First Tesla Semi Rolls Off High-Volume Production Line in Nevada
Nine years after Tesla unveiled its battery-electric Class 8 tractor, the company started building it on a dedicated line designed for up to 50,000 trucks a year.
In April 2026, Tesla moved its battery-electric Semi from a pilot program to series manufacturing. The first truck came off the company's new high-volume Semi production line near Reno, Nevada, on April 29, 2026, Transport Topics and Electrek reported. Tesla marked the milestone by posting a photo of the truck on its official Tesla Semi account on X.
The plant sits next to Tesla's Gigafactory Nevada. Electrek described it as a dedicated 1.7-million-square-foot factory designed for annual capacity of 50,000 trucks, while noting that Tesla planned to ramp up gradually. According to Transport Topics, site work began in 2023, construction of the factory finished in October 2025, and the production line was installed in the first quarter of 2026.
A long road to production
Tesla first showed the Semi in 2017 and originally slated production for 2019. That date slipped several times. The company delivered its first trucks to PepsiCo in late 2022, but those early units were essentially hand-built on a pilot line, Electrek reported.
On its first-quarter earnings call on April 22, CEO Elon Musk said Tesla would "begin production of our semi-truck soon," FreightWaves reported, and cautioned that output would start slowly before speeding up later in the year and into 2027. Tesla's shareholder update said the Semi was "on schedule for volume production starting in 2026."
Tesla executives have repeatedly flagged battery, cathode and lithium supply chains as critical constraints, FreightWaves reported. Electrek noted that the 4680 cells used in the Semi are made in the same Nevada complex, which removes a bottleneck that had forced Tesla to prioritize its passenger cars for battery supply.
What Tesla is selling
Tesla released final production specifications for the Semi on February 8, 2026. The North American lineup has two versions:
- Standard Range: about 325 miles of range, with a curb weight under 20,000 pounds.
- Long Range: about 500 miles of range, with a curb weight of about 23,000 pounds.
Electrek reported that both versions use an 800-kilowatt, three-motor drivetrain and support charging at up to 1.2 megawatts on Tesla's Megachargers, which it said can restore 60% of range in about 30 minutes. Electrek also reported quoted prices of about $290,000 for the Long Range version and about $260,000 for the Standard Range.
The Semi enters a market where rival battery-electric trucks have shipped in limited numbers. Nikola, once seen as a direct challenger, filed for bankruptcy in February 2025.
What it means for drivers and fleets
Volume production makes the Semi a real option for fleet planners rather than a pilot-program truck, but Tesla itself has said output will start slowly, so availability in 2026 is likely to be limited.
The practical tests are the same as for any battery-electric tractor: whether daily routes fit within 325 or 500 miles, how much payload is lost to battery weight, and whether depot or public megawatt charging is available along the lanes they run.