Tesla Semi: delivering a disruptive electric truck
Tesla delivered its first Tesla Semi electric trucks to customers and revealed details of its production version of the vehicle – delivering on a 5-year-old promise.
Today, the company held its Tesla Semi Delivery Event in Nevada.
As expected, Tesla delivered the first electric trucks to Pepsico, a long-time reservation holder, and held a presentation to reveal more details about the production version of the Tesla Semi.
There wasn’t any big surprise during the presentation.
Tesla basically delivered on its original promises made in 2017 when it first unveiled the prototypes of the Tesla Semi.
Despite the lack of major changes, it’s still a big moment since the electric truck has the potential to change the trucking industry for good by eliminating emissions and significantly reducing costs.
The company started out by explaining why it is going from making consumer electric vehicles to an electric class 8 truck. That’s pretty simple: even if semi trucks only account for about 1% of vehicles in the US, they account for about 20% of emissions:
Obviously, battery-electric class 8 trucks have an opportunity to greatly reduce those numbers.
But they need to be just as if not more capable than diesel semi trucks in order to take over the market, and that’s exactly what Tesla claims to be delivering.
In terms of the technology powering the truck, things have changed since the original prototypes, but not in any major ways.
Tesla is now using a tri-motor drivetrain that is basically the same as in the Model S and Model X Plaid.
Dan Priestley, Tesla Semi Program Manager, explained that Tesla is using one of the motor for cruising speed geared toward peak efficiency at highway speeds and the two other motors are used for torque when accelerating in order to create a smooth driving experience never seen in a class 8 truck before.
To prove the capacity, Tesla shared a very impressive video of a Tesla Semi loaded at 82,000 lbs passing a diesel truck at 6% incline on the Donner Pass as if it’s nothing:
Ok, it’s powerful, but it can it travel long distances. Well, yes it can. Tesla promised a range of 500 miles with a full load 5 years ago and it delivered on the promise.
Tesla shared data on a 500-mile trip with a full load of just under 82,000 lbs total with the tractor. It started out in the Bay Area with a 97% state of charge and ended up in San Diego with still 4% charge:
Tesla reiterated that it can achieve a less than 2 kWh per mile efficiency, which means that trucking companies can achieve up to $70,000 in fuel savings per year depending on their cost of electricity.
Once the battery pack is depleted after 500 miles or so, you can expect blazing-fast charging thanks to the new 1-megawatt charging technology developed by Tesla. The automaker also said it will make it to the Cybertruck.
I felt like I was back in 2012 with the event as Elon Musk was again listing some basic benefits of electric vehicles that people coming from internal combustion engines wouldn’t necessarily be familiar with, like truck drivers who haven’t had the opportunity to go electric just yet.
Things like regenerative braking, which can greatly improve safety in trucks, and the millisecond reaction time of electric motors resulting in great traction control.
Tesla also unveiled several quality-of-life features for Tesla Semi drivers like an automatic suspension dump for easy latching to trailers, a cabin that you can stand in, and easy light checks for inspections.
There’s no doubt that the interior of the vehicle is cool and quite a change compared to most diesel trucks on the market today.
Now these machines are in the hands of customers for the first time starting with Pepsico/Frito Lay.
Electrek’s Take
There was no major surprise out of the event aside from maybe that the Cybertruck will have the same charging technology, but that’s not really about the Tesla Semi.
It felt like was more about delivering on the promises made 5 years ago and they mostly did that to their credit.
There are only two major points that Tesla didn’t discuss that I think are important and we should know about: the price and the weight.
Tesla didn’t update the price, which originally was $200,000. I have a feeling that it might have changed after 5 years, but no word from Tesla about it.
The other thing is the weight of the actual tractor, which is critical since the weight of the tractor dictates the weight of the load and the load is the trucking business. How much a truck can carry means how much money a trip can make up to a certain degree.
Class 8 trucks have total limit (truck plus trailer with load) of 80,000 lbs and the tractor itself weight between 12,000 and 25,000 lbs depending on the model. The difference is what it can carry.
Tesla only mentioned a total weight of 82,000 lbs (electric trucks are allowed an extra 2,000 lbs) during the event, but it never confirmed the weight of the Tesla Semi or load capacity. It would be important information to have.
Aside from the lack of those two important pieces of information, I feel like the event was impressive and Tesla might have a new very disruptive product on its hands.
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks to members of the media as he arrives at a lodge for the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference on July 8, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Oracle‘s historic stock surge this week marked the latest chapter in the story of a single private company that’s dominated the tech landscape for almost three years: OpenAI.
In Oracle’s blowout earnings report, OpenAI was a key catalyst due to a massive amount of money the artificial intelligence startup expects to spend on cloud computing technology in the coming years.
It’s becoming a familiar theme.
