ROME – Forget Texas, home to fuel-guzzling pick-ups, cowboys and country music. Forget about how much petrol per gallon costs over there with which you can barely go around your ranch and think positively: the pick-up, symbol of deep and more conservative America born almost a hundred years ago, has gone electric. And politically correct, if Democratic President Joe Biden had himself photographed last year in Michigan at the wheel of a new model that has the ambition to redeem the bad habits of Yankee consumers.
Ford took care of changing gears (even if the gears no longer exist here) giving a jolt to the market with the F-150 Lightning, an electric beast almost six meters long with a maximum power of 588 horsepower and a range of about 500 kilometers. It rides like a supercar and is pursued by old and new rivals such as Tesla, which after a spectacular presentation of its Cybertruck in 2019 and a launch postponed several times, is expected to put it into production by the end of the year. The Rivian R1T is already competing with Ford, the Chevy Silverado EV with 664 horsepower and about 400 kilometers of autonomy is on the way, followed by the Ram 1500 Revolution (almost definitive concept, on the market in 2024). Out of competition, the GMC Hummer EV weighing over 4,000 kilos, with a power of 1,000 horsepower and a base price of over 100,000 dollars. And that’s just the beginning.
The battery-operated pickup almost looks like a Trojan horse (even in size) to convince Americans to love zero emissions. For now they believe it less than us Europeans and the Chinese. But the vehicle symbol of mobility that has made history overseas could become a fatal attraction for consumers, especially since the Biden administration has made available something like 369 billion dollars to invest in sustainability, of which 174 for the electric transition only. Which immediately includes tax credits of 7,500 dollars for the purchase of virtuous “made in the USA” vehicles and 7.5 billion within five years to build 500,000 “fast charge” columns on the country’s highways (today there are about 20,000). The goal declared by the White House is to have 50% battery-powered vehicle lists by 2030.
Ford has transformed its best seller, indeed the best seller in America for almost fifty years, into a “green” car for every day, starting with a traditional work-inspired advertising campaign (#FordfortheBuilders/Built forAmerica) and pushing it on social commonly used images, such as putting us in a tent to sleep and going everywhere thanks to the four-wheel drive. On Twitter, it is easy to come across the CEO of the Dearborn group Jim Farley chirping or re-chirping F-150 Lightning in all sorts of ways.
And to think that last year’s Deloitte research claimed that seven out of ten Americans didn’t want a zero-emission pickup truck. Ford F-150 Linghtning is also having success due to the affordable price, from around 40 thousand dollars, and even the unionized workers of Uaw in the River Rouge factory in Dearborn like it, who see guaranteed work in it. Because the sustainable container has a future. Chevy has announced that an online presale of the next zero-emission Silverado sold out in 12 minutes (how many, however, is not known). If Farley has already promised another smaller electric pick-up, Toyota had recently shown its electric concept with this body shape, it means that we are here.
Last year, Volkswagen announced – to the surprise of the dealers – a brand new electric pick-up that will be sold in America with the new Scout brand from 2026, while the American entrepreneur of Danish origin Henrik Fisker had shown in a tweet then one of its zero-emission prototypes called Alaska was canceled.
A beautiful story for a vehicle born ingloriously for work at least until the 70s, lived amidst the dust and notes of American popular music and in films, then in the 80s it became fashionable on the California seafront with skips loaded with surfboards darting between Malibu in Venice. These days some will say it’s wicked to remember that in 2001, President George W. Bush drove Russian leader Vladimir Putin around his Texas ranch in a white Ford F-250 Quad Cab. But it’s still America, honey.