Elon Musk tweets about features for a new Tesla pickup truck — and he’s taking suggestions

FAN Editor

Elon Musk wants your thoughts on what features Tesla should include in the electric automaker’s planned pickup truck.

Tesla fans have been clamoring for a pickup truck for some time, and the company’s billionaire CEO stoked that excitement by announcing in April 2017 that a pickup would be unveiled within two years. In November, Tesla even shared early sketches of what the pickup might look like at an event to unveil the Tesla Semi Truck, the electric semi that will be used for shipping cargo.

Now, Musk has sought the help of his social media following to help him decide what an eventual Tesla pickup truck will look like. On Tuesday, Musk asked his 22 million Twitter followers, “What would you love to see in a Tesla pickup truck?”

Musk also laid out a few of his own ideas — from dual-motor, all-wheel drive with “crazy torque” and a driving range of 400 to 500 miles, if not higher — and he also responded to some of his followers’ comments and questions.

Musk told one Twitter user that an adjustable suspension height would come standard with the Tesla pickup. And the truck will also include high-voltage power outlets that offer enough electricity to power “high power tools” without the need for a generator, Musk said.

Another follower asked Musk to include features that assist with parallel parking, to which the CEO responded that the pickup “will parallel park automatically” with the help of 360-degree cameras and sonar technology.

The planned pickup could also have room to seat as many as six people, Musk said on Twitter, and that it will have a very large driver’s seat. In fact, the driver’s seat “will be big enough to fit Andre the Giant,” the late-wrestler (who was reportedly over 7 feet tall and weighed more than 500 pounds), Musk said online.

In the past, Musk has boasted about how large Tesla’s pickup will be, calling it just a “mini version of the Tesla Semi” in September. While Tesla has not announced specifics about the size of the planned pickup, Musk said in November that it will be “a pickup truck that can carry a pickup truck,” suggesting the Tesla pickup could be significantly larger than most trucks on the market.

It makes sense for Tesla to enter the market for pickup trucks, which accounted for over 16 percent of all U.S. auto sales in 2017. Ford’s F-Series pickup truck has been the best-selling vehicle in any category in the U.S. for nearly four decades, selling nearly 900,000 units last year alone, according to automotive market tracker AutoData.

Of course, a Tesla pickup is still a long way away, as Musk’s timeline would not have the truck begin production until 2019.

Meanwhile, Tesla is still pulling out all of the stops to meet its production targets for its Model 3 mass-market cars. Various production delays on the Model 3 have pushed back delivery dates for some customers, and Reuters reported on Thursday that Tesla factory workers said the company would not reach Musk’s target of producing 5,000 Model 3s per week by the end of June.

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