Tesla electrifying trucking industry

Associated Press

DETROIT

After more than a decade of making cars and SUVs – and, more recently, solar panels – Tesla Inc. wants to electrify a new type of vehicle: big trucks.

The company unveiled its new electric semitractor-trailer Thursday night near its design center in Hawthorne, Calif.

CEO Elon Musk said the semi is capable of traveling 500 miles on an electric charge – even with a full 80,000-pound load – and will cost less than a diesel semi considering fuel savings, lower maintenance and other factors. Musk said customers can put down a $5,000 deposit for the semi now, and production will begin in 2019.

“We’re confident that this is a product that’s better in every way from a feature standpoint,” Musk told a crowd of Tesla fans gathered for the unveiling. Musk didn’t reveal the semi’s price.

Even so, the company already is starting to get orders. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, said in a statement Friday that it has pre-ordered five Tesla units in its Walmart U.S. division and 10 units at Walmart Canada. Midwest retailer Meijer said it has reserved four trucks. And Arkansas trucking company J.B. Hunt said it has reserved “multiple” tractors that it will deploy on the West Coast but didn’t specify how many.

The truck will have Tesla’s Autopilot system, which can maintain a set speed and slow down automatically in traffic. It also has a system that automatically keeps the vehicle in its lane. Musk said several Tesla semis will be able to travel in a convoy, autonomously following each other.

Musk said Tesla plans a worldwide network of solar-powered “megachargers” that could get the trucks back up to 400 miles of range after charging for only 30 minutes.

The move fits with Musk’s stated goal for the company of accelerating the shift to sustainable transportation. Trucks account for nearly a quarter of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S., according to government statistics.

But the semi also piles on more chaos at the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company. Tesla is way behind on production of the Model 3, a new lower-cost sedan, with some customers facing waits of 18 months or more. It’s also ramping up production of solar panels after buying Solar City Corp. last year. Tesla is working on a pickup truck and a lower-cost SUV and negotiating a new factory in China. Meanwhile, the company posted a record quarterly loss of $619 million in its most recent quarter.