CNN business
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Tesla made the first delivery of its semi truck to a customer on Thursday night, five years after the hauler was first unveiled. The event included Pepsi and his two trucks and his cabs adorned with Frito-Lay liveries, PepsiCo’s snack food subsidiary.
Tesla Semi was the first Shown as a prototype in 2017At the time, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said production would begin in 2019. But Musk didn’t say how many trucks were actually delivered to PepsiCo, or how many were being produced, during Thursday night’s presentation at Tesla’s factory in Sparks, Nevada. Or how fast.
All-electric semi trucks feature an unusual design in which the driver sits in the center of the cab instead of on one side. Tesla boasts of the truck’s performance, saying it accelerates much faster, even when fully loaded, than conventional diesel-powered semi-his trucks. According to Tesla, a video during the presentation showed a fully loaded Tesla accelerating down a steep grade and overtaking other trucks.
Musk says it’s much easier to drive than other semi trucks because it doesn’t have a multi-gear transmission like a diesel truck. According to Tesla, this truck allows him to travel 500 miles on a single charge. There are three electric motors, of which he one drives the truck most of the time, the other he two are mainly used for acceleration and traction. Tesla claims the truck can pull up to 82,000 pounds.
Musk and Dan Priestley, Tesla’s senior manager of truck engineering, also boasted of a new “megawatt” ultra-fast charger used to quickly charge truck batteries. You didn’t mention how long it takes. These chargers will be available to Cyber truck drivers when their Tesla pickup trucks go on sale, Musk said.
According to Priestley, regenerative braking—the way electric vehicles use motors to slow down and use the movement of the vehicle itself to charge its batteries—will also be a safety advantage. Don’t use the truck’s actual brakes at all.
However, Tesla’s Autopilot system, which was touted as an advantage for long-haul truck drivers in its first presentation five years ago, was not mentioned in the presentation.
Replace petrol- and diesel-powered trucks with electric trucks According to a recent report by the American Lung Association, it could greatly improve human health and even save tens of thousands of lives. Musk also talked about these benefits during the presentation, plus noise reduction benefits for people living near highways.
But what complicates things between Tesla and PepsiCo is Musk’s recent tweet about his appreciation for Coca-Cola products. Coca-Cola is Pepsi’s biggest competitor. Musk, who now runs his Twitter as well as Tesla, has released a photo of his table by his bedside, showing, among other things, his four empty cans of Coke on his diet. On Monday, he tweeted in response to someone’s post about his Diet Coke product, writing, “I don’t like the name, but the drink itself is amazing and brings me joy.”
When asked a few days before the presentation how it reacted to Musk’s public display of affection for Diet Coke, PepsiCo did not respond.
PepsiCo Foods North America CEO Steven Williams and PepsiCo Beverages North America CEO Kirk Tanner appeared at the end of the presentation to thank Musk for allowing them to participate in the Semi Truck program.
