Nine years after Elon Musk vowed to electrify trucking with Tesla’s electric Semi, the vehicle is finally edging into something like regular production. The twist: while Tesla has treated the Semi’s real-world pricing like a state secret, a Chinese-European upstart is doing the opposite—rolling into the U.S. market with a Tesla-shaped electric big rig and a number on the window.

That company is Windrose Tech, led by CEO and founder Wen Han, 35, who will cheerfully tell you most anything you want to know about his electric big rig: price, range, weight, hauling capacity —and, yes, why the truck looks like it came out of the same design team meeting as Tesla’s.

“Our truck looks a lot like the Tesla because that's what the aerodynamics dictate,” Han said by video chat, standing outside a restaurant on a chilly night in Antwerp, Belgium (where Windrose is now headquartered). “Somewhat surprisingly, we managed to patent in the United States our cab design, and also the chassis.”

“Fuel cost is much bigger for fleets than driver costs, and is much bigger than truck costs”

“Fuel cost is much bigger for fleets than driver costs, and is much bigger than truck costs”

Windrose has begun selling initial units of its electric truck to customers in California and Texas. The company’s 1,400-horsepower R700 model is priced at $300,000 and targets about 400 miles per charge. It weighs in at just over 22,000 pounds and can haul up to 60,000 pounds of cargo in the U.S. Han’s pitch includes three months of free charging via Greenlane Infrastructure, which is building high-powered charging stations in Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. (It has similar arrangements in Europe, where it just announced a charging partnership with France’s ENGIE Vianeo, and the truck sells for 250,000 Euros.)

Tesla’s price hasn’t been publicly disclosed yet. Early........

© Forbes