According to a recent tweet from Tesla investor and sleuth Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt), the Tesla Semi has officially gone into limited production at Gigafactory Nevada.
The tip has been corroborated by drone footage of the Semi production facility at Giga Nevada from Friday.
BREAKING: A source has informed me that the Tesla Semi is now in limited production. Key word here is LIMITED. This has been independently corroborated by drone footage taken today (Dec 10, 2021) of the Giga Nevada Semi prod building, & sent to me.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 11, 2021
Semi production was originally rumored for August 2021 but was ultimately delayed. Back in July, there were reports claiming that the all-electric semi-truck would go into production soon, but Tesla didn’t get around to installing ‘Megachargers’ for the Semi at Giga Nevada until October.
According to Merritt’s source, the newly spotted production unit did not have any DOT stickers or manufacturer plates on it, unlike the builds we’ve seen before.
PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said last month that the company expects to receive some deliveries of the Tesla Semi before the end of the year. Laguarta even visited Giga Nevada to check out the Tesla Semi production line in mid-November after a unit was spotted charging at the factory.
Merritt speculates that PepsiCo could run real-world tests on the Semi units they receive this year, feeding results back to Tesla to inform changes and improvements.
If Pepsi does receive some Tesla Semi’s this year, I view it as a customer test program. Pepsi will use them in the real world & relay info back to Tesla on how it goes & what they can improve. At least that’s my guess. Volume production/deliveries won’t start until 2023.
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) December 11, 2021
Volume production and deliveries of the Tesla Semi aren’t expected until 2023.
