Tesla in spotlight with electric semi-truck CEO Musk calls a 'beast'

PALO ALTO — The world will be watching tonight as Tesla launches an electric semi-truck and jumps into a market for traditional versions of the transport vehicles estimated to be approaching $34 billion a year.

The 8 p.m. announcement will take place at the company’s design studio just southwest of Los Angeles in Hawthorne, and will be live-streamed at Tesla.com, a company spokeswoman said.

Company CEO Elon Musk has called the truck a “beast” that “will blow your mind clear out of your skull and into an alternate dimension.”

Observers around the world will be paying close attention to the Palo Alto electric car maker’s bid to revolutionize truck transport. Market research firm Markets and Markets has estimated that the global market for traditional semi-trucks will hit $34.3 billion by 2020.

Autotrader analyst Michelle Krebs said Thursday that the market was “ripe for change, from electrification, self-driving and connected,” but she noted that Daimler beat Tesla to the punch with the announcement of its electric semi, the E-Fuso Vision One, in October.

Tesla’s truck will have a range of 200 to 300 miles, while a diesel semi can travel up to 1,000 miles on a tank of fuel, Reuters reported in August, basing the range information on comments from an executive in a trucking fleet company.

That advantages for standard semis could limit the scale of electric trucks’ operations, said Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book managing editor Michael Harley, who said Tesla had “incorrectly aimed its sights.”

“Diesel fuel is readily available and relatively efficient for heavy long-haul trucks that cruise open highways at a fixed speed,” Harley said.

“A more appropriate target for the electric vehicle maker would be the short-haul.”

Tonight’s announcement takes place with Tesla mired in controversy, having revealed in a recent earnings report a massive loss and delayed production of its entry-level electric vehicle, the Model 3. This week, the company was hit with a third lawsuit alleging racial discrimination at the firm, which Tesla said it had no role in.

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