During Tesla’s latest earnings call, the vehicle maker’s Class 8 Semi was top of mind, leading to a revelation on the model’s mass production status.
“We just closed out the Semi factory roofing walls last week in Reno…but we’re prepping for mechanical installation of all the equipment in the coming months,” said Lars Moravy, Tesla’s vice president of vehicle engineering. “The first builds of the high-volume Semi design come late this year in 2025 and begin ramping early in 2026.”
CEO Elon Musk added to the announcement, highlighting that the Semi, like autonomous technology, will be “incredibly valuable,” pointing to the ongoing driver shortage.
“When you consider there’s more people leaving truck driving as a profession than entering it, well, we’re going to have a real logistics problem as time goes by, so autonomy will be very important to meet that need,” said Musk.
The Semi was first introduced in late 2017, began limited production in 2022, and has been tested by national fleets such as PepsiCo, Walmart and Sysco for the past few years.