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Tesla Semi gets ‘peppy and quiet’ hydrogen fuel cell competitor from Kenworth-Toyota
With support from the California Air Resources Board, Japanese auto giant Toyota and truck maker are collaborating to develop and build a limited run of hydrogen fuel trucks. The vehicles, which are Kenworth T680 trucks modified with Toyota’s hydrogen fuel cell powertrains, are expected to drive on routes around Los Angeles and further inland to San Bernardino. The actual specs of the vehicles have not been announced by either company, but the range of the hydrogen fuel cell T680 trucks are said to be 300 miles in “normal drayage operating conditions.”
Toyota and Paccar, the parent company behind Kenworth, took the wraps off the first hydrogen fuel cell long-hauler at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The vehicle, which is classified as a Class 8 truck, stands to be a possible competitor for upcoming all-electric trucks like the Tesla Semi in the future. In a statement to CNBC, Brian Lindgren, Kenworth’s director of research and development, noted that utilizing hydrogen as a source of propulsion makes more sense for Class 8 vehicles than batteries, which power vehicles like Tesla’s all-electric long-hauler.
“We believe that carrying energy in the form of hydrogen for heavy-duty Class 8 trucks makes more sense than carrying it in batteries because the trucks can be refilled faster and offer longer range,” he said.
Lindgren’s point about faster refilling times for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles is quite justified, considering that a passenger car such as a Toyota Mirai could refill its tank with around 300 miles of range in roughly five minutes. That’s significantly faster than Tesla’s Superchargers, which are capable of charging roughly 200 miles of range in 30 minutes. Larger vehicles such as the hydrogen-electric Kenworth T680 trucks would likely take longer to refill than a passenger car such as the Mirai, but there’s a good chance that the long-hauler could still refill its tank faster than the Tesla Semi could charge its batteries, even if it is plugged into the upcoming Megacharger Network.
Toyota-Paccar’s Kenworth T680 hybrid fuel cell trucks caught the attention of some CES attendees due to the vehicle’s silent operation, which is nearly comparable to an all-electric truck. Lindgren, for his part, noted that drivers who have operated the truck actually appreciated the silence of the vehicle. “Drivers like these trucks because they are peppy and quiet,” he said.
Andy Lund, the Toyota chief engineer on the project, further stated that the hydrogen-electric trucks would have the same payload capacity as a diesel rig. Unlike its fossil fuel-powered counterparts, the hydrogen fuel cell Kenworth T680 long-haulers would only require a four-speed transmission, which is far simpler than the 18-gear transmissions usually fitted on Class 8 diesel trucks.
If there is one thing that would probably go against Toyota and Paccar’s hydrogen trucks, though, it would be their fuel efficiency. Kenworth’s director of research and development noted that the prototype trucks currently consume hydrogen at roughly the same rate as present diesel trucks, at around 5-7 mpg. The only advantage of the vehicles, of course, is that the trucks would only produce water vapor from their exhausts. This is a substantial advantage, considering that the trucking industry accounts for about 23% of carbon emissions from transportation in 2016, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
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That said, this would be something that Tesla could capitalize on. During the electric long-hauler’s unveiling, Musk noted that the Semi would cost operators $1.26 per mile to run, less than the standard $1.51 per mile that diesel-powered vehicles cost. Musk’s estimate has been met by skepticism by veterans of the trucking industry, but if the Tesla Semi’s operating costs stay true to the CEO’s estimate, then the vehicle would most certainly give itself a notable advantage over diesel and hydrogen-powered rivals when it starts operating on America’s roads.
Hydrogen fuel cells remain a polarizing solution for sustainable transportation. Elon Musk, for one, has openly discussed his dislike for hydrogen-electric transportation. In a statement to Autocar in 2014, for one, Musk went so far as to describe hydrogen fuel cell systems as “mind-bogglingly stupid.”
“They’re mind-bogglingly stupid. You can’t even have a sensible debate. Consider the whole fuel cell system against a Model S. It’s far worse in volume and mass terms, and far, far, worse in cost. And I haven’t even talked about hydrogen being so hard to handle. Success is simply not possible. Manufacturers do it [FCEVs] because they’re under pressure to show they’re doing something ‘constructive’ about sustainability. They feel it’s better to be working on a solution a generation away rather than something just around the corner. Hydrogen is always labeled the fuel of the future – and always will be,” Musk said.
Elon Musk initially announced that the Tesla Semi would start production sometime in 2019. That said, later statements from Tesla’s head of investor relations Martin Viecha suggested that the electric car maker would “earnestly” start producing the Semi by 2020.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that flying cars will be coming to the market, something that his own company has hinted at previously.
Musk said on X, in response to a post that read, “We were promised flying cars and all we got is infinite superintelligence for everyone,” “You will get flying cars.”
You will get flying cars
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 12, 2026
The post rang back to when Musk teased flying and hovering capabilities for the Tesla Roadster, the company’s supercar that has been delayed more times than anyone cares to count. It was set for an unveiling earlier this year, but it was then pushed back to August. There is still no sign of it coming.
However, that does not mean it won’t. But one of the biggest features of the Roadster that was teased was a SpaceX package that featured cold gas thrusters on the rear end that would help with white-knuckle acceleration. Another set would face the ground and would help the Roadster gain small bits of altitude, potentially helpful to jump over obstacles.
Elon Musk hints at Tesla Roadster’s “hovering” abilities in SpaceX package
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But it is not a straightforward thing for Musk. As a serial entrepreneur, he tends to spend his time on major disruptors; currently, his largest projects are artificial intelligence and compute power, as well as SpaceX’s launches that will eventually make life multiplanetary.
