Oof! Tesla has built so few trucks so far

It’s not good for Tesla. The Cybertruck is a prayer without end and is being overtaken by the competition everywhere, the new Roadster doesn’t seem to be coming at all and production of the Semi, an electric truck, is very slow.

The Tesla Semi was introduced in 2017. CEO Elon Musk then said, of course, that the truck would be on the road as early as 2019. “If you order one now, you’ll get it in two years,” he literally promised.

PepsiCo received the first Tesla Semi in December 2022

Like Musk’s promises, they have not been fulfilled. The first semis were not shipped to the first customer, PepsiCo, until December 2022. In the last few months, several broken specimens have been spotted along the road, writes Motortrend, among others.

No more than thirty-six units were built

Tesla has now initiated a recall. The Semi must have a software update as a warning system would not work properly. Means nothing.

The only interesting thing is that we can see in the recall documents how many semis were built in total. And that’s just thirty-six between November 30, 2022 and March 15, electrek.co scoffed, the exact number supplied to PepsiCo.

Tesla also had to carry out a recall earlier this year. The problem then lay with a supplier and other manufacturers also had to recall trucks. But then it turned out that between November 30th and February 28th 35 semis were built.

Tesla is facing a battery shortage

Tesla can reportedly build five Semis a week, but only produced one between February 28th and March 15th. Tesla has now conceded that mass production is not expected to begin until the end of this year. The company would be struggling with a battery shortage.

The first semis were handed over to PepsiCo in December with great fanfare. Since then, no other customer has received Tesla trucks. Tesla’s original goal was to build 50,000 semi trucks by 2024. That now seems unlikely.