Electric pickups were supposed to be the future. Now they're stalling.
· Business Insider
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
- Electric pickup trucks were hailed as the future by Elon Musk and Ford CEO Jim Farley.
- It hasn't quite worked out: Data shows that EV pickup sales have fallen to a small fraction of the market.
- Tesla's Cybertruck and Ford's F-150 Lightning both saw big sales declines.
Americans are losing interest in electric pickup trucks.
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Once hailed as the future by Elon Musk and Ford CEO Jim Farley, electric truck sales have collapsed to a small fraction of the US electric vehicle market, according to data from Cox Automotive released on Friday.
Sales of Tesla's Cybertruck fell 45% year-over-year to 3,500 units in the first three months of 2026, while shipments of Ford's F-150 Lightning dropped over 70% after the company discontinued production last year.
Rival electric pickups like the Chevy Silverado and the GMC Hummer (which also includes the SUV variant) also suffered sharp declines.
Overall, sales of battery-powered trucks fell by nearly half, and now make up around 4.6% of the EV market, down from 6.4% last year.
The grim outlook is a world away from the lofty targets set in the early 2020s by industry executives, who predicted that electrifying the best-selling vehicle type in the country would be a surefire way to win over US consumers skeptical of EVs.
Farley said in 2022 that Ford would raise its production target for the F-150 Lightning to 150,000 units a year in the face of "huge demand."
Musk, meanwhile, predicted that Tesla could sell more than 250,000 Cybertrucks a year when the divisive steel-plated pickup launched in 2023.
Neither vehicle has come anywhere close to those figures. Ford sold just under 30,000 Lightnings in the US last year, per Cox Auto figures.
The company announced in December that it would replace the all-electric pickup with a gas and battery-powered version as part of an EV strategy shift that cost the company nearly $20 billion. Other manufacturers have also rolled back plans for new electric trucks, with Ram canceling its REV 150 pickup last September.
Tesla, meanwhile, sold around 20,000 Cybertrucks last year, nearly half the number it sold in 2024. The trapezoid-shaped truck also became a target for vandalism and abuse last year amid a wider backlash against Musk's work on the Department of Government Efficiency.
A key reason electric pickups have failed to emulate the success of their gas-powered cousins is that they are more expensive. The cheapest Cybertruck costs $70,000, while the Lightning starts at nearly $55,000, around $16,000 more than the gas-powered F-150.
There has also been a broader decline in EV sales in America across all vehicle types, in part due to the end of the $7,500 tax credit in September.
Not everyone is willing to give up on electric trucks just yet, however. Slate is planning to start production of its minimalist electric truck, priced in the "mid-$20,000s," this year. And on his X account, Musk continues to praise the Cybertruck, despite the pickup's ongoing sales slump.
"Best product Tesla has ever made to date," he wrote earlier this month.
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