The 800 pound gorilla in the room is unquestionably the Tesla Semi.
Experience says that creative projects coming out of Tesla are usually not a question of if, but when. As CCJ’s Jason Cannon recently noted, Tesla announced in 2017 that the Semi “has been delayed at least four times and is six years overdue.” Yet optimism for this truck remains extremely high.
When we take a look at California’s recent HVIP Clean Truck and Bus Voucher Program data, we see that as of mid-October 2025, 874 vouchers to 72 distinct entities have been approved and issued for Tesla Semis. Also consider that Tesla already has put more than 100 trucks into service in the past several years and has been quietly providing new vehicles to fleets this year. In California alone in 2026, there might be 1,000 Tesla Semis on the road.
OEM specialty truck volumes of 1,000/year are not uncommon. Look at refuse hauling trucks where low-volume trucks typically can carry premium price tags versus over-the-road freight trucks, yet both the OEMs and the fleet buyers are happy to build and buy those specialty trucks at those low volumes.
In 2026, the Tesla Semi will have perhaps 1,000 vehicles on California roads in operation with more than 70 fleets. If Windrose also brings trucks to the market in 2026, as Arlo Guthrie sang in Alice’s Restaurant, then “friends, they may think it’s a movement.”
Tesla’s automotive market has stumbled this year. Autoweek reported recently that Tesla’s automotive production share is expected to decline 24% — some 200,000 units — for a variety of factors. They are no longer the only game in town for electric cars, so market share losses to other manufacturers may be difficult to win back in the future.
Those Tesla automotive challenges really seem to put extra pressure on the Tesla Semi to capture truck market share. The Tesla Semi has a pivotal opportunity in trucking to garner new market share.
Electric truck offerings from traditional OEMs like Volvo, Kenworth and Peterbilt, Freightliner, etc. suffer from sibling rivalry issues with competing diesel product lines in addition to external competitive challenges.
Tesla’s Semi, not having to compete internally with established diesel product lines, has been designed for greater range and performance. The only real competition to Tesla’s Semi at present is the fledgling Windrose, arguably a coin flip for fleets looking at only vehicle specifications.
This two horse BEV race with Tesla and Windrose essentially is opening up a new market segment — 400+ mile per charge battery electric semi-trucks.
Call them market disruptors. Picture that moment when Nikon and Canon started producing high quality digital cameras for professional photographers. Where did all the traditional film camera product lines go? Picture the moment Nokia introduced its iconic wireless flip phone. Where did all those corded Bell telephones go? Where did all the telephone booths go?
Examples of market disruption abound. The new battery electric trucks entering production in 2026 could be, in Winston Churchill’s words, “Not even the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning” of battery electric trucks.
In 1970, some traditional automotive industry watchers might have had the same question about Honda, Volkswagen, Toyota, Datsun, Subaru and others. In 2010, industry mavens might have wondered if Tesla and others were going to capture automotive market share. In both cases, the market disruptors captured new share. In both cases, the traditional OEMs eventually reacted by developing new competing product lines after starting to lose market share to the disruptors.
Will the traditional truck OEMs start making 400+ mile per charge electric trucks when Tesla and Windrose start making production trucks?
Market disruptors have a nasty tendency of obsoleting older technologies and displacing established companies that don’t move with the times.
Will the Tesla Semi steal North American market share from traditional OEMs?
The HVIP data shows it already is.
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