Changing nearly as fast as gas prices, there’s seemingly constant news in the electric pickup truck market. More manufacturers are debuting electric pickups, while others have plans to do so in the not-too-distant future.
At least eight manufacturers are in the electric pickup truck business, led by Tesla and Rivian. Here’s a synopsis of arguably the top-two most anticipated EV trucks and a list of the manufacturers currently on the market or expected to be manufactured.
Tesla has plans to offer the Cybertruck. Company founder and CEO Elon Musk changes his mind often, but the pending slate currently includes a tri-motor with all-wheel drive, a dual-motor AWD model and a single-motor, rear-wheel-drive.
Eight electric pickup trucks planned – so far
Prices have been announced starting at just under $40,000. The tri-motor option is planned as the first available to the public in late 2021 and with a starting price of $69,900. Its marketing claims a 500-mile range, 0-60 miles per hour in 2.9 seconds, and 14,000-pound towing capacity.
The Rivian R1T looks more like a truck than the pending futuristic offering of Tesla. Rivian has acquired vast commitments from companies like Amazon and even Ford.
Similar in size to the Honda Ridgeline, Rivian will offer a 400-mile range in its top-spec model and its 180-kilowatt-hour battery pack. Rivian will offer two other battery pack options, 135 kWh and 105 kWh packs, that should provide 300-plus miles and 230 miles of range, respectively. The Rivian is now scheduled for its debut late this year.
Here’s the list of current or pending electric pickup trucks:
Atlis XT
Bollinger B1 B2
Chevy Silverado EV
Fisker Alaska
GMC Hummer EV
Lordstown Motors Endurance electric pickup
Rivian R1T
Tesla Cybertruck
James Raia, a syndicated columnist in Sacramento, California, publishes a free weekly automotive podcast and electronic newsletter. Sign-ups are available on his website, www.theweeklydriver.com. He can be reached via email: james@jamesraia.com.
##RVT1004b
This topic is part of what I’m covering in my GoGreenRV study this summer and fall. Ford is loaning me an F-150 PowerBoost Hybrid for 2 weeks in July, and I have a promise of a Ford Lightning and Rivian R1T loaner as soon as one’s available later this year for review. In addition, I’ll be testing a Volkswagen ID.4 for towing a small trailer, and I’ve asked Tesla for a CyberTruck. I’ll be looking at how towing small and medium sized travel trailers affect mileage and other performance factors, as well as the power grid’s ability to power all the new fast chargers.
How’d they miss the Ford Lightning? I’t going to be the best selling electric truck of all.
Great trucks if you don’t leave the City limits. The charging issue will be a PITA if you go on a long trip with full charging times plus not a huge infrastructure in place yet. There’s no industry standards on the charging plugins yet so a Tesla charge station can’t charge other brands so they’ll have to work on that issue.
Currently sitting in a park with 105 volts at pedestal. Can’t run the A C in 90 degree heat. Assuming the charge on the truck would get you here would it even be possible to recharge it to get you back home.
You have hit upon one if the key fallacies in these discussions- that EV RVs can simply charge up at sites which offer 50 amp service. But the realities are – totally insufficient RV park electrical grids and RV park owners who would even allow it.
I too have seen park site voltages drop < 110 volts, shutting off my AC on hot days. There is no way most parks could support any charging at all.
And most park owners are not going to allow even a few EV RVs to charge up on-site, disrupting electrical supplies for all other customers, given their huge electrical demands.
And very few owners would be willing to endure the expense of upgrading their entire RV park electrical grid. And that is assuming that their local electrical utility could even support it. After all – many RV parks are located in remote areas which cannot easily just increase their service amps without new power lines, substations, etc. And even that assumes there is sufficient power available from the source power plant or local grid.
If politicians want to move to a greener electrical grid they have to consider more nuclear plants as there is no other currently available technology which will achieve the needs for higher demand and increased reliability. Just remember what happened in Texas only a few months ago!
looking forward to these! The Rivians are sweet. It will be great if we have a nationwide infrastructure to support charging and improve battery tech to enable towing longer distances
Dream on Dave!
You will be lucky to see such a dream in your life time!
And no on has discussed the needed investment $6000. To $7000. To Install a level one Tesla charging station in your garage.
Others are similar but are level two and one stations.