Electric Trucks – 2022 Update
Joel Zook, Energy Planner
2022 started off with an announcement from Ford that it will double production of its Ford Lightning to 150,000 vehicles per year. Ford revealed the Ford F150 Lightning in May of 2021, with preorders available for vehicles rolling off the line in spring 2022. The decision to increase production was likely due to the popularity of the newly launched EV and the large number of reservation. In December 2021, Ford confirmed it had received over 200,000 paid reservations for the Lightning. For some context, Ford sold 725,000 F150s in 2021, down from a recent high of 910,000 sold in 2018. Holding those trends steady, means Ford expects that 15 to 20 percent of its new F150s will be electric.
Coming late to the EV truck game, General Motors released its long teased EV Silverado Pickup. You can make reservations now, but the truck won’t be available until spring 2023 at least.The Silverado shares a powertrain with GM’s Hummer, (arguably) also a truck. The Hummer is back under GM’s name and is now all-electric. A SUV version of the Hummer will be available in 2024.
The new vehicle manufacturers are also on the scene. Rivian, a new EV startup was actually the first outof the gate with close to 1,000 vehicles already delivered to customers in 2021. However, supply issues for the fledging automaker have forced a delay in their larger battery vehicles until 2023.
Tesla has delayed their Cybertruck and not announced when production will officially start.