Tesla and Nikola Competition Heats Up as Tesla Plans to Speed up Semi-Truck Production

In November 2017, Tesla first unveiled its Semi all-electric trucks, and are now set to go into mass production. The trucks were scheduled to arrive in 2019, however, delivery dates were rescheduled to 2021 due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Tesla has decided to ramp up production due to fast rising competition from Nikola. In a leaked Tesla internal memo discovered by Reuters, Elon Musk was revealed asking his team to go “all-out” for mass production of the electric truck.

Musk’s response about the leaked document was in affirmation of it after a twitter user questioned the authenticity of the leaked email. Musk took to Twitter and responded with a ‘Yes’. The content of the leaked image read thus:

“It’s time to go all out and bring the Tesla Semi to volume production. t’s been in limited production so far, which has allowed us to improve many aspects of the design. Production of the battery and powertrain would take place at Giga Nevada, with most of the other work probably occurring in other states. Jerome and I are very excited to work with you to bring this amazing product to market!” (Jerome Guillen is Tesla’s President of Automotive)

The leaked email which was supposed to be confidential eventually led to the surge of Tesla’s stock prices on Wednesday, passing Toyota by a few points to become the world’s most valuable car company.

While Tesla’s intention was to official lunch delivery of the trucks in 2021, the heated between the company and Nikola has caused a few changes. Tesla said the trucks will be of two variants and they will be able to cover distances of between 300 and 500 miles range, covered with maximum load. It is said that the trucks come with a warranty for one million miles. However, there has been no official confirmation concerning the details of its battery size. Though Tesla claims that the trucks can accelerate from zero to 60 mph with 40-ton load in 20 seconds.

Read more about Nikola Motors here.