The new Pepsi challenge: Coke and Pepsi race toward sustainable delivery fleets
Coke and Pepsi are fighting for first again. Only this time, they are battling for the right reasons. A few days before Pepsi is set to receive its first Tesla electric semi trucks on December 1, Coca-Cola has exciting news of its own – the company has begun deliveries in its new electric truck fleet.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi implement heavy-duty electric trucks
After teasing Elon Musk and Tesla in early October, saying, “Some talk the talk. Some walk the walk,” on Twitter, Volvo-owned Renault Trucks announced Coca Cola has successfully implemented electric trucks for delivery.
Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP) will be using 30 electric trucks for last-mile deliveries to local Belgium customers, with the first five rolling out last week. Through its partnership with Renault Trucks, CCEP looks to establish one of the largest EV delivery fleets in Belgium by converting one-fifth of its truck fleet to electric.
According to Renault Trucks, the beverage manufacturer will reduce its CO2 emissions by 75% when compared to diesel trucks.
VP and Country Director of Coca-Cola Europacific Partners for Belgium and Luxembourg, An Vermeulen, stresses the importance of having a long-term approach, saying:
Investing in electric trucks will allow Coca-Cola Europacific Partners to cut CO2 emissions by 30% across the entire value chain by 2030 and become climate neutral by 2040.
Coca-Cola will use electric delivery trucks to cover 200 km daily, or more than 40% of the beverage manufacturer’s delivery route. The EV trucks will charge overnight with on-site infrastructure powered by 100% clean energy.
The news comes just a week before Pepsi is scheduled to receive its first round of the long-awaited Tesla electric Semi on December 1. Renault poked fun at Tesla and CEO Elon Musk last month after delaying the electric truck several times since first unveiling it in 2017.
Nonetheless, Tesla has just confirmed its electric Semi has completed a remarkable 500-mile drive with a full load of 81,000 lbs.
To be fair, Coca-Cola’s new electric delivery trucks are not in the same category as Tesla’s Semi. The trucks are Renault E-Tech D and D Wide.
In comparison, Renault Trucks E-Tech D has a single electric motor with 250 maximum hp and 425 Nm maximum torque (up to 347-mile range), while the D Wide Electric has a dual motor for 500 maximum hp and 850 Nm of torque (up to 195-mile range).
Tesla’s semi is a class 8 truck equipped with three independent motors and up to a 500-mile range. Fully electric heavy-duty trucks from Tesla and Volvo (Renault) Trucks are set to revolutionize the transportation industry, which contributes the highest CO2 emissions and is most reliant on fossil fuels.
Electrek’s Take
Although not in the same delivery category, seeing Coca-Cola and Pepsi, two of the largest brands around us, implementing electric delivery trucks is a good sign of what’s to come in the transportation industry.
Perhaps, more important, seeing Renault Trucks and Tesla battle it out in a friendly competition is what the industry needs to move along quicker.
Tesla did it with passenger vehicles as most automakers are transitioning to a fully electric future. Can they do it again with heavy-duty delivery and transport vehicles? I wouldn’t bet against them. However, industry leaders like Volvo Trucks are already one step ahead.
Tesla aims to produce 100 electric semi-trucks in 2022 while ramping production to 50,000 units annually in 2024. Meanwhile, Volvo has been paving a path with the largest heavy-duty electric truck lineup and big ambitions to transform the industry. The heavy-duty EV race should be a good one to watch unfold.
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British oil and gasoline company BP (British Petroleum) signage is being pictured in Warsaw, Poland, on July 29, 2024.
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British oil giant BP on Tuesday posted slightly weaker-than-expected first-quarter net profit, following a recent strategic reset and a slump in crude prices.
The beleaguered oil and gas major posted underlying replacement cost profit, used as a proxy for net profit, of $1.38 billion for the first three months of the year. That missed analyst expectations of $1.6 billion, according to an LSEG-compiled consensus.
BP’s net profit had hit $2.7 billion a year earlier and $1.2 billion in the final three months of 2024.
The results come as the energy major faces fresh pressure from activist investors less than two months after announcing a strategic reset.
Seeking to rebuild investor confidence, BP in February pledged to slash renewable spending and boost annual expenditure on its core business of oil and gas.
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Tuesday that the firm was “off to a great start” in delivering on its strategic reset.
“We had a great operational quarter. We had our highest upstream operating efficiency in history. Our refineries in the first quarter ran at the best they’ve run in 24 years. We had six exploration discoveries in a row, which is really unusual and we started out three major projects,” Auchincloss said.
For the first quarter, BP announced a dividend per ordinary share of 8 cents and a share buyback of $750 million.
Net debt rose to $26.97 billion in the January-March period, up from $22.99 billion at the end of the fourth quarter. BP had previously warned of lower reported upstream production and higher net debt in the first quarter, when compared to the final three months of last year.
Shares of BP fell 3.3% on Tuesday morning. The firm is down roughly 8% year-to-date.
Activist pressure
BP’s green strategy U-turn does not appear to have gone far enough for the likes of activist investor Elliott Management, which went public last week with a stake of more than 5% in the London-listed firm.
