In a Twitter post, Elon Musk announced that PepsiCo will be receiving Tesla Semi vehicles in December. Also, prior to that, PepsiCo also confirmed that they will be receiving their order starting from December to its beverages factory in Sacramento.
PepsiCo has been aiming to reduce fuel costs and emissions and reserved 100 of the trucks in 2017. U.S. companies have pledged to take action to reduce their impacts on the environment, with PepsiCo aiming to achieve net-zero emissions by 2040. Transportation accounts for roughly 10% of the Mountain Dew maker’s greenhouse gas emissions, PepsiCo’s CEO, Ramon Laguarta, has said. Its company-owned fleet traveled 1.2 billion miles last year.
500 mile range & super fun to drive
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2022
Musk announced the start of production of the Semi truck late on Thursday on Twitter, saying the vehicles have a 500-mile (805 km) range and are “super fun to drive.” Musk initially said the trucks would be in production by 2019 but the timeline has been delayed by years due to parts shortages. Other companies including United Parcel Service Inc, Walmart Canada and food service distributor Sysco Corp had also placed preorders for Tesla’s Semi trucks. Walmart, UPS, and Sysco did not respond to requests for comment on the status of their orders or delivery timings.
Deliveries
Neither Musk nor Pepsi disclosed the number of Semis that would arrive at the packaged food company in December. On its website, PepsiCo said it expects 15 of its trucks to deploy by the end of this year. Tesla, on the other hand, has been struggling to deliver as many electric vehicles as it produces, which has hurt its share price. Musk is also trying to close his $44 billion takeover of Twitter Inc, which has Tesla investors worried that the billionaire was spreading himself too thin.
The deliveries come after a long wait. The vehicle was unveiled in November 2017. It is an all-electric battery-powered Class 8 semi-truck by Tesla. Originally the production should have started by 2019. However, due to various production reasons, there has been a delay. This year, the vehicle was seen on many occasions, and the charging points were also seen to be installed. PepsiCo already has Tesla Semi charging points in its factory. The first pre-orders for the vehicle came in 2018, where initially 450 Semis were ordered. Later in 2018 Q1, Musk said that Tesla Semi has 2,000 orders. Walmart and Pride Group Enterprises are known to have ordered a substantially large number of vehicles. We are yet to see the delivery details for these companies.
