The Tesla Semi hype is pure cope

TechCrunch writes "Tesla finally moves to electrify trucking after a decade of work and delays." The article was about how Tesla started production of the Tesla Semi at a factory that might one day be able to make up to 50,000 trucks a year after promising to do this back in 2019.

The problem with the headline and the article is that the electrification of trucking is already well underway and it has been for a while. China sold and shipped 440,000 electric trucks just last year (2025). And about half were heavy trucks and tractors like the Tesla Semi. Chinese factories are already made 9 times more electric trucks last year than the Tesla Semi factory will if it one day reaches its nameplate capacity.

It's really sad that the US has morphed from a place that once used to be a world leader across a large swath of industries and a fierce competitor where they were behind to a place where people pretend that something isn't happening until a US company does it in their own backyard. Pretending that competition doesn't exist and isn't beating you is not a recipe for success.