General Motors has the fullest line of full-size electric trucks of anyone in the world, I think. Chinese automakers do have EV trucks and SUVs, but the breadth of what GM has done is impressive. What hasn’t been impressive are sales, so GM is now reportedly slow-rolling the development of a replacement.
The Morning Dump has been hybrid-heavy lately, but that’s just the way of the world. Big expectations crashing into reality. That’s happening with Amazon Autos, too, which is seeing some original dealers defect as the results have been underwhelming so far. You mean people don’t want to buy new cars at the same place they buy underwear? I’m shocked!
Tesla is one of the most highly-valued stocks when you look at its share price versus forward earnings, meaning investors see the company making a lot of money in the future off AI or Robotaxis. Will this quarter’s positive earnings impact that one way or another? Also, BYD has been suddenly taken off the list of companies allegedly involved in what the government referred to as “slavery-like” labor conditions in Brazil, and the person who put them on the list has been fired. What’s going on there?
Pivot! Pivot! PIVOT!
I’m serious. GM’s full-size electric platform supports the Hummer SUV, Hummer pickup, Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, and Cadillac Escalade IQ. Depending on how you look at it, that’s five different full-size electric trucks. Most of the Chinese EV platforms are for what we’d think of as midsize trucks. I mean, there’s the Yangwang U8, but that doesn’t seem to share a platform with anything else.
While GM is the leader in this space, it’s not a space that’s particularly popular. As with most things EV, the appetite for electric full-size trucks has not materialized. RAM scrapped plans for its EV pickup, Ford isn’t making a new generation of the Lightning, and even Tesla is selling a large chunk of its inventory to other Elon Musk-owned companies.
GM has continued selling its various EV trucks, but it has intermittently slowed down or stopped production at its Factory Zero plant that makes these vehicles. Now, according to reporting from Crain’s Detroit Business, GM has been telling suppliers that development on the next generation replacement has been halted.
Suppliers were recently informed that the next-gen program was halted with no new timetable specified. Supplier executives and analysts told Crain’s Detroit Business that they do not expect to see a new generation of the electric vehicle line until 2030 or beyond.
The current line of electric trucks will continue to be produced at Factory Zero in Detroit-Hamtramck. But the automaker is further diverting resources and capital from electrification to other programs including its new T1-2 gas engine platform, set to launch 30 miles north at Orion Assembly Plant next year.
A plug-in hybrid variant of the Silverado and Sierra is expected to be in the mix at Orion, the sources said.
A GM spokesperson did the usual “we’re not going to engage in speculation,” which is not a “no.”
There might be more of an appetite for this kind of vehicle in the future, so there’s nothing to stop GM from just making them indefinitely. It’s not like there’s going to be a ton of competition, and light refreshes might be a better course. I mean, look at the Durango. You can sell a vehicle for extended periods these days and seemingly get away with it.
EREVs and plug-in hybrid solutions seem to be the most logical for large trucks, so GM headed that way makes a lot of sense.
Amazon Autos Isn’t Changing The World Yet
There was a lot of buzz initially for Amazon Autos, which gives automakers a way to find leads via the expansive Amazon platform. The first foray was with Hyundai dealers and has since expanded, with Ford recently partnering to sell certified pre-owned cars.
The results have been rather muted, though, according to data provided to Automotive News:
Amazon Autos launched in December 2024 with Hyundai in 48 cities. It now operates in more than 130 cities and includes new, used and certified pre-owned vehicles from Chevrolet, Jeep, Kia, Mazda and Subaru.
Some early participants report selling just one or two vehicles monthly through Amazon, far short of what they’d hoped from a partnership with one of the world’s largest retailers.
“I think it’s way too early to tell because of the low volume of transactions,” said Andrew Wright, a Vinart Dealerships managing partner who helped craft Amazon’s early pilot with Hyundai dealerships but chose not to participate in the program.
