UPS is Tesla’s latest electric semi-truck customer
The company preordered 125 of the trucks.
UPS has placed the largest Tesla semi-truck order to date, reserving 125 of the trucks. Since unveiling the electric vehicles last month, Tesla has received quite a few orders from major companies. PepsiCo has ordered 100, Anheuser-Busch ordered 40 and Walmart, DHL and Loblaws have reserved Tesla Semis as well. While not every company that has announced a Tesla Semi order has said how many they've reserved, the total number of trucks ordered to date appears to be in the range of 420.
UPS said that the all-electric semi-trucks will help them reach a number of their energy goals. The company is working to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 12 percent within the next seven years and by 2020 it wants 25 percent of its newly purchased vehicles to be advanced technology or run on alternative fuel. UPS already has over 8,500 alternative fuel or advanced technology vehicles in its fleet including all-electric, hybrid, ethanol, compressed natural gas, hydraulic hybrid, liquefied natural gas, propane and renewable natural gas vehicles. In total, the company has around 108,000 package cars, vans, tractors and motorcycles on the road. Therefore, moving more towards electric vehicles stands to have a major environmental impact.
Tesla plans to begin producing its trucks by 2019.
