TRUCKS TAKE CHARGE
MAKE WAY FOR A NEW BREED OF ECO-FRIENDLY PICKUPS
IN THE WORLD of pickup trucks, tradition reigns and Western tropes abound. You can walk into a Ram dealership and get a dashboard that’s been cattlebranded, after all. But change is coming, fast. A wave of emissionfree, plugin pickups is on the way, and you won’t need cowboy boots to drive them. In March, when TESLA held a webcast to unveil its compact crossover, the Model Y, a surprise teaser image appeared: the glowing silhouette of a truck bed. CEO Elon Musk later confirmed it showed his “cyberpunk” vision of an electric pickup now in development. Musk has said the company is aiming to build a truck that’s more workcapable than a Ford F-150 and a better sports car than a Porsche 911. No small feat. But he’s not the only one with such lofty goals. Even further along is the Detroitbased outfit truck will boast a range of 400 miles and a zeroto60mph time of three seconds, in addition to functional features like a passthrough “gear tunnel” behind the back seats that easily holds surfboards or skis. As with the Tesla pickup, the idea is to seduce buyers who wouldn’t otherwise consider a truck. “We feel that we’re speaking to a lot of people outside of the traditional truck buyer — the R1T will have efficiency and refinement that’s just currently not available,” says Rivian creative director Larry Parker. “These people will be coming out of Land Rovers and things of that nature.” Another startup, BOLLINGER, is now accepting reservations for its retro, rugged, Detroitbuilt plugin B2 pickup, a boxy workhorse with a 5,000pound payload. And the big boys are getting involved, too: Chevy is developing a plugin version of its fullsize