Tesla’s habit of announcing products long before they make it to market has opened it to criticisms from other automakers. The latest, Renault, has opted to tease the company for the long lead time on the Tesla Semi.
The French automaker has published a video that shows a worker putting up a poster for the Tesla Semi. Over that, a caption reads, “There are those who make big announcements.” Then, over footage of the same person getting into an electric Renault truck, a caption reads “And there are those who are already putting in the kilometers.”
In a description for the video, meanwhile, the brand writes that its electric trucks have already put in 2 million km (621,371 miles) of driving time. Renault is already in its second generation of electric trucks that includes the Renault E-Tech Master, the E-Tech D, and E-Tech D Wide, which can carry between 3.1 to 26 tonnes.
More: Tesla Semi Prototype Breaks Down Just Six Weeks Before Deliveries Start
Intended more for short range deliveries than the long-range driving envisioned by the Tesla Semi, they are produced in Blainville-sur-Orne at a plant that makes only electric vehicles.
This may have been Renault’s last opportunity to produce such an ad, though, as Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, promised this month that the Semi would finally be entering production. First announced in November 2017, the truck was supposed to go on sale in 2019, but a number of delays meant that, until October of this year, an official delivery date for the first models was not known.
On October 7, though, Musk claimed that the first Tesla Semis will be delivered to Pepsi on December 1. Unfortunately for the company, just five days later, photos of a Tesla Semi prototype broken down on the side of the road were published.
No information has been released on the cause of the breakdown but, of course, things go wrong for every company during testing. Given the long road to production, though, it’s not hard to see why Musk’s declaration might be met by some skepticism, and why other manufacturers still feel safe taking jabs at the truck.