Converting A Tesla To A Pickup Truck

The renowned inventor of useless robots [Simone Giertz] has outdone herself this time. She, along with a team of engineers featuring [Rich Rebuilds], [Laura Kampf], and [Marcos Ramirez], recently decided to convert a Tesla into a pickup truck, and make a video along the way, all while salvaging what remains they can of the back of the car and making the final product roadworthy. Yeah, this is a couple weeks old now, and yeah, it’s kind of a commercial, but really: [Simone Giertz] and Co. rock.

In her vlog of the experience, the team starts by gutting out the interior of the car in order to find out the weight distribution and form of the outer frame. Essentially, in order to create the pickup truck, a portion of the back of the car needs to be removed, with additional beams and support welded in depending on the consequent structural integrity. With a sawzall and angle grinder, the top portion of the frame is cut and taken out, but not before a worrying glance brings about the realization that the car needs exterior support during its modifications.

After the cushions, glass, wiring, and all other accessories are removed, they install a truck bed from another sacrificial pickup truck, as well as a roof rack to complete the look. Amidst the deconstruction and reconstruction, there are moments when the car encounters a “Safety restraint system fault” or when the team accidentally lines the inside of the car with fiberglass right before shooting their video. Between complaints of the different clip sizes used and the clear time pressure of the project, it’s a funny and informative look into a pretty unique car mod.

The final commercial they made of their Tesla-pickup hybrid, dubbed Truckla, is available on [Giertz]’s YouTube channel.

[Thanks to crener for the tip!]

38 thoughts on “Converting A Tesla To A Pickup Truck

    1. Dang, beat me to it! Or we could offer up an “El Teslimo”. Or perhaps a joint venture with Honda for a “Ridge-la” or maybe a “Tesline”. Or a combo Chevy/Tesla “Avala” or “Teslanche”!

      1. Hah, sign me up for a Teslanche! I’ve had two Avalanche style trucks with the midgate now (after a string of old Toyotas and Nissans), and I really, really hope Tesla does something like that with their upcoming truck. The 5 seater/short bed to 2 seater long bed switch is awesome, but the fuel consumption on the big Chevys is shocking. Luckily my daily driver gets 60 mpg, but the truck is unbeatable when you need it.

    1. How about go unsesitise yourself?
      Maybe watch the video a few times over and over.
      I find the sensorship and sensor police much more annoying then whatever other people have to say.
      Half the music video’s on youtube for example (and long ago MTV_) are severely damaged by thought processes such as yours. Yuck!

      1. I appreciate that “ItsMe” took the time to point out the the video may not be suitable for children. Many parents raise their children to function politely in society. So that they will not feel the need to drop an f-bomb to get their point across and will be capable of conversing in a civil manner. Your parents must have failed at teaching you that (common courtesy) or maybe they just did not care. He obviously cares. If you feel that you need to drop an f-bomb to get your point across then I would bet you have a very limited vocabulary as well as mental capacity. Actually you are the one who has become desensitized. But how do you feel about the assumptions I made about you (and your parents)? You drew from one sentence that he was too sensitive, that he watched the video only once and needed to watch it again, and that he was pro-censorship. It is not that MTV and half the YouTube video’s are damaged, but that half of YouTube’s video’s and you are damaged. Sad.

  1. I don’t know if there’s a large enough public market for it, but Tesla can probably build a few hundred cargo-converted trucks using the Model S as the base for their mobile service fleet. Kind of like those cable company service trucks. I think right now they just use a normal S with some storage space inside, but I’m thinking they can chop the back-end of an S off, like what Simone and her crew have done to her 3, and then add some storage cabinets in its place. May be even extend it a bit for more storage. They don’t even need to do this in-house, I’m sure there are plenty of custom shops that can do the job with the necessary technical support.

    Anyhow, I’m kind of curious what the state of Truckla is now. I know they were pressed for time to produce the video then, so they left out the trims and finishing touches. I wonder what it looks like now that they’ve time to finish it up and whether it works just like a regular 3.

  2. Not as polished as they’d like? How do you know how polished they’d like it to be? Given that they produced nothing to actually sell, and if they made no money from the commercial as you claim, and it wasn’t timed to any particular occasion or event, then why was it done under the constraints of a time limit that produced a janky half assed result?

    And you seem to be acknowledging my point exactly, by admitting that they hid the flaws through editing. So what, exactly, are you panties in such a twist over?

    Finally, what causes some random internet user to jump to the defense of a person they’ve never met, much less are acquaintances of, over someone voicing some legitimate criticism? It’s rather pathetic that people have become so tribalistic that they launch into expletive laced attacks on anyone who dared criticism their favored internet personality.

    Get a life dude.

  3. I am bummed because I can’t find the actual build video detailing the frame and hinge mechanism, only the half dozen “lifestyle” type videos with 95% closeups on people using a tool, no explanation of the part or method.

  4. They get money from ads, and the build video has more views than the commercial – which is to be expected for a channel like Simone’s – so I don’t think the commercial is the source of profit. Most likely, they just didn’t have the time to make it better.

    1. Have they looked at making a bit more drastic alterations to the structure to get 48″ wide in the bed all the way? That’s a defining characteristic of a large truck in the USA, being able to haul 4×8 foot sheets of plywood and other building materials, flat on the truck’s load deck.

  5. Tesla has used lightly modified (verus Truckla style modifications) Model S for a while now in their mobile service fleet. They still have the regular ICE powered cargo vans for certain types of service, but most work can be handled by what they can pack into the Model S ones. I don’t know how many they’ve actually built though, it might be their fleet is still mostly vans.

    https://electrek.co/2018/03/12/tesla-new-custom-model-s-mobile-service-vehicle/

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