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Tesla Semi secures one of its biggest orders to date from US-Canada logistics company
Tesla recently received reservations for 150 Semi trucks from Pride Group Enterprise (PGE), which operates businesses in equipment, rental, leasing, logistics, and sales. While the firm has placed reservations for 150 trucks for now, PGE has also made room to increase its order to 500 Tesla Semis in the future. The EV automaker has already received the deposits for the first 150 Semis ordered by the trucking company.
According to a press release, the company has dedicated significant resources to the research of electric trucks over the past few years. It looked into the technology, infrastructure, and capital requirements that are necessary for a network to succeed. It seems that PGE concluded Tesla offered the best Class 8 all-electric truck on the market, based on its recent Semi reservations. However, PGE’s Vice President of Operations Aman Johal also stated that the company is looking forward to working with other OEMs producing Class 8 trucks in the future as well.
“With the addition of electric trucks to our portfolio of products, our service offering to our customers continues to evolve. Our reservation with Tesla is the first of many and we continue to work with all OEM partners and have more exciting projects in the works. We have put a lot of focus on growing from an equipment supplier to a complete one-stop-shop for the transportation industry. Some of the other offerings we’ve added include short-term rentals, full-service maintenance, in-house OEM warranty work and 3PL solution, to name a few,” he said.
As noted by PGE, the 150 Tesla Semis will be distributed in locations that are particularly friendly to the electric vehicle movement. Johal also noted that the Class 8 battery-electric trucks will be a good way to gauge how the market accepts all-electric long-haul options.
“With support from one of our long-term financial partners, Hitachi Capital, we are very excited to bring this innovative product to our strong customer base, helping forge a new path in clean transportation. We believe that electrification is the way of the future as we work together across multiple industries to reduce our carbon footprint. As well, we have the option to increase our order as we gauge customer acceptance of this new technology,” he said.
Johal further emphasized that electric trucks will likely provide benefits, especially in areas where diesel-powered long-haulers are challenged such as maintenance and downtime. Granted, trucks like the Semi will have their challenges too, but the PGE executive noted that the company is already laying the groundwork for its electric truck deployment. This includes the buildout of charging infrastructure, parking lots, and full maintenance at its locations.
“Pride Group Enterprises’ vision is to invest in facilities that will support charging, full-service maintenance and a consistent supply of electric trucks on North American highways. We have first-hand knowledge of the transportation industry across multiple verticals and we (PGE) strongly believe that electric truck technology will overcome many challenges facing traditional diesel technology such as the related maintenance and associated downtime,” he stated.
PGE is one of many prominent companies that has made reservations for the Tesla Semi. PepsiCo, Walmart, and UPS are among others have invested in Semi trucks as well. PepsiCo was one of the first companies to make a significant reservation of 100 Semis to Tesla. In September 2020, Walmart Canada announced it would be tripling its Tesla Semi orders to 130.
Energy analysts Wood Mackenzie predicted the Class 8 EV truck segment could grow to over 54,000 units in the United States by 2025, an estimate that may prove conservative once vehicles like the Semi begin customer deliveries. The US electric truck industry’s growth depends on the policy and financial support receives in the next few years. According to Wood Mackenzie’s analysis, there were only 2,000 heavy-duty electric trucks deployed in the US last year. But as more companies like PGE pay more attention to local energy transition goals and become more environmentally conscious, the segment will see growth.
Tesla Cybertruck trims saw a big price change, at least on two of the three available to consumers, as demand for the all-electric pickup appears to be increasing.
Tesla bumped up its Base All-Wheel-Drive trim level up to $74,990 from $69,990 and the Premium All-Wheel-Drive configuration from $79,990 to $84,990. The Cyberbeast price remains unchanged at $99,990.
🚨 Cybertruck prices went up as Tesla bumped them 7%
TESLARATI Premium Membership
$19.99 USD– Tesla Cybertruck AWD is now $74,990
– Tesla Cybertruck Premium AWD now $84,990
– Tesla Cyberbeast now $99,990 https://t.co/MYJbaw56GL— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) August 25, 2026
Despite questions of demand for the truck, Tesla is bumping its two least expensive trims up $5,000 to signal that there are plenty of buyers. Although SpaceX has been buying Tesla Cybertruck units to utilize as company vehicles, it is no secret that the Cybertruck is among the most sought-after Tesla models out there.
The issue has always been pricing, at least for the most part. When Tesla initially launched the Cybertruck AWD at $59,990 a few months back, the company stated that price would remain intact for just ten days due to the influx of orders it received.
Cybertruck Sales: Is It the Product or Pricing?
Depending on who you ask, you will likely hear one of two explanations for relatively low Cybertruck sales: either the product itself or the pricing.
Yes, this is the best-selling all-electric pickup on the market. However, there are people who simply hate the look of it, which I understand, but do not agree with. Look is totally subjective, and I love the look of the Cybertruck.
Some people will not buy the Cybertruck because of the look, but I am under the impression that sales would be much better if this truck were priced lower; something that might not be possible considering Tesla’s need to make money on its products. When it was unveiled in 2019, its most expensive trim level was $69,990. Now, the cheapest trim level is more expensive than that.
