Chevrolet is preparing to release an all-electric version of its best-selling vehicle, the Silverado full-size truck. Yesterday, Chevy began what will likely be a long, slow tease trying to get Americans excited about the upcoming Silverado EV.
Automakers Need Americans to Want EV Trucks
The challenge is easy to understand.
The three best-selling vehicles in America are all full-size trucks. America’s automakers are pushing hard into electric vehicles. If they hope to succeed, the Big Three need to bring out electric full-size trucks.
Polls show that Americans accept that electric vehicles are the future. But they’re not sold on electric trucks. EVs remain fewer than 3% of the cars on American roadways (though that won’t remain true forever — EV sales are growing five times faster than sales of gasoline-powered cars). That means that practically speaking, many of the people who buy hard-working pickups have no first-hand experience of electric vehicles. Many may also doubt that an EV can be as capable as what truck buyers would want it to be.
The Big Three are All In
Ford has already revealed its answer. The Ford F-150 Lightning is the first modern electric truck released by one of the traditional Big Three automakers. With a starting price below $40,000, up to 563 horsepower, and a range up to 300 miles, it’s an exciting development on paper. It can even act as a battery backup powering a house in a blackout. No one outside Ford has driven the Lightning yet (well, almost no one), so we’ve yet to get the chance to test Ford’s claims ourselves.
Ram will seemingly be the last to answer. Its electric Ram 1500 has a 2024 release date.
Silverado EV’s First Tease: 4-Wheel Steering
In the middle is Chevy, with the Silverado. We’ve heard little about its progress since April when GM confirmed it was coming. Now, we can bring you two tidbits: It will ride on big 24-inch wheels and offer 4-wheel steering.
The steering trick is probably borrowed from GM’s other electric pickup. The GMC Hummer EV Pickup is more of a niche vehicle, with a price tag that quickly climbs to six figures and a relatively small bed. It offers a unique 4-wheel-steering setup that turns the rear wheels opposite the front wheels in high-speed situations and together with the front wheels in low-speed situations.
The Hummer’s so-called “Crab Walk” mode is advertised as an off-road feature and is no doubt very useful when getting around tough obstacles on the trail. But with the ever-growing sizes of large pickups, 4-wheel steering is just as likely to find use maneuvering in tight parking lots.
A Lot More Where This Came From
Will it be enough to talk reluctant truck fans into considering an EV pickup? Probably not. But this is just the first glimpse Chevy has offered. We expect to learn a lot more about the truck over the next few months.
We also expect to see a GMC version of it. The Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra are largely the same truck, and GMC has announced that it has another full-size EV truck on the way.
GM has announced plans to sell a mostly electric lineup by 2035, and it can’t get there without getting loyalists to embrace an electric version of its best-selling model. The company knows that. It will no doubt put everything it has into making the electric Silverado as appealing as possible. We look forward to seeing what else it’s capable of.
