Elon Musk announced on Saturday via X that mass production of the Tesla Semi electric truck will begin in 2026. The Class 8 vehicle can travel up to 500 miles on a single charge. Production will occur at a dedicated factory near Tesla’s Gigafactory Nevada facility, designed for up to 50,000 units annually once at full capacity. The announcement follows months of construction at the site.

The Tesla Semi was first revealed in November 2017. Elon Musk promised production would start in 2019. Delays arose from battery supply constraints and Tesla’s focus on passenger vehicles. In December 2022, Tesla unveiled a “production version” and delivered initial units to PepsiCo. Volume production did not follow. Tesla operated a low-volume pilot program, delivering a few dozen trucks to partners for testing. Freightwaves reports about 200 Semi trucks have gone to clients including PepsiCo since the soft launch. During the Q3 2025 earnings call, Tesla stated production would slip to 2026, with initial builds in the first half of the year and volume ramping in the second half.

Tesla is expanding charging networks for electric trucking. In January 2025, Pilot Company partnered with Tesla to install Semi Megachargers at about 20 locations in California, Georgia, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas. The sites use V4 charging technology, providing up to 1.2 megawatts per stall. This enables recovery of up to 70 percent of range in 30 minutes. DHL Supply Chain received its first Tesla Semi after a California pilot program. The truck averaged 1.72 kWh per mile while hauling 75,000 pounds over a 390-mile route. DHL plans to grow its Semi fleet as production increases.

The Semi fits into Tesla’s investments in AI, robotics, and energy. Capital expenditures will exceed $20 billion in 2026 to support an advanced lithium refinery in Texas, LFP battery factories, Optimus humanoid robot production, and AI computing infrastructure. “We’ll be paying for six factories namely: the [lithium] refinery, LFP factories, Cybercab, Semi, a new Megafactory, the Optimus factory,” CFO Vaibhav Taneja said during a recent earnings call. Tesla’s energy division shipped 46.7 GWh of energy storage in 2025, a record. The company anticipates margin compression in 2026 from competition and tariffs.

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