Is Freightliner Really Making A Pickup Truck?
Freightliner is the most popular semi-truck brand in the United States, known for its heavy-duty trucks with comfort, fuel efficiency, and advanced technology. With so many fans of the company, it's no surprise that the trucking world has become invested in the rumor of Freightliner moving into the pickup truck market. A pickup with the same power and luxury as a Freightliner seems too good to be true — and it likely is.
Unfortunately for fans of the brand, Freightliner has never confirmed (or even mentioned) plans to add a pickup to its offerings — although some YouTubers have gone as far as to claim the CEO himself has discussed an $8,000 pickup (a rumor that has continued to spread). If there is no pickup, why are there so many images floating around online? These are the work of hopeful fans and AI — and there are some giveaways you need to be aware of.
Images of the Freightliner pickup aren't real
There are a ton of hopeful fan-made mockups of the Freightliner pickup, but none of them are real and are most certainly not based on anything from Freightliner. Instead, they are the work of AI and other digital art programs. There are a few ways to tell if art is AI or altered, which can help you better decipher if a rumored car or truck is based on an announcement or just wishful thinking.
First, AI has a very distinct shiny feel. As you can see in the image above, the truck appears very sleek and glossy, which is not how most trucks would appear in real life. There's also a lack of detail. The blurry background cannot really be placed, and the truck itself is entirely too simple. In this particular image, you can also see a lot of wonky shapes and coloring, including the body of the truck wrapping around the front and back tires. There also appears to only be a single windshield wiper.
Some tricky YouTube videos will also include a warning in the description. For example, the video claiming that Freightliner's CEO announced an $8K truck states that the video was made using altered and synthetic content. This can be found when you expand the description box under the video title. Unfortunately, the Freightliner pickup is yet another hoax truck, like the Mustang pickup exposed last month.
