alt.hn

5/1/2026 at 6:33:36 PM

First Tesla Semi Rolls Off High-Volume Production Line

 https://electrek.co/2026/04/29/tesla-semi-first-truck-high-volume-production-line/

by m463

5/4/2026 at 4:00:02 AM

Nice.

Tesla claims they will "ramp up" production to 50,000 units per year. When does the 100th unit roll off the line? Let's see some actuals. Tesla's volume and delivery time estimates do not have a good history of reliability. Volvo has 5,000 electric semitrucks on the road right now.

Tesla also announced that MDB Drayage is using Tesla tractors to haul container chassis around the Port of Los Angeles.[1] But the pictures show a Tesla tractor hauling an ordinary box semitrailer, not a container on a container chassis. The MDB Drayage is just a three-week test, too. Drayage is almost the ideal use.

[1] https://electrek.co/2026/04/29/tesla-semi-drayage-operator-m...

by Animats

5/4/2026 at 4:05:20 AM

The Tesla semi is the only truck with a 500 mile range. So it does have an advantage over other electric trucks for long-haul trucking.

by narrator

5/4/2026 at 5:00:18 AM

My model 3 also “has” 350+ mile range. Barely goes 270 in the real world with conservative driving. Trucking needs a lot more.

by darth_avocado

5/4/2026 at 8:58:11 PM

Try doing 68 instead of 75.

by fragmede

5/5/2026 at 8:32:09 AM

Or slower...

I got really good mileage once. The charging station I chose was not working and I drove to a nearby station doing maybe 25 on city streets long after midnight. Instead of arriving with 1% I arrived with 4%.

Probably would have gotten better mileage if I ran red lights and made stop signs optional.

by m463

5/4/2026 at 6:27:05 AM

"You're holding it wrong."

by DonHopkins

5/4/2026 at 6:43:44 AM

500 miles with what load?

Pepe's Towing, the heavy towing company in LA with a very popular YouTube channel, has two questions for drivers whose trucks need to be recovered or uprighted - "What's your cargo?", and "How much does it weigh?". (Pepe's comments that most drivers who roll over a truck cannot answer either question, which has a lot to do with why they rolled over.)

by Animats

5/4/2026 at 9:15:28 AM

> 500 miles with what load?

Since cargo is enclosed on most semis, assuming identical trailers load doesn't really matter. Aging Wheels has a video on testing that in the silverado ev and got about 5%: https://www.youtu.be/UmKf8smvGsA

by masklinn

5/5/2026 at 8:37:30 AM

thinking of weird loads...

I friend told me a story of when he drove trucks in a previous life.

Once he had to drive a water tanker truck and someone ran a red light in front of him as he entered an intersection. He slammed on the brakes, but his water load sloshed. It would skid his truck forward into the intersection with each slosh. He avoided the accident, but just barely.

by m463

5/4/2026 at 7:02:15 AM

500 miles with what weight?

by apexalpha

5/4/2026 at 9:16:11 AM

Doesn't really matter, load is a really small factor in EV range.

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 4:16:28 PM

> load is a really small factor in EV range.

That is just plain wrong. There is a reason why all EV companies, including Tesla obsess over energy density, and it’s because load is one of the biggest factors that affects range.

Forget EVs, load also affects range for traditional Semis. Do you seriously think an empty semi and one with a shipping container on the tow, would both have the same range?

by darth_avocado

5/4/2026 at 5:04:24 PM

> That is just plain wrong. There is a reason why all EV companies, including Tesla obsess over energy density, and it’s because load is one of the biggest factors that affects range.

Energy density is energy per unit of volume. Every company obsesses over that because volume is the limiting factor for getting energy in a vehicle.

Energy specificity (energy by unit of weight) is only relevant to planes, no EV company gives much of a fuck about it. Would they like it if batteries were lighter? Absolutely. Would they take a heavier battery if it was denser? In a heartbeat.

> Forget EVs, load also affects range for traditional Semis.

There are major differences between a traditional prime mover and an electric one: electric motors don’t have the divergent torque/power curve of ICE, or the choked low end, and moving a load is kinetic energy which EVs can largely convert back into electricity instead of losing it entirely. So the inefficiencies related to getting the load moving largely go away.