A week earlier, Broadcom shares popped almost 10% after the chipmaker and software vendor said it forged a $10 billion deal to build custom processors for a customer that analysts said was OpenAI.
Among tech’s megacaps, Microsoft has the closest link to OpenAI, having invested more than $13 billion in the company and serving as its key cloud partner for six years. Nvidia’s march to becoming the world’s most valuable company is intimately tied to OpenAI, as its graphics processing units (GPUs) sit at the heart of large language model development and are essential for running big AI workloads.
Those four companies alone — Oracle, Broadcom, Microsoft and Nvidia — have seen their combined market caps swell by over $4.5 trillion since OpenAI burst into public view with the launch of ChatGPT in late 2022. And those gains are a big reason why the Nasdaq and S&P 500 have sustained sharp rallies, with both benchmarks closing at a record on Friday.
OpenAI’s outsized influence has some market experts understandably concerned. It remains a cash-burning startup that’s governed by a nonprofit parent.
The company’s $500 billion valuation is supported by a small number of investors betting that OpenAI will prevail in the face of hefty competition from the likes of Meta and Google as well as other highly-valued newcomers like Anthropic and any number of players out of China.
“While we love ChatGPT, OpenAI is still a not for profit limited in its ability to raise capital,” said Gil Luria, an analyst at D.A. Davidson, in an interview with CNBC.
Luria, who recommends holding Oracle shares, dug into the company’s numbers as the stock was in the midst of a 36% jump on Wednesday, its biggest gain since 1992.
In its quarterly earnings report late Tuesday, Oracle said it signed four multibillion-dollar contracts with three different customers during the period. One of those was with OpenAI, which said previously that it agreed to develop 4.5 gigawatts of U.S. data center capacity with Oracle.
Investors knew, based on a filing with the SEC in June, that Oracle signed a $30 billion cloud contract with an unnamed company that’s set to begin in two years. CNBC confirmed a Wall Street Journal report from Wednesday that OpenAI has agreed to spend $300 billion in computing power over about five years, starting in 2027.
In the two trading days after its historic pop, Oracle’s stock retreated, dropping more than 6% on Thursday and another 5% on Friday, as other investors began sharing Luria’s concerns.
The new revelations about OpenAI’s massive cloud commitment provided a clearer sense of Oracle’s expanding backlog. Oracle said its performance obligations, a measure of contracted revenue that has not yet been recognized, surged 359% from a year earlier to to $455 billion.
Luria said the concentration of Oracle’s backlog with a single customer “significantly reduces” enthusiasm, particularly if “more than 90% came from OpenAI.”
Oracle didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Altman’s open wallet
OpenAI has made big commitments to several other cloud providers, including CoreWeave and Google, and reportedly plans to put $19 billion toward Stargate, a project President Donald Trump announced in January to bolster AI infrastructure investments in the U.S. Stargate is a joint venture between OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, which is separately leading a planned $40 billion investment in OpenAI.
Luria said the takeaway is that “Sam Altman has the gumption to sign very large checks without needing to worry about whether those can ever be cashed.”
OpenAI declined to comment.
While OpenAI will be losing money for the foreseeable future, the company is expecting revenue growth to continue at a breakneck pace. After hitting $10 billion in annual recurring revenue in June, OpenAI is on pace for that number to reach $125 billion by 2029, CNBC confirmed.
And on Thursday, OpenAI got a step closer to formalizing its transition to a for-profit entity. The company said its nonprofit parent will continue to have oversight over the business and will own an equity stake of more than $100 billion as the commercial entity becomes a public benefit corporation.
OpenAI needs the restructuring to take place by year-end in order to secure the entirety of the $40 billion from its latest financing round.
For Oracle, the massive increase in OpenAI spending has landed the company within shouting distance of the trillion-dollar club, which currently includes eight tech peers. Oracle’s market cap climbed to about $930 billion on Wednesday before retreating to $830 billion to close the week.
Byron Deeter, a partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, told CNBC’s “Money Movers” that he’s still skeptical of Oracle’s prospects in AI. The company has spent years trying to play catchup in cloud infrastructure, where it trails Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Deeter said Oracle remains a “B-level hyperscaler” without meaningful positions in AI software or chips.
“Two days ago, we all thought Oracle was essentially nowhere in AI,” Deeter said, following the earnings report. “They announce this mega-deal, people think they’re the next great hyperscaler – and I don’t buy that part.”
Fortescue is marching towards zero emissions as it invests in new, zero-emission mining equipment options across its global operations. And that investment? It’s already paying off. One analyst says the company’s saving almost $400 million in fuel costs alone. Each year.
From massive, Liebherr-built electric haul trucks and excavators to more than $400 million in Chinese equipment from XCMG, Fortescue is putting its money where its mouth is and making real efforts to decarbonize its global mining operations.
