Tesla begins delivering electric Semi trucks after years of delays

Tesla executives — without CEO Elon Musk, who was attending President Trump’s state dinner with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping — walked customers, employees, and influencers through the truck’s details at an event in Reno, Nevada, on Thursday night. Customers can take delivery whenever they’re ready, though charging infrastructure remains a hurdle, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch on condition of anonymity. Executives didn’t reveal a final sticker price but said the truck would lower fleet owners’ total cost of ownership, cut emissions, and improve reliability.

The event was held at a new factory next to Tesla’s original Gigafactory in Reno, where the company plans to build as many as 50,000 Semis a year — roughly 1,000 a week — creating 3,000 local jobs. The most capable version is expected to travel 500 miles or more on a single charge, depending on load, and cost just shy of $300,000 before incentives; shorter-range variants will also be offered.

Originally slated for production in 2019, the Semi was delayed by the pandemic, a global chip and parts shortage, and changes made after pilot-customer feedback. Tesla has since cut roughly 1,000 pounds from the truck’s weight. Executives also reversed one of the design’s most criticized features: the original pop-out side windows, which never fully opened, are now standard roll-down windows. “We fully admit we were wrong about the windows,” said Dan Priestly, head of Tesla’s Semi program.

Tesla’s claim that the truck was expected to travel 500 miles or more on a charge while fully loaded — made at the original 2017 unveiling — drew skepticism for years, including from Bill Gates, who wrote in a 2020 blog post that electric big rigs would “probably never be a practical solution” because “batteries are big and heavy.” Priestly and Lars Moravy, who leads much of Tesla’s engineering, alluded to that criticism on stage without naming Gates.

Why it matters

The Semi’s launch tests whether Tesla can translate a decade of battery-efficiency gains into a commercial trucking business, at a moment when Musk is publicly repositioning the company around robotics and AI even though vehicle sales still drive nearly all its revenue.