Ford just launched a new pickup truck. And it's free. And it's an emoji.

• Ford has responded to demands for a pickup truck emoji by designing a candidate that's made the short list for approval in 2020.
• "[A]mong the 3,000 approved icons available to emoji users, truck fans noticed a glaring omission: There is no pickup truck," the automaker said in a statement.
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In the pickup-truck world, Ford is king - and has been for decades. The F-150 has been America's best-selling vehicle since the Reagan administration.

You wouldn't know it from looking at the emoji selection on your smartphone. While there are cars, trains, tractors, and scooters, there's no pickup.

"[A]mong the 3,000 approved icons available to emoji users, truck fans noticed a glaring omission: There is no pickup truck," the automaker said in a statement.

"Ford decided it was time to do something about this and is celebrating World Emoji Day with the debut of the pickup truck emoji."

Trucksters can't begin punching in cryptic emoji texts just yet. Ford actually submitted the design in 2018, the company said, and the rulers of the emoji realm - the Unicode Consortium - could make it official next year. The Ford design, conceived in secret, is on the short list. (In all seriousness, even though Ford produced a tongue-in-cheek video to coincide with the unveiling, it does seem like the car maker kept its emoji development under wraps.)

"When customers started demanding a truck emoji, we knew we had to help make it happen," Joe Hinrichs, Ford's president of automotive, said in a statement. "Given the popularity of Ford trucks globally, there's no one better than Ford to help bring an all-new pickup truck emoji to hard-working texters around the globe."

The emoji is blue and looks to be a crew cab with a short bed. We'll have to wait to see if it becomes the most-used transportation icon on smartphones.