Reviewers like the Chevrolet Silverado EV. Buyers are staying away. General Motors delivered just 1,406 of the electric pickups in the United States in the first quarter of 2026, down 41 percent from a year earlier. The petrol Silverado sells more than ten times that number in a single quarter.
The problem is not the engineering. The extended-range version is rated at about 410 miles on a very large 205 kWh battery. The problem is the sum a buyer does in the showroom. The LT Extended Range starts near 71,000 dollars, already above the average full-size pickup. The Max Range trim costs roughly 91,000 dollars and adds only 68 miles. At that price it competes with luxury SUVs, not work trucks. The federal tax credit that used to soften the sticker has expired, so the full cost now lands on the buyer.
Then there is the job itself. A truck is bought to tow and haul, and towing cuts the Silverado EV's range by around 60 percent. Only about a quarter of truck owners tow regularly, but the fear of running flat halfway through a shift shapes the decision for many more.
Why does it matter? This is what the slow part of an energy transition looks like. The technology works. The economics do not, yet. GM is betting on a cheaper battery chemistry, lithium-manganese-rich cells, that it says will cut at least 6,000 dollars from pack costs while keeping most of the range. Those cells are not expected in trucks until 2028. Until the cost curve bends, a better truck can still lose.
There is history here. John Brooks tells the story of the Ford Edsel in Business Adventures: a car Ford engineered with care, marketed heavily, and still could not sell, because it arrived at the wrong price for the wrong moment. The Silverado EV is a far better vehicle than the Edsel ever was. The lesson it shares is older than either. A product does not win on how good it is. It wins on the sum a customer works out in their head.
