Survival Prospects for the New Electric Truck Companies

Henry Payne’s essay in Wednesday’s Detroit News presented information about the new firms that are entering the truck market.
Atlis – based in Phoenix, assembly plant unknown
Bollinger – based in Oak Park, assembly plant unknown
Lordstown – based in Lordstown with plant there
Nikola – based in Phoenix, assembly plant unknown
Rivian – based in Plymouth, assembly plant in Normal
Tesla – based in Palo Alto building plant near Austin

Apparently, these firms has successfully acquired capital but they do not all have assembly plants, distribution networks or dealers across the county. How many will be producing trucks in six years?


After World War II, several new companies sought to produce automobiles. Some of them got started but all of them were out of business by the end of the 1960. I list the firm, their location, the number of vehicles produced and their final year of production:
Kaiser-Frazer – Willow Run 760,000 - 1955
Crosley – Cincinnati 84,000 - 1952
King Midget Athens, Ohio 5,000 1969
Playboy Buffalo 99 1957
Tucker Ypsi & Chicago 52 1948

Will any of the new truck firms have great success?

I think it depends on the federal level of funding and mandates.

How many electric cars on the road today would exist without federal purchase incentives?

The biggest thing with trucks is the batteries,as a standalone maybe okay but tow a load and the range rate drops dramatically.

I also think that there will be a upsurge possibility after January because all the feds have to do is say,we are eliminating fossil fuels.

As an example the UK,with a large percentage of diesel powered vehicles or 60% of the vehicles on the road simply mandated phasing them out in the next 10 years,so people end up with no choice but to switch.

Or they just do mandates with emissions where it becomes to expensive to manufacture fossil fuel vehicles or drive the cost of fuel up so high that people just switch or walk.

I do not think the current truck market would not exist without the emission mandate roll backs from 4 years ago.

It is hard to say based on past production and start ups,as Tucker found out it was a controlled market.

It boils down to funding and it takes a lot,the big 3 are geared in that aspect,I think they will let the little upstarts work the kinks out then buy them up for mass production when it comes to that.

Either demand or forced purchases to the public will drive the demand for them until then they will just be something different on a small scale.

Considering the amount of dirty resources that are in limited supply that are needed to manufacture them in a large scale it is not sustainable with the current technology.

Look at when the clean air act was introduced in the 1970s,it has taken 50 years across the world to even get 1/2 way to that goal.

I'd think Rivian has a shot in that it received the $500M backing of Ford and has a factory operating in Plymouth. It seems a bit ironic in that Ford is pushing ahead with an all electric F-150 but, according to this article, the relationship is still good.

There was also some talk of them combining with Ford on an all electric Lincoln Navigator until pandemic uncertainties nixed that.

By chance I spotted and watched a series on Apple TV called "Long Way up" where actor Ian McEwan and pal embark on a motorcycle trip from the tip of South America to LA riding all electric Harleys and using two Rivian pickup trucks as support vehicles. Great PR for both platforms. Charging challenges create a lot of amusement.

https://youtu.be/ggu11EJo4L8

There is also discussion of Nikola linking with GM in some manner. Most of the new truck producers face the challenging of establishing a manufacturing plant, setting up a distribution network and getting praise for the quality of the first 500 or 1000 trucks they produce. Both Tesla and Rivian had the good fortunate of acquiring a functioning assembly
plant at reasonable cost.