The disclosure makes the U.S. hedge fund BP’s second-largest shareholder after BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, according to LSEG data.
Elliott was first reported to have assumed a position in the oil and gas company back in February, driving a share price rally amid expectations that its involvement could pressure BP to shift gears back toward its oil and gas businesses.
BP’s Auchincloss declined to comment on interactions with investors when asked whether the firm was under pressure from the likes of Elliott to go beyond the plans announced in its February pivot.
Notably, BP suffered a shareholder rebellion at its annual general meeting earlier this month. Almost a quarter (24.3%) of investors voted against the re-election of outgoing Chair Helge Lund, a symbolic result that reflected a sense of deep frustration among the firm’s shareholders.
Mark van Baal, founder of Dutch activist investor Follow This, told CNBC last week that he hoped the shareholder revolt means Amanda Blanc, who is leading the process to find Lund’s successor, will look for a new chair who is “climate competent” and “will not respond to short-term activists so quickly.”
Lund is expected to step down from his role next year.
Takeover candidate
BP’s underperformance relative to industry peers such as Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell has thrust the energy major into the spotlight as a prime takeover candidate. Energy analysts have questioned, however, whether any of the likeliest suitors will rise to the occasion.
BP’s Auchincloss on Tuesday said that he wouldn’t speculate on whether the company is a takeover target, but confirmed the oil major had not asked for any sort of protection from the British government.
“What I will say is we’re a strong, independent company and we’ve got sector-leading growth. And if we can deliver the sector-leading growth, and the first quarter is a fantastic example of that, then I have no concerns. I think we’re going to do great,” Auchincloss said.
Murray Auchincloss, chief executive officer of BP, during the “CERAWeek by S&P Global” conference in Houston, Texas, on March 11, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices have fallen in recent months on demand fears. International benchmark Brent crude futures with June delivery traded at $65.19 per barrel on Tuesday morning, down more than 1% for the session. That’s lower from around $84 per barrel a year ago.
Asked whether weaker crude prices could put the some of the firm’s reset plans in jeopardy, Auchincloss said, “Not really. We have a balance of products that we think about that generate revenue for us. So, oil, natural gas and refined products as well.”
— CNBC’s Ruxandra Iordache contributed to this report.
Germany’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, EnBW’s He Dreiht, just hit a big milestone: The first enormous turbine is now up in the North Sea.
He Dreiht – which means “it spins” in Low German – is using Vestas’s massive 15 megawatt (MW) turbines, the first project in the world to install them. Just one spin of one of the rotors can generate enough electricity to power four households for an entire day.
When it’s finished, He Dreiht will have 64 mega turbines cranking out 960 megawatts (MW) of clean power – enough to supply around 1.1 million homes. And it’s being built without any government subsidies.
EnBW, one of Germany’s major energy companies, has been working in offshore wind for more than 15 years, but He Dreiht is their biggest project yet. “It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030,” said Michael Class, who heads up EnBW’s generation portfolio development.
The project is a win for Vestas, too. “With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up, which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system,” said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe.
He Dreiht is located about 85 kilometers (53 miles) northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers (68 miles) west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 workers will be out at sea building the farm, using a fleet of more than 60 ships. EnBW’s offshore team in Hamburg is running the show.
The installation process is a major operation. The 64 foundations were already set in the seabed last year. Parts for the turbines are loaded onto the installation vessel Wind Orca in Esbjerg, Denmark, and shipped out in a 12-hour journey to the construction site. From there, the turbines are lifted into place. Meanwhile, crews are also working on internal wind farm cabling.
A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP, and Norges Bank Investment Management owns 49.9% of the shares in He Dreiht.
Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build
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Tesla has released a quick update about its Tesla Semi factory in Nevada. It says that it is on track for volume production of the electric semi truck in 2026.
The Tesla Semi was first scheduled to go into production in 2019, but it has faced numerous delays.
Now, it appears that there is finally some momentum to bring it to volume production.
For the last two years, Tesla has been working to build a new factory next to Gigafactory Nevada, where it builds the battery packs and drive units for most of its electric vehicles built in North America.
Today, Tesla released a “progress update on the factory, confirming that it finished building and it’s now working on deploying the production lines:
Tesla had previously mentioned aiming for volume production by 2025, but it is now only talking about starting production toward the end of the year and ramping up next year.
The automaker reiterated its planned production capacity of 50,000 units.
We recently reported that an early Tesla Semi customer, Ryder, stated that the electric truck program is experiencing more delays and a price increase described as “dramatic.”
They now expect to take deliveries of their first trucks later in 2026 and said that the price has increased “dramatically,” leading them to scale back their pilot program from 42 to 18 Tesla Semi trucks.
When originally unveiling the Tesla Semi in 2017, the automaker mentioned prices of $150,000 for a 300-mile range truck and $180,000 for the 500-mile version. Tesla also took orders for a “Founder’s Series Semi” at $200,000.
However, Tesla didn’t update the prices when launching the “production version” of the truck in late 2022. Price increases have been speculated, but the company has never confirmed them.
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