Elon Musk has long liked to troll people who have doubted him and Tesla.
In 2018, he vowed to send “short shorts” to hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who bet on Tesla stock. A few years later, the company actually listed satin chests as a gag gift for sale on its website.
Musk has heard “various forms of ‘you’re a scammer’,” he told the crowd at Tesla’s Model Y launched in 2019. His challenging answer: “You can control that cheat!”
Tesla CEO’s latest revelation regarding Semi, Heavy trucks It took 5 years to go from prototype to production. “Some people have said that this is not possible,” Musk said at a Manufacturing Sale event in Nevada last month. “But, uh, you can drive it.”
The reason for this proverbial winning lap was clear. A few weeks earlier, Tesla had awarded its first Semi-Final to PepsiCo, which had delivered 15 large rigs to its massive Frito-Lay facility in Modesto, California. The purpose of the event at the end of January in Nevada was to announce a $3.6 billion investment to expand the use of Tesla’s existing factory near Reno for more construction. battery cells, as well as Semi truck.
While those are reasons to celebrate — something Musk can afford to do again, given the way Tesla stock has skyrocketed this year — there’s still a lot of uncertainty about what Semi will mean. What that means for Tesla’s business. I had a lot of questions for the company when I drove to Modesto to see the trucks live last month. Although I was able to climb into the Semi’s spacious cabin and the driver’s seat in the middle, the test drive was off limits.
Onsite Tesla employees did not comment. A PepsiCo representative confirmed that they had received all 15 trucks ordered as part of a $30.8 million project I wrote about in November — a project that California Air The resources department received half the check — but had little else to share about the product.
It’s not yet clear how much the Semi costs, or if any of the other customers who ordered trucks from Tesla half a decade ago managed to get them. Tesla made no mention of the model in its quarterly production and delivery release last month, then mentioned the Semi being in test production in its earnings sheet. While Musk gave an update on the earnings call when he expects Tesla to mass produce the Cybertruck — until next year — he doesn’t have anything to say about the Semi.
Saw Semis on the side of the road in Sacramento and got drag from a Nevada highway lit up message boards and social media networks where the pro- and anti-Tesla fire wars have raged for years.
Even before those incidents, there are vestiges of doubt about Semi that Musk has yet to get rid of. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets, who have comparable buy ratings to Tesla stock, warned in December that the CEO may be ahead of himself in setting a goal of producing 50,000 trucks by 2024. RBC has modeled about 4,000 units.
This is for sure: Tesla and other manufacturers have an urgent need to electrify large trucks. The city of Modesto has long struggled with poor air quality and high rates of asthma. PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay facility spans 500,000 square feet, and the food giant’s ambition is to make it an example of sustainable production, storage and distribution.
We should hear more about how Tesla plans to help companies like PepsiCo and cities outside of Modesto decarbonize on March 1. Musk has said that the master plan he’s coming up with will outline “the way to go.” path to a completely sustainable energy future for the Earth”.
