Tesla finally delivers its first electric pickups
Tesla on Thursday night delivered its first semi-production trucks, 5 years later Tesla Semi debuts for the first time. The trucks were delivered to PepsiCo.
With smoke, flashing lights, and a pounding techno beat to set the mood, Tesla CEO Elon Musk personally drives one of the vehicles got out before a cheering crowd gathered in Sparks, Nevada for the delivery.
Musk said the trucks Tesla says deliver three times more power than any diesel truck on the road, representing “a transformative step forward” in the industry. trucking.
“At Tesla, we don’t make slow cars,” he said. When the truck wasn’t pulling anything, he declared, “it looks like an elephant is moving like a leopard.”
The vehicles are also designed to be highly efficient, consuming less than two kWh of energy per mile. Tesla says it can travel 500 miles on a single charge.
“People might wonder why build a pickup truck,” Musk said.
Tesla’s mission, he said, is to “accelerate sustainable energy” by electrifying all major forms of transportation.
Musk noted that while millions of passenger vehicles are sold in the US each year, only a few hundred thousand pickups are sold each year. However, given the hours they’re driven and the weight they carry, those trucks account for about 20% of U.S. vehicle emissions.
“From a health standpoint… this is a huge impact,” Musk said. “Also, climate change and global warming issues… it will fundamentally improve the health of people living near highways.”