Tesla’s electric big-rig gets slammed by truck driver

Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) unveiled a prototype of its first ever electric big-rig truck Thursday, which CEO Elon Musk is calling “The Beast.”

While there is a lot of buzz surrounding the model, truck driver Matthew Garnett said Friday that he doesn’t trust Musk’s motivation for creating an electric powered truck.

“He’s motivated by his environmental agenda, not by making truck driving easier, not by making the trucking industry more profitable none of that is what’s motivating him primarily. So as long as that is his agenda then the product is going to suffer,” he told FOX Business’ Liz MacDonald on “Risk & Reward.”

According to Tesla, the semi would be able to drive 500 miles at full speed before needing to recharge. It would then need at least 30 minutes to fully recharge.

Though when compared to a traditional semi, Garnett believes that the battery life still doesn’t compare to the fuel efficiency of a diesel truck.

“I fuel every few days, if I had to fuel everyday it would waste all kinds of time so maybe that little bit of savings I’m getting in fuel efficiency is going to be wasted on all that time I’m spending on charging the batteries back up. 500 miles in nothing for a truck,” he said.

Garnett addressed some of the problems that Tesla could face if they move forward with production.

“They are talking about putting in all of these charging stations everywhere and you know the roads are terrible, we can’t even get the roads right. The power grid is rickety right now and they are talking about putting all of this infrastructure in, that’s not going to happen,” he said.

Tesla is expected to start production on the truck in 2019.