“We’re moving rapidly to decarbonize our Pilbara iron ore operations and eliminate our Scope 1 and 2 terrestrial emissions by 2030. To achieve this target, we will need to swap out hundreds of pieces of diesel mining equipment at the end of their life with zero emissions alternatives,” said Fortescue Metals Chief Executive Officer, Dino Otranto, when the XCMG order was announced. “As the global mining industry continues to evolve, we’re proud to be at the forefront of driving innovation in value adding green technology and showing the world that industry can decarbonize.”
Those efforts aren’t just cutting back on air pollution. Electric equipment assets are helping to keep the company’s workers safe and healthy, too. What’s more, they’re saving the company money – they’re already seeing $300-400 million in fuel savings annually.
Liebherr T264 electric haul truck
The Liebherr T264 electric haul trucks now working for Fortescue defy common sense notions of size, scale, and power. Each truck tips the scales at 176 tonnes (194 tons) and can haul more than 240 tonnes (265 tons) of payload thanks to powerful electric motors and a big-as-a-house-sized 3.2 MWh battery that can be recharged in a little over 30 minutes by Liebherr’s proprietary 6 MW DC fast charger.
If you could keep the car from exploding, that 6 MW (that’s 6,000 kW to you and me) charger could zap a Tesla Model Y Long Range’s 75 kWh battery in some thirty (30) seconds.
“Fortescue has ordered 360 of (T264 battery electric haul trucks) as part of a $4 billion deal with Liebherr to electrify operations at its enormous iron ore mines,” says Gavin Mooney, general manager at Australian energy software platform, Kaluza. “Fuel and energy costs are Fortescue’s biggest operating costs as well as largest source of emissions. By electrifying operations like this it will be able to kill two birds with one stone.”
Battery electric vehicles have moved millions of tons of material at Fortescue mines over the last two years alone, and continue to keep the minerals moving with minimal less impact to the environment.
Electrek’s Take
With billions of dollars on the line and pressure to reduce carbon emissions coming from all sides, it should come as no surprise that the race is on to bring practical, electric, and autonomous heavy mining equipment to market. At CES 2024, electric equipment from Hyundai, Bobcat, Volvo CE, and Caterpillar garnered lots of attention with their innovative concepts, and analysts like IDTechEx estimate that a single 150-ton haul truck can use over $850,000 worth of fuel in a single year.
Meanwhile, big electric haul trucks like this 240 ton unit from Caterpillar can, in certain use cases with high amounts of regenerative braking, operate without any significant cost to recharge. At that point, the reduced maintenance and downtime of BEVs compared to diesel vehicles becomes icing on the TCO cake.
We spoke to Fortescue Zero executives a few months ago on a special interview episode of Quick Charge. Check it out (above) then let us know what you think of Fortescue’s fuel savings in the comments.
Sources links throughout; featured image by Fortescue Zero.
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This world’s first fully electric deconstruction site is being hailed as a landmark in sustainable urban development — and it’s powered by Siemens technology and Volvo Group’s battery-electric trucks and heavy equipment.
The deconstruction project (that’s kind of like a really careful demolition) marks the first full-scale electric deconstruction of its kind, and serves as important proof that with the right partners and the will to do it, urban construction projects like this can be carried out sustainably, today – and all without fossil fuels. It’s all part of Siemens’ €500 million technology campus redevelopment, the deconstruction site in Erlangen, Germany, and marks a pivotal step in advancing sustainable urban transformation and circular construction practices.
In collaboration with the demolition specialists at Metzner Recycling, Volvo CE deployed a fully electric fleet of equipment assets specially chosen to deliver quiet, precision demolition across the 25,000 cubic meter job site.
As well as deconstruction tasks, the electric machines helped sort and process approximately 12,800 tons of construction waste, with 96% recycled into raw materials for future use – supporting the shift towards circular materials management.
VOLVO CE
“At Siemens Real Estate, we are committed to pushing the boundaries of sustainable construction and demolition,” explains Christian Franz, Head of Sustainability at Siemens Real Estate. “This groundbreaking electric deconstruction project boasts an impressive 96% recycling rate and is a testament to our commitment to achieving excellence in sustainability … this project illustrates how partnerships and determination can create a lasting impact and help shape a more sustainable real estate industry.”
In addition the construction equipment was hauled into the site by Volvo Truck’s battery electric semi trucks, enabling emission-free operations from demolition, to crushing, materials processing, and transport.
Electrek’s Take
With a full line of electric wheel loaders, excavators, articulated haul trucks – even drum rollers and off-grid charging solutions to haul around with their electric semi trucks – Volvo is in a great position to take advantage of increasingly restrictive noise and emission regulations across Europe.
It’s too bad they’re suing California to be able to pollute more.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo CE.
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