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 6:01:50 PM

Well arguing load isn’t a factor and the real limitation is the volume is still wrong. EVs aren’t infinite in size and real world constraints exist. At the end of the day, your semi cannot be 90% battery and ferry only a pallet of chips.

Total energy spent on moving an object by a distance is still proportional to the mass of the object. So if you’re absolutely spending more energy hauling 10000lbs vs 100lbs.

The only point where the cargo is relatively immaterial to the range is when it is a very small percentage of the actual weight of the vehicle. But that doesn’t mean the vehicle is efficient. It’s just that now you’re spending more energy hauling the battery itself than the cargo. Energy density matters in semis because companies want to spend less money hauling the battery itself than the cargo to make it viable.

Rivian an electric car company admits that towing will reduce your range. There’s a reason for that. https://rivian.com/support/article/how-does-towing-affect-ra...

by darth_avocado

5/5/2026 at 6:42:28 AM

> Total energy spent on moving an object by a distance is still proportional to the mass of the object.

It is not. The energy spent to change momentum is proportional to mass. For mass to affect momentum you need a second order effect linking it to increased system losses e.g. a heavier plane needs more lift, which requires higher speeds, higher angle of attack, larger lifting surfaces, …, all of which increase drag, which is the primary way planes lose energy.

> Rivian an electric car company admits that towing will reduce your range. There’s a reason for that.

The reason is the increased resistances (air and rolling) from the trailer: https://youtu.be/UmKf8smvGsA

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 9:01:02 PM

Things being towed by a Rivan are going to be less standardized than what a semi is going to tow.

by fragmede

5/4/2026 at 11:40:10 PM

For long routes over level terrain it has almost no effect at all.

Sure to a commuter in stop and go traffic or city driving it might matter a bit but regen takes away the first order of magnitude.

Even climbing a hill is a bit of the same effect. To first order, you recover it on the back side of the hill coming down.

by matt-attack

5/4/2026 at 11:05:28 AM

For a semi? That's seems absurd.

by apexalpha

5/4/2026 at 4:45:45 AM

Tesla has a history of exaggerating the ranges of their vehicles to an extent that competitors do not.

by 7e

5/4/2026 at 5:08:37 AM

Being a two-time Tesla owner for 8 years, at this point, there is no claim Tesla can possibly make that I would ever believe. Their (and Elon’s) track record on countless claims have been wildly misleading at best or completely false at worst.

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/transportation/917167/elon-musk-tes...

by SlightlyLeftPad

5/4/2026 at 4:50:39 AM

Trucking seems like an industry where exaggerating the range will lead to contracts being cancelled and companies being sued. I'm assuming that a Tesla Semi can't just stop off at the nearest Supercharger.

by jerlam

5/4/2026 at 4:52:27 AM

I've read that Semis need to use a "MegaCharger" ...

by mlmonkey

5/4/2026 at 5:29:34 AM

big branding fail not using "gigacharger"

by danaw

5/4/2026 at 5:49:32 AM

Megacharger because they're a Megawatt of power. 1.2MW

by iknowstuff

5/4/2026 at 6:29:59 AM

Try ChargeMaxing, and hitting it with a hammer.

by DonHopkins

5/4/2026 at 11:41:54 AM

an acceptable alternative :chefs_kiss:

by danaw

5/4/2026 at 5:03:01 AM

they haven't gotten on the road yet, so it remains to be seen

by whateveracct

5/4/2026 at 6:31:20 AM

Got source for this?

IIRC they are right in the middle of pack.

by dzhiurgis

5/4/2026 at 4:59:08 AM

I hope so. Regardless of who does it, generations of children in Los Angeles growing up in the corridors of the 5,10,110,210,405,605,710 freeways have asthma, likely caused from the soot of diesel trucks. Edit, couldn't leave out the worst experience in the US, i405.

by milleramp

5/4/2026 at 6:09:37 AM

Born in 1975 in LA and have asthma. I suppose I'm pretty smart compared to most, but I do wonder if they had removed leaded gasoline earlier if I would have had a few more IQ points. So, yes, please do root for electric transportation!

by coreyh14444

5/4/2026 at 5:07:53 AM

You can't discount the dust from the tires either unfortunately

by comrh

5/4/2026 at 5:15:42 AM

(which electric cars and trucks also reduce, because of regenerative braking)

by levocardia

5/4/2026 at 5:19:14 AM

Doesn't regenerative braking reduce brake dust, not tire dust?

