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I've been in the market for an electric truck for a solid 5 years now to replace my aging Nissan Frontier. There has yet to be anything attractive at all that h

by xoa 10mo ago

I've been in the market for an electric truck for a solid 5 years now to replace my aging Nissan Frontier. There has yet to be anything attractive at all that has made it into production at any price I've been able to find. Everything seems to be a gas truck with some electric stuff shoehorned in not taking advantage of the new design opportunities at all, and generally with a little 4' bed instead of 6.5 or 8 that I need. So far the best design I've seen was from the startup Canoo [0, 1], but as is unsurprisingly typically the case with a car startup (a really high capex challenging area) they have since gone bankrupt. The Cybertruck at announcement looked sorta promising, with a decent sized bed (6.5 at the time), decent top range (500 miles), and cab moved forward for better visibility with no engine in the way. And in principle there are some really good fully offline "cyber" sorts of features that an ambitious company could do, like making liberal use of modern screens to enable "look through your hood" and better all around awareness, built-in FLIR for enhanced animal detection at night, etc. A self-parking feature that was really solid would be good too, zero general public road self-driving needed for that to be handy. But of course the Cybertruck ended up downgrading in every respect, having mediocre build quality, being heavily delayed, full of Tesla spyware and stupid shit, and in general being made by a vehicle & power company that oddly doesn't actually seem interested in vehicles or power anymore. It's frustrating seeing all the potential and then having to wait and wait for somebody to finally execute. Same as with PDAs/smartphones until Apple finally shook things up or countless other examples throughout tech history. Maybe it'll be China who actually does it this time around, and a small silver lining might be that could also go along with some actual anti-feudalism and pro-privacy laws in the US if we're very lucky :\. ---- 0: https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/all-electric-all-american-canoo-ev-pickup https://www.greencars.com/expert-insights/all-electric-all-a... 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjqfQdj3sM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzjqfQdj3sM

