The long-awaited Tesla Semi truck has begun to arrive at customers, with Pepsi receiving the first deliveries. In an effort to increase truck production, Tesla announced a $3.6 billion investment in Nevada to build a second Gigafactory where the Semi will be manufactured.
The investment, which is expected to create 3,000 new jobs, is in addition to the $6.2 billion in investments Tesla has made at the Nevada site since 2014, when it built a Gigafactory in that region.
The Semi began limited production late last year at Tesla’s plant near Austin, Texas, but the reservation process for the Class 8 semi-trailer truck was closed just months later, in August.
As part of the investment, a new battery factory will be built in Nevada. It will manufacture Tesla’s 4680 battery cell and have an annual capacity of 100 gigatonne-hours, or enough batteries to power 1.5 million light-duty vehicles, according to Tesla.
Panasonic currently supplies cells to Tesla’s gigafactory, where they are assembled into battery packs.
As a reminder, the Tesla Semi truck is an 18-wheel semi-trailer with a range of 500 miles (or 800 kilometers) on a single charge and a gross weight of 81,000 pounds (37 tonnes) with trailer and cargo.