Demand for the angular electric pickup has continued to falter in the first quarter, making room for a new king.
The Tesla Cybertruck has lost the top spot on the list of best-selling electric pickup trucks in the United States. After finishing 2024 as a best-seller, Tesla’s only pickup has fallen to second place in the first quarter of this year.
After the first three months, the Cybertruck had amassed 7,126 registrations. The Ford F-150 Lightning overtook it with 7,913 registrations, according to the most recent data from S&P Global Mobility. The Chevrolet Silverado EV finished the first quarter in third place, followed by the GMC Sierra EV, Rivian R1T and GMC Hummer EV.
As much as I like my EV car, I understand why trucks are a much harder sell. It’s really difficult to get an electric truck to do everything a gas truck can do, and the demographic for trucks is very different than cars.
Not sure what it’s going to take to change this trend, maybe they need to stop selling “do everything” trucks and focus on work vans?
Most trucks have zero reason to be as big as they are.
Slate has been getting a shit ton of advertisements for just starting out and they seem suspect. But something that size with a hot swap battery would sell very well.
But Slate also swaps between a small “kei truck”, cargo van, “SUV”, and hatchback.
It’s all modular kits attached to the base truck.
They don’t have hot swap batteries tho.
Most trucks are the size they are because US fuel economy standards scale inversely with the size of the vehicle. It’s hard to make a 45mpg small truck, but large trucks only need to hit 22mpg so poof, all your trucks are now big trucks.
It’s not just that, they literally get bigger every year because it’s a figurative dick measuring contest.
They didn’t just hit that limit and stop, they continue to get larger
Bezos can pay for a lot of publicity.
Are you getting your billionaires confused? That’s easy. They’re all reprehensible in one way or another.
I don’t think so?
https://www.foxnews.com/tech/jeff-bezos-backs-radical-20000-small-electric-pickup-truck
Ah. Thanks!
Removable batteries aren’t going to happen. The extra mechanical parts needed to make it happen take up space that could be more battery. This isn’t a couple of AA batts, here; the voltage and weight mean everything has to be chonky.
Doubly so for a company like Slate that wants to keep things cheap. They need to pick existing parts off the shelf as much as possible. Removable EV battery parts don’t exist.
Smaller EV pickups would probably work well as the Range used to and the Maverick is currently. Economic haulers of miscellaneous bullshit. All my local NAPAs have phased out Colorados for Mavericks. Many pest control trucks are also Mavericks here now, too. These compact rummage haulers have historically been more of a local vehicle rather than a long distance traveler. I assume the problem is that the monetary cost of EV tech and the space required for batteries is better blended into larger vehicles. F150s were already hovering around 60kUSD average with a range of like 45-110. So, for now, as evidenced by the general lack of even gas compact pickups, ev pickups are large.
As a compromise of cost, limited bullshit hauling needs, and range for a “do it all” commuter, the Maverick hybrid may very well be in my near future. I don’t actually have much range anxiety because I know the most my commuter must do is 45 miles/day, but I’m trying to not rely on my spouse’s car for every potential trip. The Maverick seems like it has just enough utility without penalizing me for it. What I need most at this point is ease of transport of 4ft wide and/or 8ft long wood, which is not really feasible in a typical hatch or suv. Maverick owners boast about that capability, even coming from Rangers and such
Not having really researched the topic, I understand electric vehicles in general have more torque and power than ICE vehicles. Given that the major brands have made EV trucks that have very similar packaging to their ICE counterparts, the only holdback is the range and charging anxiety. For anyone not towing heavy loads long distances, an EV truck should be more than capable as a work truck, and in some ways even more capable (job site power) or preferable (maintenance cost reduction and fleet charging at the office) over their counterparts.
Edit: there is a second holdback of the “my truck absolutely needs to make smog and noise because I’m insecure about myself” crowd.