Photo of Elon Musk via  jdlasica /Flickr.

Photo of Elon Musk via jdlasica/Flickr.

Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk is promising to produce a battery-electric pickup truck in the near future as the latest entry in his growing lineup of vehicles that has begun to include more commercial models.

Musk plans to develop his pickup sometime after 2019, which he has set as the tentative launch date for his Model Y crossover.

"I promise that we will make a pickup truck right after Model Y," Musk wrote in a tweet. "Have had the core design/engineering elements in my mind for almost 5 years. Am dying to build."

In November, Musk revealed Tesla's first Semi truck. At the time, he showed a sketch of a "pickup truck that can carry a pickup truck."

Tesla has had difficulty increasing production of his more affordable Model 3, which has faced production bottlenecks. Tesla produced only 260 of the expected 2,000 vehicles in the third quarter.

The closest competition to a Tesla pickup would be Workhorse's W-15 plug-in hybrid pickup. Workhorse, which showed the concept vehicle in May in Southern California, has said its half-ton W-15 would have an 80-mile range without payload.

0 Comments