by tzs

5/4/2026 at 5:27:12 AM

Correct. And tire dust increases because electric vehicles are usually heavier

by real0mar

5/4/2026 at 9:22:49 AM

For semis this is irrelevant, as the GVWR is pretty much the same so EV mostly means you get limited on payload weight: in the US the feds increase GVWR limit by 2000 lbs (from 80k to 82k) for EV semis, but not every state has legalised that, and it's barely noticeable (EU has a much more aggressive bye, from 40 to 44 tonnes).

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 7:03:51 AM

I doubt that's the case in America where gas-powered cars (/ trucks) are also huge and heavy.

A Model 3 weighs less than a Ford 150.

by apexalpha

5/4/2026 at 8:45:56 AM

And a mini cooper weighs less than a semi. The thread you are in is about Semis.

by xboxnolifes

5/4/2026 at 5:55:11 AM

My father who owns an electric car (I don't) told me that the increased torque eats away the tires much faster. Not sure how connected to the reality that is.

by egeozcan

5/4/2026 at 9:14:19 AM

Correct, but I would say that is user error. You don't HAVE to accelerate faster.

by Mashimo

5/4/2026 at 6:07:18 AM

Increased forces from similar speeds but with more weight in cornering wears down tires more in electric cars. Less so the torque myths

by m101

5/4/2026 at 4:06:57 AM

A 30 minute charge means each charger can service a maximum of 48 tractors per day, and realistically probably less than that. I wonder how many trucks fill at a typical diesel filling station per day.

by aidenn0

5/4/2026 at 4:16:52 AM

My first job was pumping gas at regular neighbour gas station and one day a semi rolled in because he was low on gas. He insisted that we use both diesel pumps on the pump so that it would take faster and it still took forever. I can't remember if he filled both side of his truck but if he did that would have required him to go around the island to get the other side tank.

I've only been to a cardlock station a few times but the pumps seem like regular pumps.

I just looked it up and apparently regular gas station pumps in Canada are limited to 38 L/min (10 US gal/min) but some cardlock stations can have larger pumps with a higher rate on them.

If a semi truck has two saddle tanks that's 200-300 gallons, but some trucks can apparently carry more? I'm not an expert on this, But I can reach out to a friend who owns a crane and trucking company if someone else doesn't chime in with a more detailed response.

So at 200-300 gallons and 10 gallons per minute it can take 20-30 minutes to fill a truck.

by Teever

5/4/2026 at 4:37:12 AM

Truck stop pumps can do 30 GPM "on both sides" as they have two pumps connected to one bay.

There are faster (600 GPM or more) but those are specialized for loading boats, etc; the air can't escape the tank fast enough to use those on a truck.

by bombcar

5/4/2026 at 4:35:56 AM

stats vary. seems ~250 is common (2x 125 gals) and long haul ranges up to 2,000 miles.

Though another way to think of filling up is miles per minute. At 10Gal/Min and 7MPG that's pumping 70 miles a minute into the tank.

an 80% charge in 30 minutes on a 500 mile range battery is ~13 Miles a minute so roughly 5x slower

by ticulatedspline

5/4/2026 at 10:41:39 PM

60% charge in 30 minutes (20-80%) so 10 miles/minute and 7x slower.

by aidenn0

5/4/2026 at 4:39:33 AM

I don't know about exact rates, but diesel pumps in banks intended for semis have a larger diameter nozzle that flows faster than the normal sized ones, yeah. They won't fit diesel cars/vans/light trucks.

by shawn_w

5/4/2026 at 6:48:47 AM

Some Chinese EVs have charge ports on both sides and can be charged faster by using both at the same time.

Not quite as elegant as the new flash chargers that rival the Tesla truck chargers with megawatt speeds but interesting.

by ZeroGravitas

5/4/2026 at 4:25:35 AM

Have you seen the demo's of "truck pack" batteries being removed from prime mover, transferred to charge station, replaced with already charged truck pack, all done with a mini fork lift?

It's a 15 minute roll in / roll out kind of turn around.