Another Hyundai dealership owner from the Southeast who requested anonymity said, “The results have not met my expectations.”
It’s strange, because Carvana seems to be doing a healthy business selling cars online and delivering them to customers. This in-between step seems to just be a fancy version of lead generation, and maybe that’s not good enough.
What’s Going To Happen With Tesla Earnings?
The confounding thing about Tesla is that its stock trades something like 160-190 times its forward earnings depending on its price, which is to say that the amount being paid by investors to own the shares isn’t a reflection of what’s expected as a return in the near future (by comparison, Apple is the next-closest at roughly 30x forward earnings). What investors are choosing to believe is that what CEO Elon Musk is doing will make the company so necessary that it’ll unlock huge value in the distant future.
From that perspective, the quarter-to-quarter earnings or losses are less important than the story Musk and Tesla can tell about the future. Last quarter’s earnings weren’t great, this quarter’s earnings will probably be strongly positive, but what investors are looking for is that story.
As a result, investing pros say strong quarterly numbers that beat already lowered expectations aren’t likely to move the richly valued stock. Rather, Tesla needs one of two things to drag its shares out of their rut: Concrete signs of progress on its robotaxi plans or a shiny new object from Musk’s playbook that moves the goalposts for the company and resets the timer to show results.
“When a stock trades on a long-term story, patience doesn’t disappear overnight,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Karobaar Capital, which owns Tesla shares mostly through derivatives. “The existing base is still holding on, but it’s getting harder to attract new buyers without clearer results.”
When Musk talks to investors, look for a big show, a shiny announcement, or something else.
BYD No Longer On The Naughty List In Brazil
Late in 2024, a big report came out from Reuters alleging that Chinese nationals were found to be working in “slavery-like conditions” at a Brazilian BYD plant that was under construction, which BYD wasn’t too fond of:
Brazilian labor authorities had on Wednesday said they found 163 Chinese nationals working in “slavery-like conditions” at a construction site for a BYD-owned factory in Brazil’s Bahia state. BYD said then that it had cut ties with the firm that hired the workers and was working with authorities.
“Being unjustly labeled as ‘enslaved’ has made our employees feel that their dignity has been insulted and their human rights violated, seriously hurting the dignity of the Chinese people. We have signed a joint letter to express our true feelings,” Jinjiang said on its official Weibo account.
This issue was seemingly resolved when the contractors for BYD and BYD itself settled with the state prosecutors office to the tune of $8 million, half of which was distributed to the workers.
Settled it was not, as then Labor Secretary Luiz Felipe Brandao de Mello last week put BYD on the list of companies that have been found to utilize such egregious labor conditions. BYD, as you might imagine, wasn’t too keen to be on this list. BYD is now off the list and the Labor Secretary has been sacked. What’s going on?
Nikkei Asia says some within the labor community think it was a retaliation:
Some leveled accusations that Mello was fired over BYD’s inclusion on the list.
“Regarding the dismissal of the labor inspection secretary, there is obviously a retaliatory element,” Mario Diniz, vice president of Safiteba, the labor inspectors’ union in the state of Bahia, told Nikkei in an interview. “Because it happened shortly after the inclusion of the BYD on the ‘dirty list’ of employers of slave labor.”
[…]
Mauricio Santoro, a professor of international relations at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, said, “It is possible that there was political interference,” as BYD’s Bahia factory received “strong support from important Brazilian leaders.”
It’s not really knowable what happened as an outsider, but Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has made connections to China an important part of his government.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
One of the surprises of Coachella this year was Nine Inch Noize, which is a collab between Nine Inch Nails and German electronic group Boys Noize. That sounds super weird, and is, but it also works. Please enjoy “Hersey.” Well, enjoy the song, maybe not the concept.
The Big Question
What would a full-size EV truck need to be able to do in order to make sense?
Top photo: Chevrolet
What would a full-size EV truck need to be able to do in order to make sense?
