Is this a fact in (I'm assuming) NorCal?

I'm in one of the parts of the country where everyone drives pickups, so it kind of boggles my mind.

Does no one tow or haul things there?

I'm a well-compensated white collar professional in the bay area. I drive a 23yo bigass diesel pickup that I use for offroading, towing, hauling, camping, etc.

I don't get judged hard at all. Most folks thing it's quirky. I'd say I get judged more positively than not.

In NorCal outside of the bay area there are plenty of pickup trucks and the culture that goes with that.

The rest are pristine showroom objects that have never even touched a gravel road, let alone dirt.

And that haul one single person to the office and back every day at 12 MPG. Hooray.

edit: woops 12.7 l/100km is actually 18.5 mpg. All these years I thought 10l/100km was 30 mpg! must have done the conversion wrong once and been basing my whole life off it ever since. It's great to find out something you thought was true is not sometimes.

I can jam quite a lot of lumber in/on my Mazda Protege though, so it’s rare I need an actual truck.

That said, having more vehicle than you need is definitely a means of social signalling and if you're regularly shoving 5 people in your 5-seat compact or regularly hauling large things on the roof of your car or regularly burying your AWD mom-mobile in the mud you will give off lower class vibes so I understand why a lot of people buy more vehicle than they strictly need.

It's "technically" 1 lb shy of the GVWR requiring a CDL.

It has enough power to sheer off a 3/4" utility pole climbing spike, in reverse, with a slight tap of the gas. Don't ask me how I know.

https://www.homedepot.com/tool-truck-rental/load-n-go-truck-...

I don't know about an F-250, but the last time I rented a car it was a walk-in at an Enterprise in Harrisburg, PA and I walked out with a Nissan pickup 30-ish minutes later.

Also, your average Home Depot or U-Haul typically has pickups for rent, specifically for this use case.

Last time I had to leave my car in the body shop after it was hit, my insurance got me a rental car from Enterprise. The only rentals available at the time were F-250s, so I drove a pickup truck to work and back for a week.

Why do you think that pick up trucks are unrentable?

Other parts of CA you'll get a lot of campers, boats, dirt bikes, mountain bikes... so yeah.

If anything I get asked if I'm a contractor.

There are a few perks to being country in the city.

Also the older the truck, the more OK it is (ironic considering older trucks are horrible on gas mileage) because then its a quirky hipster thing.

Suppose thats kind of the point you're making though, they're building a pickup that has indicators that its OK for "classy" people to drive.

A more-useless-than-average truck (no bed capacity; a back seat w/ headroom for children only; difficulty refueling or getting repairs in the backcountry; very high center of gravity) will have limited appeal aside from the novelty from being the first to own one. But that will fade within year one of ownership. Then where will non-pickup owners find themselves? With an especially fashion-motivated vehicle that's no longer fashionable. Or useful. Strike three.

I think Tesla could've met that desire without making the truck look like a low-polygon model from a teenager who just learned to use Blender.

Tesla's design language from it's other models could have been smartly applied to a truck design and they would've had a winner.

Because I'm in Dallas, and wealthy white-collar professionals driving big pickup trucks is pretty normal here. I could point out several in my company's parking lot.

- desire to explore a more radical design language for the company. They’ve had to be very conservative for past vehicles because Model S, Model 3, etc were programs that had to succeed or the company would fail. This is the first time they have some financial breathing room

- they likely prioritized ease of manufacturing over everything else. I think long term that’s where the company is going

- They really can use all the capacity they have planned for the next couple of years for Model Y. They just don’t have capacity to add a line at F-150 scale. I don’t even know where they will build it... not likely in Fremont. Maybe Berlin. Maybe in a new American factory? Either way, it’ll probably be one of the first programs in a new factory.

So, yes, I think they really do not want to sell a lot of these. And yes, they’d be happy with a tiny market amongst electric enthusiasts.