In a recent note to his staff, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk told his staff to bring the company’s Semi commercial truck to “volume production.” The memo does not specify the timeline that the company is eyeing.
The memo seen by Reuters on Wednesday, asks the Tesla staff to focus on volume production of the Semi commercial truck. The move also coincides with the company’s rival Nikola Corp.’s share prices rising. Nikola is a clean fuel truck maker. Musk wrote, “Production of the battery and powertrain will take place at Giga Nevada.”
Musk also said that Tesla is also looking for production sites in other US states. He hinted that the next factory could come to Texas. However, Oklahoma and other states are also campaigning to receive the company’s investments. Tesla has not responded to a request for a comment yet.
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The Tesla Semi truck was introduced in 2017 and Class 8 truck was expected to go into production by 2019. However, now the company is eyeing volume production for their trucks by 2021. Tesla may be hampered by Nikola which is an electric and fuel cell truck startup. The company recently started trading on NASDAQ after merging with a special purpose acquisition company VectoIQ. The company’s shares have doubled in the past week as it revealed its plans to launch an electric pickup truck that could rival Tesla’s Cybertruck.
About Tesla Semi truck
Tesla announced that the truck will have a range of 500 miles on a full charge. With new batteries, the truck would be able to go for 400 miles after an 80% charge in only 30 minutes. The truck will come with Tesla Autopilot as well that would allow semi-autonomous driving on the highways.
The truck was first mentioned in the Tesla 2016 Master Plan. At the time, the company said that they already have a working prototype which is using Tesla Model 3 electric motors.
