Pepsi Unveils Fleet of Tesla Semis, Most of Which it Got For Free

The first fleet of Tesla Semi EVs in the world will begin delivering Pepsi in California. PepsiCo is finally rolling out its fleet of 21 Tesla Semi all-electric commercial trucks to begin operating on local routes out of its Sacramento bottling plant, as the Sacramento Bee reports. The Tesla big rigs have a range of 400 miles per charge, and PepsiCo has also installed four 750-kilowatt Tesla chargers to keep the EV trucks topped-up onsite.

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FritoLay, a PepsiCo subsidiary, will also begin operating its own fleet of Tesla Semi EVs out of its manufacturing plant in Modesto, although the FritoLay fleet has only 15 Tesla Semis for now. PepsiCo is now the first company using Tesla’s commercial EVs, and it plans to bolster its budding fleet with another 64 Tesla Semi trucks through 2023, which Pepsi plans to use for long-haul deliveries as well as local routes.

Photo: Anne Chadwick Williams (AP)

Pepsi, however, did not pay for most of the trucks it just received — Sacramento County generously picked up the tab for 18 out of the 21 Tesla Semis on behalf of the American food and beverage corporation, per the Sacramento Bee:

While PepsiCo officials hailed their commitment to sustainability at a Tuesday plant news conference, much of the initial cost of most of the trucks was paid by state and federal grants. The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District paid for 18 of the 21 trucks to be used at the South Sacramento bottling plant with $4.5 million in grants, said Alberto Ayala, its executive director.

So, while the Pepsi Generation is going electric, this latest bit of corporate sustainability is built mostly on state and federal grant money. The executive director of the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District says grants like these are necessary right now to encourage companies to build out their EV fleets, because the Tesla Semis (and rival electric trucks from other companies, like Volvo) cost around $250,000 each, roughly twice as much as a conventional diesel semi truck.

Due to these high costs and a current lack of commercial EV infrastructure, U.S. companies may be less inclined to invest in fully-electric big rigs. But PepsiCo has so far received $15 million in state and local grants to buy its EVs and put them to use in Sacramento and Modesto, while the federal government is also kicking in $40,000 per vehicle. Pepsi says the grants and subsidies are helping it move at a more rapid pace to transition its current diesel fleet to EVs.