Boutique EV Pickups Should Crowd Luxe Market Without Worrying Detroit

The market for electric pickup trucks is still shaking out, but increasingly it looks like newcomers Tesla, Rivian and soon Fisker are not going after the bedrock of the pickup market: commercial and fleet.

It’s difficult to imagine many construction companies signing up for the Tesla Cybertruck with its small bed and lack of attention to the details of an interior that construction workers pine for and appreciate on job sites – interior storage solutions and the like. Cost of repairs, too, make it a hard sell for fleets. It is, however, plausible that the design, which looks like it sprung from the pages of Marvel Comics, could become the new fashion plaything of wealthy vehicle buyers.

Indeed, according to Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming book about Tesla co-founder/CEO Elon Musk, many associates inside Tesla argued against the boss’s comic-book design, stating it would stifle sales and virtually eliminate the automaker from the commercial market. Musk brushed the warnings aside, according to the author, saying he would rather put a truck out that "turns heads."

Who will be the buyers? “The customer base for Cybertrucks won’t be demographically based at all, but a mindset – video-game enthusiasts, tech nerds and people who simply want to turn heads, get noticed, et cetera,” says Los Angeles-based marketing consultant Dennis Keene. “I have heard the customer compared with Hummer buyers of the 1990s and 2000s, but that would make it a failure as sales of the Hummers were not very strong.”

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Meantime, Rivian, sales of which have been mostly its pickup truck (pictured, above), is shifting production emphasis to its SUV because too few customers are biting for the $75,000 midsize truck. In its latest earnings call, Rivian executives say the start-up is switching its mix to favor the 7-seat R1S SUV in the hopes of tapping potential midsize or large SUV customers to lure them to an EV solution, which legacy carmakers have not yet broken into with fully electric models.

Rivian is also working up 2-motor versions of its R1 vehicles which will cost significantly less than current Rivian models. Add to that the cheaper LFP battery pack due later this year from the start-up, and R2 models starting at $40,000 will be unveiled next year. SUVs, not pickups, are Rivian’s natural market.

Before Fisker Automotive really gets established as a BEV brand, it has announced plans to launch a luxury pickup that surely won’t be under much consideration from fleet buyers. The automaker is launching its first SUV, the Ocean, which will be followed by the Pear, a compact SUV, and the Ronin, a sporty, luxurious sedan.

The pickup the company plans to launch is still known under its code name, the “Alaska program.” “Like the Ronin, it will be luxurious and athletic,” CEO Henrik Fisker says in an interview with AutoExpress.com. “(Like) If Ferrari were to do a pickup.” The Fisker truck, then, is meant to be a niche luxury entry with no mulch or garden dirt ever being hauled in the bed.

The global electric truck market was valued at $728 million by 2022 by Globenewswire.com. The market is anticipated to reach $11.08 billion by 2032. That estimate, though, is based on CO2 emissions regulations driving sales of both commercial and retail pickups. The market for pricey vanity “non-working” BEV trucks is largely unknown. Will these pickups become a solid entry in the luxury-vehicle category as an alternative to sports cars and sedans?

The Tesla Cybertruck has more than 1.6 million pre-orders. That is an astonishing level of interest for a truck that has been delayed for two years and looks like it popped out of a book of origami. But we have seen the phenomenon of Tesla’s brand overachieving expectations before. At that level, Tesla's biggest challenge will be ensuring it has enough manufacturing capacity to satisfy demand. But how much will the brand hype and dedication to Tesla extend to actual pickup sales?

Musk believes the Cybertruck will appeal to people who don’t already own pickups. At the same time, some unknown percentage of orders will evaporate as competing models hit the market and people get tired of waiting. It could easily take Tesla seven or eight years to fill pre-orders based on Musk’s estimates that production will top out at 250,000 per year.

Opinions are divided about the ultimate impact of Cybertruck. Some believe Tesla could shake up the retail market with Cybertruck without ever touching the commercial market.  "With the still-huge profits (compared to any other EV – or even ICE vehicles) Tesla is in the position to offer a compelling price and value proposition for retail customers that may put a dent in the (Detroit Three) dominance," says Martin French, managing director at Berylls Strategy Advisors USA.

Despite the hype around Cybertruck, Tesla and Musk himself, some analysts don't expect the Cybertruck to become more than a niche product that won't be able to compete with mainstream pickup trucks.  Morgan Stanley recently predicted just 50,000 Cybertruck sales a year when production is in full swing, calling it a “novelty” and “cult car.” If the investment bank is right, that doesn’t bode well for the aspirations of Rivian and Fisker in the pickup truck market.

Is the BEV market going to be different than the ICE market for pickups? Ford, General Motors and Stellantis guard their truck sales like the Ark of The Covenant. Their profits depend on fullsize trucks, and ICE truck dominance is helping finance their transition to electric vehicles.

Ford is on pace to sell between 17,000-19,000 F-150 Lightning BEVs this year. GM this fall is launching BEV versions of Chevy Silverado (pictured, below) and GMC Sierra and expects to surpass Ford’s sales in their first 12 months on the market by focusing the first wave of production on fleet. Stellantis' Ram brand is to bring its BEV pickup to market next year.

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Ford and Toyota are both working on midsize BEV pickups. Ford CEO Jim Farley has confirmed another BEV truck is in development. Industry sources say it is close in size to the Ranger. Meantime, Toyota has shown a Tacoma-sized BEV concept. The thinking is that a midsize BEV truck could attract younger buyers with a taste for weekend adventuring that could be priced more aggressively than fullsize trucks and provide a more useful, if boring, alternative to Tesla.

How tough is it to break into the pickup market and take share from Ford, GM and Ram? Just ask Nissan and Toyota how hard it is to sell pickup trucks against Detroit. They have been trying unsuccessfully to disrupt the pickup market in the U.S. for three decades.