General Motors
appears to be changing course following the surprise announcement that Ford is
developing an electric F-150. While GM’s vice president of global strategy,
Mike Abelson, used November’s FT Future of the Car summit to reveal “There will
not be any AV / EV [autonomous / electric] pickups” from the automaker, the
vice president of Buick and GMC has suggested this isn’t necessarily the case.
Speaking to CNBC,
Duncan Aldred said the company is “certainly” considering an electric pickup as
GM is on a “path to an all-electric future.” When pressed for more details,
Aldred declined to say whether or not an electric Chevrolet Silverado or GMC
Sierra is already under development.
Despite being
relatively tight-lipped, Aldred suggested trucks could be a good fit for
electrification. As he explained, battery technology is expensive and this
means it’s hard to create affordable electric vehicles in mainstream segments
unless automakers are willing accept lower profit margins on them.
This isn’t too much
of an issue when it comes to full-size pickups as Reuters estimated GM made at
least US$ 17,000 per truck in pre-tax profit last year. This
means there’s plenty of room for GM accept lower margins while still making a
healthy profit on every Silverado and Sierra they make.
It remains unclear
if GM will actually offer an electric pickup, but trucks were missing from the
company’s electric vehicle roadmap which was revealed in 2017. At the time, GM
said its new modular platform for electric vehicles would underpin at least 11
different models including seven crossovers.
One of those models
was previewed at the North American International Auto Show as Cadillac
released renderings of a stylish electric crossover. The production model is
still three years away, but Cadillac President Steve Carlisle suggested the
crossover could have a range of approximately 643 km.
