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Image of Tesla's electric semi truck surfaces

Image of Tesla's electric semi truck surfaces

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A new Reddit mystery is afoot

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Photo: Tesla

We’re less than one month away from the day when Tesla plans to unveil its first electric semi truck, and of course that means it’s time for speculation and sleuthing to skyrocket. Today’s fodder is a picture of what could be the Tesla big rig that was posted to, deleted from, and reposted to Reddit overnight by a user who nabbed the photo in time. Intrigue!

In it, we see a silver truck with a swept, aerodynamic design sitting on a flatbed in god-knows-where California looking like it’s waiting to pounce on the gas-powered big rig in front of it. A second piece at the far left of the frame appears to be the fairing that goes on the roof of a truck to help cut down on wind resistance.

Photo: Reddit

In all fairness, the truck in the photo looks plenty like the one official teaser image that CEO Elon Musk released a while back. The headlights seem to curl up and back the same way, and if you visualize that fairing on top — which someone on Reddit already did for you — that lines up pretty well, too. When reached for comment, a Tesla spokesperson said, "Tesla’s policy is to always decline to comment on speculation."

The Reddit gumshoes go, perhaps obviously, much deeper. One points out what looks like wrapped materials in front of the semi, guessing that it might be new, truck-rated Superchargers. Another tries to imagine where and how the batteries might fit. At least this time around no one’s issuing takedown notices — yet.

Is it the Tesla semi? Unless we get more information from the original poster, who also may have deleted his account according to some folks in the Reddit thread, (more intrigue!), or another set of spy shots, it’s hard to say. We already know it’s likely to have some form of Autopilot, a range of about 200–300 miles, and that it’s supposed to be “a ‘day cab’ with no sleeper berth,” according to a Ryder executive who may have seen the thing in person. Those things feel downright set in stone compared to the unveiling event, which is still only “tentatively scheduled” for October 26th, according to a tweet from Musk.