It's not just the Cybertruck. America's big electric-truck bet fell apart.

On paper, EV trucks made sense: Take America's longtime best-selling vehicles — the Ford F-150, Chevy Silverado, GMC Sierra, Ram 1500 — and substitute the exhaust pipes alongside a charging port.

"All the capability, status, and desirability of a pickup truck minus that oftentimes mediocre energy economy?" Robby DeGraf, the director of merchandise and person insights at AutoPacific, told Business Insider. "Sounds great, right?"

For many truck buyers, it wasn't.

Full-size electric trucks never caught on as automakers predicted, and they are falling equal additional rearward this year. Cox Automotive data shows that the six EV pickups it tracks sold concerning 32,500 units through September, downward 53% from the identical duration final year.

The retreat has remaining rearward canceled trucks, manufacturing cutbacks, and billions of dollars in EV-related charges.

Since 2025, GM has paid nearly $11 milliard in write-downs as it has slowed its EV-building pace; Ford discontinued its electric pickup and recorded a $19.5 milliard charge; and the Ram REV never made it to manufacturing — but Stellantis motionless paid $26 milliard in write-downs.

On Friday, the electric-truck industry took another important blow: Tesla stated it volition discontinue the Cybertruck.

So, what happened?

In the first 2020s, Detroit carmakers, inspired by Tesla's astonishment achievement alongside the Model 3 and Model Y, wanted their own EV options.

Ford launched the all-electric F-150 Lightning in 2022; GM followed alongside the Silverado EV and Sierra EV for the 2024 example year; and Stellantis planned to publish the Ram 1500 REV in first 2025. Even Tesla jumped into the full-size truck party, launching the Cybertruck in 2023.

Those trucks had to vie alongside cheaper, acquainted gas-powered alternatives — and came alongside compromises.

"Pickup buyers have elevated expectations, and electrifying a ample truck involves genuine trade-offs," Stephanie Valdez Streaty, the director of industry insights at Cox Automotive, said. "Buyers anticipate powerful towing, payload, range, charging, and general utility."

Large electric trucks need large, costly batteries, she said, and towing can additionally sharply decrease their range.

Plus, "these full-size EV pickup trucks are and were beautiful dang expensive," DeGraff added. The Sierra EV, for example, starts about $65,000.

An altogether new bet

Automakers have a new bet: smaller and cheaper electric trucks that aren't competing alongside the full-size workhorses.

Ford's admission to that market is the Fathom, the archetypal conveyance on its worldwide EV platform. Ford says the midsize truck volition be smaller and simpler to build than the F-150 Lightning, alongside a starting cost under $29,000. It hasn't released key particulars — including reduce levels and range figures — but manufacturing starts next fall.

Slate Auto is making an equal additional extreme affordability play. Its bare-bones, two-seat Blank Slate pickup is expected to act manufacturing this duration and starts at $24,950.

Whether that equation plant remains an open question.

"If a business can recommendation a smaller electric truck that has at smallest 300 miles of range, afterward I think it could work," Seth Goldstein, a elder equity expert at Morningstar who covers the car industry, said. "But it's going to be additional difficult than construction an SUV or a sedan anywhere you don't need as much power."