Itโs the auto industryโs weirdest market. There are six EV trucks on sale in the U.S., made by more brands than the blockbuster half-ton gas truck market. Yet no one is selling big-truck volumes. It is a more expensive version of what is typically an automakerโs most profitable vehicle. Yet almost no one is making money.
It is the intersection of two vehicle types Americans are buying in droves. But many of them sit on lots for weeks. Itโs the EV truck market in 2025, and nobodyโs winning.
Not yet, at least.
(Welcome to Power Moves, a column on the winners and losers of the EV transition. Iโll break down whatโs happening, why you should care and whoโs going to come out on top.)
A Stilted Start
Rivian and Ford were the first movers in this segment, for what good it did them. Rivian has built a successful business out of selling high-end, lifestyle, electric off-roaders. But the business is weighted heavily toward R1S SUV sales. The R1Tโwhich arrived firstโis a slower seller, and has been far eclipsed by trucks like the Ford F-150 Lightning and Tesla Cybertruck.
Despite that, the picture isnโt so rosy at Ford. The company made a huge deal out of launching the all-electric version of its most valuable nameplate. And the F-150 Lightning is selling well now, but not F-150 wellโwhich was what Ford had hoped for.
Its history has seen price hikes, massive production cuts, price cuts, production pauses and heavy incentive schemes.
Photo by: Ford
A year ago, things looked especially bleak.
โ(Ford) was doing horrendous, admittedly very poorly at the beginning of 2024,โ Ivan Drury, head of insights at car-buying websiteย Edmunds, told InsideEVs. โTheyโve right-sided that. You know, they brought production in line with what consumers actually want.โ
By the end of 2025, Ford put some juice back into the Lightning. David Greene, an analyst with Cars.com, compiled a list of the hottest EVs in December 2024, based on demand relative to inventory and average โturn rate,โ or the time that the average vehicle sits on a dealer lot.
To my surprise, the F-150 Lightning was on there. Greene and Drury both noted that right-sizing production and including free charger installation had helped Ford get some momentum behind the Lightning.
But the fundamentals are still tough. CEO Jim Farley noted earlier this year that large, heavy vehicles may have been the moneymakers in the internal-combustion era, but the opposite will be true for the electric era.
I buy it. Itโs simply too expensive to make a vehicle that large with the range and capability consumers demand right now. Modern battery technology means full-size trucks with acceptable ranges will be heavy, inefficient and pricey.
When theyโre sold alongside gas trucks that can often provide similar capability for less, itโs a tough sell. After road-tripping a Lightning across the Midwest this summer, I definitely would not pay a $10,000 premium for that experience over a gas truck.
GMโs Gambit
If Fordโs strategy is based on providing a good enough experience at an acceptable price, General Motorsโ gambit is that consumers will pay a premium for a gas truck that exceeds their capability expectations. The Sierra and Silverado EVs offer up to 450 miles of rangeโbeating everything but the Lucid Air for the most miles available in a production vehicle.
They boast blazing-fast charging speeds thanks to 350-kW split-pack charging support. They are the only trucks that offer a significant range while towing.
Existing versions also cost $100,000.
Next.
I kid. There are new, cheaper models arriving this year, like the $75,195 LT. That model offers 408 miles of range and typically serves as the volume model for Chevy trucks. Plus, after over a year of Chevy only offering “Work Truck” models to fleet customers, regular consumers can now buy a Work Truck with a 422-mile range. The catch is it costs $69,495, and still comes with the relatively spartan WT interior. It’s unclear what demand will be like for that model, but early WTs have already been offloaded by Hertz at cut-rate prices. That’s not a great sign.
โItโs not very confidence-inspiring to see this. Suddenly youโre getting these trucks dumped back on the market at pretty significant discounts,โ Drury said.
Photo by: Out of Spec Testing (YouTube)
Analysts agree that itโs too early to see whether GMโs truck strategy will pay off. David Greene, the analyst from Cars.com, noted that the GMC Sierra EV was one of the hottest EVs in December. Our own Patrick George seemed to like it, even if he wasnโt a fan of the Silverado. But itโs not clear how wide the reach will be. While the trucks are capable, theyโre also far more expensive than internal-combustion alternatives. That makes it pretty unlikely, in my view, that theyโll represent a large proportion of overall GM truck sales in the short to medium term. Still, it’s only the start for GM.
โI think itโs almost too soon to tell,โ Drury said.
The Cybertruck Factor
One entrant demands attention. It beckons with shining trapezoids. It dominates every newsfeed. It is the Tesla Cybertruck, the best-selling electric pickup truck by quite a large margin. It cannot easily be compared to its โcompetitors,โ if you can even call them that. But it did happily dunk on them on the sales charts, with 38,965 deliveries per Cox Automotive data, smashing the segment record.
Still, there are cracks in the stainless steel armor.
Photo by: InsideEVs
โI think there was a lot of pent-up demand, so they started off the year really strong. But then we started to see a sales decline in Q4โ Stephanie Valdez Streaty, director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, told me.
Cybertruck sales fell 22% from the third quarter to the fourth, as my colleague Tim Levin explained in his excellent piece on Cybertruck demand. Thatโs brutal when you consider that consumer spending is cyclical, with far more spending toward the end of the year. Plus, Tesla tried to juice numbers by introducing a non-Foundation Series truck for $20,000 less, then offering free lifetime Supercharging on top of it. The company is pulling every demand lever, and yet sales fell.
A Rocky Road Ahead
Nobody knows how this is going to shake out. Existing trucks are already leveraging tax credits and heavy lease subsidization to drive sales. Leasing a Lightning is often the cheapest way into an F-150 of any stripe. Plus, automakers are juicing residual values to provide even more competitive leases. Still, though, EV trucks represent a tiny proportion of overall truck sales.
Ford sold 33,500 F-150 Lightnings last year, up 38% from 2023. A serious number. But the company moved 765,649 F-Series trucks over the same period. GMโs EV trucks represented an even smaller share of its truck business. Ram doesnโt even have an electric truck for sale.
Clearly, these products have not found a winning formula. Certain tech-conscious buyers who want a truck for home improvement or for adventures seem interested, but many traditional truck buyers have not shown interest. Few are excited about dealing with Americaโs patchwork EV infrastructureโa bigger problem for trucks, which often take longer to charge, require higher-power chargers to hit their advertised charging speeds and which may not be able to use any charger without first disconnecting their trailers.
Photo by: Scout Motors
Ram and Scout provide perhaps the most direct answer to these problems. Both companies plan to offer Extended Range Electric Vehicle (EREV) trucks. EREVs have gas-powered generators to provide road-trip and towing endurance without the cost and weight of a 200-kWh battery, which sounds like a solid solution for the truck segment. Ram has already learned some lesson’s from GM’s truck strategy, killing its own 200-kWh behemoth before it left the cradle. Scout’s pricing suggests it, too, is banking on the EREV option to provide capability parity without a crazy price premium.
Scout CEO Scott Keogh told me recently that he expects the take rate for the range extender to be far higher for the truck than the SUV, as itโll solve the towing and hauling concerns people have about electric trucks. In the future, though, he argues that making a compelling product is more important than powertrain alone.
โI think this debate of ICE truck vs. EV truck for Scout is irrelevant. I think the debate is going to be about, like โI got a cool truck,โโ Keogh told me. โYeah, we got a cool truck all day.โ
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
