8 Years Later: Tesla Semi Delayed Again, Production Now Expected to Begin in Late 2025

Miami Herald

31-05-2025

Ask yourself: how many times can a production date slip before you question the entire project? Elon Musk first unveiled the Tesla Semi in 2017 with a promised 2019 launch. Today, eight years later, that launch remains a mirage.
Musk's original pledge to start building in 2019 vanished without a single factory-built Semi rolling off the line. A handful of pilot trucks appeared at a PepsiCo event in December 2022, yet no volume production followed. Tesla's own quarterly update now pushes the first assembly to late 2025, with meaningful volume still scheduled for 2026. The biggest recent news on the Semi? The walls were up at the Nevada plant. That's a seven-year gap between unveiling and projected mass manufacturing.
Early prices-$150,000 for a 300-mile version, $180,000 for 500 miles-never held firm. Ryder, an early launch partner, slashed its order from 42 to 18 trucks and requested a 28-month extension, blaming "dramatic changes to the Tesla product economics." Simple math suggests each Semi now costs upward of $350,000-double the original quote-undermining the Total Cost of Ownership pitch that once dazzled fleet operators.
Meanwhile, BYD's Class 8 8TT is hauling freight across North America. Customers like Anheuser-Busch, GSC Logistics and Golden State Express operate them on regional routes in California, demonstrating true highway operation (e.g. Port of Oakland to Tracy, CA, including an 8 % grade) with ample range remaining for return trips. Freightliner's eCascadia (a production Class 8 electric tractor designed for regional and highway applications) sees daily highway duty, offering up to 230 miles of range on a full charge and a gross combined weight rating of 82,000 lbs.
Meanwhile, Volvo, Mack, Kenworth, and Peterbilt all have electric Class 8s on the road in the US; leaving Tesla way out in the cold. Tesla's promised 50,000 units per year by 2026? Too little, too late. Nine years overdue, it looks more like a press-release fantasy than an achievable target.
Each new "update"-steel beams up! chargers installed!-serves as a rallying cry for hopeful investors. Yet slide decks and photo ops don't haul cargo or pay off loans. As recently as three weeks ago, facing a shareholder rebellion, Musk was assuring shareholders that he'd "deliver the Semi this year, and it will be huge". For Tesla devotees and shareholders alike, broken timelines transform into a test of faith: miss one deadline, reset the countdown, and wait for the next miracle. How long before investors demand proof over promises?
The Semi's saga underscores a hard truth: grand reveals don't equal delivery. If it were only the Semi, one might give him the benefit of the doubt. But Elon Musk's other undelivered promises include Level 5 full self-driving by end-2020, a $25,000 mass-market Tesla, on-schedule Cybertruck deliveries, next-generation Roadster production in 2020, a fully automated robotaxi network by 2022, human Neuralink clinical trials in 2024, commercial Hyperloop service by 2021, and publicly accessible Boring Company tunnels by 2022.
Musk's gifts lie in hype, not heavy haul. Until Semis exit the prototype hangars en masse, this program remains a stock-price prop, not an industry disruptor. Watch for disappointed and rebellious shareholders at the end of 2025. Fleet managers-and investors-should insist on steel on wheels, not steel beams in Nevada. Plenty of other brands are out there.
Bookmark December 2025 and scope public delivery data. Then ask yourself: will Tesla finally roll real Semis off the line, or will the next slideware date simply become another bullet point in a growing ledger of unmet promises?
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