Tesla is slowly ramping up production of its all-electric Semi truck despite a number of high-profile breakdowns. Now, one source says that a number of those incidents come down to malfunctioning screens that relay important driver information. Evidently, these broken-down trucks end up towed to a “secret” location in Lathrop, California.
The Semi went into production late last year and since then, at least eight have “broken down”. To be clear, neither Tesla nor Frito Lay has said anything about the causes surrounding those instances. What we can be sure of is that the trucks in question needed a tow to get home. Now, a new report claims to know the cause of at least a few of the failures.
More: Pepsi’s Tesla Semi Spotted Apparently Being Towed Away
Teslarati is reporting that screens that flicker or turn off altogether are the reason that we’ve seen a number of Tesla Semis break down. The full quote relating to its source says:
“According to a source close to the operation in Modesto, drivers are pulling over their Semis as a precaution, as the glitch is causing the dash screens and lights on those screens to flicker and sometimes shut off. “They don’t know what to do,” said the person who did not want to be identified. “So they just pull over, and then they are towed.”
Certainly, a non-functional screen that normally reports speed, safety warnings, battery level and more would make any journey riskier. From a driver’s standpoint, it’s likely less of an issue to simply pull over and wait for help considering the many unknowns that come along with such a new vehicle. That likelihood goes up if they’re still hundreds of miles from their destination.
The report also claims that a tow truck driver has confirmed that at least a few of the affected Semis have been towed to a ‘secret’ location in Lathrop, California. Lathrop is notable because Tesla has a new battery energy storage system “Megafactory’ there. It manufactures the aptly-named Megapack at that site and likely has all the diagnostic tools it could possibly need there to fix screen glitch issues on Semi.