Well since long distance towing with an EV is so shit due to 99% of chargers being pull in style instead of drive through style I see two options for full-size EV Trucks.
1.) At minimum they need a long bed variant, preferably one with an 8ft bed that has oodles of payload, so the owners can use the bed as a bed instead of needing a cargo trailer due to the low payload.
2.) Range extender that you could run exclusively off of if necessary.
I think there is not one size fits all for any vehicles, especially trucks. First off, let’s assume you need a truck (not a safe assumption in all cases).
As mentioned, a lot of people get trucks as basically luxury vehicles that can occasionally do work. Given the ranges and recharge times of the Silverado EV and Lightning when not hauling or towing, an EV makes sense for this application as well. Being quieter and having locking frunks makes these vehicles better as a luxury car/work vehicle as well.
But of course, with every one of these cases, there are dozens of subcases. YMWV (your mileage WILL vary). There’s no way to say “A X is best for me, so it must be best for you.” unless you are a fleet manager at a place and talking to a fleet manager of a direct competitor.
I would certainly like an EV but I don’t see ever buying full sized EV truck. I do bad things to my old F-250. I only drive it to haul or tow stuff and don’t care when I put another dent in it. I bought it for $1,600 15 years ago and it’s still going…
There’s literally nothing the truck could do. It’s purely an infrastructure problem at this point, most notably pull-through charging locations. I know they exist, but they’re few and far between and given some of the hellacious head winds I’ve towed through I don’t like the idea of needing to get to some distant pull-through charger. Logistics while towing are annoying enough without adding that wrinkle.
Honestly, the GM trucks are otherwise fine, specs-wise (I’ve heard they have more charging errors due to the split 400/800V architecture, but that’s an implementation problem not a spec one). 480 miles is about what my gas truck is rated at for range, although admittedly I get a full 480 miles every time I stop, whereas in an EV you’re probably only getting 400 tops, unless you want to wait forever to hit 100%. And obviously towing cuts that ~in half, but that applies to both gas and EV.
Mind you, I was saying similar things about EV cars 5 years back, and now I’m seriously considering an EV as a replacement for my Prius when the time comes. We can make progress on the infrastructure problem if there’s enough political will behind it. So obviously we won’t, but we could.
A bit more towing range would definitely be helpful for me, and would help with the infrastructure issue as well. The Silverado EV is pretty close – like 20-30% more would probably do it. The lack of pull-through would be less of an issue if I could keep it to a single 10-100% lunch and charge stop per day on longer trips as long as there’s a place to park the trailer in the meantime.
I’d actually like to have a GM EV truck. I have a truck now but it’s just a mild hybrid Ram. I don’t need one to haul/tow for 100s of miles, just around the area I live. I have a garage where I could keep it plugged in when I’m not using it as well. They are just too expensive still. I was hoping that the cost barrier might start ticking down as they improved them but I guess I’ll never know.
See Jalopnik…thats how you write and honest headline. Take notes.
I tow a camper with my truck. I want an electrified truck for the towing torque and efficiency, but it has to have a gas generator in it for long trips and for places that don’t have EV charging. I have 0 interest in a full EV truck. And this is coming from a person who owned a 1st gen Volt and currently has both a PHEV and an EV. I hope by the time I am ready to replace my 2021 RAM (hopefully not for at least 5 more years) that there are options for me.
what PHEV do you have?
Currently a BMW 330e. The EV is a Bolt EUV.
An EV truck makes sense for me right now. However the problem is the charging.
For my use case (towing the camper) I would definitely want more pull through charging spots.
I could always unhitch, but with the WD/AS that would be very annoying to do every 200 miles towing.
I know the list price may be 100k on these EV trucks, but I see a lot of good deals out there for way less.
Good news is that a truck has a lot of space for the batteries. Towing engine with plug-in batteries would be optimal, as it allows for better mileage when not towing, which is most of the time.