The game's not over and the big transport operators (eg: Rio Tinto mine fleets moving a billion tonne per annum, etc) are still doing the R&D pipeline and trialling pilots.

by defrost

5/4/2026 at 4:34:07 AM

This has been tried before for public use and failed for all of the obvious reasons.

It should get adoption from companies big enough to run their own fleets (such as the mining company mentioned) but it won't be a suitable method for a good percentage of the long haul trucks in the States.

With that said, I would think chargers should be fine for a lot of those trucks if the infrastructure builds out for them. The drivers are already taking breaks every few hours by regulation, so they can top off rather than going from empty to full.

by zdragnar

5/4/2026 at 9:25:29 AM

> It's a 15 minute roll in / roll out kind of turn around.

Now you just need every gas station in the US to stock a bunch of swappable batteries for every semi brand. It's a great idea s long as you're not bound by any sort of realistic expectation.

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 11:18:17 AM

It's a great idea, being put in practice, that's not bound by being limited to US parochial PoVs.

Also, not the first industry that would rely on some level of standardisation.

by defrost

5/4/2026 at 12:40:02 PM

> It's a great idea, being put in practice

It's a glitzy demo which has been attempted multiple times and has failed every time (to the surprise of nobody, Tesla was one of the early demo-ers, guess where that ended up?), NIO is still losing money hand over fist and survives only thanks to the CCP keeping it afloat.

> Also, not the first industry that would rely on some level of standardisation.

You'd need the standardisation first.

And making batteries field-replaceable with limited equipment means the battery modules need to be significantly more resilient, as well as more complex (not only do you need automatic disconnects for the electrics, but you also need to handle cooling), which translates to less capacity because you need room for all that, and it's harder to integrate structural support with the battery modules so the chassis also needs structural improvements there. The alternative is to automate the entire thing, which means even more complexity, and now the system needs to be aware of every vehicle involved.

The entire thing is a staggering amount of complexity to mostly lower capabilities.

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 5:13:56 AM

Have you seen the demo of what you can get with some wires and low friction traction options :P

by tacticus

5/4/2026 at 11:15:31 PM

This is a non-sequitur for Tesla's Semi truck which does not support this. It's also possible to build trucks with larger batteries and faster chargers.

by aidenn0

5/4/2026 at 6:37:42 AM

I've seen Tesla's fake robots too. Maybe they can pay people who lost their jobs to DOGE to dress up in Spandex and dance like robots to replace the batteries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsNc4nEX3c4

by DonHopkins

5/4/2026 at 4:13:02 AM

~10 min to fill diesel semi.

So electric can only service 1/3 of semi, when truck stop is at full capacity.

by tiffanyh

5/4/2026 at 5:30:01 AM

But you can go 1500 miles on a full tank, so with electricity you have to account for three times as many vehicles as well (given the stated range is correct)

by mzi

5/4/2026 at 10:39:32 PM

300 miles between charges if you are limited to a 30 minute charge, but semis probably refill much more often than every 1500 miles, particularly since they are required to stop every so often anyways.

by aidenn0

5/4/2026 at 5:18:33 AM

I think we should do is have a second trailer that basically functions as the primary battery pack. The tractor's pack is back up or range extension

So when a semi pulls into a truck stop, you swap that caboose cab with a fully charged one.

by AtlasBarfed

5/4/2026 at 5:31:43 AM

so you have massive batteries just sitting on chargers waiting for the next truck to come by? seems expensive

by danaw

5/4/2026 at 11:30:54 PM

How's that different than a battery swap that every other person suggests but doesn't seem to really mechanically make sense.

by AtlasBarfed

5/4/2026 at 4:59:29 AM

Seems like about 10 minutes, and a single pump averages around 100 a day (although guessing that second one could have some serious rounding)

by HWR_14

5/4/2026 at 4:54:29 AM

Could they automate the "grab the charging cable and plug it in" part (as well as the "take the cable out and stow it away" part)? Trucks would then be able to just pull in, charge up and pull out quickly.

by mlmonkey

5/4/2026 at 5:30:56 AM

Automating the part that takes 1 minute is not really going to make a difference when the charging takes 29 more.

by solid_fuel

5/4/2026 at 4:11:46 PM

But that is the only manual step in the entire process. If a driverless truck could just pull into a charging station, automatically get topped up and be on its way without any manual intervention, that would be a game changer. One could operate such trucks basically 22hours/day, doubling the ROI.

