Since the announcement of the electric semi, Tesla has been steadily receiving orders from corporates who have supply chain as a critical component of their business and the largest order to date was one by PepsiCo. Reuters reported that the corporate has placed an order for 100 trucks. At USD$20,000 per pop booking fee, that would mean Tesla would get an injection of USD$2 million for the order.
PepsiCo joins companies such as Walmart and Sysco and 22 other companies which have ordered around 285 units of the electric semi. This definitely shows that based on the specs in which Tesla has announced, the demand for a cheaper running fleet is high and once the units are delivered to customers and gone through real-world usage, will we see more units sold.
In an employee statement to Reuters, PepsiCo said the following.
PepsiCo intends to deploy Tesla Semis for shipments of snack foods and beverages between manufacturing and distribution facilities and direct to retailers within the 500-mile (800-km) range promised by Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk.
The semi-trucks will complement PepsiCo’s U.S. fleet of nearly 10,000 big rigs and are a key part of its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across its supply chain by a total of at least 20 percent by 2030, said Mike O‘Connell, the senior director of North American supply chain for PepsiCo subsidiary Frito-Lay.
PepsiCo is analyzing what routes are best for its Tesla trucks in North America but sees a wide range of uses for lighter loads like snacks or shorter shipments of heavier beverages, O‘Connell said.
