised in 2 years, delivered in 9, that sounds about right for an Elon Musk company.

    • Re: Promises Promises (Score:5, Interesting)

      by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @03:44AM (#66119828)
      What do you mean? They did get delivered. People are still waiting for self driving.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by haruchai ( 17472 )

        where's the order page so I can have one "delivered"?
        even though I'll never have the money nor the need for a personal Megapack, i can spec one and see base pricing & place a $10k deposit
        https://www.tesla.com/megapack... [tesla.com]
        also the page & items offered have changed a lot since it 1st launched it was available no more than 6 months after the announcement of Tesla Energy, with pricing.
        For the Semi all i can find is a specs page with a Contact Us form

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ledow ( 319597 )

      Well... I think "delivered" is stretching it somewhat.

      So far only Pepsi has some hand-built models. It's gonna be years before their earliest larger orders are even close to being fulfilled.

    • Promised in 2 years, delivered in 9, that sounds about right for an Elon Musk company.

      Remind me again..when exactly is the competition delivering their Class 8 EV?

      Oh, you mean they're still sitting around bitching about how 'slow' Elons dream-to-fruition schedule is instead of delivering themselves?

      I suppose next you'll be telling me all the other jet propulsion divisions are still sitting around playing with toy rocket boosters that magically land on their asses and chopsticks that only pick up foo, wait they ARE still doing that?

      Seriously?

      Huh.

      • Re:Results. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by caseih ( 160668 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @09:47AM (#66120148)

        What are you talking about? All the major manufacturers are currently selling electric trucks of that size and range in Europe. There's a guy documenting daily long haul driving in Europe with electric trucks. Google for electric trucker or elektrotrucker.

        And to head off the inevitable comments, yes European trucks are as big or bigger than American ones. And yes the distances driven are just as long as American routes. Infrastructure for changing is much better than in the US of course, and improving.

        • European trucks are significantly more capable than American ones. American trucks really haven't technologically advanced at all. The last advance was when Detroit Diesel introduced electronic engine management in the 90s.

          The US maximum gross weight is 80,000 lb, while the European standard is 88,000 lb, with categories up to over 200,000 lb.

          Higher-power European (diesel) trucks also have more power, with up to 770hp, whereas US trucks rarely go over 600hp.

          European trucks are also more aerodynamic (counter
  • https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org] "the regular versions of the 300-mile and the 500-mile trucks will cost $150,000 and $180,000 each" Me? I'm still waiting for the Roadster I ordered.
    • I really hope you're kidding on your comment. Elon is too busy playing "totally not a car manufacturer" and the shell game to hide the debt. I doubt it will be done at all by now.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Just checked, and prices for similar vehicles in China are a fraction of that, they make up 22% of sales for heavy trucks last year.

  • That's not even 12 hrs of "fuel".

    • Re:500 miles? (Score:5, Informative)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @06:43AM (#66119938)

      Maximum of 8 hours of driving before a 30 minutes break, with a maximum of a two hour extension in the case of adverse conditions according to US laws, so 10 hours would cover the worst case. You could average over 50MPH and still be fine.

      • Re:500 miles? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mudimba ( 254750 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:36AM (#66119984)

        It depends on what you are hauling. My friend who drives refrigerated loads said that standard practice is to have 2 drivers in the truck, and you never stop except to fuel. For those routes I'm not sure they would be happy with the need to charge for 30 minutes every 300 miles.

        • Not to mention, no battery means no refrigeration. And the refrigeration would need to run off the battery thus giving it less range.

        • I know they must be peeing into bottles and just doing isometric stretching to prevent leg clots, but those guys must really have it rough if 30 minutes every 10 hours is not acceptable.

          On the other hand, these fuel consumption numbers assume appropriate temperatures. You make it a little too cold and the fuel consumption goes up dramatically. Tesla car batteries don't like the cold. Source: I drive Tesla since 2014 and have two of them currently.

        • Refrigerated loads are mostly meats ... a very very high value load. Sure for those hanging  beef halfs  two drivers  can be afforded ... but that is an outlier load.

        • 99% of trucks are not hauling anything refrigerated. Once again someone points out some edge case in an attempt to invalidate EVs. This is getting tiresome.

        • 2 drivers

          Sounds like a textbook example for why layoffs are a thing.

        • So then you keep using diesel trucks on those types of routes then?

