Tesla’s Elon Musk said Thursday on Twitter that the company has “acquired trucking capacity” to help with the delivery of the Model 3, a statement issued without further elaboration.
The slight bit of elaboration came in an interview with Bloomberg. Musk told Bloomberg that Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) had made acquisitions of trucking companies, but provided no further information.
If a trucking company–or a few–was acquired by Tesla in recent weeks, it was apparently not considered a “material event” by the company. Such an occurrence, under SEC regulations, requires the filing of an 8-K form. A search of all of Tesla’s 8-K filings for the last 4-5 months reveals no 8-K filings related to the acquisition of trucking companies. A search of its second quarter 10-Q, its most recent, also reveals nothing about acquiring trucking companies or capacity. An acquisition could be considered non-material if small enough, and would not carry with a mandate to report it as a material event.
But if the acquisition of a company or companies is moving the needle on its supply chain, it’s hard to envision how it would not be material.
In the one 8-K filed recently about operations, there is no mention of the acquisition of trucking companies or trucking capacity though there is extensive discussion about the state of the Model 3 supply chain. Acquiring capacity could involve securing dedicated transportation services without actually buying a company.
Musk’s tweets also said they were moving away from rail to move completed Model 3 cars in favor of trucks. “Skipping rail saves over a month for East Coast deliveries,” he said in the tweet from Thursday. “All things considered, it’s better to use trucks. Single load/unload & direct to owner location.”
Musk also tweeted that it would secure dedicated maritime shipping for its exports. “Will also be using dedicated roll-on, roll-off fast ships for transporting cars to Europe & Asia in Q1,” he wrote. “Major focus on minimizing time from factory to new owner. Did not fully appreciate the working capital impact until recently.”
FreightWaves sent several follow-up questions to the Tesla public relations office. But the Bloomberg story said a Tesla spokesman had declined comment to that news service on the identify of the trucking companies or capacity that Musk says Tesla bought.