Tesla May Go After Ford F-150 with New Electric Pickup

Over the past year or so, thanks mostly to the success of the Model S, Tesla has grown out of nowhere and pretty much dominated the automobile market. Building on that success it seems that the electric car manufacturer may try to bring its emission free vehicles to every segment of the market, including the fiercely loyal, but very lucrative pickup sector.

Talking at the Business Insider conference, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, mentioned that Tesla may well try and create its own pickup truck, to push into the market so tightly controlled by Ford's F150, once the best-selling car in the US, and still the most popular in its sector.

"If you're trying to replace the most gasoline miles driven, you have to look at what people are buying. That's the best-selling car in America (F-150). If people are voting that's their car, then that's the car we have to deliver."

Related article: The Great Race for Battery Technology

Forbes believes that pickup trucks would not actually be a bad move for Tesla, as they are the generally the least fuel efficient vehicles on the road, and therefore the most polluting, with even the most frugal models only getting 20MPG, and the V8 F-150 offering a measly 13MPG. As federal average fuel economy restrictions are set to tighten over the coming years, pickup manufacturers are already looking for ways to add a few extra MPG to their model's stats in order to maintain a hold on the market.

What the Tesla Pickup might look like according to Digital Trends.

For those of you worrying that an electric motor might not be able to deliver the power of the trusty V8, do not worry. Electric motors have long been used to move trains and buses, so they will have little difficulty with a pickup; and the layout of a pickup means that there is already plenty of room for even the biggest batteries on the market, without losing space in the back for cargo.

Related article: Company Created to Turn Elon Musk's Hyperloop Idea into Reality

It is unlikely that an electric pickup will sway your diehard truck lover, but corporate fleet owners would definitely be enticed by the lower operating costs, especially in terms of maintenance, due to the lack services needed to keep a traditional internal combustion engine running smoothly.

Forbes notes that if Tesla were ever to successfully create their electric truck, then they could expect interest from the likes of Ford, Chrysler, and GM, all willing to pay for the rights to the technology as a means to keep their own models on the road in a future making more demands on the fuel efficiency of cars.

By. Joao Peixe of Oilprice.com