          I'll never understand why, on a site supposedly full of tech people, the constant framework of technology adoption is that any new technology must be capable of completely displacing all other technologies in all other uses cases, or else it's worthless. That's not how literally any technology adoption has ever progressed in human history.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by shilly ( 142940 )

          People *always* go to the hardest possible cases. Every single time. Long haul team driven refrigerator trucks are a small fraction of the overall fleet. The vast majority of trucks are much shorter haul, with predictable routes, and aren’t refrigerated, and are not driven by teams. EV trucks will fill that very large need first before eventually getting to the edge cases.

      • Looks like you can drive 11 hrs to me.

        https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/regu... [dot.gov]

        At 60 Mph, that's 160 miles short.

      • The reason we haven't seen their semis is because batteries still can't match the fuel density of diesel fuel so you have to massively cut into your hauling capacity which completely screws up the logistics of the trucking industry. So besides a handful of extremely specialist scenarios electric semis or a no-go.

        It's been awhile but I don't recall hearing that the battery tech had improved to the point where the density was enough to overcome that. I see plenty of Tesla's on the road but what I don't se

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          In China electric trucks made up 22% of the market last year. We're not the only country on Earth (fortunately).

          • That includes a ton of medium duty trucks of the kind that do local deliveries. Those make sense. You're talking the guy that delivers Coke to individual grocery stores. China especially is much more dense so those kind of medium duty trucks are extremely useful to them because they're not doing a shitload of miles but they are doing a shitload of stops.

            I haven't seen statistics around actual semis and long hauls. And I don't think China has the same distribution system America has where we do that craz

        • > So besides a handful of extremely specialist scenarios electric semis or a no-go.

          Define "specialist scenarios"

          The majority of freight moves under 250 miles per trip. About 73% by weight according to the BTS [ncdot.gov]. So longer trips by truck - over 250 miles - are the exception not the rule. So what "specialist scenarios" are you referring to, since it obviously isn't relatively short trips that are the majority of use cases?

          And before you answer, be aware that all-electric long-haul semi trucks have been succe

          • The batteries bite into freight capacity and completely fuck up the economics of trucking in America.

            I don't think folks realize how crazy the just-in-time trucking system for retail really is. We basically eliminated trains for most retail shipping. We did this because private equity and billionaires made commercial real estate stupendously and stupidly expensive so nobody wants to waste space on a back room. This means you can't keep any stock so you've got trucks constantly bringing stuff in.

            So t

            • > The batteries bite into freight capacity and completely fuck up the economics of trucking in America.

              They kinda don't because weight limits are higher for battery electric trucks for exactly this reason, and by the time you eliminate the fuel (200lbs), engine with accessories (3000lbs) and transmission (1000lbs) and add the batteries back in (up to 10000 lbs) minus the 2000lb additional weight allowance for EVs and you're not losing much if anything.

              > So the relatively small reduction in capacity fr

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PCM2 ( 4486 )

          The reason we haven't seen their semis is because batteries still can't match the fuel density of diesel fuel so you have to massively cut into your hauling capacity

          It's not just the capacity, it's also the weight of the battery, which is significant. U.S. roads have maximum weight limits, and those are cumulative for the whole vehicle, battery and all. Heavier battery means lighter cargo.

        • Then you should perhaps read more news sites that are battery related?

          so you have to massively cut into your hauling capacity which completely screws up the logistics of the trucking industry.
          Not every county is as big as yours.

          And every country has a "trucking industry" ... or a cross border trucking industry where the two capitals are only one track haul away from each other.

          You know, Gods own Country of Awesomeness, is so backyard, unbelievable. No worries. Rest assured, you are not alone. Germany is the

      • Wow, you allow 8 hours of continuous driving in the US? I guess that checks out for a country that is trying to legalise child labour, and eliminate OSHA. In other parts of the world the number is much lower. (EU rules is 4.5 hours with 45min break, maximum 9 hours of driving in any one day with 2 exceptions to 10 hours per week).

        • Wow, you allow 8 hours of continuous driving in the US?

          (Edit crank comments on child labor)

          ...In other parts of the world the number is much lower. (EU rules is 4.5 hours with 45min break, maximum 9 hours of driving in any one day with 2 exceptions to 10 hours per week).

          It's because in the US we're not all pussies...and we get stuff done.

          • Remember, you are a slave who exists only to service the holy economy, not a human being who the economy exists to serve.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by caseih ( 160668 )

            Oh wow. So are you lined up to be a long haul driver then? Surely you are manly enough. We have a huge shortage of drivers right now. Maybe you should talk to a trucker a little bit. The job they do is important and they are proud of what they do. But they are treated horribly.