by mlmonkey

5/6/2026 at 12:19:56 AM

No? None of this follows? You're skipping straight to driverless trucks but we don't have autonomous driving yet.

by solid_fuel

5/4/2026 at 3:55:39 AM

meanwhile Freightliner, Volvo, and BYD already have active fleets.

by donkyrf

5/4/2026 at 4:58:05 AM

But do they have Self Driving? A Semi with self-driving would be a game changer. I just got FSD v14.3.2 and it is quite impressive. I drove all over the Bay Area today (SF -> East Bay -> PA -> RWC -> back) and didn't have to touch the steering wheel practically at all.

by mlmonkey

5/4/2026 at 5:15:48 AM

They have ADAS systems. And Volvo is already working with Aurora which is doing live tests of actual self driving, similar to Waymo.

There's no news here.

Self-driving is no longer the future of Tesla. That stock pump has largely run its course, and is being replaced by AI and the robot army.

Once SpaceX goes public, SpaceX will acquire Tesla (solving Musk's control issues with Tesla stock), and that'll be the end of Musk pretending to care about cars.

by donkyrf

5/4/2026 at 5:03:58 AM

[flagged]

by whateveracct

5/4/2026 at 6:35:21 AM

[flagged]

by dzhiurgis

5/4/2026 at 5:51:27 AM

In Europe I’m pretty sure every brand has e trucks: Mercedes, daf, Renault, Scania, …

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 6:01:27 AM

[dead]

by iknowstuff

5/4/2026 at 4:20:18 AM

I don't understand the point you're making, are you saying that because there are already electric semi's on the market, Tesla shouldn't compete?

Or are you being critical that Tesla didn't enter the market first?

If it's the second point, are you accurately comparing the vehicles and their capabilities?

by claytongulick

5/4/2026 at 5:00:18 AM

It's not newsworthy. There are more than a dozen companies shipping electric semis in low quantities, and at least three who have been shipping and supporting them for years. Anybody who thinks this the Tesla Semi is notable should go learn about the existing market.

Tesla announced this thing a decade ago and they rolled one off of a theoretical line. Who cares?

There's nothing new here. There's no new information about this late-landing product. There's no story of huge guaranteed bookings, or new unexpected capabilities. It's a non-story.

As for your demand that I provide an accurate product comparison -- driver reviews routinely indicate that the 'driver at the center' seating position makes it harder for truckers to actually do their work, because they can't easily reach out their window to access terminals, perform document exchanges, etc.

So, I'll augment my position: not only is this a non-story... it's a non-story about a vehicle with a notable design flaw.

by donkyrf

5/4/2026 at 7:48:55 AM

Of course its newsworthy if the company making the most electric cars in the world has setup a factory to produce semis and produced at least one after years of testing with actual customers that say they are very happy at seemingly very competitive pricing.

To say its NOT newsworthy betrays a bias against Tesla which I would assume has nothing to do with actual facts.

by mgoetzke

5/9/2026 at 12:10:19 AM

BYD is, by far, the largest EV manufacturer in the world. And they've been making semis for ages.

It is not newsworthy that BYD shipped another one. They do that every 15 minutes.

So not only do I repeat that this article is not newsworthy -- but your proposed article about the company making the most electric cars in the world shipping one would _also_ not be newsworthy.

by donkyrf

5/4/2026 at 9:19:07 AM

I agree that this is mildly interesting. But wanted to say BYD produces the most electric cars.

by Mashimo

5/4/2026 at 9:24:16 PM

[flagged]

by iknowstuff

5/4/2026 at 7:11:35 AM

The Chinese EV truck market is already bigger than the entire US truck market.

Tesla has some lofty goals but sometimes it feels like that story about the pottery class where the teacher offered to grade by weight alone.

The moral of that story is that churning out lots of something is a good way to learn what you are doing and get better at it.

by ZeroGravitas

5/4/2026 at 8:12:30 AM

Indeed. Two ironies: I was just thinking about this with SpaceX getting all the practice with launches. Also, China being theoretically communist and the US theoretically capitalist, yet the US is the one with limited choice while China has so many brands.

by ben_w

5/4/2026 at 4:44:03 AM

<This is not a Tesla bashing note. Genuine information questions >

50,000 vehicles per year capacity is a lot. Is there really demand for so many vehicles?.

