It was the look of the Chevrolet Silverado EV that got Bob Andrews to put down the $100 needed to reserve one.
"My favorite truck I've ever owned ... out of hundreds of trucks is a Chevy Avalanche," the 60-year-old upstate New York resident said. "When I saw the EV has a very similar style, including the mid-gate that folds down, it knocked me right off my feet."
He may have lined up for the electric truck, but Andrews still has reservations about actually owning one. A main concern: range, and the lack of charging infrastructure to really make buying an electric vehicle feasible today.
EV sales still make up a small portion — 3% in 2021 — of all U.S. sales, but automakers are pushing onward with their electric plans. By spending billions, the companies — especially the Detroit Three — are expressing confidence they will be able to convert both retail and commercial customers to electric powertrains. Electrified trucks will be central in this mission and automakers are scaling up the production facilities they will need to compete for the demand they say is there.
But for the projected supply to meet demand for electric trucks, experts say automakers will, at some point, have to reduce production of the gas-powered trucks whose profits are helping fuel the EV transition.
"You've got three companies that dominate that one segment of the market — GM, Ford and Stellantis. They are 90-plus percent of the full-size truck market, and that market is not going to grow by a million, 2 million units a year," said Sam Abuelsamid, principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights. "That means that volume has got to come from somewhere else."
Including heavy-duty trucks, Ram dealers sold 569,388 pickups last year, Chevy sold 529,765 Silverado trucks and GMC sold 248,924 Sierras. Ford's F-Series franchise in 2021 achieved its 45th straight year as the country's best-selling truck with sales of 726,004.
"I do imagine that there would be a bit of cannibalization from the internal combustion engine trucks and how they choose to scale that down, that's a tough one because you don't want to misstep," said Jessica Caldwell, executive director of insights for market researcher Edmunds.com Inc., a vehicle information website.
"Those are their main moneymakers right there and will continue to be for quite some time, so I feel like they're kind of walking a thin line."
General Motors Co. recently said it will be able to make 600,000 electric trucks by 2025 with two plants slated to make them: Orion Assembly in Lake Orion and Factory Zero at Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Center. Neither factory makes gas-powered trucks.
GM has already released its GMC Hummer EV pickup made at Factory Zero. The electric Silverado, made at both plants, will arrive next year and the electric GMC Sierra will follow, though GMC hasn't provided specific timing on its release.
It's unclear if GM will build as many gas trucks as it does today if it's also producing 600,000 electric trucks, and figuring that out will be a delicate balancing act.
"Part of the point here is to be able to respond to what the situation is at a moment in time," Steve Carlisle, GM's executive vice president and president of North America, said in an interview.
"We don't want to do one at the expense of the other and we really don't have to the way it turns out, the way that we positioned ourselves to turn our footprint," he said.
GM CEO Mary Barra told investors on GM's earnings call this month that the Silverado has more than 110,000 reservations so far, including from more than 240 fleet operators. GM also has 59,000 reservations for the Hummer EV pickup truck and the coming Hummer EV SUV. Those figures — plus internal market research showing consumer interest in EVs is up more than 50% from past research — tells GM the demand to meet that supply is there.
"What's important is the trend. Five years ago, that number would have been a lot less. Today, it's a lot higher. My belief would be it's only going to increase," Carlisle said. "When people get more familiar with the technology, they see their barriers to adoption addressed: range, charging time, charging infrastructure and the like of that, and more offerings show up in the market."
GM isn't alone in seeing interest increase, and responding to it. Crosstown rival Ford Motor Co. hasn't revealed how much electric truck capacity it will have by 2025, but last month upped its production capacity to 150,000 vehicles per year at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center in Dearborn after receiving nearly 200,000 reservations for the first electric version of America's most popular vehicle. Ford is also opening a plant in Tennessee by 2025 that will be dedicated to making the next-generation electric F-Series truck.
GM and Ford could steal some of Stellantis' potential electric Ram customers since that truck isn't expected until 2024, Abuelsamid said "but you're definitely not going to have that much incremental volume, so the only other place that comes from is from gas truck volumes."
A key business for electric trucks will be commercial sales. In fact, GM is offering first a 400-mile-range, fleet-focused Work Truck version of the electric Silverado starting next spring. Its price hasn't been revealed. The consumer-facing, $105,000 RST model will arrive in late 2023. A "very large chunk" of the 110,000 Silverado reservations, 80,000 or more, are for fleet commercial customers, Carlisle said.
Fleet customers are more likely to be receptive, at least in the short term, to the electric option because EVs require less maintenance, lowering the cost of ownership over time.
"And then they, like us and other major companies, they have ESG-type (environmental, social and governance) initiatives to reduce carbon out of their footprint, so ... you get other drivers to their corporate business case that would put you in the direction of electric vehicles," Carlisle said.
On the consumer side, what will work to everyone's favor in the electric truck game is the amount of competition and new product releases. Beyond GM and Ford, there's Tesla Inc.'s Cybertruck, Rivian Automotive Inc.'s R1T and others expected to continue to keep interest up.
"There'll be like a synergy that will build in this segment that will probably help all of them, which we haven't seen before for EVs," Caldwell said.
At Matthew-Hargreaves Chevrolet in Royal Oak, general manager Walt Tutak expects demand for electric trucks — "there's a lot of people that are excited about it" — but advances in range and charging time are needed to convince more hesitant consumers.
The challenge will be getting engine-loving diehards to consider the alternative truck options.
"The thing is with the gasoline engine, you can go on any street corner, fill up in five minutes, and go another 300-to-400 miles," Tutak said. "You have to have those stations accessible to the people and it has to take place in a pretty short time to recharge that battery."
Automakers and the government are working to add charging stations, since the U.S. only has about 47,200 locations and 116,800 ports, according to the Department of Energy.
GM, for example, is investing $750 million on charging infrastructure through 2025 and last October said it would work with its dealers nationwide to get up to 40,000 Level 2 chargers installed across their communities starting in 2022. The charging stations will be available to all EV users — not just GM customers.
Such chargers can fully power a battery-electric vehicle in 8 to 10 hours or for a 30-mile range in about an hour.
Earlier this month, the Biden administration announced the first round of nearly $5 billion in formula funding over five years to build a nationwide network of DC fast chargers.
Jim Seavitt, owner of Village Ford in Dearborn, is only getting a couple of F-150 Lightnings this year.
"I wish I was getting 400. I can sell them right now," he said. "It's a hot commodity right now."
GM delivered one Hummer in December 2021, according to its sales figures, but more have trickled out this year. Todd Wenzel Buick GMC in Westland had two on its lot Tuesday waiting for their owners to pick them up.
"The demand is going to outpace supply in the near term, but at some point GM will find a balance and see what capacity in the marketplace is," said Drew Smith, eastern Michigan regional director for the Todd Wenzel dealerships.
"If you're going to get in on it, you better get in on it now as far as what the future holds, which to me is EV."
