Car manufacturers try to electrify the US love affair with a pick-up truck

Americans love pick-up trucks. Automakers are hoping they’ll get a fuss from electric cars too.

When Ford unveiled the F-150 Lightning last month, it was the newest U.S. automaker to unveil a product that can compete in a segment that accounted for about 20 percent of the U.S. auto market’s 14.4 million sales in 2020. The field is being crowded with Rivian, the first R1Ts are slated to ship in July, General Motor’s GMC Hummer arrives this fall, and Tesla’s space-age cybertruck is expected to hit stores next year.

According to research firm JD Power and Associates, electric vehicles made up about 3.2 percent of the U.S. auto market in April. That percentage could rise as Americans welcome the new electrified entrants: A January survey by Cox Automotive found that two in five consumers who buy a pickup truck in the next two years are considering an electric model.

However, success will depend on whether electric pickups can attract new buyers, including urban cowboys and commercial fleet operators. Traditional retail pickup shoppers can prove to be more difficult as towing a heavy load – an important trait for many shoppers – reduces the distance an electric truck can travel before it needs to be charged. Electric vehicles also have a perceived association with affluence and liberal politics, while pickup trucks typically sell better in the more conservative southern and central regions of the US.

“We definitely see in surveys that there is interest,” said Cox Automotive analyst Michelle Krebs. “The question is, how many of these people are there, who are they and who are they going to buy from?”

Ford F-150 Blitz

© AP

• From $ 39,974

• Range of 230 miles or 300 miles with the extended version

• MSNBC presenter Rachel Maddow, self-described “car person”, called the electric conversion of the best-selling F-150 “the single most important change our country could make” to achieve widespread adoption of electric vehicles.

“There are a lot of players heading into this market,” she added. “Is the cake big enough for everyone to have a piece that is profitable?”

The US market is dominated by sales of light vehicles, a category that includes vans, pick-ups, and sport utility vehicles. In 2020, cars made up only a quarter of US vehicle sales. Yet the most visible EV models in the U.S. were all cars, including the Toyota Prius, Chevrolet Bolt, and Tesla Model 3.

In the past two years, the share of electric vehicles in the US auto market has almost doubled from 1.7 percent. Tesla’s Model Y and Ford’s Mustang Mach-E have helped drive that growth, said Tyson Jominy, vice president of data and analytics at JD Power. It was “really the first time we’ve given Americans what they want – SUVs – as opposed to hatchbacks. The only thing Americans were most suspicious of as electric vehicles were hatchbacks. “

Since pickups are such a large market, an automaker only needs to win a small percentage to sell any significant volume, Jominy said.

Both the federal government and automakers are putting money into electric vehicles. President Joe Biden’s household budget for fiscal 2022 includes incentives to buy electric vehicles, infrastructure and federal electric vehicles totaling $ 4 billion by 2025, GM plans to spend $ 27 billion and Ford $ 30 billion on electric vehicles.

GMC Hummer EV

© AFP

• Starts at $ 112,595 this year and drops to $ 79,995 in 2024

• Range of 350 miles

• The truck has a “crab walk” function that enables it to drive diagonally.

The Lightning is vital to Ford as the F-150 is Dearborn, Michigan’s flagship franchise. The company says it has 70,000 purchase reservations for pickup. Rival GM plans to follow the GMC Hummer, which revived the name of the archetypal petrol eater of the early 2000s, with an electric version of the Chevrolet Silverado.

The all-electric vehicle field includes Tesla and Rivian, as well as smaller companies such as Bollinger Motors and Lordstown Motors. Ohio-based Lordstown, which has drawn federal regulatory scrutiny over allegations it denies it overstated its pre-orders, said it must cut its annual production plans and raise additional capital.

Tesla, with the unmistakable stainless steel exterior of the Cybertruck, and Rivian, with a starting price of $ 75,000 for the R1T, are targeting lifestyle buyers who may not have owned a pickup but are intrigued by the prospect of an electric pickup are.

Ford markets the F-150 Lightning heavily to commercial customers who often focus more on a vehicle’s maintenance and fuel costs than the sticker price alone. The truck starts out at $ 40,000 and can be used as a generator on a construction site.

Jay Darling, president of Darling’s Bangor, Maine dealership, said he had 80 reservations to buy the Lightning compared to about 65 for the Bronco, Ford’s competitor to the Jeep. Many of the customers operate fleets. Some of the reservations come from solar power companies.

Tesla Cybertruck

© AFP via Getty Images

• Starts at $ 39,900

• The range starts at 250 miles and increases to 500 miles in more expensive versions

• When the truck was unveiled, Elon Musk threw a stone at the truck’s “bulletproof” glass, which shattered.

“The newer one [F-150 hybrid] PowerBoost and Lightning seem to hit a brand that consumers, and businesses in particular, want, ”he said.

But electric pick-ups will at least initially not be as profitable for automobile manufacturers as pick-ups, vans or SUVs with combustion engines. Automakers get higher prices when they sell “cars by the pound”, which translates into higher profits when compared to smaller vehicles. The higher production costs of an electric vehicle eat away at this margin.

GM chief financial officer Paul Jacobson said Thursday that the company’s new battery technology, Ultium, costs 40 percent less than the batteries used in existing Chevy bolts, and GM is targeting an overall reduction of 60 percent by 2025.

“We were aiming for a margin of around 10 percent,” he said. “It’s been around for a long time and I think we’re making great strides. . . We have a good way of making this transition [from petrol to electric] and keep these margins intact. “

In addition to monitoring profit margins, manufacturers must also convince potential buyers that an electric pick-up has the same capacity as a conventional pick-up. Towing a boat or RV costs how many miles an electric pickup can drive without needing to be charged and “unless the lake is 250 miles or less from your home. . . it’s starting to limit what you can do, ”said Jominy. Even if pick-up owners only have to tow pick-ups a few times a year, they probably won’t want to compromise on performance, which in turn suggests that to be successful, manufacturers must acquire new customers for pick-ups ” .

Rivian R1T

© Michael Brochstein / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty

• Starting this year at $ 75,000 and dropping to $ 67,500 in 2022

• Range of 300 miles

• Both Ford and Amazon have supported the auto start-up.

There are also customer acceptance questions in parts of the US where pickup trucks are popular, but political conservatism fuels skepticism about electric vehicles.

Pam Cotton Conn owns a dealer in Carol Stream, Illinois. She said she was “ridiculously excited” about the F-150 Lightning, with a front truck where the engine used to be, and the business owners’ potential to save gas and maintenance. She promoted the truck’s reveal to the dealership’s customer base and received an email from a man who was upset by the perceived political ramifications of the new product.

But that was a single person on a 19,000-person mailing list, and for those who prefer trucks with traditional engines, they’re still for sale.