cogman10 10mo ago
Yeah, there's really no reason why something like the Isuzu Elf couldn't be electrified for cheap. Car manufacturers wanting to make EVs premium products is what I think hurts them the most. That along with tariffs keeping the price of Chinese batteries much higher then they should be.
ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas.
- psunavy03 10mo ago
  For $70-100K, I'd hope so.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
    From what I understand, many of these jacked-up compensator trucks cost a similar amount. I remember when pickups were considerably cheaper than cars, but no more.
- hnburnsy 10mo ago
  >I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas Dead last... https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/research/2025/10/24/consumer-reports-lists-rivian-dead-last-in-reliability-rankings/86877675007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/research/2025/10/24/cons... And have you seen the stories about fender benders? https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns-into-42000-repair-bill https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns... https://axleaddict.com/news/a-small-rivian-r1t-dent-just-cost-more-than-a-new-car-heres-why https://axleaddict.com/news/a-small-rivian-r1t-dent-just-cos... https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/7-months-later-and-a-50k-repair-bill-i-have-my-r1t-back.21063/ https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/7-months-later-an... https://insideevs.com/features/669752/rich-rebuilds-rivian-r1t-damage-repair-cost/ https://insideevs.com/features/669752/rich-rebuilds-rivian-r...
  - JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
    From your first fender-bender link: “So a $42,000 rear bumper replacement seems exorbitant, but Apfelstadt says he’s happy with his truck.”
  - gammarator 10mo ago
johanvts 10mo ago
Why do you need a truck? Serious question, in europe professionals have a van, like the Ford e-transit, and if you just need to haul some stuff from your summerhouse sometimes you hitch a trailer to your car. Why do you need a truck? Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead?
- cogman10 10mo ago
  > Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead Not sold (really) in the US. There's the VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else. In the US, there's also just a pretty big infrastructure around tooling trucks for professional work. Not that that doesn't exist for vans in the US, it's just somewhat more common to see trucks having full toolsets on the side for quick access with a decent sized bed. The F350 is a major workhorse for that sort of thing.
  - LightBug1 10mo ago
    >> "VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else." Really? ... I'm seeing them adopted more widely in Europe now by businesses. Perhaps as second hand or lease prices are coming down. Maybe that doesn't translate to the US ... Quite nostalgic seeing them run around Central London with business signs on their side... much like the originals. My point: not a gimmick in my experience.
    - anonymousab 10mo ago
      They don't sell the Cargo version in North America, and the price is a good chunk more expensive than, say, a Ford Transit or similar cargo van.
  - rootusrootus 10mo ago
    Ford themselves has the eTransit, and I guess it is mildly popular in a certain segment.
- xoa 10mo ago
  I live in rural northern New England, and as well on-road I have plenty of either off road or unmaintained road usage year round, and a number of loads in those conditions that exceed the width of the vehicle (so wouldn't be public road legal). Also equipment and loads that exceed the height of the vehicle (which is road legal if properly secured). In principle a van with sufficient towing capacity and off road capability could use a trailer of some kind for those roles, I have nothing against vans per se, but since I don't need extra "interior space" the bonuses of vans don't help much vs the reduced flexibility and extra complications. I do keep my eye on them too because the line between "truck" and "van" can be fuzzy and if something sorta convertible or with some innovative ways to straddle the sufficient for my purposes came along I'd certainly consider it, but it hasn't been the case yet and the truck form factor is just really handy for making do with a surprise need on the spot far from anything with sufficient straps and bungie cords, without needing any other equipment. It'd be nice if it could be a reasonable price too and not include a lot of the bling, though I'm perfectly aware a huge percentage of the truck buying audience cares about that a great deal vs having their truck all beat up and just wanting it to go forwards/backwards/left/right on demand reliably with a bunch of random stuff every day. But it'd be good to see anything at all that tried to work with the advantages of electric vs the limitations and both give a good truck experience and improve the experience for others that share the land, like with greatly enhanced visibility and better shapes that enhance safety for pedestrians. Don't need a ginormous engine to have very good torque with electric. I'm hopeful somebody will get there eventually but I guess the path has proven more winding then I'd once thought it'd be, I'd expected the iteration to be going pretty hard and fast by now (in America/EU I mean, it does seem to be moving real quick now in China). Anyway, hope that gives some answer to your question. Just one solitary data point, I don't mean to do any extrapolation from this to the wider market, but I do actually use my truck pretty hard for truck things. We have compact efficient cars as well though for long distance travel and the like, my truck at least will spend 99% of its time within a 150 mile radius for work or any other use.
Qworg 10mo ago
Given what you need, you should look at a Telo. https://www.telotrucks.com/ https://www.telotrucks.com/ Not launched yet though.
- brandonmenc 10mo ago
  All of these are "not launched yet." I thought the Slate looked interesting. Then the price started creeping up. I'll just buy a Ford Ranger or Maverick instead.

by xoa 10mo ago

cogman10 10mo ago

Yeah, there's really no reason why something like the Isuzu Elf couldn't be electrified for cheap. Car manufacturers wanting to make EVs premium products is what I think hurts them the most. That along with tariffs keeping the price of Chinese batteries much higher then they should be.

ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago

I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas.

psunavy03 10mo ago
For $70-100K, I'd hope so.
- ChrisMarshallNY 10mo ago
  From what I understand, many of these jacked-up compensator trucks cost a similar amount. I remember when pickups were considerably cheaper than cars, but no more.
hnburnsy 10mo ago
>I have heard great things about the Rivian trucks. They seem to have rabidly loyal customers, like the Teslas Dead last... https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/research/2025/10/24/consumer-reports-lists-rivian-dead-last-in-reliability-rankings/86877675007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/cars/research/2025/10/24/cons... And have you seen the stories about fender benders? https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns-into-42000-repair-bill https://www.thedrive.com/news/rivian-r1t-fender-bender-turns... https://axleaddict.com/news/a-small-rivian-r1t-dent-just-cost-more-than-a-new-car-heres-why https://axleaddict.com/news/a-small-rivian-r1t-dent-just-cos... https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/7-months-later-and-a-50k-repair-bill-i-have-my-r1t-back.21063/ https://www.rivianforums.com/forum/threads/7-months-later-an... https://insideevs.com/features/669752/rich-rebuilds-rivian-r1t-damage-repair-cost/ https://insideevs.com/features/669752/rich-rebuilds-rivian-r...
- JumpCrisscross 10mo ago
  From your first fender-bender link: “So a $42,000 rear bumper replacement seems exorbitant, but Apfelstadt says he’s happy with his truck.”
- gammarator 10mo ago

