The pick-up sector is one of the most important in the United States, a market in which the Ford F-150 has been by far the best-selling vehicle for almost four decades. For years, this has been shared by Detroit’s big three: Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler. However, this will change in the short term with the gradual electrification of the segment.
The leading architect of the revolution in this category will be the launch of the Tesla Cybertruck, an avant-garde model planned for the end of next year that, according to some reports, has already become the vehicle with the most reservations before its commercialization in history, surpassing the 650,000 accumulated orders this summer.
However, we cannot lose sight of other newcomers, including the imminent Rivian R1T and Lordstown Endurance. But the complete list is much longer: Atlis XT, Bollinger B2, Fisker Alaska, Neuron EV T-ONE, Nikola Badger, Karma «pick-up»… Even Nissan has confirmed its interest in developing an electric pick-up for the North American market.
Faced with this situation, the large North American manufacturers have not stood still: Ford will launch an electric F-150 in 2022, which will have SK Innovation cells with 90% nickel, which will allow it to exceed 700 km of autonomy; in parallel, General Motors is preparing a complete family of electric pick-ups.
The first to arrive will be the “super-truck” GMC Hummer EV, recently presented and with a power of more than 1,000 hp. Below it will be the more mundane electric Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, less focused on luxury and high performance than its Hummer sister, which will have the task of standing up to the top-of-the-range versions of the Tesla Cybertruck. Additionally, General Motors will also assemble the Nikola as mentioned above Badger.
In this context, until now, the only traditional group off the hook was FCA (FIAT-Chrysler), focused on its merger with PSA (Peugeot-Citroën, Opel) to form Stellantis. However, Mike Manley, CEO of FCA, has finally confirmed that the RAM brand will soon announce an electric pick-up launch date.