Elon Musk announces Tesla all-electric semi truck reveal
Tesla hopes to unveil its new all-electric semi truck on Oct. 26, founder and CEO Elon Musk tweeted on Thursday. The heavy duty long-haul truck -- "this beast," as Musk described it in his tweet -- is the company's first foray into commercial vehicles.
Tesla Semi truck unveil & test ride tentatively scheduled for Oct 26th in Hawthorne. Worth seeing this beast in person. It's unreal.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 13, 2017
At the company's annual shareholder meeting in June, Musk said Tesla was involving companies that utilize heavy-duty trucks in the design process, suggesting that the company's main issue wouldn't be creating demand but having enough supply.
"The biggest customers of the heavy-duty Tesla semi are helping [Tesla] ensure that it is specified to their needs; so it's not a mystery," Musk said. "It's going to really just be a question of scaling of volume to make as many as we can."
Musk also said he expected the company can meet the demand for the semi-truck within two years. At the time, the big rig's unveil was expected to take place at the end of September
It is not the only production challenge Tesla is facing. The company announced last month it was planning a $1.5 billion bond offering to raise money to manufacture its $35,000 Model 3 cars. Musk said in a conference call with analysts that Tesla was anticipating "at least six months of manufacturing hell" as it pushed to meet the goal of churning out 5,000 Model 3s per week by December. As of August, Tesla had 455,000 orders for the Model 3.