From a comment by Musk in June 2019, during a ‘Ride the Lightning’ Podcast (src), he says “You should be able to buy a really great truck for $49K or less”. Later, he went on to say this about the Tesla Truck Price:
“We don’t want it to be really expensive. I think its got to start at less than $50,000 – it’s got to be like $49,000 starting price max. Ideally less. It just can’t be unaffordable. It’s got to be something that’s affordable. There will be versions of the truck that will be more expensive, but you’ve got to be able to get a really great truck for $49,000 or less.”
Elon Musk, Tesla CEO at the time
Later in March, a hidden rendering in Tesla’s Firmware was found that people speculated was the same shape as the teaser image revealed by Musk.
March 2019 – Elon Musk shared the first teaser of the electric truck on twitter. It doesn’t show much.
January 2019 saw more tweets from Musk fueled speculation that the EV Truck might be unveiled in Summer 2019.
In June 2018, Elon Musk started a twitter discussion asking what sort of features people wanted in the truck.
The responses included all sorts of things, to which Elon responded with:
- The Tesla Truck will have dual motor all-wheel drive w crazy torque & a suspension that dynamically adjusts for load. Those will be standard
- Pickup truck will have power outlets allowing use of heavy duty 240V, high power tools in field all day. No generator needed.
- 400 to 500 mile option definitely. Higher, maybe.