The new Tesla pickup truck is here
The new Tesla pickup truck is here
Posted on November 26, 2019
I know Car Nation Canada doesn’t sell Tesla but when something happens that could reflect on the auto industry as a whole, I like to cover it. I think the new Tesla pickup truck is one of those things.
Tesla had been promising us a pickup for years and some doubted it would ever arrive. Well it did last week and so far, response has been largely positive.
Nobody is going to pretend that shifting truck owners from gas V8s to EVs is going to be easy but if anyone can start the process, Tesla can. With other releases like the Mustang Mach-E, it’s soon going to be difficult to refute the value and appeal of electric motoring.
Tesla pickup truck
Okay, so the design isn’t really up to much. A cross between something from Mad Max or Blade Runner. The profile is very angular. It’s not an attractive truck to look at. Not even slightly. However, looks aren’t everything and that’s certainly the case here.
The Tesla pickup truck is designed specifically at North America’s largest market. To take the green crusade to the big three and win. If not win, put up a very good fight. It certainly won’t do it on the design front but the truck does have other tricks.
First, it’s pure electric and will have a range of up to 500 miles. Some models will have ranges around the 250 mile mark while the long range version will hit that 500 mile mark. There will be three models released initially, a base model with the 250 mile range, a mid range model with 300 miles of range and an extended range trim with 500 miles of range.
Each will be either RWD or AWD depending on the configuration, with two or three motors.
Second, the truck can come with a loading ramp. The demonstration had a folding ramp that allowed an electric ATV to drive right into the rear cargo section of the demo truck. This was a great showcase and another reason to consider one at launch. There was even a port to charge the ATV while loaded.
Finally, the Tesla pickup truck glass is bulletproof. Well bullet resistant anyway. Tesla say the glass can cope with a 9mm bullet being fired directly at it. Although at the demonstration, two panes of glass cracked when they had a metal ball thrown at them. They didn’t break though.
So why all the fuss? While Tesla hasn’t exactly taken over the auto industry, it has forced other automakers to take note and change direction. They recognized the threat posed by Tesla and their ideas and shifted their own production to cut it off. I think the same will happen here.
Trucks are a huge market. The three best selling vehicles in North America are all trucks. Anything that threatens that monopoly is going to be taken seriously. While we won’t see the end to gas trucks anytime soon, the tide is turning and if we can have everything we have with a V8 in a clean electric motor at a very similar price, who isn’t going to want that?