The electric vehicle arms race is on and GM is closing the gap with rival Ford. GM’s Q1 earning call earlier this year revealed to us that it had 140,000 reservations for its Chevy Silverado EV and over 70,000 reservations for its GMC Hummer EV. Of the former, the Chevy Silverado EV WT makes up 85,000 of that total, with 300 companies raising their hands for these upcoming electric work trucks.
According to Ed Peper, Vice President of GM’s fleet department who spoke to Automotive News, there has been a shift in the fleet customer base, in which the EV skepticism is evaporating in a sense. They are seemingly ready to take the next step and electrify their current fleets which are aging and in need of replacement anyway. We’re sure ongoing regulatory pressure and high gas prices might have something to do with their decisions, but that wasn’t immediately admitted.
Image via Chevrolet
GM isn’t the first to offer all-electric pickup trucks for fleets, Ford who offers the all-electric F-150 Lightning is capable of fleet services and edged out the Chevy Silverado EV in terms of debut dates. Rivian has also partnered with Amazon to supply fleet services to them as well. While a little behind the curve Chevy now reaps the benefits of being the last man standing as Ford has been forced to close order books to tend to current reservations and Rivian is bottlenecked with production until its Georgia plant can churn out its expected 400,000 units a year.
General Motors has earmarked $35 billion by 2025 towards electric vehicle development and production. We expect to see an all-electric GMC Sierra soon as well as a Chevy Equinox and Trailblazer. In addition to that we also expect to see more of the Brightdrop EV600 electric delivery vehicles that GM is supplying to Fedex. But as commodity prices for battery metals continue to reach new highs, an all electric future seems as risky as ever.
2024 Silverado EV WT
