Elon Musk announced in August of this year that the Tesla Semi truck would finally begin to be delivered to customers before the deadline. And now he claims that a fully loaded Semi can travel 500 miles on a single charge. Tesla has been aiming for 500 miles since the Semi was unveiled in 2017, with Musk tweeting (obviously) that a team had completed the drive with a total vehicle weight of 81,000 pounds.
Tesla team just completed a 500 mile drive with a Tesla Semi weighing in at 81,000 lbs!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 27, 2022
The maximum weight limit for haulers in the United States is currently 80,000 pounds, but electric truck manufacturers are in discussions with lawmakers about raising the bar for EVs. We still don’t know what battery the Semi uses to achieve its target range, but hopefully Elon will reveal more before customers start driving them on US roads.
It’s been over four and a half years since the Tesla Semi Truck was introduced to the world. At the time, it was slated for a 2019 launch, but that’s not the case. But according to Elon Musk, it won’t be long. He says (via Twitter, of course) that it will start shipping later this year. True to its word, the Semi has a range of 500 miles, but no word yet on how big of a battery it’ll need to reach that number.
When it was announced, Tesla promised 0-60mph in a competitive hot hatch for five seconds, albeit without payload. Carrying 36.3 tons in the back, that headline sprint takes nearly 20 seconds. Another promise was a charge rate that could add 400 miles of range in 30 minutes, thanks to a “Megacharger” that made the company’s existing Supercharger look like a triple-A battery.
