Support CleanTechnica's work througha Substack subscription,on Patreon, oron Stripe. Help us produce all of thehigh-quality, original content we publish week after weekdespite the challenges of content-scraping AI, antisocial media, inflation, and other hurdles.The Tesla Semi has been a bit of a confusing model or project. The electric semi truck was unveiled nearly a decade ago with various specific specs and details that made it sound like it was almost ready to hit the road and reach mass sales. Countless pilot projects and delays later, it seems that the big truck is genuinely starting to move into the market. There’s even news now that it is going to Europe.
We don’t yet have details on pricing or specs, but those will be released at the IAA Transportation conference coming up September 15–20 in Hannover, Germany.
Pilot production of the Semi just started at the end of 2022, about five years after it was first unveiled. We interviewed the man behind the Semi program, former president Jerome Guillen, in Tesla’s offices in Fremont, California, back in 2019. It seems that he eventually got tired of his project being delayed and moved on. However, the Semi lives on. Following the Semi being in pilot production for about four years, Tesla began high-volume manufacturing of the electric truck at “Gigafactory 1” in Nevada on April 29, 2026.
In the US, pricing of the Semi starts at around $260,000 for the Standard Range version (~325 miles of range using a 548 kWh battery pack) and $290,000 for the Long Range version (~500 miles of range using a 822 kWh battery pack). Following the start of high-volume production, this past week, Tesla got its largest Semi order to date, an order for 500 of the electric trucks from Einride. Einride is a Swedish company, but these trucks are for the US, to be used on routes across California, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, and Georgia to support companies such as Amazon. Deliveries to Einride begin in September.
“This deployment is yet another proof point that we can execute at the scale our customers demand. Working closely with Tesla to bring next-generation Semis into active operations quickly and at scale is a testament to the strength of that partnership, and how quickly this technology is maturing from promise to daily operations,” Einride CEO Roozbeh Charli said.
“Einride is at the forefront of sustainable freight, and we are thrilled to deepen our relationship with them through this order of 500 Semis. EV heavy trucks provide lower costs per mile from fuel savings, reduced maintenance, and better uptime over diesel trucks. These savings increase further through operational efficiency when deploying EV trucks at scale, and we are excited that Einride recognizes this and look forward to supporting their deployments,” Dan Priestley, director of the Tesla Semi program, adds.
Presumably, other companies Tesla has worked with for years — such as PepsiCo, Frito-Lay, and DHL — will also be making big order before long. One would think.
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