It's really frustrating watching all the EV companies (except, arguably, Ford) completely face plant on pickup trucks.
The frames have been able to accommodate battery weight + volume since the early 90's, so very little innovation is needed here. There is a huge market for no-frills, low-range, high duty cycle vehicles for around town deliveries, etc.
Pickup trucks are ridiculously expensive to operate with current gas prices, and many people that own them are environmentally conscious (but need to have a truck to move big stuff). So, there's basically no market risk for someone that produces a 1500 class truck that is a direct knock off of the trucks that have been being built for the last 30-40 years.
Ford is by far the leader here. They invested a lot in moving to an aluminum frame, which lets them cut weight while increasing payload capacity. The main problem with their current offering is that they only offer it in a supercab with a short (but longer than the other EVs) bed.
Also, it's an electron guzzler, so it's actually dependent on charging networks, which are still a disaster in the US.
Anyway, here's a book describing the ICE -> Lead Acid pickup truck conversion process from 1993. The result kind of sucked because of the batteries, but my point is that the frame wasn't an issue at all, so very little innovation is required from the manufacturers:
> The frames have been able to accommodate battery weight + volume since the early 90's, so very little innovation is needed here. There is a huge market for no-frills, low-range, high duty cycle vehicles for around town deliveries, etc.
Pickups were common among EV conversions in the 90's for this reason! Especially given the state of traction battery technology of the time, which for people of normal means was Trojan flooded lead-acid batteries, or Optima for those who could afford a bit more. If you wanted close to 100 miles of range, you needed a pickup frame to haul that much lead unless you were willing and able to do serious bodywork.
Ford and Chevy also made production EV pickups in the 90's; a Ranger and an S10. They didn't have a chance to make much of a long term impact as both manufacturers worked very hard to repossess and destroy all traces of their product, which was the style at the time. A few examples of each escaped destruction after years of persistent effort and substantial legal expense and are still running around.
. There is a huge market for no-frills, low-range, high duty cycle vehicles for around town deliveries, etc.
You mean like a Renault Kangoo (available in an electric version) or Ford Transit Connect (it seems it will be available in an electric version)? An early generation of the first one was even used for postal deliveries by the French post office.
It's wild they still have the original design on their pre-order website. They know that what you order will not look anything like that thing on https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck - how are they able to advertise it as such?
Where do you see the bed always covered by a piece of glass? It looks like there's a photo in that very URL showing the bed open.
Also, designing a 1500 series pickup EV is far from simple. Those trucks are cheap to buy (ish) cheap to maintain (ish) and can haul a lot of stuff a long distance. An ev that meets these requirements is unobtainium. At best you might be able to pick 1 or 2 of those parameters to meet.
You can definitely make something that looks like an EV pickup, and we have been able to do that for almost a hundred years. Making something that performs like a regular pickup is entirely different, which is the important part.
> You can definitely make something that looks like an EV pickup, and we have been able to do that for almost a hundred years. Making something that performs like a regular pickup is entirely different, which is the important part.
I agree with this. Historically pickups are high torque brusers for work and hauling; they've since turned into luxury vehicles. You can pull speed out of an EV, but cheap, simple, long range, and heavy hauling they are not.
Honestly surprised there isn't a hybrid or dual motor version that could leverage an ICE
I think the issue is that electric cars need to be very efficient to get reasonable range, while they benefit greatly from electric motors and regen braking, trucks just are not aerodynamic. At the end of the day, with current battery tech, you can only carry the equivalent of few gallons of gas (I just looked cyber truck has 200kWH battery which is huge so more like 5-6 gallons of gas equiv.) See ford truck reviews where it is fine until you try to tow, then the range is abysmal.
https://www.tesla.com/cybertruck
It's really frustrating watching all the EV companies (except, arguably, Ford) completely face plant on pickup trucks.
The frames have been able to accommodate battery weight + volume since the early 90's, so very little innovation is needed here. There is a huge market for no-frills, low-range, high duty cycle vehicles for around town deliveries, etc.
Pickup trucks are ridiculously expensive to operate with current gas prices, and many people that own them are environmentally conscious (but need to have a truck to move big stuff). So, there's basically no market risk for someone that produces a 1500 class truck that is a direct knock off of the trucks that have been being built for the last 30-40 years.
Ford is by far the leader here. They invested a lot in moving to an aluminum frame, which lets them cut weight while increasing payload capacity. The main problem with their current offering is that they only offer it in a supercab with a short (but longer than the other EVs) bed.
Also, it's an electron guzzler, so it's actually dependent on charging networks, which are still a disaster in the US.
Anyway, here's a book describing the ICE -> Lead Acid pickup truck conversion process from 1993. The result kind of sucked because of the batteries, but my point is that the frame wasn't an issue at all, so very little innovation is required from the manufacturers:
https://www.amazon.com/Build-Your-Own-Electric-Vehicle/dp/08...