(bright music)
- [Narrator] After years of development,
legacy Detroit automakers,
General Motors and Ford,
are now entering the market for electric trucks.
- These are among the first electric vehicles
from both companies.
And I think the reason is it's,
you know this is the most important part of their business,
pickup trucks.
- [Narrator] In the race to electrify their pickups,
the automakers pursued two distinct strategies.
Ford decided to retrofit its existing F-150 by adding
a battery in the place of its fossil fuel engine.
GM chose a more challenging path
by designing a new battery system
and vehicles from the ground up.
So, how did each company race
to develop its new electric vehicles and
what sets Ford and GM technology apart in
the highly competitive EV truck race?
Earlier this year,
General Motors revealed its Silverado EV,
a plug-in version of GM's top selling vehicle
that will go on sale in the spring of 2023.
(bright music)
- It will offer a revolutionary mix of capability,
performance, safety,
flexibility and design.
- GM started very early on
with sort of a ground up approach.
You know they decided,
okay, we don't want to just do one or two EVs.
We tried that in the past.
We haven't gotten very far.
We want to do a bunch of models.
- Our clean slate approach allowed us
to create a new body architecture
which efficiently leverages
the available 24 module Ultium battery pack.
- [Narrator] All of GM's new EVs will be built on
the company's Ultium battery platform
which GM developed in-house from scratch.
The electric Silverado will also use
the Ultium system when it is released
in spring of 2023,
with prices ranging from about $40,000
to $105,000.
One of the Silverado's biggest selling points is its range.
Thanks to GM's investment,
the Ultium system,
a Silverado's expected to have a 400 mile range
on some models.
That's more than Rivian's R1T,
which can travel 314 miles
and the F-150 Lightning,
which is expected to have a range of around 300 miles.
- I think for years,
the perception's been that GM has been ahead
on their electric vehicle strategy.
I mean,
as far back as 2017 GM started talking about
an all electric future.
Shortly thereafter,
they started you know,
giving us targets of how many models,
you know,
a few dozen models by the early 2020s.
You know I think all of those things were
in motion at a point
where Wall Street was kind of asking Ford,
you know,
where is where all these elements,
you know,
where is your EV strategy going essentially?
- [Narrator] Just a day before GM unveiled
this new Silverado,
Ford announced
that it was doubling down its manufacturing goals
for its EV pickup,
the F-150 Lightning in response to
an unexpectedly high number of reservations.
That news sent Ford stock surging on January 4th
and helped propel the automakers market valuation beyond
that of GM for the first time since 2016.
- Their stock price went up I think 11 or 12% that day,
which is until recently kind of unheard of for an automaker.
I mean,
these things trade like manufacturing stocks kind of boring.
And so it was,
it was definitely some gamesmanship I think,
Ford trying to steal
a bit of a bit of GM's thunder on its,
on its Silverado truck.
- [Narrator] The move comes as
the century old rivalry between GM and Ford is moving
into the electric vehicle age.
- [Mike] These companies,
they've battled in just about every facet
of the auto industry.
And, you know,
the companies don't really like each other that much.
- [Narrator] Ford followed a different path,
than GM to electrify its pickup.
Rather than create a new EV from the ground up,
Ford's strategy for the F-150 Lightning was
to retrofit an existing F150 and turn it into
an EV.
- [Reporter] Mr. President.
- This sucker's quick.
- The decision on Ford's part was, well,
we want to get into market
with some of the cars that we know our customers love.
We already have strong sort
of brands with the F-150 pickup truck,
the Mustang.
So let's work with that.
- [Narrator] Unlike the Silverado EV,
which looks very different from its gas fed predecessor,
the Silverado 1500,
the F-150 Lightning is similar aesthetically
to its fuel powered older sibling.
- And so in the case of the F150,
they essentially modified a gas powered pickup truck,
you know,
took out the engine transmission,
put in a big battery pack
and the electric motors and everything they needed.
- [Narrator] Engineering
a wholly new electric truck would have taken longer
to develop.
The retrofit enabled Ford
to move quickly and beat GM to market by over a year.
It also allowed Ford to leverage its scale,
since the Lightning uses many of the same parts
as as a conventional F-150.
Ford priced the F-150 Lightning
at around $40,000 for a base model.
High-end models top out in the high 90 thousands.
- [Announcer] Popping
the hood has been completely redefined
at the mega power frunk.
- It's got a huge front trunk called a frunk,
you know,
and so they've made a big deal about,
hey, you've got lockable storage now
for the first time in a pickup truck.
- [Narrator] GM's trucks are sold under two brands,
Chevy and GMC.
In some years,
GM's pickup sales under
those two brands have eclipsed total F series sales.
But the F-150 has long been the most popular vehicle
in the country outselling all other cars,
trucks and SUV's.
But it remains unclear if customers will follow
the brand into its electric future.
- That's the big question hanging over
the whole industry right now is all
these models are coming are there,
you know,
how much organic interest is there among consumers?
- [Announcer] Those up to the job site.
- [Narrator] Ford has been aggressively promoting
the F-150 lightening to make
the case that their new vehicle's features surpass
the gasoline model.
One ad shows a family using their Lightening
to provide backup power to their house.
Ford said it has 200,000 Lightning reservations.
For context,
that's more than a quarter
of the number of F series vehicles the company sold in 2021,
But these reservations are not a firm commitment.
- These are not binding 200,000 reservations.
I mean anyone can just walk away from it.
But I think Ford is looking at this,
like this could move faster than we thought.
- [Narrator] Sales for electric vehicles rose 88% year
over year in 2021.
- Both these companies realize that
if we're gonna have success here,
we're going to have to carry these products
that have delivered so much value
and so much profit for these companies,
these big pickup trucks.
You know that rivalry seems like it's
as sharp as ever as both companies try
to sort of position themselves for that.
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