We know for a fact that Tesla will unveil its first ever pickup truck sometime this year, but some people aren’t prepared to wait so they’ve made their own. This is the story of Simone Giertz who did just that, using a Tesla Model 3 sedan as a base. That's right. She bought a Tesla Model 3 and started cutting, adjusting, and welding. The result is way better than we would have expected. Here's how this story goes.
The First-Ever Tesla Pickup Truck Doesn't Come From Tesla
Why did she do it? Well, as she herself puts it, she “really wanted an electric pickup truck and more specifically a Tesla pickup truck” and since one is not yet available, the only thing left to do is to come up with one yourself.
Simone bought a brand new 2020 Tesla Model 3 with the single motor and standard range battery pack and proceeded to disassembling and ultimately cutting it up. Since the car in question is a Tesla that is constantly connected to the manufacturer via the internet and it knows when something is wrong with it, it was not as straightforward a process as if it had been another car.
The team working on the car doesn’t just chop the roof and hope the vehicle’s structural rigidity is not compromised and they instead reinforce the chassis with extra bracing before they fit the Ford F-150-sourced bed on top. And in case you were wondering why she chose a Model 3 over one of the larger Teslas (the Model S or Model X), it’s because the Model 3’s structure is all steel (so it’s easy to work with and fabricate parts for), whereas the others’ is aluminum which requires more work and specialized tooling.
How was this Tesla Pickup Born?
In the end it all came together quite well and even though the “Truckla” as her creator calls it doesn’t look completed to the point where it would look like a factory effort, it’s not far off by any means - it looks quite legit from some angles, though, which is why it was possible to shoot a mock commercial that may fool some viewers who don’t know the background and context that this is a genuine Tesla product... until the point in the video commercial where they say it’s “available nowhere.”
In the end, Simone achieved her goal of creating an all-electric pickup for her to haul “lumber and dead bodies” with and didn’t have to wait a few more years for Toyota to make release the production version of its truck. In fact, we expect Tesla to show off its new pickup this year, only it won’t actually be the series model, more likely a concept/prototype as the company has done in the past with some of its models.
Further Reading
Read our full speculative review on the 2020 Tesla Pickup.
Read more Tesla news.