Where are the electric pickup trucks?

Tesla's prototype pickup truck: Tesla

The electric vehicle market won’t make significant inroads in Hawai`i until there's a robust EV pickup truck available to buy.

Pickups are must-have vehicles for many Hawai`i families. They carry the surfboards, the coolers and beach chairs, the trash to the dump, the yard waste, the tools, the beach camping gear, and all the rest.

In Hawai'i, about 200,000 of our 1.2 million vehicles are light trucks and vans, about 16 percent.

But it's the Neighbor Islands where light trucks shine. Only about 12.5 of O`ahu's vehicles are light trucks. But it's 19 percent on the Big Island, 18 percent in Maui County and a whopping 24 percent on Kauai.

We tend to keep our trucks a long time. The mean age of pickups is north of 9 years. If you're interested in going EV, you might want to stretch that just a bit. We're still a year or two from folks being able to replace their old gas and diesel pickups with electric versions.

Elon Musk just energized the EV pickup arena with details on Tesla's entry into the pickup truck market, and his is certainly not the only one on the horizon.

But Musk's airing of a "futuristic-like cyberpunk" sure looks hot, with its aerodynamic design, all-wheel-drive (to get you out of the mud at the greenwaste swamp), and high-tech suspension. Here's USA Today's piece on it. 

Musk gets excited about this truck: "Well I can’t talk about the details, but it’s gonna be like a really futuristic-like cyberpunk, 'Blade Runner' pickup truck. It’s gonna be awesome, it’s gonna be amazing. This will be heart-stopping. It stops my heart. It’s like, oh, it’s great."

One downside is that it's not scheduled to be the compact pickup that many Hawai`i drivers seem to prefer. It's a large version—a pickup big enough to carry a pickup in its bed. Musk has suggested that another, smaller pickup might be in the pipeline behind that one.

Bollinger's pickup: Bollinger

There might be something like an electric pickup available from Tesla as early as next year, but we'll see. The electric truck has been just-around-the-corner for a long time now. Several look like they might be only a year or two out.

Bollinger Motors has announced a boxy EV pickup with a 200-mile range, which folks say will be for sale at $60,000. 

Bollinger's B2 looks like a cross between a Jeep and a Land Rover, but with better performance than either. Production is to start in 2020.

Condor pickup: EV Fleet; Bison: Havelaar 

EV Fleet has a pickup, the Condor, that has a 140 or so mile range. The front end of this looks like a cross between a VW Bug and a Deux Chevaux, and you can select the kind of bed you want—flat, panel, tool setup, whatever. It starts at $50,000 or so. 

The Canadian company Havelaar has its electric Bison, reportedly in the $50-60,000 range. It reports a 186-mile range, which would get you most anywhere in the Islands and back, unless you're doing long-distance cruising on the Big Island. I'm waiting on details on whether it's going to be available in the Islands. 

The company Workhorse has announced a plug-in electric pickup with 80-mile electric range on battery. It's a hybrid so you can use fuel to extend that range to north of 300 miles. 

But then all the major manufacturers have hybrid options with various levels of pure electric range. there's a Ford, a Dodge, a Chevy, a Toyota…and so on.

Pickups are clearly a big part of the market, but pure electrics are taking their time getting to mainstream. 

© Jan TenBruggencate 2018