Current: Burning Tesla Semi causes long closure of U.S. highway – Pre-production model?
Image: CHP Hayward
It is likely that very few Tesla Semi vehicles are still on the roads. Although there was a “Delivery Event” for this electric tractor-trailer at the end of 2022, only a few deliveries followed, and it was not until this September that Tesla announced the launch of its series-produced Semi. One such vehicle has already caused hours-long traffic delays on a major highway in California: On Tuesday evening, a Tesla Semi caught fire without any accident occurring, resulting in the road being closed in both directions.
Tesla Semi catches fire on highway
Many U.S. media outlets reported on the Tesla truck incident on Wednesday. It reportedly occurred on Interstate 880 in the Bay Area near San Francisco. The fire is said to have broken out around 5:45 p.m. local time while the truck was in motion. Shortly after, police arrived and closed off the north-south route in both directions, citing potential dangers from substances in the smoke. Photos released by them (see above) show that little remains of the semi-truck. No one was injured.
In the north, Interstate 880 was reopened in the evening, while it remained closed to the south until early morning. The police footage already indicated this, and according to the San Francisco Chronicle, it confirmed that the battery of the Tesla tractor unit caught fire. It contains 4680 batteries manufactured by Tesla itself, which together store up to 800 kilowatt-hours of energy in the Long-Range version of the Semi, roughly ten times more than in a typical electric car.
Unknown Number of Semi Trucks on the Roads
Neither the police nor Tesla initially commented on possible causes, but an external impact seems unlikely — unlike the first case of a semi on fire in August 2024, which also occurred on a California highway. At that time, reports indicated the battery caught fire after the tractor-trailer veered off the road in a curve and struck a tree.
Some media outlets have now pointed out that spontaneously catching fire trucks are not uncommon in the U.S. Fire departments in the country reportedly encounter them 42 times per day on average, with only 2 percent of these incidents resulting from prior accidents, and so far they have involved almost exclusively diesel vehicles. It is unknown how many Tesla Semi trucks are currently in use across the U.S. Several three-digit orders for the Semi were announced before and after its series production began at the end of September, but no large-scale deliveries have taken place yet.
Tesla Pre-production Trucks?
The electric truck that caught fire on Tuesday may be one of the pre-production units Tesla delivered to early customers years ago. In January 2023, PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay brand reported having received six such trucks by then. At least one of them was conspicuously covered with Frito-Lay colors and logos. This exact design is visible in a video posted by BlueSky of the truck burning in California, filmed before police and firefighters arrived.