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Elon Musk announced that Tesla is starting Tesla Semi production and Pepsi is going to get the first electric trucks starting December 1st.

Tesla Semi, an all-electric class 8 truck, was unveiled back in 2017. At the time, it was supposed to come as soon as 2019.

The vehicle program was delayed for years, and until recently, it wasn’t expected to go into production until 2023.

However, Elon Musk surprisingly announced in August that the Tesla Semi would actually start shipping later this year.

Today, the CEO confirmed that Tesla has started production of the electric truck:

Musk reiterated that the vehicle has a range of 500 miles (805 km) on a single charge.

Tesla Semi electric trucks are being produced in Nevada near Tesla’s Gigafactory. Last year, Electrek exclusively reported that Tesla was building a production line for the Tesla Semi in a new building near the Gigafactory 

At the time, we were told that the production equipment installed would be for about 5 electric trucks per week. Tesla plans to move to higher volume production at Gigafactory Texas.

In today’s tweet, Musk announced that Pepsico would get the first Tesla Semi deliveries on December 1st.

After the launch of Tesla Semi in 2017, PepsiCo placed one of the biggest orders for Tesla Semi: 100 electric trucks to add to its fleet.

The company planned to use 15 of those trucks for a project to turn its Frito-Lay Modesto, California, site into a zero-emission facility.

Last year, PepsiCo said that it expected to take deliveries of those 15 Tesla Semi trucks by the end of the year before it was delayed again.

While the company didn’t get its Tesla Semi trucks last year, Tesla did install a Megacharger station for the trucks at its Modesto facility, which led many to believe that it would be the first to take delivery of the electric truck.

Electrek’s Take

This is exciting. Tesla Semi has real potential to change the game in the trucking industry with its useful 500-mile range and efficiency of less than 2 kWh per mile.

At $0.20 per kWh, that’s a $0.40 cost of operation per mile. That’s about half the cost of operation of a diesel truck.

Considering companies can spend up to $80,000 on fuel per year per truck, you can imagine how it could be really attractive to go electric.

If successful, it could quickly electrify the trucking industry and significantly cut emissions from freight transport.

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More Cybertruck delays, GM and Hyundai break records, and a new electric classic

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More Cybertruck delays, GM and Hyundai break records, and a new electric classic

On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla is delaying Cybertruck deliveries, 3rd time’s a charm for FSD transfers, EV sales are up all over, big trucks go far, and a classic electric Porsche.

We’ve got lots of Tesla news to get through today – some good, some bad, but all very much “on brand” for the electric carmaker we’ve come to know in recent years. Meanwhile, GM, Hyundai, and Kia and setting EV sales records, America’s big truck companies break ground on a new battery factory, Volvo clocks 50,000,0000 miles on its electric semis, and a classic electric Porsche 911.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday (that’s the plan, anyway). We’ll be posting bonus audio content there as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news!

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

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China is building a mammoth 8 GW solar farm

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China is building a mammoth 8 GW solar farm

State-owned power company China Three Gorges Renewables Group will build an 8 GW solar farm as part of a nearly $11 billion integrated energy project.

To put the sheer size of the 8 GW solar farm in perspective, the three largest solar farms in the world by capacity are China’s Ningxia Tenggeli and Golmud Wutumeiren solar farms, with a capacity of 3 MW each, and a 3.5-GW solar farm outside Urumqi, Xinjiang’s capital. 

In addition to the massive solar farm, the $10.99 billion project will also consist of 4 GW of wind, 5 GWh of energy storage capacity, 200 MW of solar thermal, and (disappointingly) 4 GW of coal-fired power. It will be sited in Ordos, in northern China’s Inner Mongolia region, the Shanghai-listed company said in a stock filing.

China Three Gorges says that the enormous integrated energy site’s power will be dispatched to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei cluster in northern China via an ultra-high voltage power transmission line.

The project will break ground in September and is expected to come online by June 2027.

China Three Gorges Renewables will take a 56% stake, and Inner Mongolia Energy Group will control 44%.

Read more: In a world first, China installs an 18 MW offshore wind turbine


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Hispano Suiza will do a hill climb and show off its new 1,114 hp Carmen Sagrera at Goodwood

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Hispano Suiza will do a hill climb and show off its new 1,114 hp Carmen Sagrera at Goodwood

Boutique electric hypercar developer Hispano Suiza announced it would return to the Goodwood Festival of Speed this month to showcase two of its latest vehicles. One on display will be its newest model, the Carmen Sagrera, which packs four motors that combine for 1,114 horsepower.

Hispano Suiza is a boutique automaker in Spain with well over a century of experience. Founded in 1904, the brand established a prominent reputation by producing luxury cars, aircraft engines, trucks, and weapons throughout the early to mid-1900s.

The brand has been revived in recent years with a keen focus on all-electric hypercars that deliver one-of-a-kind performance. Hispano Suiza’s venture into bespoke BEVs began in 2019 with the debut of the Carmen – a truly unique model of which only 24 examples were assembled, and no two are exactly alike.

As an encore, Hispano Suiza launched the even more exclusive Carmen Boulogne. Only five were built, and one was delivered to a customer in the US in 2023. It currently sits as one of the most expensive BEVs on the planet.

To complete the trifecta, Hispano Suiza teased a third hypercar called the Carmen Sagrera this past February as a driveable nod to its 120-year history in automotive design.

We only caught a glimpse of its massive spoiler at the time but got the full picture in June when the Spanish automaker officially debuted it to the public in Barcelona. Later this month, Hispano Suiza intends to debut the Carmen Sagrera in the UK for the first time during the annual Goodwood Festival of speed.

It is there that it also intends to do a famous hill climb in another one of its all-electric hypercars.

Hispano Suiza to compete (and show off) at Goodwood

According to news from Hispano Suiza today, it will return to the Goodwood Festival of Speed and bring along not one but two all-electric hypercars. The first will be the previously mentioned Carmen Sagrera, which will be presented to the media and authorities in the UK for the first time, including The Duke of Richmond, who founded the annual Goodwood event.

The new all-electric hypercar, piloted by former Formula 1 driver Luis Pérez-Sala, will pull out onto the stage of Hispano Suiza’s dedicated stand. The public will be able to see it up close and take advantage of a pre-sale of Hispano Suiza’s new Capsule Collection of branded merchandise.

Those hoping to see the Carmen Sagrera in action as Goodwood may be disappointed, as it will only be on display. However, the automaker shared that it intends to do a hill climb with Carmen Boulogne, which is a nice consolation.

This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed will occur July 11-14. If you’re there, be sure to check out the new Carmen Sagrera in person and report back.

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