johanvts 10mo ago

Why do you need a truck? Serious question, in europe professionals have a van, like the Ford e-transit, and if you just need to haul some stuff from your summerhouse sometimes you hitch a trailer to your car. Why do you need a truck? Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead?

cogman10 10mo ago
> Couldn’t you buy an electric van instead Not sold (really) in the US. There's the VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else. In the US, there's also just a pretty big infrastructure around tooling trucks for professional work. Not that that doesn't exist for vans in the US, it's just somewhat more common to see trucks having full toolsets on the side for quick access with a decent sized bed. The F350 is a major workhorse for that sort of thing.
- LightBug1 10mo ago
  >> "VW electric van but that's more of a gimmick than anything else." Really? ... I'm seeing them adopted more widely in Europe now by businesses. Perhaps as second hand or lease prices are coming down. Maybe that doesn't translate to the US ... Quite nostalgic seeing them run around Central London with business signs on their side... much like the originals. My point: not a gimmick in my experience.
  - anonymousab 10mo ago
    They don't sell the Cargo version in North America, and the price is a good chunk more expensive than, say, a Ford Transit or similar cargo van.
- rootusrootus 10mo ago
  Ford themselves has the eTransit, and I guess it is mildly popular in a certain segment.
xoa 10mo ago
I live in rural northern New England, and as well on-road I have plenty of either off road or unmaintained road usage year round, and a number of loads in those conditions that exceed the width of the vehicle (so wouldn't be public road legal). Also equipment and loads that exceed the height of the vehicle (which is road legal if properly secured). In principle a van with sufficient towing capacity and off road capability could use a trailer of some kind for those roles, I have nothing against vans per se, but since I don't need extra "interior space" the bonuses of vans don't help much vs the reduced flexibility and extra complications. I do keep my eye on them too because the line between "truck" and "van" can be fuzzy and if something sorta convertible or with some innovative ways to straddle the sufficient for my purposes came along I'd certainly consider it, but it hasn't been the case yet and the truck form factor is just really handy for making do with a surprise need on the spot far from anything with sufficient straps and bungie cords, without needing any other equipment. It'd be nice if it could be a reasonable price too and not include a lot of the bling, though I'm perfectly aware a huge percentage of the truck buying audience cares about that a great deal vs having their truck all beat up and just wanting it to go forwards/backwards/left/right on demand reliably with a bunch of random stuff every day. But it'd be good to see anything at all that tried to work with the advantages of electric vs the limitations and both give a good truck experience and improve the experience for others that share the land, like with greatly enhanced visibility and better shapes that enhance safety for pedestrians. Don't need a ginormous engine to have very good torque with electric. I'm hopeful somebody will get there eventually but I guess the path has proven more winding then I'd once thought it'd be, I'd expected the iteration to be going pretty hard and fast by now (in America/EU I mean, it does seem to be moving real quick now in China). Anyway, hope that gives some answer to your question. Just one solitary data point, I don't mean to do any extrapolation from this to the wider market, but I do actually use my truck pretty hard for truck things. We have compact efficient cars as well though for long distance travel and the like, my truck at least will spend 99% of its time within a 150 mile radius for work or any other use.

Qworg 10mo ago

Given what you need, you should look at a Telo. https://www.telotrucks.com/ https://www.telotrucks.com/ Not launched yet though.

brandonmenc 10mo ago
All of these are "not launched yet." I thought the Slate looked interesting. Then the price started creeping up. I'll just buy a Ford Ranger or Maverick instead.