Tag: electric trucks

OM in the News: The Electric F-150’s Short Life Cycle

The first Boeing 737 jet rolled off the assembly line 58 years ago, on April 9, 1967.  That is a long life cycle, given it has still not reached the “decline” phase in Figure 2.5 in your text. But the life cycle certainly looks a lot shorter for electric pickup trucks.

Ford is planning to scrap the electric version of its F-150 pickup, according to The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 7, 2025) which would make the money-losing truck America’s first major EV casualty. “The demand is just not there” for the F-150 Lightning and other electric trucks, said one dealer. Stellantis earlier this year called off plans to make an electric version of its Ram pickup. GM plans to  discontinue some electric trucks and sales of Tesla’s Cybertruck tanked this year. The trucks seemed a good bet amid booming EV demand and clean-air mandates that required automakers to sell fewer gas-guzzlers.

Ford halts production of the F-150 Lightning

The Lightning fell far short of expectations as American truck buyers skipped the electric version of the top-selling truck. Overall EV sales are plummeting in the absence of government subsidies.  Ford dealers sold 66,000 gas-powered F-Series pickups, and just 1,500 Lightnings, the fewest of any model. (Ford has racked up $13 billion in EV losses since 2023).

 When Ford launched the Lightning 5 years ago it promised a pickup as fast as a sports car and as affordable as a conventional truck. It would drive hundreds of miles on a single charge, and carry enough voltage to power a home for days. “It’s like a smartphone that can tow 10,000 pounds,” said  the CEO at the launch.

But truck buyers worried the pickups would run out of juice in the middle of a job or a long haul as their range is dramatically reduced when towing big loads or operating in cold weather.

GM has also lost billions on electric trucks after rolling out a string of them, including an electric version of the popular Chevrolet Silverado. GM has three electric pickups, and it sold about 1,800 of them last month.

Ford built up the capacity to make as many as 150,000 Lightnings a year. But the EVs cost billions to develop and manufacture, and are only profitable if they sell in large enough volumes, which they did not.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Where do you think all EVs are on the life cycle curve?
  2. Why did so many auto manufacturers misread the demand for electric pickups?

OM in the News: Electric Big Rigs Hit the Street, but Chargers are Scarce

Heavy-duty electric trucks are rolling out across the country. But “the electric grid upgrades and equipment needed to plug them in aren’t,” writes The Wall Street Journal (July 17, 2023).

California plans to require new trucks to be zero-emissions by 2036.

As automakers deliver new electric trucks to fleet customers, parking lots that once needed enough power for a few floodlights now might need to draw as much power as a skyscraper. But the necessary grid improvements could take years.  In January, California utility PG&E told some large fleet customers they wouldn’t be able to charge trucks for a few years during summer afternoons when California electricity use peaks. Capacity upgrades would take at least until 2026, said PG&E.

Similar issues are popping up across the U.S. as firms place larger EV truck orders.  “One or two trucks, everybody’s got. It’s when they try to do their fleets,” said the CEO of Exelon, an eastern U.S. utility company.

The challenge is especially acute in California, where drayage trucks, which carry containerized cargo to and from ports and rail centers, face a looming deadline. The state will require any new drayage trucks to run on electric batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. California also plans to phase out sales of new gasoline-powered passenger cars, pickup trucks and SUVs by 2035 and require all new medium- and heavy-duty truck sales be zero-emissions by 2036.

Electric trucks have the potential to reduce air emissions for communities by eliminating diesel use. Trucks represent 6% of the vehicles on California’s roads, but a quarter of the state’s on-road greenhouse-gas emissions. California forecasts it will have 180,000 medium- and heavy-duty zero-emission vehicles by 2030 that would need 157,000 chargers, many of those at depots operated by the fleet owners. There are fewer than 700 chargers at depots now.

Fleet owners must figure out how to install chargers at their depots, a complex engineering and power management task. Chargers will also be needed on the road but there is no network of electric truck stops yet. California has the most EV fast chargers for regular passenger cars nationally, but those sites aren’t designed to fit industrial vehicles. As fleets add trucks they will need to draw at least 6 to 8 more megawatts of power. That’s about 1,000 homes.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. As a fleet manager, what is your strategy?
  2. As a power company such as PG&E, what is your capacity strategy?

OM in the News: The Great Hummer Shortage

Remember about 20 years back, when the humongous General Motors Hummer was the king of the road? That triumph in automotive marketing died quickly when gas skyrocketed and the Hummer became an unofficial persona non grata of gas guzzling vehicles. But wait, it’s back! And this time the $85,000-$110,000 Hummer is an EV and the wait list just topped 77,000 perspective customers.

GM’s renovated Detroit factory, where about 700 workers build the Hummer, has been producing only around a dozen of the trucks a day, writes The Wall Street Journal (June 30, 2022). That is a 17.5 year wait and an unusually slow pace for a vehicle in production for more than 6 months. The Hummer trails rival offerings from Ford and Rivian Automotive.

Hummer production at GM’s Factory Zero, which underwent a $2.2 billion overhaul to build electric trucks, has been slower than normal in part because the truck was developed from scratch using a new electric-vehicle platform. “Our ability to satisfy that demand is only going to improve as we bring on vertical integration of battery cell production,” says a GM exec.

Auto makers are pushing to get electrics to market while also grappling with a computer-chip shortage and other supply-chain constraints (such as batteries) that have curbed vehicle output and sales. The Hummer EV’s battery pack is heavier than the overall weight of a Honda Civic, and is 1/3 of the vehicle’s weight.

Compared to the Hummer, Ford is making about 150 of its F-150 Lightning electric pickups per day at the company’s factory in nearby Dearborn, Mich. In the coming months, GM expects to fulfill deliveries at a much faster pace, particularly after it switches from using outsourced LG battery cells. It aims to start manufacturing its own battery cells later this summer in its new factory in Ohio. The company has been building multiple battery factories in the US over the past year, including one in Tennessee and another in Michigan in addition to its Ohio plant, as part of its efforts to achieve its goal of making more than a million EVs in the US every year by the end of 2025.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What are the main supply chain issues facing Hummer?
  2. Why is production so low?