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Tesla Semi To Deliver Beer: Budweiser Orders 40 Units Of The Electric Hauler Truck

By Patricia Grannum
Published on: 09:01 PST, Dec 7, 2017

The Tesla Semi will soon deliver beer. Anheuser-Busch, the parent company behind the Budweiser brand, has ordered 40 units of the recently unveiled battery-powered semi-truck. According to Electrek, Anheuser-Busch has said that it will include Tesla’s first commercial hauling vehicle into its network as part of its drive to decrease their carbon footprint by 30 percent by the year 2025.

Based on the size of the brewer’s distribution network, they say that this reduction in carbon emissions would equal the removal of half a million cars from the roads. This is just one part of Budweiser efforts to incorporate more modern vehicles into its fleet. According to Electrek, they also ordered trucks from Nikola Motors. These trucks have hydrogen fuel cells. They have also ordered some of Uber’s Otto self-driving trucks.

Budweiser joins a growing list of companies who have ordered Tesla Semi trucks. According to the Wall Street Journal, DHL Supply Chain ordered 10 trucks from Tesla last week. This is a pretty important stamp of approval, as this company coordinates logistics operations for several large retailers and manufacturers.

They plan to test the Tesla Semi on their shuttle runs and on same-day deliveries to customers in U.S cities. They will also use the Tesla truck on longer hauls too.

Walmart was among the first to announce that they had reserved some Tesla Semis for their fleet. As the Wall Street Journal reports, America’s largest retailer has said that we can expect to see them on the roads in 2019. J.B. Hunt Transportation Services has also said that they have ordered trucks from Tesla. The orders have been small so far, and most of the companies have said that they will test the truck on shorter runs. This could be because of concerns about the Tesla Semi’s range. A single tank of diesel can power a commercial semi-truck for 1,000 miles. That’s double the mileage of the Tesla Semi. Some have also questioned the amount of weight the truck can carry, and there are doubts that it can carry a full trailer of goods for 500 miles.

At this point, it isn’t clear whether Tesla is losing money because of these small orders. However, Tesla’s website states that the “base reservation” for one of these trucks costs $20,000. The final price of the 300-mile range version is expected to be $150,000, while the 500-mile range version is expected to cost $180,000.

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