There’s a new Tesla model in town (sort of). Sick of waiting for Tesla to release an electric pickup truck, YouTuber Simone Giertz decided to make her own — post a fake commercial for it on YouTube.
The commercial may be fake, but Giertz really did turn her Tesla Model 3 into a pickup truck. She calls a “Truckla” and the half-hour video of her making it already had more than 658,000 views on YouTube as of Tuesday evening.
“Bottom line is, I really want an electric pickup truck and more specifically, I want a Tesla pickup,” Giertz said in the video. “Elon Musk: this is me challenging you to make the world’s first functional Tesla pickup truck.”
Giertz removed the top of the back half of the car in order to make the truck bed. With the help of mechanics and car-modifying experts, Giertz was able to add a roof rack, HELLA driving lamps and a rear window from a GMC Canyon to transform the sedan into a functional truck.
While the truck is roadworthy, Giertz says she still needs to waterproof it, finish the interior, complete some of the body work, put in bedliner, repaint it, and install a lift kit.
Giertz’s commercial for the Truckla has a lot of fun with the idea of an electric pickup truck. Embracing the tropes of your average western-themed truck commercial,
“The power is in your hands to take charge,” says a narrator as Giertz, wearing a cowboy hat, swings a Tesla charging cord like a lasso.
Truckla isn’t a completely far-out idea: Elon Musk has hinted at a Tesla pickup as recently as March of this year. The company also introduced a Tesla semi-truck prototype back in 2017, which is supposedly said to be ready for the market this year. A battery-operated pickup by Tesla’s competitor, Rivian, debuted at the LA Auto Show last November as the R1T.
The automotive industry is gearing for an electric revolution, as brands like Bentley promise all electric models by 2023, and others like Mazda, Toyota and Porsche following suit with plans to add electric vehicles to their model lineups.
