In his TED Talk on Friday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the company's semitruck would be able to outperform diesel trucks on the road.

Musk, who revealed a teaser image of the electric truck for the first time, said he had taken a prototype for a spin in Tesla's parking lot.

"This will be a very spry truck," he said. "You can drive this around like a sports car."

The company is expected to reveal the electric semitruck in September. Tesla is also building an electric pickup truck, which it plans to unveil in a year and a half to two years.

Musk says Tesla is looking to prove that an electric truck can outperform a diesel truck when it comes to range and torque, even with the added weight of a battery. He announced the semitruck project in his "Master Plan, Part Deux" in July.

Jerome Guillen, Tesla's vice president of programs, is leading the project. He led Daimler's semitruck program before joining Tesla in 2012.

The Mercedes-Benz parent company is testing its electric semitruck on public roads in Germany. Daimler said in February it was talking to 20 potential customers about the truck, which it says can drive 124 miles on a single charge.