Electric Vehicles Video: Poland is Going to Fracking Hell, is America Next?

Published on August 2nd, 2013 | by Christopher DeMorro

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Rendered: The Tesla Truck

tesla-truckYesterday we brought you a video of Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk fielding questions from Tesla vehicle owners. One of the questions revived the issue of a Tesla truck, an idea first raised by Musk himself when discussing a potential Tesla factory in Texas. It’ll be awhile before we see a Tesla truck though, so I had Jo render one based on the Model S.

I’ll admit, this is probably not the truck Elon Musk has in mind, which he described as having a self-adjusting air suspension and a serious payload capacity. Rather, this is more of a El Camino-type car/truck, or a “ute” as the Aussies might call it. With that in mind, I’ve taken to calling it The Model U.

With two half-doors, a stubbier nose, and four or five feet of bed space, it certainly won’t replace the Ford F-150 as America’s best-selling vehicle anytime soon. But the SUV-like Tesla Model X is being built with towing in mind, even though towing with a Tesla vehicle isn’t always the best idea. Tesla could easily apply lessons learned in building the Model X to future Tesla truck. I’m envisioning a vehicle with at least 6,000 pounds of towing capacity, and a half-ton payload. That might be a bit ambitious for Jo’s rendering, but this is just the first of many renderings we plan to bring you.

That said, an all-electric truck with a 200+ mile range and the natural torque advantages electric motors have could be a serious contender for light or medium-duty work. Then again by the time such a vehicle comes to market, battery range could be 300 miles or more on a charge, easily.

Anyways, this is just our first take on a potential Tesla pickup. What do you like? What don’t you like? Leave some feedback so we can integrate it into our next rendering of what a Tesla truck might look like.



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About the Author

A writer and gearhead who loves all things automotive, from hybrids to HEMIs, can be found wrenching or writing- or esle, he's running, because he's one of those crazy people who gets enjoyment from running insane distances.


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  • Lee Thomas

    Would be nice if they set it up to be able to carry an eBike.

    • Jo Borras

      Lower the gate, strap on 2 bikes. Charge with the regen braking. I love it! GREAT IDEA!!

  • AaronD12

    While the rendering is cute, “cute” won’t cut it in Texas. Texans want BIG, square, un-aerodynamic, inefficient, smoke-belching trucks. This vehicle would be seen as a “girl’s truck” here in Texas. Seriously. True Texans don’t even buy Rangers or S-10s. It’s full-size or nothing.

    And that’s what I have to deal with when driving my little i-MiEV down the road. Ugh.

    • UncleB

      “Special” people need to prolong the ‘Cowboy-Pick Up” sales pitch of recent America and the Great Corporate American Propaganda Whore’s mesmerizations, but realistically: The rest of the world outside America, (Global Village), outside the Whore’s influences, seeks practicality, utilitarian business fact based designs for trucks for light cargo transfers – a strictly commercial Hino, Isuzu. MAN, Mercedes market niche where COE with full Air bag driver security, one full third more cargo space per driver/ km, Air Pack suspension to “equalize” load changes, fully electric with re-gen braking for stop and go deliveries, easy cargo access for relay transfers – giving the trucks charging time and drivers off-time, fully exchangeable battery packs, between the rails battery locations, in the hub motors, computerized telemetry to prolong distances travelled on batteries, and most of all the switch form ever more expensive fossil fuels to much cheaper Thorium based electricity(except in America)
      “Had the $4 Trillions+ spent on Iraq, been spent even only on conventional Solar/Thermal development of South Western U.S.A. – Today, Americans would receive a huge ROI ( “Return On Investment”) in cheap electricity, in place of horrendous tax rates to service unpayable war debt to China. Americans would be gainfully working, using this renewable, perpetual, eternal, clean, radiation free,
      radioactive waste free, domestic, electricity source – to compete in world markets with well priced products, to irrigate dry lands, to heat and cool homes, and much less foreign oil would have be imported, fewer “Parasite Nations” supported. This is the lost “opportunity cost” for having Saddam’s scrotum on the Bushes mantlepiece? Shiite eh!”
      P.S., (Oil, gas, wells do go dry, not really sourced from an eternal pipe up &Allah’s-ass, as some believe – But, the Sun never stops shining, Wind blows forever)
      now imagine these Electric Trucks made from Aluminium as the Tesla Cars are! Methinks Tesla is about to move to the Global Village Marketplace and away from a broken America lost in its own past glories and Hollywood’s imaginings? P.S. Graphine Super capacitors recently discovered perfected have Energy density equal too or even larger than gasoline, could this be the holy Grail for Electric Storage, Electric cars, and Solar, Wind, Wave, Tidal, power efficiencies? For fuelling vehicles? COE Electric trucks? Rechargeable in moments at the loading Docks?

