Enlarge (credit: Jonathan Gitlin)

I seem to be thinking a lot about Ford's electric pickup truck, the F-150 Lightning. Earlier this week, we got the news of price cuts and price increases . Before that, there was a pending cut to planned production output . Taken as it is, it's just the all-electric version of America's favorite pickup—and arguably the best version unless you need to pull something on the end of a trailer hitch.

But the Lightning doesn't exist in a vacuum. Depending on who you talk to, it's a clever attempt to get Americans to go electric, an utterly familiar wrapper on a slab of new technology that, yes, still requires the owner to adjust their mindset a bit from the gasoline-powered way of thinking. To others, it's a white elephant, one that costs too much and languishes on dealership forecourts , proof positive that electrification is a thing other countries might bother with, but forget that here at home, cowboy.

I've never found life to be quite that simple, and neither is the Lightning. Here in Washington, DC, the vehicle remains a rare sight—the only time I've seen one in the wild, it belonged to the DC government's fleet of vehicles (its job was inspecting abandoned vehicles). Out west, it's much more common to see electric F-150s on the road, and last year, Ford sold about 40,000 Lightnings, despite halting production for a fire and then again to retool part of the line.

Enlarge / The Cybertruck during its 2019 debut, shortly before one of the supposedly bulletproof windows was shattered by a hammer. (credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

Tesla's unconventional electric pickup is about to go into production, according to company CEO Elon Musk. As Ars noted yesterday , Tesla's financial results for the third quarter of 2023 included the news that the company plans to begin deliveries of the Cybertruck at the end of November. But Musk also warned of probable complications ahead as his company tries to scale production.

The Cybertruck was first revealed during a chaotic presentation back in 2019. It featured an exterior design that looked like it had been sketched with Mars in mind, clad in unpainted stainless steel panels like the ill-fated DeLorean DMC12, and allegedly with bullet proof properties, all with a starting price of $39,900 .

At the time, Musk promised Tesla was going to reinvent the most quintessentially American vehicle form factor. Instead of body-on-frame construction like the majority of trucks on our roads, or even a unibody construction like the Honda Ridgeline, the Cybertruck was originally going to feature a monocoque body, similar to a Formula 1 car or prototype, except made of folded stainless steel rather than carbon fiber.

Enlarge (credit: Ram)

Ram was the last of the big three automakers to show off an electric pickup truck , finally doing so during this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The Ram 1500 Revolution concept was boldly styled, with dramatically raked A pillars, that same angle repeated between cab and bed, and wheel arches so swollen you might think they were having an anaphylactic reaction.

Today, Ram showed off the production 1500 REV electric pickup at the New York International Auto Show, and while the styling is a lot more conventional than January's concept, a look at the specs left me audibly uttering "WTF."

If you can’t be first, you might as well go farthest

So far, Ford and Rivian have the electric pickup market to themselves. GMC had to stop building the gargantuan Hummer EV for a while, and Tesla's Cybertruck is still poised to enter production without any sign that has actually happened. Meanwhile Chevrolet's Silverado EV should be about to start appearing on roads and job sites, as spring 2023 is when deliveries of the work truck version are scheduled to begin.