Leaving The Door Wide Open AGAIN? GM Says No Electric Pickups For At Least 20 Years

EVs are not "rapidly taking over" many segments of ground transportation. EVs represent a small and unprofitable niche.
If this is becoming a Tesla fanboy site - and this seems to be the case lately - then I'll move on.
Seriously, articles like this are just stupid.

Tell that to BMW that claimed about a year ago that Tesla was not their competition. Now Telsa is out selling them in the US and they are conquesting a considerable amount from BMW.

This sounds very much like the answer to the original Lexus threat.

Truthy, we now have proof that the "spies" have sold out to Tesla and that this is now "TeslaSpies".

Honestly they are the hottest thing news wise, if others were advancing at this pace you would see it.

@Agent 009. Tesla has taken a bite out of BMW. But if one segments the car buying market Tesla and BMW compete in the "image" segment, and Tesla is the "latest thing" for the image conscious. Look at the demographics where Tesla sells and its in areas of wealth, at price points far above the average or median of the vehicle buying market. It's a long way from "rapidly taking over" the broad market, unless government dramatically increases its subsidies.

@51angry, Tesla isn't the same kind of product as a BMW, much like Uber isn't the same as buying a car, but it competes for transportation $ at similar cost to the buyer. With a millennial techie son in Seattle I've seen his well paid buddies who used to buy BMWs now buying Teslas. It's the "in thing". Meanwhile the Amazon millenials there don't even have cars. Uber is their answer. Segments of the population are moving to different solutions.

If you go to any other site, it will be the same. Tesla and electrification is making most of the news these days. Sidenote that in many places EVs are not niche. In Silicon Valley, they are now at least 10% of new car sales and growing very quickly.

If you think EVs are fads, you are seriously mistaken. The cost economics will force all automakers to EVs at one point or another. The ones doing it now will have a huge advantage.

Sure, someone can do a lifestyle pickup and be a poseur, but EV technology simply isn't ready to make an EV pickup be a 100% replacement for an ICE pickup. The EV crowd here in their white bedsheet costumes and burning crosses will arrive en masse and spew, but in the end they will just be overcompensatory for EV technology's lack of complete readiness.

GM always knows how to put a smile on Ford's face.

Ford will beat them too it and remain the top dog in the truck segment.

The only reason Bring Money With you is loosing sales to Tesla is the designs have gone stale, lease subsidies have dried up and when you charge just as much for vinyl as your competitors do for leather coupled with mediocre reliability your customers may venture to other offerings -that and Benz is killing it with the designs...

If Tesla is so great, remove the sizable tax subsidy. Surely the fanboys will pay 10 percent more for these magical cars.

Agent009 (is that you Elon). Outselling BMW one month in one market is a little soon to light a cigar. Once pent-up demand is satisfied and the government stops paying you to buy one the the world will return to normal.
Hey, the Chicago Bears won big yesterday, should we give them the Lombardi trophy now?

If this comment is true you can wave goodbye to GM. Within 5 years you'll see electric trucks start to gobble the top of the market and work their way down. The production ramp will be far easier than cars because the entire powertrain on electric cars can be reused for trucks... with the added benefit that there is more room for batteries and larger motors.

Two electric motors will blow away a traditional AWD truck in every way, performance, control, towing, and efficiency. Total cost "could" start at $50k for 250+ miles of range and without subsidies. That will still be more expensive than most trucks today, but the savings on fuel and maintenance will be more pronounced on trucks (especially work trucks) than cars.

GM's head is deep in the sand if their product roadmap is not factoring this in.

Nonsense

Again - the cost of an EV Truck is probably going to make a Model S look Cheap - especially since they will need far larger battery packs for both payload AND range - which is what Trucks are used for. AS far as your cost target - and BASE model 3 should be selling for that based on its cost - trucks will be far more expensive than that.

It remains possible that RICH people will buy these to be able to say they are GREEN - but - in the forseeable future - the problem remains infrastructure - and it is NOT just Public infrastructure - large companies with fleets of trucks will need more than just parking lots in many large cities where open to the air charging stations will be subject to vandalism. So we are not just talking additional money for the trucks themselves - we are ALSO talking about initial investment in charging. For personal use - the problem remains that unless you actually own your house and have a garage where you can put a charging station - if you live in an Apartment complex with outside parking -or a city with only street parking - you only can charge the vehicles at PUBLIC charging stations - and until we have enough of them - companies will be wary of EV trucks noting that it would only take ONE instance of depleted batteries in the field to wipe out a years worth of savings for a large truck.

Add in - we still have several major metro areas that do not have enough current capacity NOW - that they have to brown out areas on some days - THEY will simply be overwhelmed by a huge additional load - and currently it takes about 20 years to get all the permits to build new power plants -

Gm was ahead of the curve with EVs to begin with.

I like how SanJoseDriver pulls these costs and prices out of his, wherever. $50 K without the government?!? The model 3 transaction price is near $60 k. Bigger batteries in a pickup will drive up cost substantially.
Apparently you did not see GM's quarterly earnings report. Outstanding profits. They will be here in 5 years. Tesla may not be here in 5 months.

It's not just those numbers. He says Tesla has "10% of the car market in Silicon Valley" so that's the future. Silicon Valley has 1% of the population of the USA and the $111K median household income is 80% higher than the USA. The other 99% need one heck of a raise for his growth numbers to work.

The US is not Tesla's whole market, and the federal rebate is only dropping by $3,250 until July 2019.

maybe it's not in the GM manufacturing plan to specifically build EV vehicles, but the exec didn't rule-out GM purchasing or partnering with an existing EV maker to build truck/pickup EV's & those that would directly compete with Tesla.

10% was the EV (BEV+PHEV) market share of new vehicles sold in the ENTIRE state of California in August 2018. September number was estimated to be around 12%. Estimate for 2020 is 20%. If VW, Hyundai and other major players join the competition with lower priced offerings, the number could be even higher.

California has nearly 40 million people with median household income of around $80K (2018 estimate), higher than national median but not exactly rich.

https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/12/10-of-new-vehicles-purchased-in-california-are-evs/

Pounding away on your keyboard wishing and hoping Tesla fails is looking increasingly pathetic.