Tesla moves to electrify trucking after a decade of work and delays

Little late to the party there Elon.

Most trucks I pass on the road daily are already electric in my part of Europe. Seems like all the big European companies, especially Mercedes, are pushing them out the door as fast as they can.

What a silly puff piece that ignores a whole host of history, and leaves with more questions than answers.

Not a single mention of Pepsi, or UPS who largely canceled their orders after waiting in Pepsi's case seven years to get 36 trucks.

But wait, it was parts and battery shortage! Except Tesla, you already said it wasn't batteries back in 2024.

Well, parts, battery shortages, the pandemic, semiconductors... and poor design on windows... completely changing axle lubrication...

But finally! You can order as many trucks as you'd like! Wait, that's what they told Pepsi and UPS, who ordered about 1,000 each. See what happened the last time they promised that!

> though charging infrastructure remains a hurdle, a person familiar with the matter told TechCrunch on the condition of anonymity

You will have a hard time charging them, when you get them, but you can order them and give Tesla your money now, and isn't that what really matters?

> “We fully admit we were wrong about the windows,” he said. “Turns out there’s a lot of infrastructure in the world, whether it’s a badge reader, or your toll booth, or you’re talking to somebody on a call box. There’s all kinds of stuff right at that height, and it became evident that we needed a roll-down window in order to make that infrastructure easier to interface with.”

If there's ever a tale of "Life at Tesla" beyond dealing with Musk... it's "Tech bros think they know better than domain experts".

> While Musk was missing, he did pre-tape a segment that ran before the event started. In the video, he said the Semi will be the “funnest truck to drive.”

Oh, well, that's a commercial driving priority, let's be clear.

> He also promised Tesla’s partial automation features (curiously missing from the Semi despite the years of delays) will be added in the “near future.”

No way. FSD for trucks is "Coming soon. Near future." We'll be able to set our clocks by it! This year. For sure. Or next. But real soon now.

What an utterly uncredulous article.