Tesla broke ground on its 12,000-acre in-house lithium refinery outside of Corpus Christi, Texas, this week. Why should you care? The facility, the first to utilize an acid-free lithium refining route that’ll create sand and limestone byproducts rather than hazardous waste, will employ about 250 full-time employees and produce enough lithium for a million vehicles per year, according to Musk. But beyond all that, the event offered up our latest glimpse of the yet-unrealized Cybertruck pickup.
What caught our attention this time was the Cybertruck’s black bed rack that gave the funky wedge-shaped truck even more of the silhouette of an SUV. If you swapped out the futuristically rad-looking shovels attached to the side of the rack (Elon did grab the shovels upon the event’s closing for a photo opportunity) for some Rotopax containers, the tool rack looks like it could easily double as an overland rack. It’s no Cyberlandr, but it’s kinda cool, eh?
The sides of the bed rack are gridded (rather than solid), presumably for flexible mounting possibilities. The gridded bed rack is accompanied by a separate “cab” rack, the two joining seamlessly above the back of the rear door (where a traditional truck’s bed and cab would join). Support bars across the top of the combined bed and cab rack system form one large roof rack, perfect for a roof top tent and multitudinous roof-mounted accessories.
Elon got out of the Cybertruck, walked to the back, and gave a quick point and nod to the rack before diving into his speech. That’s all we know about the Cybertruck’s rack—and all we might need to know about a possible product for an electric truck that, let’s be honest, doesn’t exist yet. We don’t know if this rack was just for the ceremony, or if Tesla intends to bring the accessory to market someday. A robust catalogue of factory accessories—kind of like what Ford has for the Bronco or Jeep for the Wrangler—would undoubtedly fly off the shelves, especially considering competitor Rivian dropped its unique Camp Kitchen, slide-out Tunnel Shuttle, and R1T tent from its online gear shop.
So, the Cybertruck tease continues. Hopefully a truck rolls off the production line in 2023.
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