The Phoenix-based heavy-duty truck leasing firm TCI Transportation has placed a pre-order for 50 Tesla Semi trucks, TCI Transportation has revealed.
The Arizona-based company revealed the pre-orders for the Tesla Semi via a colorful tweet, which is worth highlighting here since it gives us a rather detailed exposure of the all-electric offering in broad daylight.
Here’s the tweet in question:
TCI has invested in ordering 50 (YES, 50!!) of the new Tesla Electric Semi trucks!!! Pictured are our very own TCI Co-President's, Ryan and Andrew Flynn – taking this bad boy out for a spin!!! #TeamTCI #Tesla #TeslaElectricSemi #TeslaSemi #TCITransportation pic.twitter.com/bNRekZqMfO
— TCI Transportation (@TCI_Leasing) April 6, 2018
While not quite as substantial as the orders placed by PepsiCo, Sysco, UPS, and a few others, the order is a very notable one. It’s particularly worth noting that TCI Transportation apparently leases a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles — so the Tesla Semi Trucks will represent a fairly significant part of the company’s fleet.
The Tesla Motors Club blog provides more on that: “TCI provides specialized equipment, drivers, management and the ‘latest cost-effective technology on the market today.’ Headquartered in Phoenix, TCI’s vehicle fleet totals more than 2,000 trucks, tractors and trailers.
“Tesla plans to offer 300-mile and 500-mile range versions priced between $150,000 and $180,000. A ‘Founders Series’ version is offered for $200,000. TCI’s order, worth between $7.5 million and $9 million, is one of the largest publicly announced orders to date.”
Certainly, it’s a pre-order worth taking note of. While on the subject, I’ll also point out here that the coverage just above notes that the UAE-based waste management firm Bee’ah has placed an order for 50 Tesla Semi Trucks as well, something that I hadn’t been aware of. That pre-order is perhaps a bit more interesting to me. I have to really wonder how exactly those trucks will be utilized.
As a reminder, current plans call for the Tesla Semi to enter production in 2019 … perhaps at the same time as the Model Y?
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