Dec 16, 2021 1:17 PM EST www.thedrive.com Terms of Service & Privacy Policy. The Tesla Semi may be delayed until 2023—six years after its reveal—due to component shortages and battery cell production. However, that apparently hasn’t kept the automaker from working on the project as an unmarked Semi was supposedly caught testing last week. A Tesla fan recently posted some drone footage of a rowdy Semi near Tesla’s Gigafactory in Sparks, Nevada. The truck was seen doing a few quick pulls along a stretch of private land, and it was also noted that the truck was missing required DOT markings and plates. This led the videographer to believe that it may have been a newly produced truck at the nearby 500,000 square-foot facility said to be the production site for the Semi. “A source has informed me that the Tesla Semi is now in limited production,” writes Tesla fan Sawyer Merritt on YouTube. “Key word here is limited. Volume production won’t start until 2023. This has been independently corroborated by drone footage taken [on December 10th] of the Giga Nevada Semi production building, and sent to me. I’m told that unlike previous Tesla semi builds spotted, this one did not have any department of transportation stickers or manufacturer plates.” In early November, PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta told CNBC that the snack company was expecting its “first deliveries” of the Tesla Semi before the end of the year. The soft drink giant placed an order for 100 Semis in 2017 and received a private showing of an early truck just a few months later. This YouTuber’s claims support Laguarta’s expectations; however, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has also cast doubt on the short timeline. Please don’t read too much into this. As mentioned publicly, Tesla is constrained by chip supply short-term & cell supply long-term. Not possible to produce additional vehicles in volume until both constraints are addressed.