7 EV pickup brands forge ahead despite uncertain demand

By the end of next year, U.S. consumers are expected to have more electric pickup nameplates to choose from than there are gasoline-powered full-size pickups on sale today.

Yet the piece of the market those seven battery-powered trucks will battle over is likely to be, at least in the near term, a tiny fraction of the overall pickup segment, which accounted for nearly one out of every five vehicles sold in 2019.

That math doesn't deter Robert Bollinger, the founder of Bollinger Motors, who's planning a pricey, old-school-styled pickup that he thinks will be perfect for life on a ranch. Bollinger knows that at $125,000, the B2 isn't destined to challenge the sales dominance of the Ford F-150. It might not even rival today's last-place Nissan Titan.

"The looks of it, the price tag of it, I think it'll always stay in this little niche thing where you have no plans to be high-volume," Bollinger told Automotive News at the company's suburban Detroit headquarters. The B2, which has a 200-mile range and removable doors and roof panels, is for those "who want something different than everything that's out there," Bollinger said. "In a few years, you'll have Ford and Chevy. Tesla will have electric vehicles out there, and, yes, they'll be great for what they do, but we'll be great for what we do."

The Bollinger B2 effectively would be adding a segment when it arrives, if not for the six other launches converging to make 2021 the year of the electric pickup. Three upcoming entries are from startup manufacturers: Lordstown Motors' Endurance, Rivian's R1T and Nikola's Badger. They'll try to challenge Tesla's sharp-angled Cybertruck, an electric version of the Ford F-150 and the electric GMC Hummer. Even more are anticipated in later years, including a Chevrolet option.

The fledgling and established brands will have to jockey for position in a segment where it's unclear whether consumer demand can support so many entrants. Meanwhile, they'll be coping with fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, which has blistered the economy and sent gasoline prices spiraling below $2 a gallon in much of the country — developments that add more unpredictability to the mix just as the companies were preparing to execute their carefully laid plans.

Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting for AutoForecast Solutions, said General Motors and Ford Motor Co. each have nearly a century of experience with pickups and are in the best position to take advantage with battery-electric versions. Tesla, Rivian and Bollinger, among others, could be spoilers by appealing to lifestyle buyers who don't take their truck to a demanding job site, he said.

Fiorani believes buyers looking for a work truck are not usually open to unproven brands when their livelihood is on the line. He said that hesitancy has hampered sales of full-size offerings from Toyota and Nissan, brands with proven track records in cars and smaller trucks.

Fiorani said the new electric trucks could find a welcome audience among "weekend warriors" who rarely dirty the bed and have been open to trying the Toyota Tundra, Honda Ridgeline or even the Chevrolet El Camino.

"It appears each automaker is looking to capture their own niche or customer base rather than appeal to the generic truck owner," Cari Crane, ALG's director of industry insights, told Automotive News. "There's a lot of differentiation between the trucks coming to market with just who they appear to be targeting, along with the expected price differentiation to where the Bollinger will appeal to the high-end car buyers like [Mercedes-Benz] G-Class owners who want a pickup, [and] Cybertrucks can appeal to the early tech adopters."

Tyson Jominy, J.D. Power's vice president of data and analytics, said there's "nothing but upside" for electric pickups. But he expects the domestic offerings to be in the dominant position.

"The extent of that upside and the number of players [the segment] can maintain remains to be seen," Jominy said. "But the truck market is not a place where there are a lot of significant players to begin with."

Applying conventional wisdom about the internal-combustion truck market to an electric one may not provide all of the answers.

Jeff Huron, a senior specialist at consultancy SBD Automotive, said he believes there will be room in the electric pickup market for more than three primary players, which would distinguish it from today's gasoline-powered full-size segment commanded by Ford, Chevrolet and Ram.

Huron said electric models have potential to attract first-time pickup buyers. The reduction in emissions, he said, opens a door to consumers who would not have bought a pickup because of efficiency issues.

"Rivian is a very exciting player to watch as they bring the R1T to market, and they have a unique blend of technology and creative application," Huron said in an email. "Major players are buying into their platform, and they have a lot of opportunity in the commercial truck and delivery markets. Bollinger is more of a niche player in my mind, with a relatively expensive offering that will service a more peripheral, rugged consumer type that lacks in technological bells and whistles."

While trucks that appeal to lifestyle buyers will help establish the segment, their capabilities will be proved on work sites. Commercial users likely have prescribed routes with known ranges and centralized charging locations in scenarios that are "planned out and logical," said Joe Wiesenfelder, executive editor of Cars.com.

"Their best option, and this was true even before the pandemic, was probably commercial use with commercial buyers," Wiesenfelder said. "Frankly, dominance [in the segment] might be determined by the stroke of a pen by a single commercial buyer as opposed to popular demand among regular consumers."

Wiesenfelder called Rivian a "curiosity" before Amazon committed to buying its delivery vans. "Granted, those are just vans, not pickups," Wiesenfelder said, "but it's a good example of how a company can see the value of the technology and really increase the numbers."

The pandemic has made Lordstown Motors CEO Steve Burns think his company's "mission to electrify commercial trucks" is even more important, strengthening the company's conviction to bring the Endurance to market as soon as possible. They'll be made at the plant GM closed last year in Lordstown, Ohio.

"I think everyone realizes that as tough as it is to stay home, the experience would be much worse — almost unsurvivable — if commercial trucks didn't keep rolling," Burns said in an April 21 update. "Trucks bring supplies, workers and tools to stores and to our homes."

The electric haulers should be able handle whatever their users put them through. There are formidable performance numbers across the board, such as the Hummer pickup's promised 11,500 pound-feet of torque. Some trucks have displayed feats of strength, and there has already been some gamesmanship.

Last year, Ford showed that an electric F-150 prototype could tow 10 double-decker rail cars loaded with 42 F-150s, or about 1.25 million pounds. Ford posted video of the stunt more than a year after Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted about how much weight Tesla's truck would be able to tow.

The competition continued after Tesla showed its Cybertruck besting a two-wheel-drive F-150 in a tug of war. A Ford executive challenged Tesla to a more equal comparison, but after Musk accepted, a Ford spokeswoman said the comment was tongue-in-cheek.

The numbers will do the talking for the Hummer EV, said Phil Brook, GMC's vice president of marketing.

"Because the Hummer EV has incredible capability with zero emissions, it really is the best of both worlds," Brook told Automotive News in February, when the brand showcased the truck's specs in a Super Bowl commercial. "This is a different kind of vehicle for a different time and a different generation. It really does announce that GMC is very serious about the electric space, and we're getting into it in a big way. "

Bollinger, whose B2 will sit atop the segment in price, said he welcomes as many electric pickups as the market can handle, in the belief that competition helps raise awareness about all of them.

"It's a crazy undertaking we're doing, and we all know it, but it's kind of like, that's what feeds us," Bollinger said of his company's mindset. "We want to be different; we'll always be the ones on the side. So everyone else making electric stuff, great, because you help move the whole market forward; you create a lot more vendors creating stuff, and we're going to benefit from it."