General Motors, America’s biggest automaker is wading into the electrical vehicles market with eyes on the pickup market but Texan ranchers who comprise the world’s single largest market for diesel pickups say they want more horsepower than current EV pickups provide.
GM completes a quartet constituting of Ford, Tesla and Rivian, a Detroit based start-up that have added an all-electric pickup to its portfolio, CNBC reported.
“But Detroit’s Big Three and their challengers may have a hard time persuading the ranchers, roughnecks and handymen who make up a lot of their core clientele to trade in their diesel duallys for a battery-powered 4X4 pickup” the report said.
Mary Barra, GM chief executive officer, has not offered any details about the pickup, but said GM “will not cede our leadership” in the pickup segment, leading to widespread speculation about what GM is developing and when it will come to market.
Electric vehicles, in general, have been slow to catch on with American car buyers. While sales of all plug-based vehicles, including all-electric and plug-in hybrid models, jumped from 195,226 in 2017 to 360,353 last year, according to industry data, this was still less than 2 percent of the overall new vehicle market. And pure battery-electric vehicles alone generated barely half of that total.
This is a significant challenge presented to automakers who want to produce pickup electrical vehicles. A large chunk of the EV market is currently made up of Tesla’s Model 3 sedan.
“I wouldn’t buy one at all. It wouldn’t make sense for me. It sounds like a playboy’s truck, instead of a work truck,” said Frank Helvey, who raises cattle and is active in the livestock auction community near Pearsall, Texas.
If Texan ranchers’ attitude mirrors the horsepower needs of the nature of work for which pickups are built the world over, then automakers aiming at this market segment will have to return to the strategy boardroom.
Jeff Williams, another Texas rancher, said the technology interests him, “especially if they can make an electric that has the same power and range as a one-ton diesel.” But he remains skeptical of Rivian’s claims and the promises made by other automakers that their electric pickups will offer capabilities matching their gas and diesel models.
But manufacturers hope to stimulate growth with the addition of new products as diverse as the Audi e-tron SUV, the Porsche Taycan sports car and the Jaguar I-Pace crossover that was named World Car of the Year at the New York International Auto Show last month.
The two critical challenges are range and charging. And out Williams’ part of Texas State there are few public chargers, especially the high-speed ones needed for ranchers who haul large livestock to market from rural areas.
Sam Abuelsamid, a senior automotive tech analyst with Navigant Research said the most critical question, is “whether there’s a market for an all-electric truck.”
Rivian, the start-up’s R1T will make “close to” 800 horsepower, RJ Scaringe, the company’s boss said in Los Angeles recently, enough to hit 60 mph in 3 seconds. Its roughly 1,000 pound-feet of torque will let it haul a trailer of up to 11,000 pounds, and it is expected to get up to 400 miles on a 180 kilowatt-hour battery pack.
