Ever since its teaser image was first shown online, electric vehicle enthusiasts have been curious to see how the first electric semi-truck from Tesla would look like up close. The manufacturing start-up by CEO Elon Musk had pegged a tentative date of late October for the formal unveiling event of perhaps the largest land vehicle thus far to run on an electric motor. That was the plan, but not anymore.
Musk announced last week that the reveal of the Tesla semi-truck has been delayed. The reason for that was to address the issue of another delay in the company, that of meeting production milestones for their Model 3 sedan.
Event rescheduled again
Elon Musk announced on Twitter last Friday, October 6 that the reveal of Tesla’s electric semi-truck, set for October 26 at the company’s assembly plant in Hawthorne, California, will instead come out next month, on November 16. It is actually the second time the electric car makers had to push back its introduction, with the first date being on September 13.
They also have a sound reason for the postponement. It has something to do with their current hot-selling vehicle, the Model 3.
When it was first introduced in July, the $35,000 Model 3 sedan was supposed to be set for the production of up to 1,500 units for sale and preorders until the end of September. Unfortunately, Tesla only managed to complete an appalling 260, and the decision to delay the intro of their big-rig semi was born out of a diversion of resources to further step up Model 3 production. A statement by the company at the time stresses that they have discerned the issues that led to the production shortfall, and they are confident that their manufacturing bottleneck can be fixed sooner rather than later, once the diverted resources from the semi-truck development are put into effect.
Optimistic attitude
For consumers of Tesla’s electronic vehicles, seeing delays in manufacture and less than stellar production quotas is expected more often than not. Analysts such as Michelle Krebs from Autotrader.com believe that the company has a tendency on making a broad range of promises rather than just a few or a one to focus on in order to deliver. Aside from addressing the Model 3 production problem, Elon Musk is also making contributions to the repair of Puerto Rico’s electrical infrastructure by providing a supply of industrial-sized battery packs and solar panels for electricity generation.
Musk, however, is not at all daunted by the manufacturing issues of Tesla, which he founded in 2003.
While he owns up to promising but failing to deliver at times, he chalks it up to his personal optimism for things, without which he would not have confidence in making electric cars like the Model 3 and semi-truck in the first place.