      • In the EU it's stricter: maximum 4.5 hours of driving before a mandatory 45-minute break, with a daily limit of 9 hours (extendable to 10 hours only twice a week).
        So no 8-hour marathon stints without stopping here.

        • In the USA, drivers maintain their own log books -and they lie about driving hours and breaks. They get paid to make a delivery, and faster deliveries earns more money. When they are stopped for an inspection they present their log books, and as long as it says they followed the laws, all is good. Nobody looks to closely at the numbers.

    • Re:500 miles? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:06AM (#66119954)
      Diesel is a major cost component in trucking, and per mile electricity is roughly 5 times cheaper when purchased commercially. With newer batteries able to charge in under 15 minutes this means with appropriately sized chargers a very large savings in fuel costs is possible while diversifying the types of raw energy needed. In the coming years it won’t be viable to use diesel anymore simply because it’s too expensive, not to mention that the costs to build an electric vehicle are already dropping below internal combustion while requiring less maintenance and increasing reliability.
    • In the long haul logistics world, 500 miles is the rule of thumb estimate for daily driving.

      Problem to be solved now is the charging infrastructure to support these beyond regional routes.
    • For this to succeed:
      1. Needs a good range
      2. Need places to charge within 1 hour to full
      3. Easily serviceable with easily sourced parts

      Given tesla never managed to keep up logistics with the cybertrukkk, the last point will kill this. When you're dropping $200k and you have to get it towed to a tesla repair shop and the parts are still being made, it's just plain stupid to invest in these.
      It's probably being rushed as we speak, so I'm looking forward to hearing a 50% failure rate on these things.

      • Re:500 miles? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Junta ( 36770 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:50AM (#66119996)

        2. Need places to charge within 1 hour to full

        I'm not going to chime in on the semi one way or the other, but I have always disliked this way of thinking of EV charging.

        Great news, this EV only takes 1 minute to full change! But it only has a range of 10 miles...

        This EV has a 10,000 mile range!! Oh that's worthless because it takes 2 hours to charge from empty to full..

        The right metric is miles per hour of charge, not percentage of capacity replenished.

    • And?

      I just checked. The largest supermarket chain in Florida is Publix, and is based on Lakeland. They have most of their products in warehouses and bakeries there that they distribute to other places across the state by truck.

      An electric truck fleet would have almost the entire state's Publix supermarkets in range, with the exception of those on the keys and far west on the panhandle (I doubt, to be honest, given Publix's prices, there are many of those.)

      They could fix this either by:

      - having two additiona

  • Convoy... (Score:3)

    by kackle ( 910159 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @06:22AM (#66119916)
    "640 miles should be enough for anybody."
    • Long-range truckers are required by Federal law to limit continuous driving hours. Let's say that's 9 hours. So:  9*70 = 630 miles. Then the driver rests for 8 hours and the vehicle charges. So yep ... a 640 mile truck range is good  enough. Or do you believe over-the-road drivers should be chemically stimulated to drive 24  shifts ?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kackle ( 910159 )
        Sorry, I was just making a bad joke referring to old PCs: "640 kB should be enough for anybody."

  • Trailer with battery/solar (Score:3)

    by SuperDre ( 982372 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @06:23AM (#66119918) Homepage
    I wonder if the range can be extended by having extra battery in the trailer (newly designed and optimized) and have lightweight solarpanels as the cover. Yeah the solar panels won't add that much, but it can be enough to run the refrigerator of the trailer or some extra power. Also, docking stations should be adjusted so these (any EV) truck can be charged while (off)loading the cargo, do extending the range a bit between each station and making it viable for longer ranges. Also adding charging pads to all highways between cities can make sure these trucks can even be charged while driving (already successfull tests have been done in some countries).
    • How about a drone hook to charge from existing power lines?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by ucho ( 1458291 )

        So Cargo Trams? What a coincidence, I think developer just added them to Mashinky.

    • I wonder if the range can be extended by having extra battery in the trailer.

      Generally, simply not by any useful amount. Adding more battery always adds more weight which reduces range. At some point, you are at a flat stage where more battery adds the same amount of range as it reduces. The largest battery cars are a bit below that in normal operation but not by much so it just isn't worth it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Smidge204 ( 605297 )

        > Adding more battery always adds more weight which reduces range

        Adding more battery increases range, not reduces. Adding more battery increases weight, which reduces cargo capacity. That's the problem for trucks, which have a total weight limit and you want as much of that weight to be stuff you're getting paid to move.

        > At some point, you are at a flat stage where more battery adds the same amount of range as it reduces.

