Tesla Semi-truck has buyers lined up, says Musk – “How many and how soon?”

By Christian Prenzler

Posted on June 6, 2017

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The Tesla Semi-truck is on its way, and apparently buyers are already waiting to purchase the truck. Musk revealed more information about the upcoming truck at Tuesday’s 2017 Tesla Shareholder meeting. Recently, researchers claimed that the truck wouldn’t be able to provide long range hauling capabilities without having a massive payload of batteries. Musk refuted those claims today at the shareholder meeting.

Updated: Tesla is set to unveil the Semi truck on October 26

“A lot of people don’t think you can do a heavy duty long-range truck that is electric. But, we are confident that this can be done,” Musk said. The semi-truck is set to be unveiled in September and Musk said that it’s an event that you don’t want to miss.

Tesla has been meeting with several heavy-duty trucking companies while working on the Tesla Semi prototype that can be driven like a “sports car” and has involved them in the design process. “We have shown it to a number of heavy-duty trucking companies, and they just want to know how many can they buy, and how soon,” Musk said while shareholders applauded. “We are getting them closely involved in the design process. They already know that it is going to meet their needs, because they told us what those needs are.”

Tesla’s truck program is being led by Jerome Guillen, VP of Trucks and Programs, who has been at Tesla since 2012. Guillen previously worked at Diamler and was General Manager of New Product Development at Freightliner Trucks. He has been working on the semi-truck at Tesla for the past year and a half, and previously was the Model S Program Director and VP of Worldwide Sales and Service

While there is a still a great deal of unknown around the semi-truck, Musk’s remarks provided more color to the current state of the program. Any investor’s worries about the program should now be eliminated, “It’s really a question of scaling volume to make as many (semi-trucks) as we can,” Musk said.

Tesla Semi-truck has buyers lined up, says Musk – “How many and how soon?”