Does Tesla Have Enough Production Capacity to Build a Pickup?

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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Elon Musk, founder and CEO of Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), took to Twitter to talk about the company’s prospects. Among the responses when he asked for “suggestions” was that Tesla build a pickup. He not only said yes but added that it would be full-sized version, which means it will compete with the best-selling vehicle in the country, Ford Motor Co.’s (NYSE: F) F-150. The pickup would also compete with two other best-selling vehicles in the United States, General Motors Co.’s (NYSE: GM) Chevy Silverado and the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (NYSE: FCAU) Ram.

Tesla already has admitted it is behind in the manufacture of its low-priced Model 3. How then can it get into the pickup market, which would require huge production capacity?

Ford will sell close to 900,000 F-150 models this year. GM will sell over 550,000 Silverados and Fiat Chrysler will sell 500,000 Rams. A Tesla pickup might be toy for the full-sized pickup sector, aimed at those consumers wildly attracted to all-electric trucks. In terms of gas mileage, Ford already has a version of the F-150 that gets 26 miles per gallon for highway driving. While this is nowhere close to what a Tesla would post, it is a high-mileage engine as far as full-sized pickups go.

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It is a long shot that Tesla could build 100,000 pickups a year, which is what would be required to dent the market. Tesla’s capacity is already constrained by models beyond the Model 3. Demand is high for its original Model S, its Model X crossover and a Roadster that has not gone into production.

Musk has exaggerated Tesla’s capacity in the past, which has made investors nervous and consumers wary about whether it can deliver enough new cars to meet demand. A full-sized pickup would be a bridge too far.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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