#HTE

How to Turn a Tesla Model 3 Into a Pickup Truck

Elon Musk has started teasing the forthcoming Tesla pickup truck, saying that it will feature a “Blade-Runner-like,” “pretty sci-fi” design that “doesn’t look like a truck,” while boasting some serious capabilities. “The goal is to be a better truck than a [Ford] F-150 in terms of truck-like functionality and be a better sports car than a standard [Porsche] 911,” he said about a month ago. “That’s the aspiration.”

We don’t know exactly what the Tesla truck will look like (Musk is expected to make a more formal reveal of his plans later this summer), but we can assume it will take many years before it actually hits the market. For some, that’s nowhere near soon enough. To make a car that better suits her lifestyle and work, Youtuber and self-proclaimed “queen of shitty robots” Simone Giertz took her Tesla Model 3 and turned it into an outright pickup truck, which she calls Truckla.

“I really want an electric pickup truck, and more specifically, I really want a Tesla pickup truck,” says Giertz in the opening scene of the video below. “But I don’t have time to wait for that! I need to haul lumber and dead bodies right now. I’m just going to have to make my own…it’s the only sane option,” she continues. “Elon Musk: this is me challenging you to make the world’s first, functional Tesla pickup truck…I have an angle grinder and a welder and I’m not afraid to use them.”

Giertz prepared for the task for over a year with a team of mechanics and makers: Marcos Ramirez, Richard Benoit of Rich Rebuilds—known for modifying Teslas—and Laura Kampf. She prefaces the experiment by saying it’s either going to be “the smartest or the most stupid thing I’m ever going to do,” but the results are pretty impressive. Check out the (sometimes explicit) video of the entire process below:

And don’t miss the accompanying ad for “the truck the world didn’t know it was waiting for.”