GM Exploring Small Ultium-Based Electric Pickup

by Chris Teague

Published: January 20th, 2023

gm exploring small ultium based electric pickup

Despite what automakers and your fragile ego tell you, owning the largest full-size pickup you can find does not make you cooler or more interesting. However, it does make you more likely to be frustrated while parking and waiting in line at your third fuel stop of the week. Ford and Hyundai offer small-truck solutions with the Maverick and Santa Cruz, respectively, and now it’s General Motors’ turn.

GM revealed a small electric concept truck in a closed-door media session earlier this week. The automaker is heavily invested in EVs that people can actually afford and held the event at its “affordable EV design studio” in Warren, MI. Devoid of branding and logos, the truck will reportedly come with a mighty reasonable sub-$30,000 price tag.

The company plans to lean into customer feedback to refine the truck’s design. Chevy affordable EV and crossover design boss Michael Pevovar told Automotive News that the company is trying different things to see what works for customers and what doesn’t. For example, GM started with a bed length of 4- to 4.5 feet but is open to changing it. “The input may come back that it’s just too small, and that’s ok,” Pevovar told Auto News.

Thanks to the insanely flexible Ultium EV platform, General Motors can play around with the sizes and shapes of new models without starting from scratch each time. That saves time, but most of all, it saves money, allowing GM to hit the mythical $30,000 EV mark – at least on paper. The architecture underpins EVs of all sizes and shapes in GM’s catalog, including the GMC Hummer EV, Cadillac Lyriq, and the upcoming Chevrolet Equinox EV.

[Image: GM]

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#GeneralMotors #ElectricTrucks #Ultium

Chris Teague

Chris grew up in, under, and around cars, but took the long way around to becoming an automotive writer. After a career in technology consulting and a trip through business school, Chris began writing about the automotive industry as a way to reconnect with his passion and get behind the wheel of a new car every week. He focuses on taking complex industry stories and making them digestible by any reader. Just don’t expect him to stay away from high-mileage Porsches.

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2 of 27 comments

Beachy on Jan 21, 2023

Please offer a good 4wd system!

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Mallard Dux on Jan 23, 2023

Note to automakers: Can you just figure out a way to make a simple pickup truck, defined as a cab on frame with a bed longer than the cab, capable of moving objects larger or LONGER than items normally able to be carried in cars? Is that really too complex to pull off?
Look up the word truck and go from there... please. Simple and durable. Tough and work ready.

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Recent Comments

W Conrad I'm not afraid of them, but they aren't needed for everyone or everywhere. Long haul and highway driving sure, but in the city, nope.
Jalop1991 In a manner similar to PHEV being the correct answer, I declare RPVs to be the correct answer here.We're doing it with certain aircraft; why not with cars on the ground, using hardware and tools like Telsa's "FSD" or GM's "SuperCruise" as the base?Take the local Uber driver out of the car, and put him in a professional centralized environment from where he drives me around. The system and the individual car can have awareness as well as gates, but he's responsible for the driving.Put the tech into my car, and let me buy it as needed. I need someone else to drive me home; hit the button and voila, I've hired a driver for the moment. I don't want to drive 11 hours to my vacation spot; hire the remote pilot for that. When I get there, I have my car and he's still at his normal location, piloting cars for other people.The system would allow for driver rest period, like what's required for truckers, so I might end up with multiple people driving me to the coast. I don't care. And they don't have to be physically with me, therefore they can be way cheaper.Charge taxi-type per-mile rates. For long drives, offer per-trip rates. Offer subscriptions, including miles/hours. Whatever.(And for grins, dress the remote pilots all as Johnnie.)Start this out with big rigs. Take the trucker away from the long haul driving, and let him be there for emergencies and the short haul parts of the trip.And in a manner similar to PHEVs being discredited, I fully expect to be razzed for this brilliant idea (not unlike how Alan Kay wasn't recognized until many many years later for his Dynabook vision).
B-BodyBuick84 Not afraid of AV's as I highly doubt they will ever be %100 viable for our roads. Stop-and-go downtown city or rush hour highway traffic? I can see that, but otherwise there's simply too many variables. Bad weather conditions, faded road lines or markings, reflective surfaces with glare, etc. There's also the issue of cultural norms. About a decade ago there was actually an online test called 'The Morality Machine' one could do online where you were in control of an AV and choose what action to take when a crash was inevitable. I think something like 2.5 million people across the world participated? For example, do you hit and most likely kill the elderly couple strolling across the crosswalk or crash the vehicle into a cement barrier and almost certainly cause the death of the vehicle occupants? What if it's a parent and child? In N. America 98% of people choose to hit the elderly couple and save themselves while in Asia, the exact opposite happened where 98% choose to hit the parent and child. Why? Cultural differences. Asia puts a lot of emphasis on respecting their elderly while N. America has a culture of 'save/ protect the children'. Are these AV's going to respect that culture? Is a VW Jetta or Buick Envision AV going to have different programming depending on whether it's sold in Canada or Taiwan? how's that going to effect legislation and legal battles when a crash inevitibly does happen? These are the true barriers to mass AV adoption, and in the 10 years since that test came out, there has been zero answers or progress on this matter. So no, I'm not afraid of AV's simply because with the exception of a few specific situations, most avenues are going to prove to be a dead-end for automakers.
Mike Bradley Autonomous cars were developed in Silicon Valley. For new products there, the standard business plan is to put a barely-functioning product on the market right away and wait for the early-adopter customers to find the flaws. That's exactly what's happened. Detroit's plan is pretty much the opposite, but Detroit isn't developing this product. That's why dealers, for instance, haven't been trained in the cars.
Dartman https://apnews.com/article/artificial-intelligence-fighter-jets-air-force-6a1100c96a73ca9b7f41cbd6a2753fdaAutonomous/Ai is here now. The question is implementation and acceptance.