Tesla’s big electric truck faces an even bigger infrastructure challenge
Cars - Ars ·
The 500-mile Semi arrives as charging gaps still limit electric trucking.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has insisted investors think of his electric automaker as a robotics and autonomous vehicle company now. He’s targeted a $20 trillion valuation—nearly four times the value of market leader Nvidia —on that premise. But his Tesla team was in Sparks, Nevada, on Thursday to focus on, well, an electric vehicle: the long-awaited Tesla Semi .
The Semi concept first rolled onto a Tesla event stage in late 2017 . Nearly a decade later, Tesla officially launched high-volume production at a livestreamed but invite-only event at the company’s factory. It targeted a niche audience: the cost-conscious people who manage large trucking fleets. A handful of them, all men, trooped across the stage to be thanked for their orders to a pulsing techno beat.
“It’s going to be, really, a driver’s truck. It’s like a sports car in truck form.” Musk said in a pre-taped video played during the evening event. (Musk, for years the ringmaster at Tesla’s circus-like events, skipped his second vehicle debut in a row ; he was attending a White House China State Dinner featuring President Xi Jinping .)
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