A YouTuber named Simone Giertz is known as the queen of "sh**** robots," the kind of robots that make a mess of chopping vegetables, serving soup, cutting hair, writing holiday cards, and wiping your nether regions. Her inventions are clever, the robots intentionally excessive and comically inept. She keeps churning out machines as well as videos, exploring a variety of building projects in her San Francisco workshop. Today, she revealed an electric pickup truck she calls Truckla. It’s a heavily modified Tesla Model 3 and, as Giertz’s stylized promotional video states, it’s available exactly nowhere. Only Giertz will drive it, but she insists it is indeed drivable.
Recently, Giertz partnered with a friend, engineer Marcos Ramirez, to start sketching out what a Model 3-turned-pickup-truck would look like. Two other YouTubers, Laura Kampf and Rich Rebuilds, got involved. Other friends and family pitched in on the project in exchange for “high fives and food,” Giertz says. Their initial goal was to launch Truckla by the fall of 2018. Giertz says the EV made for an easier conversion than an internal combustion engine-powered car, because the battery adds structural integrity. The team did have to add some reinforcement to the beams at the top of the truck, which will allow it to hold together and “not, just, taco,” Giertz says. “I mean, I love tacos, but a Tesla taco would not be the best investment.” She plans to do some additional waterproofing to protect the battery pack. The Truckla is “usable now, but fully drivable in July,” Giertz says.
Credits:
https://www.wired.com/story/simone-giertz-tesla-pickup-model-3-truckla/
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