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by tsimionescu 5 days ago
Everything that has actually happened so far with the Semi is that it didn't work as advertised and was deeply unpopular. As ever, the future that Tesla paints is extremely rosy, and suggests we should disregard what has happened so far. There is nothing whatsoever to indicate that Semi will actually work to the extent advertised and actually be desired by anyone - especially in the current anti-green climate in the USA, with no subsidies for electrification of the kind Pepsi used to buy the tiny pilot program.

Note that they never announced that the original run of the Semi would be just tiny. When they unveiled it in 2022, they explicitly said that this was the production version, as opposed to the 2017 concept. They even had a few more (still small 100-200 count) contracts where they kept delaying because they couldn't deliver enough - again suggesting that they were having problems, not intentionally running a pilot program.
1 comments
throwaway2037 5 days ago 

     > Everything that has actually happened so far with the Semi is that it didn't work as advertised and was deeply unpopular.
I hate asking this question: "Sources?" If this was true, why does PepsiCo/Frito Lay continue to use Tesla Semi heavy haul electic trucks?

    > no subsidies for electrification
This is factually incorrect. California has a massive subsidy programme for electric trucks -- as I understand, the highest/largest for any state in the United States.
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tsimionescu 5 days ago
They are operating 100 trucks that they bought with subsidy money - out of probably 10k trucks or more that they use in the USA. I'm not claiming the Semi is completely non-functional, it's obviously a real working vehicle. But this doesn't prove in any way that the Semi is actually as cheap and reliable as it was advertised as - if it were, why didn't Pepsi order far, far more?
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omgwtfbyobbq 5 days ago
It's likely not true.

We're certainly not as far along with the electrification of heavy duty trucks as we are with light duty cars, but the Semi seems fairly popular where it's suitable.

https://x.com/Tesla/status/1598490490613432321

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tsimionescu 4 days ago
> but the Semi seems fairly popular where it's suitable.

What are you basing this on? Again, they have sold 200 trucks in 4 years. There are some hundreds of thousands of trucks being used in the USA alone. Tesla themselves are claiming they are going to produce (and presumably try to sell) 50k trucks per year. So, by any possible measure so far, Semi has basically 0 adoption. Maybe this is strictly based on production issues and there is huge un serviced demand - I admit this is a possibility, theoretically. But I don't see any reason to actually believe it, and certainly neither the current sales, nor the link you provided, in any way show that this demand will materialize. We'll see soon enough, I guess.

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omgwtfbyobbq 4 days ago
One company ordered 370 trucks last month.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-massive-order-semi-370-units...

2026 production is estimated to be 5k-15k.

https://sherwood.news/tech/what-we-know-about-teslas-semi-tr...

IIRC, 50k is full production, but it'll take a year or few to ramp up to that.

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tsimionescu 3 days ago
They claim 5-15k trucks produced in 2026, but the company who apparently ordered those 370 will only get 50 in 2026, per the article you shared. The numbers are not adding up.

I think all signs keep pointing to another huge flop by the end of the year, and that Semi will remain a small niche product that various companies order a handful of and never go on to get more.

370 trucks is also still a tiny order, for a truck that supposedly is cheaper to operate than any other on the market, in the midst of an oil crisis no less.

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omgwtfbyobbq 1 day ago
Oh yeah, I doubt anyone who makes a large order this year will get their entire order filled given that Tesla is ramping production.

Drone footage shows new builds, but they obviously need to get volume up.

https://youtu.be/WjkCKODoEjM?t=464

Like I mentioned, I think dry cathode 4680 production is key, and I think an earlier video from the same person discuses what they believe is equipment for a dry cathode line that will be set up inside the semi factory.

It took Tesla a year just to get Model 3 up production from nearly nothing over the first few months to 4k+ units/week, and the semi is larger/more complex. I'd be surprised if we saw 500+ units/month by December.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-production-surpasses...

While high oil prices are attractive in terms of investment, if oil companies aren't very confident about making large/fast investments in this climate, I don't EV manufacturers are going to be.

My guess is that Tesla will gradually ramp production in a cost effective way, like they have in the past. It's better to miss a timeline and deliver a cost-effective/competitive product than the other way around.

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