Trucking news and briefs for Thursday, Aug. 11, 2022:
Tesla’s Musk reaffirms Semi deliveries will begin this year
With just more than four months left in 2022, Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted Wednesday that he expects to begin deliveries of the company’s battery electric Semi, equipped with a 500-mile range, this year.
The confirmation of his plans came in a response to another tweet from Musk linking to Tesla’s Master Plan, Part Deux – a document published in 2016 that, among other things, suggested an electric semi and passenger bus were in development by the electric vehicle company.
The following year, Tesla unveiled its electric Semi with deliveries set to begin in 2019. That date has been delayed at least three times in the past three years as legacy OEMs like Paccar, Volvo, Mack and Freightliner place multiple electric trucks into customers’ hands – although none with the 500-mile range promised by Tesla and Musk. BEV upstart Nikola has also built and delivered upwards of 50 models and targets to have 500 out by year end.
There’s been almost no formal news from Tesla about its Semi in more than a year, but in January Musk said Semi production was set for “hopefully next year (2023)."
HHG moving company employee sentenced for defrauding United States
Tal Ohana, an employee of various affiliated Brooklyn, New York-based moving companies --including C and D Moving, Inc., Hicks Moving & Storage, Cross Country Moving and Storage Inc., and Great Movers Inc. -- was sentenced July 14 to two years of probation and a $100 special assessment for conspiracy to defraud the United States.
According to the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, Ohana and co-conspirators agreed to defraud the United States and DOT by submitting forms to DOT regarding motor carriers. Ohana allegedly knew these forms contained false information about the companies' ownership and true location.
The forms also failed to disclose the motor carriers' affiliations with other motor carriers whose operating authority had been revoked or suspended by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, OIG said.
Additionally, Ohana and co-conspirators directed others to lie to federal regulators and customers to conceal the moving companies' location and obstructed FMCSA from enforcing safety regulations that govern the use of commercial motor vehicles in interstate commerce.
