Tesla will launch a new 3.6 billion dollar advanced manufacturing project in Reno/Sparks for its semi truck and batteries.

The new project will comprise 4 million square feet of new manufacturing space and will come with two facilities. One is a high-volume factory for electric semi trucks. The other is 100-gigawatt-hour factory for Tesla’s 4680-type battery cells (with capacity to produce enough batteries for 2 million light duty vehicles annually). These new facilities will create an estimated 3,000 New Jobs.

Northern Nevada is also the site of Tesla’s first Gigafactory, which is located in the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center just east of Reno-Sparks. The new Tesla project will be located a the TRI Center as well.
Tesla says that it has already spent $6.2 billion in Nevada and hired 11,000 employees, while creating 17,000 local construction jobs building out its Gigafactory.

These numbers are higher than Tesla’s original 2014 plan, which was to spend $3.5 billion on a factory to produce 35 GWh of batteries annually, which would then hire 6,500 employees.

Since then, the EV market has expanded rapidly, which means 35GWh is still not enough to fulfill global demand for Tesla’s EVs.

Electric truck production results from heightened demand by online retailers such as Amazon and package shippers including FedEx and UPS.

According to data firm Allied Market Research, global sales of electric trucks were expected to grow by an average of 26.4% annually from 2020 levels, topping $3.8 billion by 2030.
According to detailed calculations by Jon Stewart (Cleanerwatt), the all-new Tesla Semi is twice as efficient as the Ford F-150 pickup truck. Keep in mind, a Class 8 semi-truck weighs in at four to five times that of a gas- or diesel-powered F-150.

When Tesla set out to produce a commercial vehicle, you'd better bet it was laser-focused on range and efficiency. However, the automaker likely wouldn't have even attempted to produce a long-range semi-truck if it hadn't already proven that it could work its magic to make the most aerodynamic, electron-sipping vehicles in many shapes and sizes.
Manufacturers like Daimler Truck, Volvo and Traton, a unit of Volkswagen, have said they are committed to producing vehicles that generate no tailpipe emissions, but trucks powered by diesel fuel still dominate the industry.

The Tesla semi truck could put the same kind of pressure on established truck makers that carmakers faced from Tesla’s electric cars and sport utility vehicles. The success of Tesla cars forced General Motors, Ford Motor, Volkswagen and other automakers to reply with their own electric vehicles, upending the industry.

Fleet owners pay close attention to the cost of ownership of the vehicles they buy, carefully calculating the price of fuel, maintenance and driver downtime.

Tesla’s semi is likely to cost more to buy than a conventional heavy truck, and will be attractive if customers figure they can make up the difference in lower fuel and maintenance expenses.
Tesla Semi will have a range of 500 miles, which makes it most suitable for relatively short routes. However, the Tesla Semi can get a 70% charge in 30 minutes.

Tesla already demonstrated that the Semi could travel 500 miles on a single charge. In fact, the test run started with a battery capacity of 97 percent and ended with 4 percent remaining, so it pulled off 500 miles with 93 percent of its battery capacity. Meanwhile, the hauler's combined weight at the time was a whopping 81,000 pounds.

In a separate project, Tesla said last fall that it secured rights to 10,000 acres near the Nevada gigafactory where it plans to produce lithium, a key battery component, from clay deposits.