Amid the Twitter fiasco, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the start of production of the long-awaited Semi truck on Thursday.

While it might sound exciting, the Tesla Semi truck won’t be delivered to Pepsi, the truck’s sole buyer, until December.

Statement

In a statement on Friday, Pepsi said the trucks will make their way to the Frito-Lay plant in Modesto, California, and the Pepsi beverage plant in Sacramento in December.

Regarding the company’s sustainability efforts, PepsiCo spokesperson Andrea Foote said:

“We are looking forward to this next step in our PepsiCo Positive journey and will provide more details once we have taken delivery.”

Despite the good news, neither Musk nor Pepsi shared how many trucks would be delivered to the factories.

Production

In November 2017, Tesla first unveiled the Semi truck and announced that production would begin in 2019.

Many companies claim to have made reservations, including Anheuser-Busch, City Furniture, FedEx, J.B. Hunt Transport Services, and Walmart, just to name a few.

For a company like Tesla, production delays are inevitable.

Cybertruck production was also announced for 2021, but then moved on to the following year.

Meanwhile, the second-generation Tesla Roadster, announced at the same event as the Semi, will go into production in 2020.

Instead, it was pushed further back, with 2023 pegged as the earliest date.

The Semi

On Thursday, Elon Musk confirmed that the Semi trucks would have a range of 500 miles.

The electric trucks are suitable for certain trips.

However, the heavy weight of trucks compared to diesel and fuel cell trucks can force companies to forgo heavy loads.

The announcement coincided with news of Musk’s renewed interest in buying Twitter for its $44 billion initial offering on Tuesday.

Tesla stock and Twitter

In September, Musk tried to end the deal, claiming the social media platform had violated their agreement.

Tesla’s CEO accused Twitter of misrepresenting the number of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform.

In 2022, Elon Musk sold Tesla shares worth more than $ 15 billion, but it’s unclear whether he has enough liquid funds to complete the Twitter deal.

Although he has received debt and equity financing obligations, Musk may need to sell additional Tesla stock to finance the purchase.

His other options include selling SpaceX stock, raising money from other investors, or borrowing against his ownership in Tesla or SpaceX.

Due to the aggressive increase in interest rates, the loan to finance the operation has become more expensive.

However, Elon Musk’s text messages, revealed earlier this year, showed requests to raise billions from his wealthy contacts.

Reference:

Tesla set to deliver long-delayed electric trucks to Pepsi in December