Tesla Truck 'Quite Likely,' Says Elon Musk (bgr.com)

An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Boy Genius Report: If you think Tesla's plan for world domination begins with the Model S and ends with the Model 3, you're sorely mistaken. While the Model 3 is of course the mass consumer vehicle Elon Musk is betting the company on, the Tesla CEO is certainly open to developing other types of vehicles in the future. During a recent interview in Hong Kong at the StartmeupHK Festival, Musk briefly touched on the potential for Tesla to build an electric truck. "I think it is quite likely we will do a truck in the future," Musk said. "I think it's sort of a logical thing for us to do in the future." While this might appear to be outside of Tesla's wheelhouse at first glance – the Model S is a luxury sedan, after all – the amount of money to be made in trucks is immense. To wit, the three best-selling vehicles in the U.S. in both 2014 and 2015 were all pickup trucks.

Comments

Makes sense to me.

[Wycliffe]

Just like Tesla's other ideas, a luxury sports car proves that it can be done so other people can copy it. It makes sense that a truck would be the next thing for Tesla to prove feasible. I don't think Tesla really wants to build cars or trucks but rather wants to run a think tank to prove it can be done. I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla open sourced his car plans at some point so other people could manufacture them for him (and he can sell batteries to them, of course)

Re:Makes sense to me.

[jedidiah]

ANY patent is "open source" by definition. That's just how patents work. The extra bit that Tesla added was disclaiming any rights or intentions to demand royalties.

It would be more accurate to say that he "copylefted" them or "liberated" them.

"open source" is a more watered down term by design.

Re:What Type of Truck?

[Firethorn]

My answer to that is that offroading is a minority thing for both SUVs and Trucks. Many drive trucks for the towing or cargo capacity, not for off-roading.

On the truck side, if you put a Model-S engine system in, you have plenty of power. One or two of their 'skateboard' power packs. Maybe even make it a hybrid - put a engine-generator in it to help keep the battery topped off.

That could be one hell of a towing truck.

Electric delivery trucks have a great future

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

There are a whole range of vehicles that can switch to electric if the price is not an issue. These are not range limited vehicles.

Most school buses, mail trucks, parcel delivery trucks, can go electric. Most of them stay close to their base station and can be charged over night. Further they are suitable for "swap-the-battery and continue" mode of operations. Deliver fleets could build battery swap stations for their trucks to swap batteries when needed.

Currently these options are not being pursued because the price is too high for the cost savings. As gas prices fall they become even more unviable. But these are the first ones that will be peeled off when the battery price break through comes along.