Evidence Mounts That Battery-Electric Pickup Trucks Are Failing In America

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With pickups being one of the largest segments in the American automotive marketplace, electrifying them is a critical litmus test for whether battery-only vehicles will eventually succeed in the U.S. market. Based on the evidence heading into 2025, battery-electric pickups are shaping up to be a disappointment.

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Ford’s F-150 Lightning – Plant Closure, Five-Figure Sales Incentives, The Imaginary $39K TrimOf the pickups we have tested thus far, Ford’s F-150 Lightning is the one we feel made the most sense in its segment and gave us the most positive impressions. The Lightning drives great. Ford has many outstanding pickups, but the all-electric Lightning stands out as the most satisfying to drive in the real world among the full-size trucks. The instant torque is amazing. We also feel that the massive front storage area makes perfect sense for a utility vehicle. Look under the back of the truck; there is a spare tire. Power ports can run tools. Ford did everything right.

One disappointment for us was the imaginary “$39K” trim of the Lightning. We actually saw and touched one at a fall fair years ago. We offered to buy it from the dealer in New Hampshire on the spot, but we were rebuffed. “Only for display,” they told us. None were available for actual sale to consumers, according to the dealer. All the media fleet electric trucks we tested were dramatically more expensive.

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Shortly after launch, the F-150 Lightning was “sold out.” That term is a bit misleading since if very few of something is made, “selling them out” is not very difficult. Since its initial splash, the F-150 Lighting production has been being stepped back. First, Ford cut back on the shifts that built the Lightning. Next, Ford laid off a significant portion of the production staff. Finally, Ford simply stopped production to let the excess inventory work its way out of the system. To help that along, Ford went so far as to offer dealers up to $22,500 in incentives to sell the truck. We loved the Ford F-150 Lightning when we tested it. However, Ford’s stopping production speaks for itself.

CybertruckEV fanatics have taken to calling the Cybertruck “America’s third-best-selling EV.” That a vehicle with less than 25,000 units delivered can be called “Best” at anything reflects just how tiny battery-electric vehicle sales are other than the two successful models, the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. Successful vehicles are delivered in volumes with six digits, year after year. If you need any evidence that Tesla is hanging its head over the Cybertruck’s disappointing deliveries, simply look at its last four quarterly delivery reports. It has never mentioned the Cybertruck even once. Instead, it lumps the Cybertruck into its “Other Vehicles” category. The successful Model 3 and Y are in a separate category on the delivery report. If Tesla were pleased with its Cybertruck deliveries, it would say so loudly and clearly. Hiding a new model in the also-ran category clearly signals underperformance.

Another disturbing Cybertruck metric is unfulfilled reservations. Fans who track the Cybertruck admit that about 97.5% of the online reservations have evaporated since deliveries began.

Hummer Deliveries Settle in Under 1,000 Units Per MonthFirst delivered in 2021, the GMC Hummer pickup truck will enter its fifth calendar year of production in about six weeks. Since its launch, the vehicle has been one of GM’s lowest-volume vehicles. Currently, GMC is averaging less than 1,000 units per month delivered to consumers. This makes it one of GM’s lowest-ever – vehicles produced and not canceled.

Silverado and Sierra Deliveries Are MinusculeGeneral Motors makes great trucks that generally share many of their parts and designs. The Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra EVs will be a lot like the Hummer. Deliveries of the Silverado and Sierra have now started. The October report from GM after Q3’s end was titled, “U.S. Q3 Sales: Another Record Quarter of EV Sales.” During the record quarter, GM delivered less than 6,000 Sierra EVs and Silverado EVs. Less than 1% of the trucks GM delivered were electric. Consider this comparison: GM’s Corvette is considered a low-volume specialty vehicle. Chevrolet still builds some of its engines by hand. This very low-volume V8-powered vehicle model easily outsold all of GM’s EV trucks combined in Q3.

Rivian Truck Sales DeclineAccording to Rivian, the first R1T trucks were delivered in 2021. Like GM, Rivian will be entering its fifth calendar year of EV pickup sales in just about six weeks. For quite a while, Rivian would not tell the media how many of its trucks the company had delivered. We asked. They declined. That is a red flag. Companies that are doing well shout their success loudly; they don’t decline to tell fans, investors, and the media how many units of a particular model they delivered.

In its last report, Rivian revealed that the company had delivered about 35% fewer total vehicles than it had in the same period of 2023. The company also revised its delivery goals for 2024 downward. Over the past year, Rivian’s total product mix has been both SUVs and trucks, not just trucks alone. This signals that the pickup truck deliveries must have declined sharply. Based on the limited info that Rivian releases, we estimate that Rivian is delivering less than 2,500 trucks per month, entering its fifth year of production. According to Investors Business Daily and other sources (Investors.com), Rivian lost around $39,130 per vehicle in Q3.

Why Are EV Trucks Failing?One reason that EV trucks are failing in America is cost and consumer price. The average transaction price of a full-size pickup truck in America in October was under $66K, according to KBB/Cox Automotive. Don’t confuse that with the starting price. The base model Ford and Chevy pickups start at under $40K. $66K is what consumers are paying for a well-equipped, full-size pickup truck. The least expensive Ford F-150 Lightning starts at $65K. That’s over 50% more than the least expensive fuel-powered pickup of the same size. Chevrolet’s Silverado EV starts at $75K, almost double what the gas-powered Silverado starts at.

EV Pickup Trucks – Can They Ever Succeed?In the market since 2021, battery-electric pickup trucks remain extremely low in volume and extremely high in price. Manufacturers of battery-electric pickups have gone bankrupt, shifted away from making them, and the world leader in trucks, Ford, has stopped production of its battery-electric pickup truck. The manufacturer who has been producing EV pickup trucks the longest is losing over $39,000 per vehicle it delivers. Is there a reasonable expectation that battery-electric pickup trucks will become higher in volume and more successful in the American market going forward? Feel free to tell us in the comments below.

John Goreham is a credentialed New England Motor Press Association member and expert vehicle tester. John completed an engineering program with a focus on electric vehicles, followed by two decades of work in high-tech, biopharma, and the automotive supply chain before becoming a news contributor. He is a member of the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE int). In addition to his eleven years of work at Torque News, John has published thousands of articles and reviews at American news outlets. He is known for offering unfiltered opinions on vehicle topics. You can connect with John on Linkedin and follow his work on our X channel. Please note that stories carrying John’s by-line are never AI-generated, but he does employ Grammarly grammar and punctuation software when proofreading.

Image of Ford F-150 Lightning charging by John Goreham. Images of Ford F-150 Lightning Monroney sticker and fall fair displaymodel by John Goreham. Image of GMC Hummers by John Goreham. Image of Rivian R1T by John Goreham. Image of 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning Spare Tire by John Goreham.

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