Tesla has confirmed the shipment of a new batch of its Semi heavy-duty electric trucks, as the official trucks account on the X platform announced that the first shipment consisting of fifty trucks is on its way to the city of Chicago. This announcement is a rare indicator given that the company typically does not disclose delivery figures for this specific model within its usual quarterly reports.
It is worth noting that the deal for the fifty trucks associated with the city of Chicago belongs to the family-owned trucking company HMD Trucking, founded in 1998, which operates a fleet of over 650 trucks, mostly powered by diesel. The company received its first truck on the second of November, becoming the first officially registered Semi truck in the state of Illinois with a total deal cost estimated at around 15 million dollars, which is approximately equivalent to three hundred thousand dollars per truck.
What changes practically?
The trucking company plans to use the first batch of these trucks for local and operational tasks around the city of Chicago, while starting to install dedicated battery charging infrastructure since Tesla's Megacharger network is currently concentrated in the US West Coast corridors. The company conducted operational tests for one of the trucks over a distance exceeding four thousand miles, recording an energy consumption rate of 1.74 kWh per mile, which almost matches Tesla's announced estimates.
Production ambiguity and plant capabilities
Despite Tesla announcing the start of large-scale commercial production at its plant in Sparks, Nevada, and confirming that the plant's design capacity reaches fifty thousand trucks annually, the actual production schedule remains unannounced. The company's quarterly reports are limited to counting sold passenger cars only, making tracking the true production volume dependent on indirect indicators and large order books from companies such as Einride, WattEV, and IMC Logistics.