Not long after Ford confirmed it has an electric F-series pickup in the pipeline, GMC has now flirted with the idea.
According to a CNBC report on Thursday, Duncan Aldred, head of the GMC and Buick brands, said an electric Sierra pickup truck is something “we’re considering.” He did not confirm that development was underway for a battery-electric version of the Sierra, but referenced comments GM CEO Mary Barra made earlier this month at an investor meeting.
She said GM is on its way to becoming an all-electric automaker and will continue to focus on zero emissions. GM Authority was tuned into the conference and electric pickups were not part of the conversation.
However, Barra did note last year that GM has given a “tiny” bit of thought to building an electric pickup truck. She offered no additional details when pressed.
Taking the GMC Sierra electric would make more sense than introducing an electric Chevrolet Silverado. Batteries and the associated technologies remain expensive, thus, automakers often try to introduce the technology in premium vehicles to absorb the costs. If not, automakers are left with slim margins, or losses. GM loses money on every Chevrolet Bolt EV it sells, for example. The automaker announced it will pivot slightly and make Cadillac its lead electric car brand in the future. An electric SUV from the luxury division will arrive next decade, perhaps in 2021.
Pickup trucks carry some of the highest profit margins in the industry, which also makes them a prime candidate for electrification. Ram dipped its toes in electrifying its pickup trucks with the Ram 1500 eTorque, which employs a mild-hybrid system.
Comments
The new Sierra and Silverado were already built with alternate Drive-trains in mind.
I remember clearly reading about this. So they should be able to integrate a battery most likely under the bed.
“GM loses money on every Chevrolet Bolt EV it sells, for example.”
Has anyone reported this as fact? UBS estimated they were going to lose money in 2017. If it was true then (I don’t think there was any comment from GM), is it still true? At the time, they estimated production cost at $28,700. Has that gone down after two years? Cell prices almost certainly have.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1110563_chevy-bolt-ev-costs-28700-to-build-tesla-model-3-a-bit-higher-analysis
I don’t remember GM stating that they lose money on Bolts, aside from the big flap when they revealed they were getting cells from LG at $145 per kilowatt-hour. Do they actually lose money, big picture, when ZEV credits are factored in? It seems like they’re probably at least breaking even—and avoiding having to buy credits from competitors (like Tesla). GM obviously knew the tax credits could sunset, so they must have made contingency plans to make sure they could still sell these cars without losing a fortune.
Instead of making assertions like this without citing sources, it would be so much more useful if you’d do some digging to answer some of the other relevant questions on this topic:
Has GM been able to develop their technologies and platforms, plus new supplier relationships, to a point where they could practically build an electrified truck? Or would they have to make use of some form of E-REV technology? Would it actually be practical for work truck buyers or would it be geared more toward people who use full-size trucks as their daily drivers? Because of their existing EV platforms, are they still ahead of their potential competitors (namely Ford, in this case, but also Tesla)? Has Ford’s recent announcement about F150 electrification forced their hand, or where they planning this all along?
A lot of these questions are probably questions GM is trying to answer right now too, trying to decide if they should do an electric pickup and if so how. Is there a market for this, who else is entering the segment, what are the others entering the segment going to make, can our supply base support this, what kind of return on our investment will we make, etc
Given product cycle times, if GM is just now “trying to figure it out” they are already a decade or more behind or they are being very coy. If I owned GM stock with no inside view of what’s really being figured out, I would be dumping it big time.
a decade? gm knows how to build trucks and they know how to build ev’s. yet you think it takes more than decade to put those two things together.
None the less, seems like GM is always last to the party.
We all know that Ford is going all in with an upcoming F-150 All-Electric for 2020, GM could use that to observe the overall response and acceptance from customers once it enters the market to see how well it will do before giving the possible “Green Light” to produce a truck of their own. Rivian, Atlas XT, Tesla and Work- Horse are other possible contenders to look out for here in the near future with proposed or upcoming All-Electrics that are actually in the Pipeline for future production and not just Auto Show Concept Teasers.
I hate comments like this “GM loses money on every Chevrolet Bolt EV it sells”. Of course it does just like every vehicle. The first vehicles you sell help recoup the cost of design, development and plant modifications. As you sell more vehicles the loss be vehicle is less and over time becomes true profit. Also it depends on how GM decided to cost out the Bolt design and development. If Buick makes a Bolt based vehicle does that mean some of the cost associated with designing the motor and pack for the Bolt gets thrown on the Buick. What about Cadillac. I’m sure GM isn’t designing that in a vacuum with no lessons learned from Chevy.
I also have to argue with the point of “every Bolt loses money”. If Chevy lost that much money on each Bolt, they wouldn’t build them, it’s just that simple. Just like any newly introduced vehicle, it is bound to lose money in the short term in order to recoup R&D costs. This becomes even more the case when vehicles, as in the Bolt’s case, see limited production. I would argue that if Chevy actually advertised the Bolt, and increased production, they would sell more of them. It’s pretty amazing how little people know about electric cars, with even just a little bit of marketing, GM could probably change that for a fairly significant amount of customers.
I’m sure that these tentative announcements are due in part to the hype from Tesla and Rivian. What I have to wonder though is if GM (and Ford) had plans for electric trucks in already the works, and was keeping them under wraps? Or has the hype led to them making their own announcements as a form of damage control, with no real plans for electric trucks in the near future (like GM had stated in the past)?
maybe they didn’t advertise more because they are losing money on every bolt sold.
california has mandated a certain percentage of vehicles sold must be EVs. it doesn’t mandate those vehicles being profitable. and there are numerous states that follow california’s lead. so there are a lot of manufacturers that produce vehicles just to satisfy this requirement.
at this point, is there any EV manufacturer that is profitable?
PeterK, Gmc has to get it’s electric truck act together soon, you know Toyota is on it, and Ford ,most of the working trucks are electric except for the engines, time has come, lets go ,get ahead for once like the old days
It makes more sense for GMC to get electric powertrains than Chevrolet? In what world? Chevy is already getting their butt handed to them by Dodge and Ford. You want them to be last place in this area too? They need a swift comeback. The Silverado is GM’s #1 vehicle and the pricing for a loaded up Chevy Silverado isn’t any different than a GM Sierra. These trucks are pushing 70 grand as is. At least with higher Silverado sales the cost could be spread out. They’re the same truck underneath the skin, they both need to go electric.
You’ve already got the Voltec (as in VOLT), a fantastic package, much better than anything else out there.
Forgive them Alfred P. Sloan, Charles Kettering, Harlow Curtice for they know not what they’re doing.