GM is just listening to the market. I think slowing down the development of their next-gen EV trucks makes sense, but I do hope they continue to sell their existing EV trucks. After all, in most segments, they are in a class of one, but I hope they don’t do what Ford did and actually stop selling the Lightning (or at least that is what it seems has happened).
They should have listened to the market before development.
It’s possible they will be trying to sell what they have built for a while. Hopefully take some off-the-lot depreciation before the sale.
“listened to the market before development.”
Not possible in the car business. We aren’t talking about lead times of a few months. Cars are in development for years. And since EVs are so new to the legacy automakers, they would have been in development for longer still.
You can’t time the market because you’ll be left flat-footed – having products come out 5 or even 10 years too late, totally missing out on some trends. That is why GM’s strategy to slow down development makes sense, as long as they don’t outright cancel development because EV demand WILL go up as range and charge times improve.
I think the EV truck already makes sense for specific use cases. Towing or long distance travel no, but for everything else, yes. I think for something like local construction work they’d be preferable to gas, since they have the capability of running all kinds of different tool and can keep the AC running. Same thing as like an auto parts delivery truck. I believe those tend to make a lot of short trips in town, perfect for EV use.
If I had a place to plug it in, an EV truck would work well for me right now. A Rivian is one of my dream vehicles.
I’m still a believer in hybrids though, I think the Ford Powerboost is cool, and I’d LOVE if Ram came out with a Hurricane with a hybrid that could work as an EV to say 30mph or so. I feel like I heard something about that a while back, but not sure if that’s a thing anymore.
TBQ: Well-equipped for under $50k, cost-competitve on insurance rates, and probably megawatt charging enabled via a network extensive enough to have no more than one car ahead of you in line on Thanksgiving weekend.
The whole thing reminds me of Auto Traders new(ish) platform shift where they want to broker the whole deal through their platform, for a fee of course. I already paid them to list my vehicle. Back when I sold my Wrangler in 24 they were pushing me to handle payment and everything through them, I instead just told the buyer to meet me at my house, give me cash, I handed over the title and everything was done. The whole going through their escrow and title transfer thing seemed completely unnecessary and I told them so when I pulled the ad.
This Amazon listing seems like just another version of Marketplace, Craigslist, Auto Trader and Cars.com, I’m already looking at those places, why would I add Amazon to my list?
I actually bought a car through that autotrader service a year ago and am divided on it. It added costs that made a difference, even on a sub-$20k car, and didn’t save me any time because I bought across state lines, but I can’t imagine bringing a suitcase full of cash to pay for something new enough to be under warranty. Some kind of escrow is starting to become necessary.
There is a gaping hole in the ecosystem for low transaction cost cheap used car advertising that used to be filled by Craigslist before Facebook marketplace nuked them from orbit and filled the void with slop.
Yeah, full transparency, the Jeep wasn’t that much money, when I’ve sold cars at that price, we’ve met at my bank and I’ve deposited a cashiers check directly with the buyer present, as I still owed money on the car so the payoff could be handled and the title provided lien free on the spot.
I agree, I miss the old car forum classifieds for just this reason, hyper-targeted enthusiast cars with people I already had some for of rapport with, or at least enough of the community did for me to feel confident in what I might be buying.
My thinking on this is that Amazon is not trying to serve anyone in the market not currently being served through service or product. They are just adding a way to find a car. The problem is, they’re not replacing anything, just adding to it.
I want to be able to buy a new or CPO car without involving a dealer. I don’t need more middlemen I need less.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Last mile delivery is the optimum application for an EV truck, but it’s concentrated in the hands of too few, too large customers which is why with Amazon partnering with Rivian and USPS doing their own thing, GM canned the Brightdrop after neither UPS nor FedEx made a deal to buy them by the thousands.
Wild idea, There are a LOT of people who do not actually tow with their trucks. Lets try to admit that, build and sell EV trucks that are not for towing. Thinking you may tow someday but you will actually never will but want to think you will, is part of the problem.