>> This makes the Tesla Semi the lowest-priced Class 8 battery electric tractor on the market,

How much is the difference?. Critical details left out.

>> specs confirm a 500-mile range

Aren't there trucks with this range already?

>> "Tesla Semi as a Service" model is needed to eliminate the capital expenditure barrier entirely,

Good but how is this novel?

by chopete3

5/4/2026 at 6:05:02 AM

Longuest I know of in Europe is Volvo’s claims of 700 on the new FH Aero ER. Renault and Iveco are at 600. And that would be at 90kph.

However manufacturers of euro models may not bother extending range given given the driving regulations: drivers can only drive 4.5h before a mandatory 45mn rest break, so as long as the truck does 400km[0] and can charge fast enough in 45mn to do that again afterwards[1] it’s probably going to do the job for long range trucking.

On the other hand, the eu allows electric semis to weigh 4 tonnes more than diesel, in the US it’s just 2000lbs and not every state has implemented that.

[0] 4.5h * 90kph

[1] assuming the fastest charge rates are 10~80, that means a 0-100 range of 580km to hit the sweet spot of 400km on 80~10, which matches Renault and Iveco, Volvo's FH Aero ER page talks about 20~80 which gets you to 670km

by masklinn

5/4/2026 at 12:18:21 PM

Yeah, EU regulations for truck drivers definitely make the switch from diesel to EV easier than in the US.

by orwin

5/4/2026 at 5:07:34 AM

At least the Mercedes-Benz eActros a6000 has only 500 km range.

by Mashimo

5/4/2026 at 5:36:11 AM

as we know from tesla none of these claims will actually come to fruition once these reach customers

by danaw

5/4/2026 at 4:57:18 AM

Uh...does Electrek.co not do basic math or understand how factories (and markets) are valued? This is waaaay too early to judge anything.

The "milestone that matters" is $/defect/volume. Until this factory has measurable volume and measurable costs for defects on that volume, it's not an actual factory.

by calmbonsai

5/4/2026 at 9:30:37 AM

Doesn't this need a 2019 added to the headline?

by bigtex

5/4/2026 at 4:03:41 AM

[dead]

by SadErn

5/4/2026 at 3:52:55 AM

"High volume"?

Coming from Tesla, I'll believe it after they actually ship a high volume of those units.

by alterom

5/4/2026 at 3:58:15 AM

Bonus points if the body panels don't fall off and it can drive through a puddle

by Zetaphor

5/4/2026 at 3:57:29 AM

>0 is a high volume for something that was supposed to start rolling off the production line back in 2019....

by doctorwho42

5/4/2026 at 4:25:13 AM

Usually I'd say better late than never, but you have to wonder why anyone would buy anything from tesla because of the promises and delays...

by nubinetwork

5/4/2026 at 5:56:37 AM

Personally I'm surprised there's enough such people to keep the share price where it is and not shift one or two decimal places.

by ben_w

5/4/2026 at 4:28:28 AM

The Model Y is neck-and-neck with the Toyota RAV4 as the most widely sold car model in the world.

by rayiner

5/4/2026 at 7:48:05 AM

I am not convinced this is true. But perhaps you are using different criteria than this source.

For example the Toyota Corolla has sold 50 million, the Model Y, slightly over 2 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_automobil...

by SapporoChris

5/4/2026 at 7:01:51 AM

Whenever such claims were made, it was correctly pointed that Tesla makes very few models, so their sales per model may be higher than for other vendors even when the total number of sold cars is higher for their competitors, where the sales are distributed over many models.

There are Chinese vendors who sell more electric cars than Tesla.

by adrian_b

5/4/2026 at 12:19:53 PM

I don't believe you. Can we have some numbers?

by orwin

5/4/2026 at 1:10:33 PM

https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-mod...

by oa335

5/4/2026 at 8:41:44 PM

So basically, way less than the 206, the beetle and probably a lot of US/Asian car i've never heard about.

by orwin

5/4/2026 at 3:17:20 PM

Okay, sure, for one year. But "for year 2025" was not a qualification the grandparent poster made.

by SapporoChris

5/5/2026 at 1:27:35 AM

> for year 2025" was not a qualification the grandparent poster made.

