new york general motors takes a leap wednesday towards its muchtouted allev future when it officially opens its first electric pickup truck factory the auto giant will unveil factory zero a 36year old plant in hamtramck michigan that has been retooled for electric vehicles ev commemorating the occasion with president joe biden the celebration at the detroitarea plant comes ahead of initial commercial deliveries of the gmc hummer pickup the first ev pickup by a big 3 company as detroit attempts to extend its dominance in the lucrative us truck market amid challenges by tesla and newer upstarts the ev hummer pickup is the first of a spate of behemoths from detroits legacy carmakers going electric ford has unveiled an ev version of its topselling f150 pickup while chrysler owner stellantis announced plans for an ev ram pickup truck as part of a growing fleet its been an accelerated push on the part of legacy companies in the wake of competition not only from tesla but from ev startups like rivian that have soared recently on wall street with lofty profit margins pickups are a proven cashcow for automakers in part because of reliable demand from businesses such as construction and energy companies as well as government buyers now under pressure to reduce their carbon footprint while detroit can bank on ev pickup sales to such organizations just how well the vehicles will resonate with rankandfile consumers remains less clear the question is who is that electric pickup buyer said michelle krebs a longtime analyst at cox automotive who expects the detroit giants to continue to build trucks with internal combustion engines initially its just a sliver of the overall truck capacity she said of evs theyre not betting the firm on ev pickup trucks theyre starting out slowly the markets trajectory will also depend on the evolution of transportation in the united states evs are currently about three percent of new sales the 1 trillion infrastructure bill signed by biden into law on monday includes 75 billion for new ev charging stations bread and butter it is difficult to overstate the importance of trucks especially pickups to detroit auto giants with profit margins widening as consumers have opted to fill the vehicles with premium gadgetry and creature comforts in the decade up to 2019 the average transaction price for fullsize trucks rose more than 40 percent to nearly 50000 according to a report from edmunds pickups comprised onefifth of the us market in 2020 a number expected to fall in 2021 due to the semiconductor chip shortage theyve really been the breadandbutter for the detroit auto companies said jessica caldwell executive director of insights so they really cant afford to have someone swoop in and as the market produces electric vehicles put them out of business listing at 112000 the initial hummer pickups are more than twice the price of current bestselling pickups and expected to be a niche product other ev pickups coming soon