How many fleet trucks never tow or carry very heavy loads in the beds. How many suburban posers would not even know how to hook up a trailer. Sell EV trucks to them.
There are plenty of people who have accepted that they don’t tow or don’t tow enough for it to matter. We call them “car buyers”.
Trucks are expensive to buy and own and people pay it because they want what they get for that price. They get it. They don’t have to use it, but they get it. Electric trucks have asked them to pay even more for capabilities they can get from a cheaper vehicle. Cut the prices in half and they’ll buy, but as always, dollars sell briskly at $0.50.
Pretty sure this is one of the points of the Slate, right? It’s not being marketed as a workhorse, just cheap, honest, adaptable transportation.
Exactly this.
I’m on the wait list for a Slate. I don’t need a truck. I need a commuter car, and having one with a small bed I can use for small Garden Center trips without hooking up the trailer is a benefit.
Exactly my use case. I don’t have a need to tow anything, but it would be perfect to throw 10 bags of mulch in or pick up something bulky. That’s why I’ve been looking at Mavericks
I’m kind of int he same boat, both the Maverick and Slate are kind of where I’d need to be on a new vehicle. The Slate would be less utilitarian for me as I need four seats, but depending on how hard the rear seat removal/installation is it might work for the few times I’d need a bed like space.
Really hope to get my grubby mits on the Slate soon 🙂 Maverick is still too expensive for my blood, but hoping depreciation does it’s thing.
I mean—why couldn’t you sell a range extender that fits in the bed and integrates with the electrical system? That has to be the easiest possible packaging job in the world.
You could even rent the thing.
I imagine that has a variety of regulatory issues, with emissions and safety near the top of the list.
Pickup bed fuel tanks with transfer pumps are already a thing. Seems like a big tank of fuel would be more dangerous than a smaller tank of fuel and a generator. Definitely would have to be bolted down.
Emissions only have to be met at full output RPM. Much easier than meeting emission requirements at low load conditions.
Those are pretty much exclusively diesel I believe.
And to integrate into the battery/electrical system of an EV implies OEM cooperation at the minimum. So additional regulations may be a part of that.
There are many transfer tank systems that are gasoline or diesel models, although the models that are diesel or hydraulic fluid only might be cheaper. There is even a split fuel model with a separate tank for gasoline and diesel (or kerosene).
Are modern truck beds even big enough for that. We are approaching the 2-3ft bed lengths any year now. (snark)
(To clarify: the OEM would design for this, providing mounting locations and electrical interface, and presumably selling the thing either as an option or separately.)
TBQ: the ability to rattle all the windows in the neighborhood while leaving for work at 6:30 in the morning. Also to get real close to whoever happens to be in front of you. And it needs space in the back window to express your politics and love of hunting and fishing, often in the most crude way possible. And it better be easy to lift and put low-profile “off road” tires that stick out past the fenders on it.
And the batteries can’t be so low that it makes it too hard to Carolina Squat your suspension.
Ugh, upvoted for how much I hate how right this is.
Also it needs to have an antenna aerial that can be replaced with a 7.62 round so people know you’d shoot them with a radio antenna if you could.
Back in my wrenching for a living days, nothing brought a bigger smile to my face than failing vehicles for the annual safety inspection due to the tires sticking out past the fenders.
Aww that means my truck would fail in that state because I changed out the rear end when one of the axles noped out and bounced down the freeway for a rear end out of a 2nd Gen Cummins since some of them had dana 80s vs the dana 70 my truck had. The “new” rear end was a little wider so my rear tires stick out about an inch or so each side now.
Also needs a smoke screen function to tell those “anti-American” protestors what your little boy words are incapable of conveying.
-It has to be able to tow a reasonable distance.
-It has to be available in multiple bed and cab configurations.
-It needs to not look too weird. Ford understood this with the Lightning. GM didn’t really with the awkwardly proportioned SilEVrado. The less said about Tesla here the better.
