Tesla's Semi reaches customers ahead of a published price

A fleet buyer adding the Semi to next year's capital plan can fill in most of the row from Thursday's presentation. Tesla says a fully loaded truck now uses about 1,700 Wh per mile, against an original target of 2,000 ^[14]. Dan Priestley, Tesla's director of Semi truck engineering, stressed that the 500-mile figure comes from trucks run fully loaded, with no payload dropped along the way ^[12]. The price cell is harder to fill. The most specific figure in circulation comes from an Electrek report earlier this year that Tesla was quoting customers $290,000 for the 500-mile truck ^[7].

In 2017 Tesla advertised $180,000 for that version and $150,000 for a 300-mile one ^[8]. The reported quote is $110,000 higher, about 61 percent above the old list ^[1]. Tesla argues the Semi is cheaper to run than diesel, citing lower energy costs and far fewer parts to maintain ^[15]. With US diesel above $6.50 a gallon, nearly double a year earlier according to The Verge ^[16], the running-cost half of that argument is easy to accept. The premium those savings must repay is still a figure each fleet gets from its own sales quote ^[7].

The pitch came from Elon Musk, who was at a state dinner in Washington and appeared in a pre-recorded message ^[17]. "This is really going to be a revolutionary truck," Musk said, "that is capable of carrying the heaviest loads over very long distances. With ease of recharge, Megacharger that's capable of a megawatt of power. This is really going to be a phenomenal truck." ^[18] What Tesla has done is narrower. Volume production started in April ^[1], seven years after the 2019 start it first planned ^[9][3].

The customer slide needs the same separation. Vendors present logos as demand. A buyer reading this list learns less: it mixed new names with old ones ^[3], and PepsiCo's first handful of trucks in 2022 were essentially built by hand on a pilot line ^[10]. Most of this year's names reached the public early because a YouTuber flew a drone over the Sparks site ^[4]. A logo confirms that a peer runs at least one Semi. Against a plant Tesla rates at 1,000 trucks a week ^[2], the useful number for a buyer is how many of those slots are already spoken for.

The engineering figures are the part a planner can use now. At 1,700 Wh per mile, a fully loaded 500-mile run draws about 850 kWh, against 1,000 kWh at the original target ^[2]. Tesla says that efficiency, plus the switch from purchased 2170 cells to its own 4680 cells, let it fit a lower-mass, lower-kWh battery without losing range ^[19]. Lars Moravy, Tesla's vice president of engineering, said a truck carrying around 60,000 pounds could potentially reach about 600 miles ^[13]. A fleet running at the full 82,000-pound gross weight should plan on the loaded figures ^[11].

The decision splits on two questions. One is whether a fleet's heaviest daily route fits the Standard Range truck or needs the Long Range one ^[11]. The other is whether the fleet holds a written Tesla quote. A Standard Range route with a quote is ready for a per-mile comparison. A Long Range route with a quote needs that comparison plus a charging plan, because 500 loaded miles is the limit ^[12]. Either route without a quote is a pilot, sized to what the fleet can afford to learn.

For the comparison, break-even distance is the quoted price minus the price of the diesel tractor the Semi would replace, divided by the per-mile saving. That saving is diesel cost per mile, minus 1.7 kWh times the fleet's electricity rate ^[14], plus any maintenance difference the fleet can document. If the break-even distance is longer than the truck will run before replacement, the quote fails on that route.