I admit that, as a pickup
I admit that, as a pickup owner, I often do use my truck for shopping or taking the family for a drive. But I also need to use it for work, hauling, taking the trash to the dump, lots of things I couldn't feasibly do in a car. I can't really afford to keep two vehicles, and it's a matter of the truck doing so many things that a car can't, out here in the country. If an EV truck was just the uninspired gas burner clone with a 40 mile range that VIA's making in some sort of partnership with GM, it wouldn't make any sense to buy one.
However, an electric powered truck doesn't have to just be a clone of a gas burner. Without the need for a conventional motor, transmission and power train, pickups can and should be totally re-designed.
1. The curb weight can be reduced, which would be offset by the weight of the batteries. An 85 kwh lithium battery pack like the ones in a Tesla weighs about 1,500 pounds, and a truck with a 300 mile range would need two packs, so that's 3,000 pounds right there. Add another 250 lbs for the motor, and 50 for a 2-speed transaxle to replace the gas burner's transmission, and you've got a lot of weight, so a lot of heavy iron would have to be replaced by forged aluminum.
2. I can see replacing the conventional cab with a van-like cab to further reduce weight, since the electric motor can be mounted directly to the transaxle.
3. There isn't a reason, from an engineering perspective, to make an EV truck with the aerodynamics of a brick. If you just move the electric motor from the front toward the back, battery packs can be made to fit practically any design that the artists and engineers can come up with. It's just a matter of distributing the weight of the battery packs so that the truck's weight is balanced. Unlike a gas engine, the batteries in a pack are modular; the pack can be any shape or size you need.
4. You may only see one person in a pickup when its owner is going to work, hauling a load of trash to the dump, picking up lumber from Lowe's, etc. but they often have to carry the wife and kids, so a one-seater truck wouldn't be practical. That's why there are so many extended cabs. The cab doesn't have to weigh a lot, if you just replace all that iron with forged aluminum. A truck seat doesn't have to weigh 150 pounds to be safe and functional. Just get rid of all that iron and replace it with forged aluminum; a 30 pound seat can be as safe and functional as those iron monstrosities.
5. $80,000 for a VIA truck with a 40 mile range and 23 kwh battery seems pretty high; there has to be a MASSIVE mark-up. Tesla offers its customers an 85 kwh battery for $12,000. Just 1/4 of the battery size should cost about 1/4 as much, so that's about $3,000 they're paying for the battery pack. A Warp 11 HV electric motor, which seems to be the engine of choice for amateurs, sells for about $3,200 on eBay. I just can't see how this translates into an $80,000 price tag for an electric truck with just a 40 mile range. For that matter, I would think a plug-in electric truck with a 300 mile range (2 x 85 kwh batteries equals nearly 8 times the battery power, and 8 times the range of the VIA truck) shouldn't cost much more than a comparable gas burner (about $45,000 for a F-150). Actual manufacturing costs should be about: 2 x 85 kwh batteries = $24,000 + $3,200 engine + $3,000 misc. electrical + $10,000 body. Not a lot of room for dealer markup, but a 300 mile range would actually be functional, unlike the 40-mile range truck that VIA's making for GM, and should be in the $50,000 range if it was mass produced.