-It has to be cost-competitive with gas and diesel powered trucks. All the more so for fleet sales that might be willing to compromise on range and towing.
That is a tough nut to crack, so it doesn’t surprise me that EV trucks aren’t quite ready yet.
The cost competitive part for comparable usage is big. I see TONs of Lightnings in my area, but the majority are for businesses. They have a set use case which is easy to plan for, and the Gov’t incentives for businesses to go EV were good.
Businesses deal in dollars and cents, not emotions like Joe Public. This is why I spent my whole wrenching career in commercial trucks/buses. Businesses don’t blink about repair costs cause the equipment needs to move.
Yeah, my employer has a fleet of Lightnings (as an electric utility it’s a bit on the nose) but unsubsidized the cost still seems a little too high for mass adoption.
The cost has been the poison pill for me, Truck or otherwise. I’m already playing in the bottom of the market, and am not willing to increase my monthly vehicle costs to go EV. I’m still waiting for my unicorn(s) and if the industry spent more time optimizing for cost instead of profit we might be closer to this. Regardless, I’m certainly not going to pay MORE for the same class of vehicle, to have less capability; be that range or utility.
EREVs and PHEVs in the truck world. If you can bop back & forth to work and around town while simply plugging in at night, and have the gas pick up the slack on long journeys, you’re set.
As DT has said repeatedly, vehicles are an emotional purchase, we buy the POTENTIAL of adventures. Hence all the half tons that have never seen a trailer or anywhere near payload capacity. Cause they might need it ONE DAY.
So you can kick and scream all you want about actual use. That doesn’t matter.
The truck needs to be comparable capability to current gas offerings, while saving money at the pump. Without spending an extra 30k or more over the MSRP of their ICE competition.
Why do I drive an Excursion that gets low double digit fuel economy? Cause that $900-1500/month truck payment buys a LOT of gas, even at $1.80/L. And I can always drive less.
I’ll add that I’m closely watching Edison Motors’ rolling chassis hybrid kit. Cause I’d gladly pay $50k to slide that under my Excursion body.
You and me both, I wonder if it would actually increase the payload/towing capacity of what it replaces, all while allowing city ev driving and dyno juice when needed
That sounds dirtier than it should.
Good.
For a true work pickup, I imagine range wouldn’t be as much of an issue as it would be for the folks using their truck as their daily driver. Towing might remain a major disadvantage for a long time, though.
Having said that, the perceptions of both a shorter range and a longer “fill-up” time compared to an ICE vehicle are probably two of an EV truck’s bigger hurdles.
(I intentionally say perceptions. Until recently I just assumed range, charging times, and charging availability were still bigger issues than they are these days, until some fine folks here in the comments pointed out massive improvements in the tech and infrastructure in recent years. I’m sure a lot of skeptics still think that way.)
We tried with full size EV pickups for retail customers. Perception clashed with reality and perception won. People think they need to be able to tow with these things when they don’t actually tow anything. But the perception of not being able to tow a giant camper across the Rockies at 75 mph killed sales. Never mind that a lot of gas pickups can’t either. That fact was conveniently omitted.
Fast charging infrastructure currently being optimized for passenger vehicles didn’t help. I tow with a Model Y and on trips greater than 120 miles one way dropping the camper is necessary to charge. It’s 15 feet long so it’s not a big deal. But wrangling a large camper on and off isn’t fun. Give it 2-3 years and this will change.
Are GM execs living in an alternative bubble? Are they not paying attention to the demand destruction issue of oil about to be foisted upon much of the developed world, an event that will effect the global economy? And yet they double down on the past and more misery.
So, I am assuming everyone will stand around and wait for the other guy to come out with an EREV pickup, then when it’s a huge hit (160 miles EV and sub 50k) everyone will play catch up. Where is my Colorado EREV? And , why is GM so far behind in hybrid offerings?
