Tesla lands order for up to 2,500 Semis

(Tesla)

Tesla landed an order for as many as 2,500 of its Semi Class 8 tractors from a coalition backed by a group of shippers, with the first trucks to be delivered in the fourth quarter of 2026, the nonprofits that organized the coalition said.

The battery-electric trucks will be leased to shippers and carriers by the coalition — the Zero-Emission Truck Shipper-Carrier Alliance Leading Electrification (ZET SCALE) — through its financing arm, ZET Financial.

All 2,500 trucks will be delivered by Tesla within 18 months, said a spokeswoman for Catalyst Mobility, which organized a request for proposals from truck makers alongside fellow nonprofit Smart Freight Centre.

The trucks will be purchased by ZET Financial and then leased out to shippers and carriers, the spokeswoman added in a Sept. 22 email. Catalyst Mobility was until earlier in September known as CALSTART.

“ZET SCALE’s goals are exciting because they take the operational cost advantage and predictability that electricity provides and amplifies it at scale,” Tesla Semi program chief Dan Priestley said in a statement accompanying the announcement.

Other trucks available

ZET SCALE evaluated price, range, charging capability and production capacity before choosing Tesla as its primary original equipment manufacturer, it said in a Sept. 22 statement. But if individual carriers want a different truck, that will be an alternative; Kenworth, RIDE and Volvo Trucks North America were named as secondary OEMs carriers can select to meet their specific needs.

The ZET SCALE deal is Tesla’s biggest for the Semi in North America, which is the only market for the tractor until late 2027, when it will begin deliveries to customers in Europe, Transport Topics learned recently.

Until now, Einride was the biggest single customer for Tesla, announcing in August that its transport-as-a-service division would be adding 500 Semi trucks to its North American fleet. Those trucks will be deployed over the next two years. The purchase will triple the size of Einride’s TaaS fleet, expanding its network across North America.

Tesla began ramping up serial production for the Semi at its Reno, Nev., factory in April. Priestley told IAA Transportation attendees in Hannover, Germany, on Sept. 15 that Tesla planned to begin hosting carrier visits at the factory during the week of Sept. 21.

The executive said in a speech at the 2026 Advanced Clean Transportation Expo in May that “many thousands” of Semis would be built by the end of 2026.

ZET SCALE’s members include PepsiCo, Ikea, Red Bull and Microsoft.

“Microsoft is working to turn our sustainability commitments into operational reality,” said Nico De Golia director of sustainability for cloud supply chain global operations at Microsoft. “Our participation in ZET SCALE does that for road freight, by signaling real demand for electric trucks so the low-carbon option becomes competitive for moving our cloud infrastructure.”

PepsiCo ranks No. 2 on the Transport Topics Top 100 list of the largest private carriers in North America and was the primary fleet involved in initial tests of the Semi.

The expected hubs for deployment of the trucks include Southern California/Los Angeles, Northern California/Stockton, Central California/Bakersfield, Seattle/Tacoma, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, the Chicago area, Atlanta, and Northern New Jersey/Newark/New York City.

ZET SCALE has ambitions to put 10,000 battery-electric trucks on the road.