Tesla made the first deliveries of its Semi truck to customers Thursday evening, five years after the heavy-duty hauler was first unveiled. The event included two truck cabs decked out in the livery of Pepsi and Frito-Lay, PepsiCo’s snack foods subsidiary.
The Tesla Semi was first shown as a prototype in 2017. At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said production would begin in 2019. But Musk didn’t say during Thursday night’s presentation at Tesla’s factory in Sparks, Nevada, how many trucks were actually being delivered to PepsiCo, or how many were being produced, or at what rate.
The fully electric semi truck features an unusual design in which the driver sits in the center of the cab rather than on one side. Tesla has boasted of the truck’s performance — saying it accelerates much more quickly, even with a full load, than traditional diesel-powered semi trucks. A video during the presentation showed, according to Tesla, a fully loaded Tesla Semi accelerating up a steep grade and passing other trucks.