#HDPickups

General Motors has made another proclamation at CES 2022, this time providing a timeline for electric variants of its heavy-duty pickups. HD EVs are scheduled for 2035, which just happens to be the same time it has promised to have phased out gasoline engines. Presumably, that means the hardest working of GM’s work vehicles will also be the very last models to go all-electric.

“As previously announced, our plan is to have all new light-duty vehicles be electric by 2035,” GM CEO Mary Barra said during her keynote address. “And today, I’m pleased to announce that we’ll introduce all-electric heavy-duty vehicles on that same timetable.”

Ram has been subjected to numerous investigations over the last few years, especially in regard to its heavy-duty diesel pickups. We can throw another item onto the list, as the manufacturer has opted to recall 131,177 HD trucks from the 2021 and 2022 model year.

While we recently covered an investigation launched by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to assess whether reports citing that late-model HD pickups using the 6.7-liter Cummins turbo diesel had motive issues, the current recall appears unrelated. The former investigation is centered around slightly older trucks and a loss of motive power presumed to be the result of defective fuel pumps that could warrant a recall. This issue is a full-blown recall surrounding a potential fire risk originating from an issue with the solid-state heater intake grid relay.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has opened an investigation into nearly 605,000 heavy-duty Ram trucks. A report from the regulator’s Office of Defects Investigation has tabulated 22 complaints from the 2019 and 2020 model years, all of which use 6.7-liter Cummins turbo diesel engines, spurring the NHTSA to launch a formal investigation. Complaints revolve around loss of motive power, with most incidents occurring above 25 mph and resulting in the “permanent disablement of the vehicle.”

While the public was not made aware of the investigation until Monday, the agency launched its probe last Thursday on October 14th. The goal will be to establish how widespread the presumed defect is, what exactly caused it, and any potential safety hazards relating to the issue. Some headway has already been made, however.

All-new for 2020, the heavy-duty versions of Chevrolet’s Silverado and GMC’s Sierra arrived with front-end styling just as controversial as that of their light-duty siblings. Pricier, more potent (in gas V8 form), more capable, and boasting more gears, the new HDs made it easy for buyers to spend ever more bundles of cash outfitting them to just the right spec.

It seems the customization has only just begun.