Electric Trucks in the Food Industry: How the Tesla Semi is working out for Frito-Lay / Pepsico

Pepsi Tesla Semi is delivering Frito-Lay products around 425 miles per charge. It also delivers Pepsi out of its Sacramento warehouse on 100 mile daily routes, going directly to stores, and 300 to 400 mile runs to other warehouses.

One of the Frito-Lay executives said the contents that the Frito-Lay Tesla Semi trailer can weigh about 45,000 pounds is really the accepted weight and potato chips are made of a lot of air.

He said when they look at soda cans, aluminum and liquids, these things weight a lot, and they will weight out. The price of the Tesla Semi trucks according to CNBC it is estimated to cost around USD 180,000.

PepsiCo's VP Supply Chain Mike O'Connell:
 

"First generation and early development has additional research funding and all that. That's where the partnership and support comes din. But ongoing, we believe there is a positive economic business case for electrifying the fleet."

But in general, experts are predicting that electric trucks will be cheaper to operate over time. In CNBC's rare inside look of Pepsi Tesla Semi operations, PepsiCo said it's working with Tesla to grow their Tesla Semi fleet from 37 to 100 trucks. In this new update, Pepsi now discloses Tesla Semi's autonomous capability and what they plan to do with it.