“Heresy” was an absolute monster on Downward Spiral. This is not that. Luckily we’re all used to super weird NIN remixes, and I’m glad ol’ Trent is still working.
What would a full-size EV truck need to be able to do in order to make sense?
Not be a rolling statement
Not be the size of a building
Not cost $100K
Drive 500 miles on a charge, 300 when towing.
Without having a battery pack that weighs as much as a small car.
So you’re basically asking for 3x the energy density compared to current tech, really 6x if you also want the price to come down to a reasonable number, not be a massive statement piece, and actually bought in decent volumes.
Massively profitable companies should be able to fund pioneering research and development with those profits, right guys?
Nope. That’s for the C-suite execs and their top shareholders to pocket.
No need to waste capital on what isn’t (in their minds) broken, after all.
In large part they are, but we’re still not there yet. Whoever cracks the energy density problem first will have a massive advantage, and every automaker wants that edge.
Massively profitable companies can’t get around Sir Isaac Newton. And the one I work for spends R&D money on things they think will turn a profit.
Njd isn’t asking for anything. The question was what would it take for an EV truck to be successful.
What success would be and how it would be achieved are two very different questions.
Who knows – maybe some sort of micro nuclear reactor will come along and make battery tech a moot point (though I’d imagine there would need to be some battery capacity in play, to accommodate ramp up/ramp down of the reactor). And if this sort of thing came to be, range would start to be measured in hundreds of thousands of miles or kilometers – which would probably make it a very successful (though expensive) truck.
What would a full-size EV truck need to be able to do in order to make sense?
This is what I was addressing. To get that, you’d need significantly increased energy density. Hence the 3x, or more likely 6x improvement needed. You’d need 10x+ the current to remove the need for battery regen/power smoothing.
My day job is working on EVs, so I’m just outlining what it would take.
Gotcha. Makes sense, given your expertise with the current technology.
I do like your “not be a rolling statement” condition. I live in a smallish farming community of about 4,500 people, and somehow the local dealership convinced somebody around here to buy one of the new Hummer EVs. I shake my head every time I see it, as it just seems so out of place around here. It certainly makes a statement though.
The dealership convinced them by offering hilariously cheap leases after the HEVs sat for months on the lot. GM paid out a ton of incentives as well.
A friend of a friend has a 3x that costs him $800/mo including insurance through GM. He charges for free at work, and all maintenance is covered by the lease.
The 4 points above were from /u/4jim and /u/Njd. I personally think EV trucks are hideous, not as rolling statements, but because I can’t use them as a real truck. I’ll keep my GMT400 forever at this rate.
What truck gets 500 miles on a tank?
Mine, easily.
Ford and Ram HDs have 48 and 50 gallon fuel tanks as an option, respectively.
Ok.
Is your truck stock? Gas or Diesel? Do most stock trucks do this?
I ask because I find most people I talk to have unreal expectations of EVs compared to internal combustion vehicles. They seem to think EVs are supposed to go farther than the equivalent gas/diesel vehicle.
The large tanks are factory stock options, available for either gas or diesel.
Additionally, range is less important as an ICE vehicle metric because of the ease and speed of refueling compared to recharging an EV. If fast chargers allowed for adding 300+ miles of range in 5 minutes at every highway exit in the country, I suspect you’d see a lot less stress over electric range.
Not to mention fast refueling an ICE vehicle has 0 negative effects, unlike fast charging with current cell chemistries.
How about answering the questions? I don’t need a ton of verbiage here
Is your truck stock? Gas or Diesel?
Lol ok bud.
My truck is gas and I already mentioned the tank is a stock factory option.
The rest of my comment is responding to your EV “unreasonable expectations” idea. I’m beginning to think you have unreasonable expectations for how a comment section works.
They don’t. And that is why they aren’t successful.
Like you said – unrealistic expectations. Said another way, the tech ain’t there yet.
