1.55 kWh per mile. That's what a Tesla Semi returned over three weeks with ABF Freight. 4,494 miles of Reno to Sacramento work, 321 miles a day, Donner Pass loaded on the way. ABF has since stopped piloting and started buying.
Covenant put another Semi over the Grapevine, the climb that punishes diesel and driver in equal measure. Their innovation VP said the driver came away with a level of confidence hard to match in a diesel truck.
None of that is a surprise if you've been watching. The Semi's official certification figures put it at 1.7 kWh per mile under full load, and European trials of the Mercedes eActros 600 land in the same range at 40 tonnes. Operators are already beating the paperwork. After years of arguing about whether heavy electric trucks can do real work, the maths is settled.
Now the truck is heading this way. Tesla will put European specs and launch details on the board at IAA in Hannover in the middle of September, and the Semi has already appeared on Tesla's UK website. For the next month every trade title and every LinkedIn feed in UK logistics will be reviewing it.
Don't.
The Tesla Semi specifically doesn't matter to UK distribution, and Tesla's own UK listing makes the case for me. It's the Standard Range, not the 822 kWh Long Range the US fleets are running. That's the 548 kWh pack, and the UK page quotes about 550 km, call it 340 miles, at 1.0 kWh per kilometre, about 1.6 per mile, with a 9,100 kg kerb weight and a 40 tonne gross combination weight rating. Tesla looked at Europe and decided the big battery was a US answer to a US question. Their Class 8 runs at 82,000 lbs, about 37 tonnes. We run to 44, and the UK listing doesn't. Most UK trunk routes don't need 500 miles of range anyway. They need 200 to 300 with a reliable plug at the destination and a tractor that's actually where it's supposed to be at six in the morning.
Then look at where the trucks are going. Einride, a Swedish company, has just ordered 500 Semis, the largest commitment anyone has made public. Every one of them is going to America: California, Texas, New Jersey, Illinois and Georgia, hauling for Amazon, financed on a four-year asset-backed loan at around 14 per cent, which tells you something about the price of being early. WattEV took 370 for Californian port drayage in May. Nevada only started volume production at the end of April. That's roughly 870 trucks of US orders queued in front of anyone in Europe, and Einride expects about 75 of theirs this year. Nobody serious is talking about European deliveries before 2027. By the time a Semi reaches a UK yard at any volume, our market will have settled around the OEMs already trading here.
So why does any of it matter? Because it's a proof point on a curve. And the curve is steepening.
Take Windrose. The Global E700, Chinese engineering assembled in Belgium, 700+ kWh, single central driving position, longer than most UK operators will look at twice. It's been touring UK depots since it took its first charge at Tilbury in March, priced from £139,000 net. The British driver response is predictable. Wrong cab, won't fit, no thanks. Every objection is probably correct. But that's the wrong way to read it. The next one will be shorter, or have a normal driving position, or carry a different battery chemistry, or all of the above. The relevant question isn't whether this specific vehicle suits a UK fleet. It's what the third iteration looks like, and whether you've got the depot ready for it.
Same with the Semi. The spec sheet Tesla puts up at Hannover is one truck. The efficiency figure underneath it is the trajectory.
This is where operators keep getting the eHGV story wrong. We read each product launch as a one-shot pass or fail. Does this vehicle work for my routes? Does it fit my yard? Will my drivers tolerate it? Those are the right operational questions, but they only matter for the procurement decision in front of you. The strategic question is different. It's whether you can see the rate of improvement, and whether your business is positioned to take the next two generations rather than the current one.
By the time you've upgraded your grid connection and figured out how you're going to charge it, the truck you need will probably exist. It likely already does. The depot work is the long lead time. The truck choice is the short one. Operators who get that order right will be running electric at scale while the rest are still debating whether the latest launch has enough range.
Every truck OEM I've spoken to in the last 18 months has the same internal trajectory. Lighter packs. Better efficiency. Faster charging. Prices coming down as cell production scales. The published figures just confirm from the outside what's already happening inside the development pipelines. Tesla's Nevada factory is targeting 50,000 trucks a year and throws itself an opening party on 24 September. That's industrial-scale ambition aimed at North American Class 8, but it tells you what the global cell supply curve looks like. That's what feeds Volvo, Mercedes, DAF, Renault, Scania, and everyone else.
The instinct, when you see a battery that big, is to assume we need the same. We don't. Tesla doesn't think so either. The instinct, when you see a Chinese truck with a weird cab, is to dismiss it. Don't.
Watch the curve. The next truck on it will be better than the last.
Destination: The Loading Bay (twentyforty.uk)
Byline: Jamie Sands, The Loading Bay
Status: Updated 31 Aug 2026, ready to publish. Must go out before IAA press day (14 Sept). See editorial notes.