YouTube Personality Builds Tesla Pickup Using Chopped Model 3

During Tesla’s most-recent shareholders meeting, Elon Musk said the company’s pickup should be arriving this fall — adding that we would probably see it near the end of the summer if everything goes according to plan. Apparently disinterested in waiting another two months, robotics enthusiast and self-professed EV fan Simone Giertz decided to fabricate her own using a Tesla Model 3 as a starting point.

Giertz, who runs a YouTube channel focused on quirky building projects, claimed the home-brewed pickup’s relation to the sedan was one of necessity. She only chose the Model 3 because it possessed a steel chassis and was cheaper to risk ruining than a Model S would have been.

Enlisting a gaggle of friends to help convert the electric vehicle, Giertz documented the process for her channel. But not before releasing a fake advertisement showcasing the finished product while cleverly satirizing car commercials as a whole.

The build entailed removing the back half of the Model 3 and gutting the rear interior to make room for an old bed floor ripped from an tenth-gen Ford F-Series. A hacked-apart GMC Canyon served as the missing portion of the vehicle’s cabin, providing the necessary glass and sheet metal to isolate the driver from the load. As Giertz said she had hoped to make the vehicle as functional as possible, a roof rack providing additional structural support was also incorporated.

As DIY builds go, the affectionately named “Truckla” looks pretty polished. But it probably would have been more cost effective for Giertz and company to have simply installed a tow hitch. Of course, the resulting video wouldn’t have accumulated nearly as many views as cobbling together an electric ute.

As a proponent for electric vehicles, Simone said she’s enamored with the makeshift pickup and intends on using it as her daily driver. It is not, however, finished. Giertz admitted that she still needs to do some waterproofing, completely seal off the cabin, spruce up the interior, add a bed liner, and fix some bodywork that was damaged during the build process.

[Images: Simone Giertz via YouTube]