Tesla Pickup Has a Reveal Date; Availability Still TBD

If you’re eagerly anticipating next year’s launch of the redesigned Ford F-150, Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s past claim that the Tesla pickup will rub its face in the dirt probably doesn’t have a lot of pull. Placed in a Venn diagram, these two camps — Tesla diehards and F-150 superfans — likely overlap very little, if at all.

That said, there’s still plenty of buzz surrounding the upcoming pickup, which we now know will make its debut on November 21st. Unless it becomes official, there’s no way we’re using Musk’s preferred name for the model.

That infuriating word is “Cybertruck,” which Musk used to refer to the electric pickup when announcing the reveal date via Twitter on Wednesday. Tech blogs will no doubt be in attendance when the model’s clothes come off at an L.A. venue near Musk’s SpaceX rocket facility.

It’s interesting that this reveal is scheduled to occur at the same time as — and in close proximity to — the L.A. Auto Show; in the past, Tesla has shunned the outdated concept of industry trade shows, preferring instead to march to the beat of its own drum. Disruption, and all that.

It was well known that the pickup would arrive in November, though Musk’s announcement contained no details about when future reservation holders might get their hands on a real one. The Model Y crossover, based on the Model 3, launched in March; deliveries aren’t expected until next summer. So yes, there’s a significant lag when it comes to Tesla products. The automaker uses that gap to collect deposits, find a production site, and get around to arranging suppliers and the necessary tools of assembly.

Calling it “a better truck than Ford F-150,” Musk has claimed the pickup will boast a range of 400 to 500 miles, offer a spacious cabin, and look like something that drove out of the future. Hence the name Cybertruck, a word that makes this writer’s skin crawl. Starting price is said to be less than $50,000, but you can bet that stripped-down model will not be first to land in driveways. If it’s anything like the Model 3, the entry-level variant might be the rarest thing on the road.

Adding a new level of nerdiness to the whole affair, Musk pointed to a cinematic coincidence to bolster the unseen truck’s cred — specifically, that the current month is the same one featured in the futuristic sci-fi film Blade Runner. That 1982 flick was set in Los Angeles in November, 2019.

The earliest you’ll see a Tesla pickup in the flesh, driven by a private owner, will likely be no sooner than 2021.

[Image: Tesla]