In the past, he has been critical of flying cars and has been in favor of tunnels, one of the big reasons he started the Boring Company. In 2017 at a TED talk, he said:
“There is a challenge with flying cars in that they’ll be quite noisy. The wind force generated will be very high. Let’s just say that if something’s flying over your head, if there are a whole bunch of flying cars all over the place, that is not an anxiety-reducing situation…You’re thinking, ‘Did they service their hubcap? Or is it going to come off and guillotine me as they’re flying past?’”
However, he’s never been against them. He has also said he’s in favor of both tunnels and flying cars.
Contrary to press reports, I’m not against flying cars. Just said it was important to consider both pros and cons.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 24, 2015
Most recently, Musk said that anyone who wants a flying car should be able to get one. This was stated last October on the Joe Rogan Experience:
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“My friend Peter Thiel once reflected that the future was supposed to have flying cars, but we don’t have flying cars… I think if Peter wants a flying car, we should be able to buy one.”
Whether the Roadster will be Tesla’s flying car or potentially another one remains in the mind of Musk. Of course, the Roadster will have to make its way to production lines before we find out.
Elon Musk
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
Elon Musk told SpaceX staff AI revenue will soon dwarf rockets and Starlink combined entirely.
Elon Musk told SpaceX employees this week that artificial intelligence, not rockets, will soon carry the company’s revenue. In a roughly 29 minute internal address posted on SpaceX’s X account on Tuesday, Musk said AI revenue will pass every other line of business at SpaceX “probably in September” and pull further ahead by the fourth quarter.
The numbers he gave are specific. SpaceX currently runs 1.4 gigawatts of AI compute capacity. Musk wants that at 10 gigawatts by the end of 2027, a jump he tied directly to revenue: “if we bring 10GW of AI online by the end of next year, it will be $300 billion to $500 billion a year in revenue.” He called those “big numbers,” which undersells a projection larger than what most countries produce in a year.
We made rockets reusable and are rebuilding the internet in space. The next challenge: making life multiplanetary and understanding the true nature of the universe
Watch @ElonMusk deliver a company update to @SpaceX employees pic.twitter.com/5c8rxoCQfu
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) August 11, 2026
Musk went further on where AI fits into SpaceX’s future. “Probably in four or five years, AI will be 99% of the value of SpaceX,” he told staff, adding that digital intelligence would eventually run “a trillion times” ahead of biological intelligence as computing scales. He tied that growth to the company’s founding mission, telling employees “we must win on AI, because the future is overwhelmingly AI and robots,” with the payoff meant to help fund Starship and a Mars program that increasingly runs through Terafab, the joint Tesla, SpaceX and xAI chip plant.
Elon Musk launches TERAFAB: The $25B Tesla-SpaceXAI chip factory that will rewire the AI industry
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None of this is entirely new territory. SpaceX told investors much the same story during its first earnings call as a public company on August 4, where Musk moved the company’s $1 trillion revenue target up a year to 2030 and said Starlink could someday carry a majority of the world’s internet. What the all hands video adds is a hard deadline and a specific power figure Musk had not given publicly before, along with a franker pitch to his own workforce that AI, not launch cadence, is now the thing SpaceX is betting its future on.
The AI revenue itself is not coming from SpaceX training its own models. It is largely Starlink acting as the network layer for xAI’s workloads, plus SpaceX renting out compute capacity directly, the same approach behind the roughly $16 billion the company spent on AI infrastructure in a single quarter.
Musk closed the video with a pitch aimed at recruiting and retention rather than investors, telling employees that anyone who helps SpaceX win the AI race will eventually get the chance to go to the moon or Mars themselves. Whether SpaceX can turn 1.4 gigawatts into 10 in seventeen months is the more immediate question, and one that will show up in quarterly numbers well before anyone leaves Earth.
In a new note to investors on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley analyst Andrew Percoco said that Tesla has one big financial question to answer for investors regarding its Robotaxi rollout, Full Self-Driving software, and Optimus.
Percoco said in the note that, for the most part, investors are still very positive about the direction the company is headed. However, there are some things the firm would like to see, and they have to do with financials.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla bulls are more than convinced that the company’s Full Self-Driving software is proof it can develop physical AI. Financially, however, there are still some questions, especially on elevated spending, which CEO Elon Musk said would occur as the company works to roll out Robotaxi faster and continue developing its Optimus robot.
The latter two are where Tesla will have to prove progress to investors, as Percoco writes that both projects “will require clearer evidence that Robotaxi is scaling and more tangible Optimus proof points to support the ROI on elevated capex.”
Percoco said the second quarter earnings call did not change his long-term thesis of where Tesla is positioned in the AI race, which is out in front. However, there are concerns that weaker gross margins and higher R&D spend will stress financials, and that has “sharpened our (and investors’) focus on measurable progress across Robotaxi and Optimus.”
Additionally, Robotaxi still needs to be proven with more operation in existing cities while maintaining safety but improving how many rides it gives in any given time, he said. For Optimus, Percoco wrote that he is “still looking for evidence beyond commentary around SOP.”
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Morgan Stanley put Percoco in charge of covering Tesla after long-time analyst Adam Jonas transitioned to the automotive side.
Currently, Morgan Stanley has a $415 price target on Tesla and a ‘Hold’ rating on the stock. It is trading at around $330 at the time of publication, which was 2:30 P.M. on the East Coast.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk says flying cars are coming
SpaceX’s next trillion dollar bet has nothing to do with rockets, Musk tells staff
