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Tesla Semi truck production would showcase lessons gained from Model 3
Being the electric car maker’s first entry into the trucking industry, the stakes are high for the Tesla Semi. Just like the Model 3, Tesla could revolutionize the trucking industry if the Semi proves to be a success. The company is aiming to start production of the Semi sometime in 2019 — a target that exhibits Elon Musk’s tendency to adopt aggressive manufacturing timelines. That said, if Tesla’s progress in the Model 3 ramp is any indication, there is a good chance that the Semi could be Tesla’s first vehicle to not run into major problems when it starts production.
Tesla is no stranger to missed production deadlines. In 2007, Tesla announced that it has plans to build 10,000 of the then-mythical Model S sedan annually starting in 2009. Production was ultimately delayed, and the vehicle was introduced in June 2012. The Model X experienced an even more significant delay, with deliveries starting on September 2015 instead of its initially planned early 2014 release. Tesla’s latest vehicle, the Model 3, has experienced delays as well — an ordeal that CEO Elon Musk aptly dubbed as “production hell.” When the handover of the first 30 Model 3 was held last year, Musk announced that Tesla is aiming to produce 5,000 units of the electric sedan a week by the end of 2017. Tesla was only able to hit that target at the end of Q2 2018.
Considering Tesla’s history and reputation for delays, does this mean that the Semi would follow the same fate? Most likely not. On the contrary, the Semi might very well be the first Tesla vehicle that would not experience a delay as bad as its predecessors. Tesla might miss its 2019 target for the truck given that the timeline was announced by a very optimistic Elon Musk, but once manufacturing begins, there is a good possibility that the Semi would not take the company to “production hell” like the Model 3.
When Elon Musk unveiled the Semi last November, he pitched the vehicle as an electric truck that can disrupt the trucking industry. With stunning performance specs such as a 0-60 mph time in 5 seconds flat, a capability to haul 80,000 lbs of cargo, and a range of 500 miles per charge for the Long Range version, the Semi is a serious long-hauler. These impressive specs aside, one thing that made the Semi quite remarkable was the fact that it shared components with the Model 3, from its four electric motors to the two touchscreens on the driver’s console. A video of the Semi shared earlier this year on YouTube even showcased how the truck features an air vent similar to the Model 3.
Tesla is not done with the Semi either. As testing of the vehicle continues, Tesla is rolling out improvements to the truck’s design. Back in May, Elon Musk stated that the Semi’s range would be closer to 600 miles per charge. During the Q2 earnings call, Elon Musk also teased a new battery module “that’s actually lighter, better, (and) cheaper.” These new modules are expected to start production sometime in Q1 2019, which could result in vehicles being lighter and having more range — advantages that are pertinent for the electric long-hauler.
Tesla’s production ramp for the Model 3 proved to be a classic tale of trial and error, with a dash of automation-driven hubris thrown in. Over the past year, the company learned a lot of lessons as it evolved from an upstart automaker into a more mature car company. When Tesla starts the Semi’s production, there’s a good chance that it would no longer be a company that adopts unrealistic release timelines. Instead, it would be an automaker that has gained experience over years of missed deadlines. The fact that the Semi shares components with the electric sedan would be a given plus, but the real boost in the manufacturing of the electric truck would likely be caused the expertise that Tesla gained when it tackled the challenge of the Model 3 ramp.
The market for the Tesla Semi is vast, and so far, reactions from the market are encouraging. During the company’s Q1 2018 earnings call, Elon Musk and CTO JB Straubel noted that Tesla has around 2,000 reservations for the vehicle. Tesla has also acquired orders from companies such as PepsiCo, FedEx, and UPS in the United States and Bee’ah from the United Arab Emirates, to name a few.
Elon Musk
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla confirmed HW3 vehicles cannot run unsupervised FSD, replacing its free upgrade promise with a discounted trade-in.
Tesla has officially confirmed that early vehicles with its Autopilot Hardware 3 (HW3) will not be capable of unsupervised Full Self-Driving, while extending a path forward for legacy owners through a discounted trade-in program. The announcement came by way of Elon Musk in today’s Tesla Q1 2026 earnings call.
🚨 Our LIVE updates on the Tesla Earnings Call will take place here in a thread 🧵
Follow along below: pic.twitter.com/hzJeBitzJU
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 22, 2026
The history here matters. HW3 launched in April 2019, and Tesla sold Full Self-Driving packages to owners on the understanding that the hardware was sufficient for full autonomy. Some owners paid between $8,000 and $15,000 for FSD during that period. For years, as FSD’s AI models grew more demanding, HW3 vehicles fell progressively further behind, eventually landing on FSD v12.6 in January 2025 while AI4 vehicles moved to v13 and then v14. When Musk acknowledged in January 2025 that HW3 simply could not reach unsupervised operation, and alluded to a difficult hardware retrofit.
