A very interesting set of rumors about the upcoming Tesla Semi electric truck was posted by Teslas enthusiast and investor Sawyer Merritt today.
According to the tweets (see at the end of this post), one of the Tesla suppliers that is already involved in the Model S / X / 3 / Y cars revealed that it started working on “things” related to the Semi in the fourth quarter of 2020.
The Semi body will be produced at the Tesla Factory in Fremont, California, but final assembly is expected to take place at the Tesla Gigafactory in Nevada (initially) or at the Tesla Giga Austin in Texas (once completed).
“It is not clear whether the final assembly will take place in Nevada and Texas or, eventually, only move to Giga Texas when the plant is ready.”
The acceleration roadmap is very interesting:
- RC (Release Candidate) series to be produced in May 2021
- Pilot series production will begin in July 2021
- Serial production will begin in August 2021 (the day taxi version)
About 350 vehicles will be produced by the end of August 2021. Then, the production rate will gradually increase to 100 a week until the end of 2021 and 500 a week until the end of 2022. In the meantime, the company will present the long cab version.
The projected annual production volume is:
- 2021: 2,500
- 2022: 10,000
- 2023: 25,000 (here the European version of the Semi to join the program)
- 2024: 25,000
As we can see, the production volume is expected to stabilize in 2023-2024 at 25,000, according to the rumor.
We cannot verify any of these numbers, but at least we have some data to discuss and relate. Certainly, the first milestone of 2,500 units in 2021 would be quite strong. No one has produced electric trucks of any kind in such a high number in the United States yet.