I interpreted the comment to mean that Tesla model Y is currently the most widely sold car in the world, not historically. model y is less than 10 years old.

i think it shows that tesla is actually able to ship cars at a high volume, which was the point of the thread.

by oa335

5/4/2026 at 5:27:31 PM

It’s been three years in a row: https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/tesla-mode...

by rayiner

5/4/2026 at 7:36:57 PM

"for the last three years" was another strong qualification the grandparent post did not make.

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/4/2026 at 9:28:13 PM

no you're right sorry it's not up to your standards of selling as many cumulative units as cars that have been sold longer than most readers of this website have been alive

by iknowstuff

5/5/2026 at 7:50:16 AM

I mean, just don't lie and make outlandish and idiotic claim then. If the claim was "most unit sold since 2020", no one would've bat an eye.

by orwin

5/5/2026 at 9:02:06 AM

Well, I raised an eyebrow at the claim that "The Toyota RAV4 is a very popular vehicle in terms of units sold worldwide over the last few years" as it just does not match what I see on the roads locally on a daily basis.

(There are tons of RAVs as yellow taxis in NYC though. That's the only place that I've seen them swarm)

But it is a defensible claim, and apparently globally it's true, even if locally it is not.

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/7/2026 at 1:49:31 AM

Its literally the best selling car these days and it’s a well known fact. That you didnt know speaks to your bubble

by iknowstuff

5/7/2026 at 6:59:19 AM

Don't knock people for not knowing stuff. We can always look it up and learn, and that's a good thing. No-one lives outside of a "bubble".

But in order to do so, the claim has to be presented in a coherent way, otherwise you'll check something else, such as here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48005822

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/4/2026 at 8:23:31 AM

> Toyota RAV4, the most widely sold car model in the world.

Nope.

Widely sold cars are the likes of e.g Toyota Corolla, VW Golf, Honda Civic, Ford Fiesta, Toyota Camry and Hilux. The other reply gives the link. The RAV4 isn't ones of these.

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/4/2026 at 5:47:28 PM

Out of those, only the Camry and the Corolla even make the top 10: https://www.statista.com/statistics/239229/most-sold-car-mod...

by rayiner

5/4/2026 at 7:36:05 PM

And as the other commenter has already pointed out, you didn't say "for year 2025" only.

That said, I'm surprised that the RAV4 is that popular, in the year 2025.

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/4/2026 at 11:35:49 PM

Why do you think the ranking changes that much from year to year? Model Y had the top spot 3 years in a row since 2020.

by rayiner

5/5/2026 at 6:52:49 AM

> Why do you think the ranking changes that much from year to year?

I did not say that. Why do you think that I did say that? (I'm surprised that the RAV was #1 in 2023-24 too. I don't see many or even any around here. But even 3 years clearly isn't "all time").

by SideburnsOfDoom

5/4/2026 at 4:12:39 AM

I am willing to bet this semi underperforms in all relevant categories. Just like the rest of their overpriced consumer products.

by xyst

5/4/2026 at 4:27:26 AM

I wonder how truckers are going to like having to get up and walk over to the door to talk to gate security or hand over paperwork.

Feels like a dumb design to me.

by OccamsMirror

5/4/2026 at 4:21:27 AM

> Tesla enters high-volume production with a meaningful lead on price and range.

I'll take that bet on price and range. And I'd bet it'll have lower cost of ownership than diesel.

by delichon

5/4/2026 at 5:40:17 AM

i'll take that bet

by danaw

5/4/2026 at 4:55:43 AM

Tesla is trying to escape launching the semi TEN YEARS after announcing it. Instead, they are attempting to launch a mere nine years after announcing it.

The Pepsi trials with this truck were a disaster, we’ll see if they fixed the numerous problems.

by 7e

5/4/2026 at 5:21:16 AM

Can you provide more detail on the Pepsi trials? I haven't read anything about it

by AtlasBarfed

5/4/2026 at 5:26:31 AM

With the Frito Lay trials there were numerous cases of the Tesla trucks dying and needing to be towed by ICE trucks.

by aggakake

5/4/2026 at 7:08:24 AM

That’s why it is called a trial

by dzhiurgis