Tesla ‘might’ unveil electric pickup truck prototype in 2019, says Elon Musk

After much talk about shifting priorities to making a Tesla pickup truck, CEO Elon Musk now says that Tesla ‘might’ unveil an electric pickup truck prototype as soon as next year.

Musk has been quite excited about the prospect of Tesla making an electric pickup truck – going as far as saying that it is the product he is most excited about in Tesla’s busy product roadmap.

We already know quite a bit about the Tesla pickup truck after Musk sought suggestions about the vehicle in development and shared some of the targeted specs.

He talked about it being a 6-seater “big truck” with an option for 400 to 500 miles of range, “maybe higher”.

While those would be impressive specs for an electric pickup truck, it was not clear why Musk was so excited about the product until he said that the Tesla Pickup Truck will have a ‘really futuristic-like cyberpunk Blade Runner’ design.

They are slowly letting some design ideas and specs out, but the timeline is still unclear.

Now Musk says that we may at least see a prototype of the Tesla pickup truck next year:

I’m dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2018

Last month, the CEO also hinted at accelerated plans for the electric pickup to take priority over the Tesla Semi and next-generation Roadster at least based on “resource priority”.

Electrek’s Take

We have been pushing for Tesla to unveil and start taking reservations for their electric pickup sooner rather than later because I think it will kickstart the electric pickup truck industry in the US. That should have a massive impact on the emissions from the American transport industry in the long-term.

Rivian did a pretty good job last month with the launch of their own electric pickup, but I think Tesla is more likely to have a bigger impact due to their recent history.

The ideal scenario that we have been talking about is that Tesla would unveil Model Y and Tesla Pickup at the same time in March 2019, but the company is allocating more capital in 2019 to bring Model Y and Tesla Semi to production within the next year.

The pickup could come to market later, but Tesla could still start taking reservations for it to show how much demand there is for electric pickup trucks.

Now the scenario is still a possibility with Musk saying that they could show the prototype in 2019, but it could also be later in the year.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.