As the battle of electric pickup trucks between Ford, Rivian, and Tesla rages on at an annoying slow crawl with nothing but teasers and overzealous gloating (I’m looking at you ford with your train-pulling stunt), Tesla’s Elon Musk as pushed the debut of the Tesla Model Z Pickup even further back. So when will we actually get to see it? Well, with Musk’s overly optimistic history, it’s anybody’s guess, but we at least have a rough idea.
The Tesla Pickup Must Have a Lot of “Final Details
Back on July 27th, 2019, Elon Musk replied to a curious and prospective customer, saying that the Tesla Model Z Pickup would be unveiled in “maybe 2 or 3 months.”
Yet, here we are two months in, on our way to month number 3, which by out calendar is October, and there’s next to no word about the Tesla Pickup. Well, as you would expect, people are getting curious and are tired of waiting for Musk’s next big EV, so Twitter has been blowing up once again. One potential customer asked Musk when it would be unveiled because he’s planning a business trip and doesn’t want to miss it. Seriously, people will plan business trips around the Tesla Pikcup’s unveiled…. Take that, Ford and Rivian!
It didn’t take good ol’ Elon long to respond, but the news wasn’t all good. Now, it looks like the Tesla Pickup will debut “most likely” in November. We’re assuming that’s November 2019, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves quite yet. After all, Musky has a bad habit of being overly optimistic, and we almost always end up waiting much longer than he says we will. It happened with the Model S, it Happened with the Model X and Model 3, and now it’s going to happen with the Model Z pickup. Hell, it even happens with the company’s profit projections, so there’s that.
When Will the Tesla Pickup be Revealed
At this point, we’re not putting a lot of faith in the Tesla Pickup making its debut in November 2019. Musk says the magic is in the final details, but for all we know there’s a lot more going on behind the scenes that’s delaying the process. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t see it until sometime in early 2020. Of course, we’ll probably know for sure when Musk announces another event – he knows a new Pickup will be expected there and there won’t be another event without it.
Now, the chances are the Tesla will beat Ford to the official debut, but getting to market? Well, something tells me Ford is going to Tesla at its own game. It has the resources and production capability to push the prototype that we’ll eventually see into production quickly.
For now, don’t put a lot of faith in Musk’s loose November expectation and just ride out the wait. To @vincent13031925 on Twitter, I suggest you go ahead and schedule that next “biz trip” – there’s no telling how long we’re really going to be waiting to see the Tesla Pickup.
Further reading
Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Tesla Pickup.