February 4, 2021 by Zachary Shahan
How fast can Tesla grow? That’s a question worth a few hundred billion dollars. The answer seems to come down mainly to battery power. Tesla is currently building giant car plants in Germany and Texas, while also expanding its Chinese plant. Battery supply is also increasing, but it seems that it can never catch up with vehicle demand and production capacity.
During Tesla’s last quarterly conference, CEO Elon Musk indicated that they could produce the Tesla Semi – an all-electric semi-truck unveiled a few years ago – if they had enough batteries for it. Fans of electric vehicles, especially climate and air quality hawks, have since been eagerly awaiting the production of this truck as it could so dramatically reduce emissions and seemingly outperform fossil fuel-powered semi trucks based on cost and performance right out of the box. But we’ve waited and waited and waited as Tesla ramped up the capacity of Model 3 and Model Y to become profitable and remain profitable (while also decarbonising many miles of light vehicles).
During the conference call, Tesla indicated that semi-production would start later this year. Now the word on the street means mid-2021, not late 2021.
Expectations of Tesla semi-production
EXCLUSIVE: I interacted with a source from an American Tesla supplier for a few weeks. They supply certain parts for the S, X, 3 and Y, but I’m here to reveal some information about Tesla Semi. As always, take these things with a grain of salt. Things / timelines can change.
1/6
– Sawyer Merritt 📈🚀 (@SawyerMerritt) February 4, 2021
Whether final assembly will take place in both Nevada and Texas or will eventually just switch to Giga Texas when the plant is ready is unclear.
3/6
– Sawyer Merritt 📈🚀 (@SawyerMerritt) February 4, 2021
Total construction projection:
2021: 2,500
2022: 10,000
2023: 25,000
2024: 25,000Production will start in the EU in 2023.
5/6
– Sawyer Merritt 📈🚀 (@SawyerMerritt) February 4, 2021
I may have additional information to share at a later date 🙂
– Sawyer Merritt 📈🚀 (@SawyerMerritt) February 4, 2021
That makes a bit more sense. Annual sales of Class 8 trucks in the US are ~ 200-250,000 units.
Obviously, not all production is for the US market, but it is still a significant market share they are aiming for. But I expect at least 2 years from the start of production to achieve that.
– Tavi (@tavi_chocochip) February 4, 2021
Personally, the Semi is the Tesla model that I have found most exciting since Model 3. There is so much potential to reduce pollution, the vehicle is so smooth and smooth, the capabilities for truck autonomous vehicles are great, and dozens of big companies – Semis ordered, with strong demand for (or at least interest in) the new vehicle.
An estimate of 50,000 semi-truck sales per year seems reasonable. For now. Once Tesla Semi trucks are fully self-driving, the value of the trucks appears attractive enough to lead to many more annual sales.
Tesla Giga Berlin is coming
Another tweet about Tesla caught my attention as a further indication that Tesla’s production ramps are going reasonably well. Alex Voigt noted on the German Tesla website that the site now says under Model Y, “Production is expected to start in mid-2021.”
🇩🇪 Giga Berlin
Now officially on the German order page
“Production is expected to start mid-2021” !!! pic.twitter.com/jxFx6r8JJL
– Alex (@alex_avoigt) February 3, 2021
Production of Model Y (and / or Model 3) in Germany would quickly make the company a three-continent manufacturer, with mass production of Model Y (and probably Model 3) on every continent. Tesla is already producing the Model 3 and Model Y in the US and China. The production of Model 3 and Model Y in Germany also means that costs can drop, as certain fees (such as import duties) would no longer plague the model.
Let us know if you have any more firsts on Tesla vehicle production – be it semi-production, production in Berlin, or production plans for Mars.
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About the author
Zachary Shahan tries to help society, word for word. He spends most of his time here CleanTechnica as director, editor-in-chief and CEO. Zach is recognized worldwide as an expert in electric vehicles, solar energy and energy storage. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the US, Canada and Curacao. Zach has long-term investments in NIO [NIO], Tesla [TSLA], and Xpeng [XPEV]. But he does not offer investment advice in any way (explicit or implicit).