I would be in a Cybertruck if it were more affordable. I LOVE my Model Y, but Cybertruck is the best vehicle Tesla makes, and it’s not particularly close. Even in the base model, the steer-by-wire, the space, storage, and performance make it more desirable than the Model Y to me. I cannot be the only Tesla owner without a Cybertruck who feels this way.
If you’re interested in buying a Tesla vehicle, use my referral link.
Energy
Tesla Semi factory is getting a celebration nobody expected
Tesla will inaugurate its Nevada Semi factory September 24, five months after production quietly began ramping.
Tesla says it will officially inaugurate its new Semi factory in Nevada next month. The Tesla Semi account posted the announcement on X, sharing a graphic titled “Semi Rollout” with a date of September 24. No further details were given about the format of the event or who would attend.
While Tesla’s dedicated Semi plant in Sparks, adjacent to Gigafactory Nevada, opened back in April, with the first trucks rolling off the high volume line on April 29, the timing for the factory inauguration comes at a surprise. The ribbon cutting event five months into production is a break from how Tesla has usually handled its other factories, where the first truck or car off the line typically served as the milestone moment.
Inauguration of new Semi factory in Nevada next month pic.twitter.com/a8kAlxrOOn
— Tesla Semi (@tesla_semi) August 24, 2026
The 1.7 million square foot factory was built as part of a $3.6 billion expansion Tesla announced in early 2023, and it shares a site with the battery cell lines that feed the Semi’s structural pack, a decision meant to remove the supply bottleneck that delayed the truck for years. The plant is designed for 50,000 trucks a year at full ramp. Semi program director Dan Priestley has said production “is now ramping” rather than claiming it has reached scale.
Nine years passed between the Semi’s 2017 unveiling and this stage of production, with the truck slipping from an original 2019 target through hand built pilot units for PepsiCo and a slow build out of the Nevada plant. An inauguration event now gives Tesla a stage to talk up that ramp and reset expectations for how many trucks it can begin delivering at scale.
The September date also lines up with the Semi’s next milestone. Tesla confirmed the truck is heading to Europe with a full unveiling at the IAA Transportation trade show in Hannover, Germany, running September 15 through 20. Between the Nevada event and the Hannover reveal, Tesla has roughly a week and a half in September to make the case that the Semi is now a truck being built and sold on two continents rather than tested in a handful of fleets.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk just set a condition that could end Falcon 9 as we know it
Elon Musk says SpaceX will finally retire Falcon 9 once Starship flies reliably every week.
Elon Musk gave the clearest timeline yet for retiring Falcon 9, SpaceX’s workhorse rocket.
The comment came in a reply on X, where Musk wrote that “once Starship is flying reliably several times per week, it makes sense to shift super scarce SpaceX engineering and production resources to Starship to get launch rate to several times per day, which means winding down Falcon.” He was responding to physicist Casey Handmer, who noted that NASA is reportedly uneasy about SpaceX phasing out Falcon after building what Handmer called the most successful launcher ever, with the fleet nearing 1,000 total launches.
Now @SciGuySpace reports NASA is in a tizzy because after running the most successful launcher ever for more than a decade and nearing 1000 launches, @SpaceX is planning to retire Falcon in favor of Starship in a few years.
Sorry, NASA, you’ve had 15 years to burn down the… https://t.co/uCNoMwK0v9
— Casey Handmer (@CJHandmer) August 22, 2026
Falcon 9 is still SpaceX’s busiest vehicle by far. The company is on pace for roughly 140 to 145 Falcon flights this year, following 165 in 2025, president Gwynne Shotwell told Time earlier in 2026. She has already said Falcon flights would “tail off” as Starship comes online, while reports indicate that SpaceX has stopped booking new Falcon 9 launches past 2028 and halted production of some expendable Falcon hardware, according to Bloomberg.
It’s worth noting that Musk’s post is a condition, and not a countdown on when Falcon will retire. Starship has not yet flown weekly, let alone daily. Its most recent flight in July ended with a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, a milestone Musk pointed to earlier this month when he said the vehicle’s heat shield problem was effectively solved. SpaceX towed that ship to Christmas Island for inspection, and the next flight, Flight 14, is aimed at putting Starship into orbit for the first time. A tower catch attempt for the upper stage has been pushed back to what Musk has called “a few months” away.
SpaceX and a new Trump order that could rewrite the next decade of launches
The gap between Falcon’s role today and Starship’s promised role tomorrow matters most to NASA. Falcon and its Dragon capsule remain the only way the agency rotates astronauts to and from the International Space Station, and Starship is not certified to carry NASA crews. Musk’s post did not address how that handoff would work if Falcon winds down before a crew-rated Starship variant exists. The timing lines up with Musk’s other recent Starship comments. Two days before the Falcon post, he told a different X user that SpaceX is aiming for more than 30 Starship launches a day by 2030, or roughly 10,000 a year, a figure tied to the Trump administration’s new push for higher national launch cadence. Falcon, which took over a decade to reach its first 100 launches, was never built to approach that kind of volume.
For now, Falcon 9 keeps flying at a near-record pace while Starship works to prove it can do the job Musk has already picked out for it.
Tesla Cybertruck gets a big price change on two of its three trims
Tesla Semi factory is getting a celebration nobody expected
