By Jessica DiNapoli and Uday Sampath Kumar
(Reuters) -PepsiCo Inc confirmed on Friday it would take delivery of Tesla Inc’s Semi trucks on Dec. 1, becoming the first company to receive its orders of the much-delayed electric vehicle.
PepsiCo said in a statement that the trucks would be used at its Frito-Lay plant in Modesto, California, and its PepsiCo beverages factory in Sacramento. PepsiCo has been aiming to reduce fuel costs and emissions, and placed an order for 100 of the trucks in 2017.
U.S. companies have pledged to take action to reduce their impacts on the environment. Transportation accounts for roughly 10% of the Mountain Dew maker’s greenhouse gas emissions, PepsiCo’s CEO, Ramon Laguarta, has said. Its company-owned fleet traveled 1.2 billion miles last year.
Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced the start of production of the Semi truck late on Thursday on Twitter, saying the vehicles have a 500-mile (805 km) range and are “super fun to drive.”
Musk initially said the trucks would be in production by 2019 but the timeline has been delayed by years due to parts shortages.
Other companies including United Parcel Service Inc, Walmart Canada, J.B. Hunt Transport Services Inc and food service distributor Sysco Corp had also placed preorders for Tesla’s Semi trucks.
Walmart, J.B. Hunt, UPS and Sysco did not respond to requests for comment on the status of their orders or delivery timings.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru and Jessica DiNapoli in New YorkEditing by Arun Koyyur and Matthew Lewis)
