To hear most industry experts talk, electric vehicles are the wave of the automotive future. To grab market share, particularly from market leader Tesla, many of the world’s largest car companies are spending billions of dollars on EV manufacturing, development, and promotion.
The most promising part of the EV market may be full-sized pickups. Most years, the three top selling vehicles in America are the Ford F-150, Silverado, and Ram, which is owned by vehicle conglomerate Stellantis.
Ford has already begun to leverage its position as the top pickup market in America. The F-150 has been the best selling vehicle in America for four decades. Last year, Ford sold well over 640,000 units, which was 37% of all vehicles Ford sold in the U.S.
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Ford has launched its F-150 Lightning EV. It has been well reviewed by the auto press, and with almost eight million F-150s on the road, it has a large built in market. (These are the best American cities to own an electric car.)
GM has released an EV model of the Silverado. It is officially known as the Chevrolet Silverado EV.
Ram has just announced it will enter the EV pickup market. Covering the launch, Yahoo reporters wrote, “Ram reveals EV pickup concept that will compete against Ford, GM and Rivian.” The analysis pointed out that Ram 1500 Revolution has a number of attractive features that will stand out for potential buyers. This included third row jump seats and a new STLA Frame body-on-frame chassis.
If the new Ram does any damage to the competition, among the companies most likely to be hurt is Rivian. It is already faltering as it has missed production targets.
According to CNBC, Rivian’s stock reached a 52-week low when it recently said it produced 24,337 for 2022, against a target of 25,000. It might not have been so bad — if Rivian had not already had a bad miss earlier in the year.
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In the third quarter, Rivian lost $1.72 billion against revenue of $536 million. Rivian management frequently points out that it has $14 billion in cash and that will last the company well into 2025. It also regularly points out that it has 114,000 pre-orders for its R1 platform vehicles. Of course, every one of those could be canceled.
The EV pickup market in the U.S. has grown extremely competitive. Ram, which has leverage because of its brand and the size of its parent, just made life more difficult for everyone else in the race. (These are the cheapest electric vehicles you can buy.)
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