  • Drivesolo

    Would be nice to see the Tesla truck as a F-150 SVT Raptor fighter. Isn’t Tesla all about performance now? Yeah… that’d be cool.

    • Jo Borras

      Disagree. Nothing shouts “brotard” quite like a Raptor. I would never want to be seen in one.

  • bizwank

    Yeah…that isn’t a truck, not even close. It’s basically a wagon with the hatch and rear seats missing. A truck is for doing specific kinds of work and should be designed function first, form second. With the Tesla’s battery pack and engine all in the sub-frame there’s no reason you can’t just slap a traditional truck body on top, make the cab a little more aerodynamic and call it good. This is one wheel that doesn’t need to be reinvented.

    • Jo Borras

      Very true – you could easily do a cab-over!

  • 97898752

    Where em I going to put my Kayak

    • Jo Borras

      Roof.

      • bizwank

        Like you could with ~any~ car.

  • susannaschick

    Jo, I love you but don’t quit your day job. It’s not a truck if I can’t put my motorcycle in the back WITH THE GATE CLOSED. So this means most new “extended cab” (aka- “I let my wife tell me which truck to get”) trucks are not real trucks either. There’s no reason NOT to do Cab over engine on an electric, and trucks are made for schlepping. Back to the drawing board, Jo!

    • Jo Borras

      :D

    • Campisi

      THANK YOU.

      As for cab-overs, the two biggest drawbacks to the layout (crash safety and aerodynamics) are not significantly reduced by eliminating the internal-combustion accoutrements. Hope does spring eternal, however.

      • UncleB

        Aerodynamics? with a two tonne payload as tall as the COE, smoother but less? Safety – for others on the road with the added visibility? Full air bag systems? Guess I’ll have to ask and Asian engineer?

  • VazzedUp

    The Tesla truck I’m hoping for, will be more like the VW bus, able to be used by ‘cool’ companies for deliveries, come in a bus or truck bed configuration, and be easily converted into a 250 mile trip RV (and recharged at the campground).
    Now that would be both worth $$

    • Jo Borras

      I think Tesla’s got the right model: luxury, high-end buyers.

  • Mark

    Like the rendering, Borrowed from the Mazda RX8?

    • Jo Borras

      The suicide doors were, but the front doors forward are 100% Tesla S. I raised it about 6″, so it looks stubbier, but nothing there has changed. Retains the wheelbase, as well.

  • MrKevinSD

    Make it the appropriate height – taller suspension
    Add a real 4th door if you are going to make it a crew cab.
    Make a bigger bed that you can actually put something in and I will consider it a truck…

    Right now it looks like a RX-8 had sex with an El-Camino and this is their love child.

    • Jo Borras

      For the record, I would totally buy the love child of an RX8 and an El Camino!

      • MrKevinSD

        FAIL

  • Chris

    That picture made me throw up a little bit in my mouth.

    • Jo Borras

      My driver’s license pic makes me do that.

    • egogg

      Is there any other route by which puke exits the body?

  • WeaponZero

    wth is that? Couldn’t you at least use the Model X as a base? Using the Model S as a base is not going to work.

    • Jo Borras

      Why use a car that doesn’t exist yet? Much cheaper to do like Subaru and Chevy have done: make a ute, re-use crash test and certification data.

      • WeaponZero

        I am talking about for the render. It would make more sense to use a Model X as a base then a Model S for a truck. The Model S design is too stretched out for a truck.

        • Jo Borras

          I’m not sure the X is any shorter. I get what you’re saying, though.

  • rebel_sal

    I’m sorry but this is plain horrible, you should quit rendering.

    • Jo Borras

      I’ll be sure to post more renderings, just for you.

      • rebel_sal

        Well I only hope you learn from your mistakes and get decent at it one day, good luck.

        • Jo Borras

          I hope you’ll get decent at things, too.

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  • CMoney

    Its a nice render, but it really does look more like a ute than what the Tesla Truck will probably end up looking like. Could you try making something more like this: http://blogs.cars.com/.a/6a00d83451b3c669e20133f5f46aa1970b-800wi? It looks like the Model X would be a decent base for a render like that, and you could end up with something a bit more pickup-like.

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  • QKodiak

    That’s a Subaru Baja.

  • Steve King, CISSP, CISA

    I don’t think the Ford diesel pick-ups have too worry.

  • moldy

    Texas? maybe not, LA, Portland, Seattle would love it. There are lots of vehicles out there that succeed due to the styling, even if they aren’t practical.
    Personally I think it’s sexy, I’d trade my tundra for it in a flash.

  • Jake Senco

    I’ll take it in an extended-range electric/gasoline format, please.

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