Last week, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) investors speculated the possibility of the company announcing a new autonomous semi-truck this month, which would become one of the company’s biggest innovations to date.
This was confirmed by Tesla’s chief executive officer Elon Musk on Wednesday who tweeted that the company would be unveiling their semi Truck along with a test ride scheduled tentatively next month and would be held in Hawthorne.
Musk previously announced last April and last year their plans to announce or unveil a Tesla semi, which would be a commercial truck along with plans for their semi-truck originally announced to be released this month. Semi-trucks usually are known to carry as much as 80,000 pounds while diesel-powered trucks usually equipped with two fuel tanks can run up to 500 miles.
The Tesla co-founder also has been hinting about the company’s intentions and plans to produce heavy trucks for the past year but has now made any direct announcements regarding the matter so far. Reports such as the company aiming to create a truck with a 300-mile range surfaced last month.
Tesla aims to enter the truck industry with an outlook of producing battery-powered heavy duty vehicles that have the capacity to head to head against diesel powered vehicles. Tesla’s semi truck is also speculated to have the capability to travel by as much as 1,000 miles with a single fuel tank.
The company is currently expanding its overall operations after finally releasing its latest Model 3 vehicle which is the company’s most affordable vehicle yet at a starting price of $35,000. Tesla opened its first ever Gigafactory in Nevada at the beginning of the year in preparation for the Model 3 release. The massive $5 billion facility will be producing the battery packs of the said vehicle along with other energy storage products.
Tesla shares rallied last week trading at around $358 on reports of the company producing a semi truck surfaced along with the announcement that they would be cutting the prices of the 100-kilowatt variants of the Model S and Model X vehicles by around $5,000. Tesla shares are expected to rally further in optimism regarding their plans to unveil an electric semi truck. Tesla shares are currently up by 0.96% to $366.23 per share. Aside from the Semi-truck, the stock is also expected to keep moving higher as the company pushes forward with the full production of the Model 3 vehicle and increasing their target deliveries before the end of the year.