Tesla refreshes the design of its Semi as production nears in 2026

It’s been around 8 years since the original unveiling of the Tesla Semi-truck. The US-based electric vehicle-maker made big promises for its range and the ability to perform logistics operations.

Tesla made several prototypes of its class-8 electric semi-truck and even gave them to companies like PepsiCo for long-duration field testing. However, in all those years of internal and external testing and building the Megacharger system, Tesla Semi’s design started to feel outdated.

At the 2025 Tesla Annual Shareholder Meeting, Elon Musk showed a design-refreshed Tesla Semi. The automaker also shared the following photo of the redesigned Semi on Musk’s social media platform X, along with its major specs.

Production and Deliveries

At this year’s Shareholder Meeting last week, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO Elon Musk announced that the Tesla Semi production will begin at the Giga Nevada factory in 2026.

“Starting next year, we’ll manufacture the Tesla Semi. We will start volume production at our Northern Nevada factory in 2026,” Musk said.

Elon Musk has been predicting Tesla Semi production since 2020. Technical challenges and the design-refresh update caused even more delays. However, with the new info and finalized design, the 2026 deliveries seem a promising timeline.

Although Musk says “starting next year”, the production start and deliveries might actually happen by mid-2026.

Semi Follows the New Tesla Design Language

It’s the 2nd generation of Tesla Semi prototypes. The design-refreshed Tesla Semi shown at this year’s Shareholder Meeting follows the automaker’s updated design language.

Tesla has redesigned the entire front fascia of the Semi-truck. Now it follows the same design cues of the new Model Y Juniper and the Tesla Cybercab small robotaxi vehicle.

The front headlights of the new Semi are integrated into the horizontal light bar. In the previous version, these were large, separated headlights with individual integrated DRLs.

The frunk (front trunk) lid is now even flatter. The bumper is also redesigned to complement the new light bar setup.

Tesla has also made design changes to the side profile of the Semi. The character lines are now a bit more prominent and run further towards the end of the cabin.

The side windows have a slightly modified design now compared to the older generation (see the following image for a visual comparison).

The new Tesla Semi also has extruded side cameras installed above the front wheel arches. These are most likely for the enhancement of Autopilot-assisted driving to ease the driver’s workload and improve road safety. An earlier version of the Tesla Semi was spotted with 26 cameras in 2018.

If you notice more design changes in the new Tesla Semi, do post them in the comments section below.

More efficient, Increased payload, Designed for autonomy, Deliveries start next year.

Tesla via X.

Above: The new design-refreshed production-intent Tesla Semi-truck revealed in 2025 (left), the older generation Tesla Semi prototype (right). Credit: Tesla, Iqtidar Ali / TeslaOracle.com.

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Featured image: Courtesy of Tesla, Inc.

Note: This article was published earlier on Tesla Oracle. Author: Iqtidar Ali.