Tesla has secured a range of appointments for its all-electric Tesla Semi truck, a few of which have become public, consisting of Anheuser-Busch, PepsiCo and Walmart. However those truck bookings, which now cost about $20,000 a pop, were limited to North American clients.
Tesla has now updated its Tesla Semi reservations to formally (and publicly) open it up to new markets, such as the Netherlands, Norway, and the UK.
No less than one European company, Italy-based trucking company Fercam, secured a booking in the week after Tesla Semi’s launch. But the company made the order through its U.S. partner Mao, which will get the truck in New Jersey and after that export it, Transport Europa reported in November.
The company’s move into the European market has been anticipated. Jerome Guillan, who leads Tesla’s trucking program, provided a presentation last month in the Netherlands (a video appeared on Reddit and was later reported by Electrek). However with the reservations formally updated, this will surely mean more orders, a few of which may become public.
Considering that some companies might not reveal their bookings, it’s difficult to put an accurate figure on the amount that Tesla has racked up. But a quick estimation of the reservations that have ended up being public, Tesla has most likely gathered millions up until now based on the $20,000 deposit fee and the bookings that have become public. And the Tesla Semi isn’t really expected until 2019.
There’s a factor behind Tesla and other companies such as Daimler, Navistar, and Nikola Motor rivals are aiming to bring trucks with more technology and less (or no) tailpipe emissions to the industry. More strict emission policies and the rise of e-commerce have created more opportunities. However the large size of the trucking industry is compelling enough to justify the investment.
Trucks moved over 70% of all U.S. freight and gained $676 billion in revenue during last year, according to American Trucking Associations. Some 33.8 million trucks were registered for business functions in the last year. Nearly 4 million of them were classified Class 8, representing the largest freight trucks.
