By Michael Elkins
Electric vehicle giant Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) delivered the company’s first heavy-duty Semi on Thursday to PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP) without offering updated forecasts for the truck's pricing, production plans or how much cargo it could haul.
CEO, Elon Musk appeared on stage at an event at Tesla’s Nevada plant, his first Tesla reveal since taking over Twitter. He said the battery-powered, long-haul truck would reduce highway emissions, outperform existing diesel models on power and safety and spin-off a fast-charging technology Tesla would use in its upcoming Cybertruck.
"If you're a trucker and you want the most badass rig on the road, this is it," Musk said, noting that it was five years since Tesla had announced it was developing the all-electric truck.
In 2017, Tesla had said the 300-mile range version of the Semi would cost $150,000, and the 500-mile version $180,000, but Tesla's passenger electric vehicle prices have increased since then.
Robyn Denholm, chair of Tesla, recently said the automaker might produce 100 Semis this year. Musk has said Tesla would aim to produce 50,000 of the trucks in 2024.
PepsiCo, which completed its first cargo run with the Tesla truck to deliver snacks for those attending the Nevada launch event, had ordered 100 trucks in 2017.
Shares of TSLA and PEP are up 0.56% and 0.22%, respectively in pre-market trading on Friday.