Unveiled in 2017, the Tesla Semi was originally due by late 2019. It’s delayed and unclear when the big rig does into production.
Tesla
Jerome Guillen, a long-serving, top-tier Tesla executive with an extensive automotive background and who has been overseeing development of its battery-powered Semi truck, has left the company.
Guillen, who joined Tesla nearly a decade ago, left his role as president of Tesla Heavy Trucking as on June 3, the Palo Alto, California-based company said in an SEC filing on Monday afternoon. “We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well in his future career,” the company said in the filing, without providing details about what he will do next.
Guillen didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In more than a decade with Elon Musk’s electric vehicle powerhouse, Guillen held multiple high-profile roles for the company and was among the company’s most senior executives. His roles included overseeing Tesla’s automotive operations, global sales and service, engineering and he was program director for the breakthrough Model S sedan during the car’s development and initial production phase, from 2010 through 2013.
His most recent task, readying the Tesla Semi truck for commercial sale, has run into challenges. Since first debuting a prototype of the big-rig in November 2017, the Semi has fallen far behind schedule, missing Musk’s initial target of selling it by the end of 2019. It’s unclear whether production and sales will begin this year or if it has been pushed back to 2022. That’s because the model appears to depend use of a larger, next-generation lithium-ion cell that remains in development.
Tesla shares, which rose 1% to $605.13 on Monday, were little changed in after-hours Nasdaq trading after the SEC filing posted.