I think you have it backwards. I do not think most drivers need 500 miles of range given the average driving habits. It’s a reason top say “they don’t work” when most people drive less than 100 miles a week.
Yes, but then again the average driver doesn’t really need a truck, either.
As I’ve said here before, I think most people could easily get by with an SUV and a utility trailer.
But if you really do need a truck, towing range can be very important. That Airstream isn’t going to get itself to the Black Hills all by itself, nor is a serious off road beast going to get itself to Moab – and longer distance between stops gets you there faster. Or there may not be much time to stop and refuel while trying to get to the hobby stock track before hot laps, or to get back home Sunday night to go to work on Monday. For farmers, time is money during planting and harvesting seasons.
That’s why a lot of trucks have options for larger capacity fuel tanks (my F-150 has a 36 gallon tank, which will give me over 500 miles unladen, and a little over half that pulling our brick of a camper if we’re not going into a headwind).
Don’t get me wrong here – I’d love to have an electric truck, but I also need it to match the capabilities of the dino juice fueled one I’ve already got, without it costing as much as a house payment every month.
There’s a reason for the excessive mileage people want.
A battery constantly degrades, so people want it to last as long as possible. Because of this, they want to be able to make a couple trips without having to fast charge.
They also want to avoid going below 20% because of pack wear and range anxiety.
Compound that with a majority of the US population living in the north, where range can drop by up to 50% in below freezing temperatures.
Obviously the concerns are overstated, but car buying has not been a purely logical decision for decades. For many people an EV would be fine if they’re already buying a new car, but that calculus changes significantly if you buy used/out of warranty.
I have an F-150 with the 5.0 and 36 gallon tank and routinely get over 500 miles out of a tank.
How often do you need to go 500 miles between fill ups?
Frequently. We live in FL and CT and have 2 dogs no kids so we do not fly back and forth. Also, because of the dogs we always drive straight thru with no overnight stop as the dogs do not like motels. The big tank allows for minimal stops.
Our Grand Cherokee diesel gets almost 700 miles to a tank unladen, about 350 when pulling our 22’ Airstream. I’d love to get an ev to replace it but the very high upfront cost plus tremendous compromise on towing make it not feasible for now.
We’re driving 1,006 miles tomorrow (unladen) and that’s about the limit for us in one long day. The range of that Jeep is a complete joy. Of course we stop to pee more often than that but we stop where we want and for how long, and with that range also using the route we want. I hope there will be a time when an ev can be the answer.
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You are the exception. 99% of drivers never pull any trailer. 80+% do not drive more than 100 miles a week.
Mine too.
F350 crew cab flat bed. Power stroke diesel. Fuel tank is 34 gallons.
Did 600 driving across Montana at 80 MPH.
Can also haul 60 sheets of OSB without a hitch.
60 sheets is pretty impressive!
My 5.3 Silverado can do 500 miles on a tank in the summer, even with the smallest tank size of the big 3. Not so much in the winter, but Ford and Ram offer 30+ gallon extended tanks that blow past 500 miles easily no matter the season. And that’s not even getting into diesel or hybrid options that can drive all day without stopping too.
Basically, 500 miles on a tank is not that unusual. In fact, it’s almost the bare minimum if you plan to tow anything large because below that you’d be constantly stopping to fill up. Towing reduces your range by about 50%, give or take.
Most modern trucks will easily do 500 miles especially if they have an extended tank. But I do find it funny when people ask for this in an EV when they drive a 1996 Chevy truck or a new Ram TRX that struggle to go over 300 miles on a tank.
My one ton diesel has a 36 gallon tank since it’s a standard bed and can go 700+ miles unloaded on the freeway. 400-450 if I’m towing. If it was a long box then it could have a 48 gallon tank.
So to answer your question, pretty much all of them.
Yes – Being the size of a 1970’s/80’s full-sized pickup is just fine for most people.
Which I guess makes it the size of a Maverick, but without the back doors/seat.