The near-term offering is more concrete. Tesla’s head of Autopilot Ashok Elluswamy confirmed on today’s call that a V14-lite will be coming to HW3 vehicles in late June, bringing all the V14 features currently running on AI4 hardware. That is a meaningful software update for owners who have been frozen at v12.6 for over a year, and it represents genuine effort to keep older hardware relevant. Unsupervised FSD for vehicles is now targeted for Q4 2026 at the earliest, with Musk describing it as a gradual, geography-limited rollout.
For HW3 owners, the over-the-air V14-lite update is welcomed, and the discounted trade-in path at least acknowledges an old obligation. What happens next with the trade-in pricing will define how this chapter ultimately gets written. If Tesla prices the hardware path fairly, acknowledges what early adopters are owed, and delivers V14-lite on the June timeline it committed to today, it has a real opportunity to convert one of the longest-running sore subjects among early adopters into a loyalty story.
Elon Musk
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
Tesla’s Optimus factory in Texas targets 10 million robots yearly, with 5.2 million square feet under construction.
Tesla’s Q1 2026 Update Letter, released today, confirms that first generation Optimus production lines are now well underway at its Fremont, California factory, with a pilot line targeting one million robots per year to start. Of bigger note is a shared aerial image of a large piece of land adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, that Tesla has prominently labeled “Optimus factory site preparation.”
Permit documents show Tesla is seeking to add over 5.2 million square feet of new building space to the Giga Texas North Campus by the end of 2026, at an estimated construction investment of $5 billion to $10 billion. The longer term production target for that facility is 10 million Optimus units per year. Giga Texas already sits on 2,500 acres with over 10 million square feet of existing factory floor, and the North Campus expansion is being built to support multiple projects, including the dedicated Optimus factory, the Terafab chip fabrication facility (a joint Tesla/SpaceX/xAI venture), a Cybercab test track, road infrastructure, and supporting facilities.
Credit: TESLA
Texas makes strategic sense beyond the existing infrastructure. The state’s tax structure, lower labor costs relative to California, and the proximity to Tesla’s AI training cluster Cortex 1 and 2, both located at Giga Texas and now totaling over 230,000 H100 equivalent GPUs, means the Optimus software stack and the factory producing the hardware will share the same campus. Tesla’s Q1 report also confirmed completion of the AI5 chip tape out in April, the inference processor designed specifically to power Optimus units in the field.
As Teslarati reported, the Texas facility is intended to house Optimus V4 production at full scale. Musk told the World Economic Forum in January that Tesla plans to sell Optimus to the public by end of 2027 at a price between $20,000 and $30,000, stating, “I think everyone on earth is going to have one and want one.” He has previously pegged long term demand for general purpose humanoid robots at over 20 billion units globally, citing both consumer and industrial use cases.
Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2026 on Wednesday afternoon. Here’s what the company reported compared to what Wall Street analysts expected.
The earnings results come after Tesla reported a miss on vehicle deliveries for the first quarter, delivering 358,023 vehicles and building 408,386 cars during the three-month span.
As Tesla transitions more toward AI and sees itself as less of a car company, expectations for deliveries will begin to become less of a central point in the consensus of how the quarter is perceived.
Nevertheless, Tesla is leaning on its strong foundation as a car company to carry forward its AI ambitions. The first quarter is a good ground layer for the rest of the year.
Tesla Q1 2026 Earnings Results
Tesla’s Earnings Results are as follows:
- Non-GAAP EPS – $0.41 Reported vs. $0.36 Expected
- Revenues – $22.387 billion vs. $22.35 billion Expected
- Free Cash Flow – $1.444 billion
- Profit – $4.72 billion
Tesla beat analyst expectations, so it will be interesting to see how the stock responds. IN the past, we’ve seen Tesla beat analyst expectations considerably, followed by a sharp drop in stock price.
On the same token, we’ve seen Tesla miss and the stock price go up the following trading session.
Tesla will hold its Q1 2026 Earnings Call in about 90 minutes at 5:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Remarks will be made by CEO Elon Musk and other executives, who will shed some light on the investor questions that we covered earlier this week.
You can stream it below. Additionally, we will be doing our Live Blog on X and Facebook.
Q1 2026 Earnings Call at 4:30pm CT https://t.co/pkYIaGJ32y
— Tesla (@Tesla) April 22, 2026
Tesla confirmed HW3 can’t do Unsupervised FSD but there’s more to the story
Tesla isn’t joking about building Optimus at an industrial scale: Here we go
