Tesla wants to leave its mark on heavy-duty transportation with a fully-electric semi that’s planned to go into production in 2019.
The truck is currently in prototype form, and in this video, we see it for the first time testing out in the open since it debuted during a special event at the end of last year.
The short clip posted on YouTube was shot somewhere in the States near a UPS depot, and as expected, the Tesla Semi looks and sounds very fast. Officially, it needs just 5 seconds to sprint from rest to 60mph (96km/h), when it’s not dragging a trailer behind it, or 20 seconds under heavy load.
As all vehicles made by Tesla, the Semi is not only about speed and power. It features a zero-emission range of up to 500 miles (800km), in the top-of-the-line model, for which the automaker is expected to ask about $180,000. Slash $30,000 from that price and you could get a lower model with 300 miles (480km) of range in between charges.
Tesla has already received plenty of interest for the Semi. Despite the company’s history of delaying products, they already have 100 units reserved by PepsiCo, and 125 units reserved by UPS, with the latter being their largest order yet.
All-in-all, the Californian maker has received some 1,500 reservations, with customers including Wal-Mart, J.B. Hunt, Sysco, and Anheuser-Busch, among others.