Can electric pickup trucks persuade Americans to ditch petrol vehicles?

AMERICA IS RIGHTLY regarded as a place of automotive leadership. It was the birthplace of the mass production of automobiles with the Ford Model T and pioneered everything from the parking meter to muscle cars to California’s tough environmental rules, which once set the standard for the rest of the world. It is also home to Tesla, which has set the pace of the electric-vehicle (EV) revolution and, in the process, become the world’s most valuable carmaker. So it is somewhat curious that America is a laggard when it comes to EV adoption.

Turning Americans on to battery power will require the carrots and sticks that have coaxed drivers into EVs elsewhere in the world. But another means of changing attitudes towards battery power is gaining traction—the electrification of the pickup, the practical, no-nonsense vehicle that embodies ruggedness for many Americans. In 2023 a fleet of new models will join Ford’s F-150 Lightning and the R1T from Rivian (an EV-only startup), including an electric Chevrolet Silverado and Tesla’s much-delayed Cybertruck.

The effect of Ford’s electrifying its bestselling F-150 pickup (the F-150 Lightning was launched in April 2022) is already being felt. According to Canalys, a research firm, in the first half of 2022 EVs accounted for 6% of passenger vehicle sales, 62% more than in the first six months of 2021. Pickups went from zero to around 15% of EV sales. But America still has a lot of catching up to do. In Europe EVs accounted for one in five cars sold—and in China, for one in four.

Electric sceptics are a sizeable constituency. A recent survey by Deloitte, a consultancy, found that around seven in ten American drivers wanted no truck (as it were) with EVs. But minds are being changed by the F-150 Lightning. Ford seems to have got the vehicle right, a necessity for Detroit as a whole. That is because America’s “big three” carmakers—Ford, General Motors and Chrysler (which is due to start selling an electric Ram pickup in 2024)—all rely on pickups for most of their profits and fear ceding ground to upstart rivals.

The performance of the Lightning is impressive. It boasts a range of 320 miles (515km). The price is competitive, though a mid-range electric model costs a third more than the equivalent petrol version. Its pulling power may not quite compete with that of a petrol model, but its ability to go from 0-60mph in four seconds is remarkable for a pickup and beats all but the most expensive supercars.

Moreover, the vehicle’s battery can be used to power tools at a worksite or an electric grill at a picnic, and a spacious “frunk” can store drills and shovels, or be filled with ice to cool drinks (there is even a handy drain hole). Ford’s message, in highlighting such uses, is clear: EVs can be just as practical and sturdy as petrol-powered vehicles.

But it will take more than nifty pickups for EVs to displace combustion-engine vehicles in America. A new system of EV subsidies, though apparently generous, is restricted to light vehicles in which the batteries, and the raw materials required to make them, are sourced in America, which in practice is almost none of them for now. California’s recent decision to ban the sale of petrol vehicles from 2035 will hasten EV adoption, and other states are adopting similar measures. But cheaper fuel and laxer emissions rules than in Europe, coupled with America’s love affair with internal combustion, mean that the road to electrification will be long and winding.■