        This is literally never true in practice. To get to a point where more battery =

        • It is about 10000 miles. The range of an electric truck that is all battery and no cargo. The same for diesel is about 40000 miles

    • Lightweight solar panels are flexible ones, and they are trash. No solar panels are especially heavy, though, on the scale of heavy trucks.

    • and have lightweight solarpanels as the cover.

      Truck based solar panels have been tried and some products put on the market to test the practical aspects. The only case where it makes any kind of sense to add solar to a mobile machine is when that machine spends most of its day parked and not moving. For a vehicle continuously moving solar provides very low double digit range increase in the best case scenario (in full sun at midday for the entire duration of moving and draining the battery). It's not at all practical for a truck.

  • Choke point (Score:4, Interesting)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:01AM (#66119950)
    Battery capacity is increasing, and larger vehicles are being electrified but that brings us to a major charging problem. 350kW is the maximum available in the US, and vehicles like the Silverado have over 200kWh meaning fast charging isn’t possible, not because the battery and supporting systems can’t take it but because there is no such thing as a charger powerful enough. Somehow BYD in China already has 1,500 kW chargers and even supporting smaller capacity vehicles meaning the charge time is down to roughly the time it takes to fill up at a gas station. Puny 350kW chargers make things like large trucks and semis quite a bit less viable for no particularly good reason at all, maybe the US and other countries should get off their asses and actually support the power needed to properly support reasonable charging of large vehicles and fast charging of small ones. While they are at it, ideally not up charging 5x the cost they pay for electricity like they do here in the US making it just as expensive as fossil fuels when they could turn a profit at lower rates.

    • Re: Choke point (Score:5, Insightful)

      by frdmfghtr ( 603968 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:26AM (#66119970)

      The only way I can express it is by borrowing a line from (I think) WWII British prime minister Winston Churchill: "The Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, when all other options have been exhausted."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dfghjk ( 711126 )

      "Puny 350kW chargers make things like large trucks and semis quite a bit less viable for no particularly good reason at all..."

      For really great reasons. To you these are just numbers, but to engineers that design it they are massive challenges.

      "While they are at it, ideally not up charging 5x the cost they pay for electricity like they do here in the US making it just as expensive as fossil fuels when they could turn a profit at lower rates."

      They should build what you want regardless of physics and then ac

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        The whole point is that chargers at much faster speeds are being built out in other countries but not the US, so it’s not engineering constraints that are the issue. All chargers above about 100kW use battery buffering already, so the issue isn’t grid supply. It’s politics and economics.

  • This fantasy... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Is pathetic. "These are billions of tons of material moved—equivalent to excavating multiple Grand Canyons' worth of earth over decades." https://grok.com/c/d6c9eab9-51... [grok.com] (WAKE UP! 400-600 new reactors = IMPOSSIBLE!)

  • drivers (Score:3)

    by kqc7011 ( 525426 ) on Thursday April 30, 2026 @07:57AM (#66120002)
    In my town there are two trucking companies with 10 to 15 trucks that seemingly are advertising for drivers all the time, with many of the driver positions available stating that the drivers and trucks are home every day. Now those companies also do long haul routes. Those short runs look to be about perfect for these electric trucks.

    • In my town there are two trucking companies with 10 to 15 trucks that seemingly are advertising for drivers all the time

      Yes, they all treat drivers like garbage, and pay them like trash.

  • It was the dark of the moon
    On the sixth of June
    In a Kenworth, pullin' logs
    Cabover Pete with a reefer on
    And a Tesla haulin' hogs
  • My office is not too far from a minor highway. Your basic diesel truck is pretty loud going by at highway speeds, and about every 10th diesel truck seems to have no muffler at all and is louder than an airplane taking off. Don't know if it is intentional or accidental, but either way, extremely annoying.

    I am really excited for the noise reduction that these electric trucks will offer over diesel!

  • The Windrose Class 8 is considerably cheaper.

    People *still* think the sun shines out of Tesla’s arse, despite the presence of competitors doing excellent things

    • I don't think it is much cheaper in the US, after a paying a 70% to 100% import tariff.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by shilly ( 142940 )

        True. Nothing is cheaper in the US, not any more. Everything is more expensive. Leopards and faces, and all that.

  • When I see trucks, the ones that most need to be replaced are the local ones - the ones with the 53' trailer delivering Corona to the corner Circle K. They get terrible mileage doing start/stops every block in the city, they pollute where the pollution is already greatest, and their fully-loaded acceleration away from a light is pitiful. Using an ET (Electric Truck?) for these kinds of deliveries would be great - they accelerate smoothly and quickly, they regenerate when braking so range should be great,

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