The Strategist

Who ordered Elon Musk's electric trucks?



01/11/2018 - 15:13



The European automotive market opened pre-orders for the Tesla Semi electric truck, launched last fall.



David van der Mark via flickr
David van der Mark via flickr
Electric Tesla Semi can now be ordered in the Netherlands, Norway and the UK. The Norwegian "Asko" ordered 10 trucks for the current year. In the United States and Canada, more than 1,000 units have been ordered.

In the UK, the Tesla electric truck is available in two versions with a range of 300 and 500 miles (483 and 805 km). The basic version costs £ 110 thousand (€ 124,084), and you will have to pay £ 140 thousand (€ 157925) for the largest mileage on a single charge.

In total, Tesla has already received more than 1 thousand orders for the electric truck. It should be noted that the mass production of Tesla Semi is scheduled only for the next year.

Walmart became one of the first large companies to reserve trucks. The retailer has recently been very active in investing in technological development in order to compete with Amazon.

The famous manufacturer of soft drinks PepsiCo made the largest pre-order for the purchase of trucks. As a result of this transaction, Tesla's bank account was replenished immediately by $ 2 million. Pre-order requires a deposit of $ 20,000 for each car; thus, already now Tesla has received $ 2 million. If the final price for the truck is $ 150 thousand, then the total amount of the deal will be $ 15 million.

It is noted that PepsiCo is going to use Tesla Semi trucks to transport goods and beverages between production and distribution companies, as well as to deliver goods to retail outlets within a radius of 800 km.

The American brewing company Anheuser-Busch, the second largest in the world after InBev and the largest in the US, ordered 40 trucks in December.

Sysco has pre-ordered 50 cars, logistics companies UPS and DHL ordered 125 and 10 tractors, respectively. Ryder transport company, Norwegian postal service Posten Norge and J.B. Hunt Transport Services, Inc. freight carrier want to buy an unnamed number of cars. Distributor Asko ordered 10 trucks.

Four trucks were ordered by Meijer, a food company from Michigan.

Canadian Fortigo Freight Services, Best Transportation, Mecca & Son Trucking, Flexport: Ryan Peterson ordered one truck each.

Recall that Tesla reported a loss for the III quarter in the amount of $ 619 million. This is the largest quarterly loss in the history of the company. Last year, during the same period, the company received $ 22 million in profit. The manufacturer of electric vehicles explained the losses by the costs of developing Model 3 production and covering the demand for Model S and Model X. Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk said that the company is plunged into "production hell".

The adjusted loss per share was $ 2.92, which is significantly higher than the average forecast of analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters at $ 2.28. Due to a 36% increase in sales of Model X, Tesla's revenue in the third quarter jumped by 30% to $ 2.98 billion. This surpassed expectations of experts who forecast this figure at $ 2.95 billion.

The problem with the slow pace of production is pursued by Tesla throughout the company's existence. Tesla will require significant investment, and therefore Elon Musk forces its customers to purchase cars on a prepayment basis. In this case, the release of treasured electric vehicles can be delayed for many years.

Those buyers who want to become owners of the new model of the sports car Roadster, will have to pay an initial payment of $ 250 thousand. This is despite the fact that the car will appear on the market at least 2 years later. A total of 1 thousand cars are available for the order, this is $ 250 million. Companies can also pay for the registration of an order for Semi $ 20 thousand electric truck, although the production will start only in 2019.

In addition, Tesla is experiencing serious problems with quality of the conveyor assembly of manufactured cars. According to statements of the former and current employees of the company, problems with the quality of the assembly have been preserved since 2012. In an interview with Reuters 9, a number of former Tesla employees also stated that the quality control of the Tesla Model S and Model X conveyor assemblies regularly detected defects that are present in the "more than 90% of the produced cars".

source: gearbrain.com




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