There’s been a lot of false hope among established and prospective electric vehicle manufacturers over the past 10 years, particularly with the enigmatic zero emission vehicle brand, Tesla.
Some businesses have gone by the wayside as they try to establish their EVs in a market still dominated by petrol and diesel-powered vehicles. Of course, the big players have deep pockets and have been able to play the long game.
But Tesla is sort of in-between. It has become a big player with sales of its cars and SUVs continually on the up, both globally and particularly in Australia. However in the past month or two itsequally enigmatic CEO, Elon Musk has been forced to eat some humble pie as. The brand has come under intense pressure from Chinese ZEV makers forcing a drop in Tesla sales globally.
However, while there are concerns about the long-term prospects of the Musk-led brand, especially regarding the addition of commercial vehicles into the EV brand’s line-up he continues to be ebullient about the brand prospects in the heavy commercial market.
The Tesla Pick-Up has proved quite troublesome, not to mention polarising. When it comes to opinions on its styling, while the Tesla Semi-Truck battery electric prime mover, as they call it, has been in the headlines for production delays and missed delivery promises.
Tesla recently laid off thousands of workers in a bid to save money on the back of falling sales and lower profit.
Now comes confirmation that the Tesla Class 8 Semi tractor, or prime mover as we call it, now will not enter proper production until late 2025 at a ‘state-of-the-art’ plant in Reno, Nevada,
Vice president of vehicle engineering at Tesla, Lars Moravy, has said the first customer deliveries are now not expected to start until early 2026.
Speaking to investors at the release of the company’s first-quarter 2024 results in April, Moravy said high-profile customers like Pepsi Co. will get their vehicles first.
“So we’re finalising the engineering of the Semi to enable like a super cost-effective high-volume production with our learnings from our fleet and our pilot fleet and Pepsi fleet, which we are expanding this year marginally.”
We’ll keep an eye on the situation in the coming months, one can’t help but feel just a little sceptical that the long-promised offering might end up in the too-hard basket for Tesla.
