General Motors Mulling A Small Electric Pickup Truck

With American car manufacturers shutting down production on all of their regular car lineups, the race is on to fill those vacant spots on car lots with trucks, crossovers, SUVs, and more trucks. 

How do you entice people to buy more trucks than they already do? Simply build them in smaller sizes and for prices that compete with small economy cars. 

With the wild success of the Ford Maverick and Hyundai Santa Cruz small pickups, GM is mulling over building an electric-only truck that comes in even smaller than the aforementioned vehicles. 

Small Pickup History

Chevrolet already has the Colorado, and GMC has midsize Canyon, so look for General Motors to possibly name their smallest pickup the S-10 for Chevy and Sonoma for GMC, if they decide to add a version with a GMC grille. The S-10 and Sonoma were on sale in the United States from 1982 until 2004. The GMC Sonoma was originally called the S-15 until 1991, when they changed the name. In Brazil, the S-10 carried on until 2012, and in 2021 GM offered the S10 Max in Mexico, which is built in China by SAIC. 

A Future For Affordable Small Trucks

Now that General Motors has stopped production of their Bolt EV car and Bolt Electric Utility Vehicle (EUV), they need a vehicle that can entice small car buyers onto their dealership lots that will fit a sub-$35,000 budget. A small pickup could easily do for Chevrolet and GMC what the Maverick has done for Ford. Maverick is already outselling every midsize pickup as a small truck. Expect General Motors to capitalize on that kind of market. 

Currently, General Motors does have a small pickup truck they make in Brazil called the Chevrolet Montana. That makes it entirely possible that they could just bring Montana to America as a pure electric vehicle. 

Size Counts

To get perspective on how small Montana is, it is 185.9 inches long, 71.7 inches wide, and about 62 inches tall. The Ford Maverick, a small truck in the US, is 199.7 inches long, 72.6 inches wide, and 68.7 inches tall. For instance, GM could probably just use the platform that the Bolt EUV rode on, which is 169.5 inches long, 69.7 inches wide, and 63.6 inches tall. 

If and when General Motors make their final decision on their new small EV pickup, look for it to probably go on sale sometime around 2026.