Tesla Semi Wins 2,500-Truck ZET SCALE Order — SkimNews
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- Tesla won the primary OEM slot in a competitive RFP for 2,500 Class 8 battery-electric trucks ordered through ZET SCALE, with Kenworth, Volvo, and RIDE named as secondary suppliers — meaning the full 2,500 won't all be Semis.
- ZET SCALE was launched by Catalyst Mobility (formerly CALSTART) and the Smart Freight Centre, with founding shippers Microsoft and PepsiCo, and is targeting more than 10,000 electric trucks over time across 10 freight hubs from Los Angeles to Newark.
- ZET Financial, the alliance's financing arm, issues purchase orders and runs a ZET Lease program specifically designed to absorb residual-value risk — the barrier Catalyst CEO Michael Berube flagged when he said 'you can have good technology and still not have a market.'
- Tesla Semi program director Dan Priestley said the alliance 'amplifies operational advantages at scale,' with the order landing the same week Tesla inaugurated its Nevada Semi factory, which has 50,000-trucks-a-year nameplate capacity.
- Production, not demand, is the constraint: analysts expect only 5,000 to 15,000 Semis delivered in 2026, with the Long Range truck quoted around $290,000, dwarfing last month's 500-truck Einride order.
- IMC Logistics separately ordered 50 Tesla Semis the same day — Standard Range (325-mile) units for port drayage and Long Range (500-mile) units for Southern California runs — roughly doubling its zero-emission fleet while it continues running hydrogen and renewable-diesel trucks alongside.
Why it matters: The 2,500-truck haul nearly doubles US electric Class 8 count, but Tesla's Nevada plant is only expected to deliver 5,000–15,000 Semis in 2026 — meaning ZET Financial's residual-value lease, not Tesla's order book, is the real bottleneck that decides whether the alliance hits its 10,000-truck target.
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