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Deployment

Semi at California

The Tesla Semi is a Class 8 battery-electric heavy-duty truck (325-mile and 500-mile range variants), unveiled in November 2017 with first deliveries to PepsiCo on December 1 2022. The registry records it at commercial maturity on the strength of PepsiCo's sustained, multi-site, multi-year fleet operation (Sacramento beverage and Modesto Frito-Lay), with additional independent pilots at ArcBest/ABF and DHL (first delivery December 2025). Critically, the Tesla Semi is a human-driven electric truck: every deployed unit runs with a driver, Tesla has made no Level 4 claim, and it removed Autopilot/FSD references from the Semi's marketing. Full autonomy is a roadmap claim only, so the registry does not wire the Semi to Tesla's FSD stack. Volume production at the dedicated Giga Nevada Semi factory is targeted for 2026 (a repeatedly-slipped Tesla target); production is still ramping. 2017-era pricing of $150k-$180k is a stale projection.

Semi by Tesla · Catalog entry · 3 sources · not yet field-verified

Track Semi at California

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Machine-readable surfaces

Footage

PRIMARY SOURCE
Courtesy of Tesla

Tesla's December 2022 Semi delivery event (first customer deliveries, to PepsiCo). The Semi is a battery-electric Class 8 truck and is human-driven: it has no driverless or autonomous-trucking product, and Tesla's Full Self-Driving is a separate consumer-car program.

PepsiCo is the Tesla Semi's anchor fleet operator, taking its first trucks at Tesla's December 1, 2022 delivery event. The initial fleet of about 36 trucks split across two California sites: roughly 21 at PepsiCo's Sacramento bottling plant (heavier soda loads, ~100-mile local routes) and about 15 at Frito-Lay Modesto (lighter snack loads, ~425-mile hauls). A further 50 trucks began arriving the week of May 21, 2024, with Fresno cited as a delivery point, bringing the fleet to roughly 86. Each of the Modesto and Sacramento sites has four 750-kW Tesla Megachargers. 18 of the 21 Sacramento trucks and the Sacramento charging infrastructure were funded in part by a $4.5M grant from the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District (CARB AB 617 / California Climate Investments); the Tesla Semi is also CARB-certified and HVIP-eligible. Note: this is a battery-electric fleet with driver-assist (Autopilot), not an autonomous deployment.

Key facts

Operator
PepsiCo (Frito-Lay Modesto + PepsiCo Beverages Sacramento + Fresno)
Fleet
~36 initial (Dec 2022) growing to ~86 (May 2024)
Public funding
$4.5M SMAQMD grant (18 Sacramento trucks + charging); HVIP-eligible
Verification
VERIFIED operating fleet (multiple third-party confirmations)
Maturity stage at deployment start
commercial

Exposure

Customer segment
logistics
Scale tier
commercial 10 99
Customer
(registry company)

Each exposure value carries its own basis marker. Aggregators report a number; this surface preserves the source class so verification depth travels with the value.

Safety record

No incidents on record for Semi at California.

Only active incidents are counted. Retracted incidents are excluded from this summary but remain reachable at their canonical URLs.

Trust tier
Catalog entry · 3 sources · not yet field-verifiedhow tiers work →
Last updated
2026-07-10
Model
Semi
Company
Tesla
Location
United States/California
Status
operational
Operator type
customer deployed
First seen
2022-12-01
ID
f3271b04-7c10-4fed-906c-9e79e584bc89

Timeline

  1. Dec 2022
    First recorded
    Semi first documented operating at California.
  2. Jun 2026
    created
  3. Jun 2026
    field updated
    key facts: unset → Added lifecycle_stage=commercial
  4. Jul 2026
    Current status: operational, reviewed
    Latest recorded state. New status transitions append here as the deployment-status recorder produces them.

On the deployment map

Semi operates in California. Explore the full verified map:

Sources (3)

  1. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/16/pepsico-is-using-36-tesla-semis-in-its-fleet-and-is-upgrading-facilities-for-more-in-2023-exec-says.html
  2. https://www.truckinginfo.com/news/pepsico-receives-tesla-semi-fleet
  3. https://www.benzinga.com/news/24/05/38936949/tesla-semi-fleet-grows-as-pepsico-takes-delivery-of-another-50-ev-trucks
Methodology: Verified · 3 sources (no primary) · last reviewed 2026-07-10

Verification posture

Verified

Medium confidence

Review state

Stable

Last reviewed 2026-07-10

Maturity + lifecycle

Maturity stage: commercial

Lifecycle: active

Architectural position

Cohort: truck

Sources by quality tier

2
unclassified
Unclassified source
1
secondary-established-publication
Established publication

The framework is documented at /methodology. Corrections at /corrections. Reviewer: DEPLOY editorial team.

Methodology surface for Semi at California.

Common questions

What is the Semi deployment at California?
Semi, built by Tesla, is recorded as a deployment at California on the DEPLOY registry. Tesla operates the deployment directly.
Who operates Semi at California?
Tesla, the manufacturer of Semi, operates this deployment directly. This is a maker-deploys-its-own-product arrangement rather than a customer pilot.
When did the Semi deployment at California go live?
The deployment is recorded as starting December 1, 2022 on the DEPLOY registry. Earlier activity may exist but is not yet sourced.
Have there been incidents at the Semi deployment at California?
No active incidents affecting this deployment are recorded on the DEPLOY registry. Absence of recorded incidents is not a guarantee no incident occurred; DEPLOY records only sourced incidents and suppresses retracted ones.

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