A rendering shows the Tesla pickup bears a striking resemblance to the Tesla Semi.
Tesla’s next vehicle will be the second-generation roadster, right? Oh wait! It’s supposed to be a small sport-utility! Maybe neither of them.
Co-founder Elon Musk has often mentioned his desire to bring out a pickup, but he’s never put a firm date to when it might show up: until now.
In response to a tweet, Musk yesterday suggested the prototype will be unveiled sometime next year with production plans to follow shortly thereafter.
“I’m dying to make a pickup truck so bad … we might have a prototype to unveil next year,” he tweeted when asked by a follower when he could “order my pickup truck.”
(Tesla’s Musk says pickup truck design is “cyber punk.” Click Here for the story.) 
Musk has always spoken of building a truck in sort of a dreamy, I-wish-we-could sort of way. However, he’s plenty of reasons to want to build one — and fast! First and foremost, the best-selling vehicle in the U.S. for the past four decades has been a full-size pickup.
Additionally, the midsize truck segment is growing significantly with General Motors’ two entries and now Ford bringing back the Ranger nameplate as a midsize. Additionally, the Honda Ridgeline, which sits somewhere between those two classes, has been selling like gangbusters.
The standbys in the segment, the Nissan Frontier and Toyota Tacoma, continue to enjoy strong sales in spite of the influx of new competitors.
(Click Here for more about the Tesla pickup possibilities.) 
Additionally, there is a growing number of competitors in just the battery-electric truck segment. Gasp! Tesla is … behind???!! Rivian’s new R1T may have set a new standard for trucks, if can meet all of its performance claims: 400-mile range, 0-to-60 in less than 3 seconds, 11,000 pounds of towing capacity and an attractive and innovative design.
This is in addition to the Bollinger entry and Workhorse’s WR1 model, which haven’t come to market yet either, but they do have working prototypes — and orders.
Tesla does have a truck: a semi. If Musk could just apply some of the performance characteristics of that vehicle to his pickup truck, he’d probably have a winner on his hands — or at the very least, a strong competitor.
(Musk mucks up, sends his personal phone number to 17m Twitter followers. Click Here for more.)
For now, a pickup is just a dream, but as Musk noted in a recent interview, he’s competitive and he’s also a procrastinator. Making folks wait for a truck could be part of his plan.