It’s a delicate moment for Tesla, with both fans and investors watching the rollout of its first mass-market car intensely. Now they are tuning in to see a truck, because it’s Tesla. The usual audience for freight innovation is far more niche. But when Elon Musk talks trucks, his fans whistle and shout.
The reveal event was held in the shadow of two of Musk’s other pet projects: SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket and a mile-long hyperloop tunnel. Both served as reminders that this was no ordinary company, and no ordinary truck.
Musk appeared Thursday night in Hawthorne, California, to show off his company’s newest vehicle, promising a range in the neighborhood of 500 miles for the Class 8 heavy-duty vehicle. Earlier reports pegged the range between 200 and 300 miles, but Musk delighted in besting those numbers in his remarks, including his claim that the truck has a 400-mile range with 30 minutes of charging. Musk had also promised self-driving abilities, and Tesla says this delivers at least semi-autonomous capability.
In the hours before the official reveal, Tesla showed not one, but two trucks to journalists ahead of the unveiling: a standard model and another with an aerodynamics package. There were tense moments leading up to the reveal, with Tesla employees buzzing around nervously.
The vehicles were parked in a studio facing up to competing diesel-powered trucks from Freightliner and International. Compared to the internal combustion engine models, the Tesla Semi…