Automotive Engineering - February 2022 - 2

EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Bill Visnic
Editorial Director
Bill.Visnic@sae.org
Optimizing EV platforms for pickup trucks
Pickups are the industry's most popular
and profitable product because they
offer individualized vehicles for nearly
every customer and use case. American
pickups wrote the book on mass customization
long before the German luxury
brands discovered carbon fiber armrests
and color-matched seat stitching.
Need a long-box diesel dually with 3.42
axles, full leather interior, set up for 5thwheel
towing? A short-bed, extendedcab
work truck? Or the 4-door/shortbed/4x4
combo that dominates the
light-truck landscape? Step right up for
any configuration; the OEMs
will build your truck.
Chalk that up to the pickup's
body-on-frame architecture.
Its " old school " ladder
frame supports the easy cab,
bed, and driveline mix-n'match
that the truck market
loves and expects. That proven
platform approach, however,
also drives nightmarish
complexity in the assembly
plant. Even with a focus in
recent years on reducing
build combinations and consolidating
options, the hypothetical bills-of-material
for F-Series, Ram and Silverado are staggering.
Myriad drivelines, frames, cabs,
cargo beds, axle capacities, cooling systems,
wheel-and-tire combos, towing
packages, wiring harnesses, paint
schemes, work/fleet models! Throw in
scores of trim and accessory choices and
the potential permutations of any given
model can run into the hundreds of thousands
(it was in the millions during the
late 1990s). It also can make spec'ing out
a new pickup daunting.
Electric propulsion, of course, offers
What
structure for
future electric
pickups
will best
satisfy the
segment's
diverse users?
Lindsay Brooke
Editor-in-Chief
Lindsay.Brooke@sae.org
Specifics regarding the electric Ram's
underpinnings are not yet public.
In developing the F-150 Lightning,
Ford decided to stick with the familiar
steel ladder frame incorporating the
battery pack and other EV hardware.
This is the no-compromise, low-risk approach
that still can easily deliver the
less popular cab/bed configurations
that Ford-loyalist farmers, tradespeople
and other practical users demand.
Conversely, GM has taken the risky approach
that I reckon may test the loyalty
of some Chevy and GMC die-hards. Like
its Hummer EV cousin, the
electric Silverado uses an
all-new architecture based on
GM's skateboard-influenced
Ultium battery platform. " It's
not a unibody structure, and
it's not body-on-frame, "
Silverado EV chief engineer
Nicole Kraatz told me. " It's...
in between them, " she said.
The overall design is not
amenable to easy cab/bed
mix n' match. It means
Silverado EV buyers, at least
new architecture solutions and reduced
BoM. And therein lies a strategic question:
What is the optimum structure for
future electric pickup trucks that will best
satisfy the segment's diverse use cases?
As 2022 unfolds, we see Ford with one
approach on F-Series and GM with another
for Silverado EV (see page 12).
2 February 2022
initially, can only get a 4-door cab and
short bed. To mitigate this, the cab features
a " midgate " that opens to allow
long-but-narrow cargo to pass through,
thus extending the small bed's length.
It's a configuration that my friend Dave,
whose landscaping business rides exclusively
on Chevies, says is a non-starter.
" First, EV pickups can't do the jobs I
need them to do, like pushing snow for
10 hours without refueling, as my
Duramax trucks can do, " he told me recently
over a beer. " Now you're saying if
I wanted an electric truck, I can't get a
regular cab or extended cab...or longer
beds! " I told Dave about Silverado EV's
midgate feature. He called it fine for
carrying long lumber, but not for hauling
his big spraying tanks and mowers.
" Will I have to start driving Fords
now? " Dave asked me with a smirk. He
was only half joking.
Lindsay Brooke, Editor-in-Chief
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
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Automotive Engineering - February 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - February 2022
