Tesla’s first major Semi Truck factory will be in Nevada and not Texas.
Tesla’s reported plans for a $3.5 billion facility in Northern Nevada, which would be used for the production of the company’s Class 8 all-electric truck, the Tesla Semi.
Tesla has over 2000 orders for the Semi and is targeting 50,000 per year in 2024. This new factory should surpass that production target. Tesla will need to make Semi factories in Europe and most in Asia. 70% of the large and Semi trucks are sold and used in Asia. China buys up to 2 million per year and Japan up to 600,000 per year while Europe buys 350,000-400,000 and the US 250,000 to 300,000 per year.
Nevada Governor Lombardo highlighted that the central focus of his economic and business strategy is to reposition Nevada as a state which supports businesses and development. The Governor noted that among the most promising avenues for growth in Nevada is providing incentives for the development and expansion of new businesses and industries. Among these investments is a $3.5 billion facility from Tesla.
Tesla is already operating a facility to produce the Tesla Semi in Nevada. However, the facility, which is situated close to Gigafactory Nevada, is only producing low volumes of the vehicle. Considering that Elon Musk has noted in the past that Tesla is aiming for 50,000 Tesla Semi units in 2024, a facility that can produce the all-electric Class 8 truck en masse is definitely needed.
I have videos describing how the Tesla Semi and technology used in the Cybertruck will give Tesla dominance in annual $2 trillion per year trucking industry. This will be one of the largest impacts over the next two decades business and the world. It is like the rise of shipping containers. This will reduce the cost of the supply chain and reduce oil usage by 20 million barrels per day. It costs about 5-10% of the value of a product to deliver it to the customer and moving parts also adds costs. Tesla Electric trucks will remove 17% of the costs initially but this will improve with platooning of vehicles to reduce drag and then with other automated driving.
Tesla has a clear 30%+ price and performance advantage over competing electric Semi trucks as seen in this table I created from information from competing electric truck specifications.
Tesla Semi advantage come from tuning the Tesla Plaid motors. There are three motors in the Tesla Semi and one if tuned for cruise mode and two are activating during acceleration and climbing hills or in reverse for regenerative braking.
Tesla Semi and Megapack are also the key to high volume profitable battery usage for Master Plan 3.
There has been great concern for Tesla shareholders that there are problems with Tesla’s future growth. In a global recession, there has been a decrease to 45% delivery growth instead of over 50% from 2021 to 2022. There has “only” been an increase in net income trailing 12 months from $3.5 billion to over $11 billion. Just a triple in net income.
The Tesla Semi was released and it showed over 500 miles of fully loaded range. Over 44 tons of payload. This compares to the electric Freightliner semi truck with a maximum range of 230 miles.
Tesla has solved the efficient towing of large payloads with 30-40% more efficiency than its nearest competitors. This is a huge advantage. Mercedes and others said this would be impossible. How many years does it take to double heavy truck range and catch up to what you said was impossible?
This says to me that Tesla is all alone with powerful large, medium and even powerful pickup trucks and will be all alone for a decade.
Domination of medium and heavy trucks is a $1 trillion a year business using 3 terawatt-hours per year in batteries and requiring 4-6 terawatts of megapacks for reinforcing and buffering the electrical grid means Tesla goes from 150 GWh/year of batteries to 8-10 terawatt-hours per year in 15-20 years and it is 50X growth. Getting to 2-3 terawatt-hours per year by 2030 is 15-20X from today.
Tesla executing on increasing production is the main uncertainty and it is why Elon Musk and Tesla are talking about Master Plan 3.
I have done the analysis that shows the Pepsi delivery day was the real start of Tesla Master Plan 3.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.
A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
very hard to understand if tesla semi is so obviously a winner why they only have 2k orders.
where is the demand (incl pent up demand)?
how does this compare with the expectation of 50k sold in 2024?
cyber has has a huge demand, and many many preorders.
why are there so few semi preorders (espec now that semi is no longer vaporware)?
do we actually know what a semi costs to purchase?
We do not know the current total orders with deposits yet. Tesla has not announced, but Tesla executives have enough confidence to commit $3.5 billion for a new factory and set a target of 50,000 Semi trucks in 2024.