In what appears to be a non-denial denial, Elon Musk seems to have confirmed that the first Tesla Semi deliveries will take place this year.
In an interview earlier this week on CNBC, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said his company was receiving their first Tesla Semi trucks “this Q4.”
The statement was at odds with previous direction from Tesla that due to battery and supply constraints, production of the electric semi wouldn’t begin until 2023.
It did however support an earlier announcement from Pepsi that they were expecting to receive 15 Tesla Semi trucks this year.
Following Laguarta’s comments, many thought he misspoke, or simply wasn’t aware of Tesla’s revised timeline.
Now it appears as though he knew exactly what he was saying.
When asked about the potential deliveries on Twitter today, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a poor attempt at squashing the rumour.
Please don’t read too much into this. As mentioned publicly, Tesla is constrained by chip supply short-term & cell supply long-term.
Not possible to produce additional vehicles in volume until both constraints are addressed.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 13, 2021
Nowhere in the statement above does Musk deny Laguarta’s claim, something that would have been very easy to do.
Instead, he refers to the fact that volume production can’t begin until the supply issues for chips and battery cells are resolved, something we already knew.
That seems to leave the door wide open for perhaps a handful of Semi deliveries to PepsiCo this year. The deal could be part of a project that will help Tesla test the new vehicles and gain valuable data from real-world situations hauling goods.
What do you think? Will we see some Tesla Semi deliveries this year? Let us know in the comments below.
