Who Will Be First? Ford, Tesla Compete To Launch First All-Electric Pickup Truck

Ford (F) and Tesla (TSLA) are racing to be the first to launch an all-electric pickup truck. Ford has plans to come to market with an F-150 that is electrically powered while Tesla has confirmed it will also have an all-electric pickup truck as part of its auto portfolio in the near term.

The Ford F-150 is expected to launch before 2022, according to Darren Palmer, head of Ford’s Team Edison, who revealed the expected release date in an interview with Autocar. Team Edison is the group tasked with developing the EVs for the company.

Palmer confirmed the news of a pending F-150, telling Autocar, “We’re hitting our biggest icons first [The F150], but we have more. And we’ll keep working through them.”

The all-electric pickup truck has been shown to pull over 1 million pounds of train cars as Ford displayed its strength and power in a video on its website.

While Ford is pushing to release its all-electric F-150 pickup truck first, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in July on Twitter (via BRG) that its pickup truck would be unveiled before the end of October.

Musk, however, has been secretive about the details of the all-electric pickup truck, giving only hints on Twitter about what buyers can expect. At the time that Musk introduced the next-generation Tesla Roadster and Tesla Semi, he said on Twitter (via BRG), “I promise that we will make a pickup truck right after Model Y. Have had the core design/engineering elements in my mind for almost 5 years. Am dying to build it.”

Musk has even gone as far as to say that the Tesla truck will be bigger than the F-150 as a result of a “game changing feature.” What the feature is, remains to be seen.

As recently as a few months ago, Musk also said on Twitter (via BRG) that the Tesla pickup truck would “be a better truck than a F-150 in terms of truck-like functionality and be a better sports car,” comparing it to the Porsche 911.

Shares of Ford stock were down 0.38 percent as of 11:09 a.m. ET on Tuesday while shares of Tesla stock were up 0.61 percent at the same time.