2019 Chevrolet SilveradoDerek McNaughton / Driving GM CEO Mary Barra told investors at an event in New York on Thursday her companys first electric pickup will debut in showrooms in late 2021, and it will have a leg up on the competition. General Motors understands truck buyers, she said.Barra made the announcement hours before Tesla CEO Elon Musk was set to reveal that companys new Cybertruck.But other GM executives are confident Teslas pickup wont be in the same league as their electric truck.I suspect price-wise there might be some similarities, but I think in terms of size and capabilities, there might be a difference, Phil Brook, the vice president of marketing for GMs GMC brand, said in an interview. People who buy our trucks, they are very proud of the fact that theyll take their trucks anywhere, theyll get them dirty, then theyll wash them out and go to a five-star restaurant for dinner. So theyre not people who just drive them around and want to look good.Musk told a Tesla enthusiast podcast earlier this year he wants his truck, which is also aiming for a late 2021 market launch, to start at less than $50,000. During an October earnings call, he declared it will be the companys best product ever. But Tesla probably wont have the electric-truck market to itself for long, if at all. Amazon-backed Rivian Automotive plans to launch its R1T pickup late next year. Ford has vowed to start selling hybrid-electric and battery-electric versions of the F-150 starting in 2020, and GM has committed to producing plug-in pickups at a plant it had been planning to shutter in the Detroit area.Perhaps more importantly, Japanese automakers have spent two decades and billions of dollars trying to get in on the big pickup gravy train; 20 years after Toyota first started making the Tundra, they are still getting crushed by the Detroit Three, which control almost 92 per cent of the U.S. half-ton truck segment, according to IHS Markit.Customers who own Ram pickups are more loyal than owners of any other model line in the U.S., the researcher says, and brand loyalty to Ford or General Motors Chevrolet isnt far behind.Check Out Our Latest Auto Show CoverageTeslas Thursday night event bookends the press days for the Los Angeles Auto Show, where Ford generated buzz with the debut of the Mustang Mach-E electric SUV. But seeking attention of his own wasnt the only motivation for Musk to stage his truck reveal now and near the show.When announcing the date and locale, he joked on Twitter they were strangely familiar and shared a link to the opening credits and scene of the 1982 film Blade Runner, which was set in November 2019. He had referenced the movie before as inspiration for the pickups futuristic design.Musk is scheduled to begin making remarks around 8 p.m. local time at Teslas design center in Hawthorne,
Origin: GM’s electric pickup gets a fall 2021 on-sale date